Free The The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson Page A

got right up to the front of the tape,” he said. “Come on. Proper drink now.”
    We went to a pub a few streets over, closer to Wexford. The pub did not disappoint. It was everything the Internet had promised—big wooden bar, a decent crowd, pint glasses. Of the three of us, only Jerome was over eighteen, plus Jazza said he owed us for taking us to the murder site—so he was put in charge of buying all the drinks. Jazza wanted a glass of wine, but I wanted a beer, because that is what I’d heard you were supposed to drink at a pub. Jerome duly went off to the bar. All the inside seats were taken, so we went outside and stood at a small table under a heat lamp. The diameter brought us face-to-face with each other, our skin glowing red under the light. Jazza made short work of her glass of wine. A pint of beer, as it turns out, is a lot of beer. But I was determined to get it down.
    Jerome had more to tell us about the events of the day. “The victim,” he said, “not only had the same last name as the victim in 1888, she was the same age, forty-seven. She worked for a bank in the City, and she lived in Hampstead. Whoever this murderer is, he went to a lot of trouble to get the details right. Somehow, he got a woman with the right name of the right age to a pub nowhere near her house, and over a mile away from her work. At five in the morning. They’re saying it doesn’t look like she was bound or brought in with any struggle.”
    â€œJerome is going to be a journalist,” Jazza explained.
    â€œJust listen,” Jerome said, pointing at the roof, just above the door. “Look up. It’s a CCTV camera. Most pubs have them. On that stretch alone, by the Flowers and Archers? I counted five cameras there. On Durward Street? At least six on the path the victim was walking along. If they don’t have footage of the Ripper, then something is seriously wrong with the system.”
    â€œJerome is going to be a journalist,” Jazza said again. She was tipsy, rocking a little to the music.
    â€œI’m not the only one who’s noticed this!”
    I looked up at the camera. It was a fairly large one, long and thin, its electronic eye pointed right at us. There was another one next to it pointing in the other direction, so that both halves of the pub garden were covered.
    â€œI’m not a prefect,” Jazza said suddenly.
    â€œCome on, Jazzy,” he said, tucking up under her arm.
    â€œ She is.”
    Jazza was talking about Charlotte, obviously.
    â€œAnd what else is she?” Jerome asked.
    Jazza didn’t offer any reply, so I chimed in with, “A bitchweasel?”
    â€œA bitchweasel!” Jazza’s face lit up. “She’s a bitchweasel! I love my new roommate.”
    â€œShe’s a bit of a lightweight,” Jerome explained. “And never let her have gin.”
    â€œGin bad,” Jazza said. “Gin make Jazza barf.”
    Jazza sobered quickly on the way home, which was exactly when I felt the fizziness in my own head. I started to tell Jerome some of the stories I’d been telling Jazza the other night—Uncle Bick and Miss Gina, Billy Mack, Uncle Will. When he dropped us off on the steps under the large WOMEN sign over our door, he had a strange and unreadable look in his eye. Charlotte was sitting at the desk in our front lobby, a checklist and a Latin book in front of her.
    â€œNice night?” she asked as we came in.
    â€œWonderful,” Jazza said, a little too loudly. “And you?”
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    For the first time, as I walked up the winding stairs, I felt like I was coming home for the night. I looked down the long stretch of our hallway, with its gray carpets and odd bends and multiple fire doors breaking the path, and it all seemed very familiar and right.
    The rest of the night was cozy. Jazza settled down with her German. I replied to some e-mails from my friends back home and noodled around