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

on the Internet for a while and thought about doing French. Nothing disturbed my peace of mind until I was pulling the curtains for the night. As I did, something caught my eye. I had already yanked the curtain shut before my brain registered that it had seen something it didn’t like, but when I opened it again, there was nothing out there but some wet trees and cobblestones. It had started to rain. I stared for a moment, trying to figure out what I’d seen. Something had been right below—a person. Someone had been standing in front of the building. But that was no surprise. People stood in front of the building all the time.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Jazza asked.
    â€œNothing,” I said, pulling the curtain shut again. “Thought I saw something.”
    â€œThis is the problem with all of this media coverage of the Ripper. It makes people afraid.”
    She was right, of course. But I noticed she pulled the curtains on her side more tightly closed as well.

GOULSTON STREET, EAST LONDON SEPTEMBER 8 9:20 P.M.
    V ERONICA ATKINS SAT AT HER DESK IN HER TOP-FLOOR flat, overlooking the Flowers and Archers. She tucked one foot up on her chair and rotated slowly back and forth, then blindly reached around into the mess of bottles and cans and dirty mugs to put her hand on her current cup of tea. Veronica was a freelance IT consultant and graphic designer. Her flat was her studio. The front room, the one that looked out over the Flowers and Archers, contained her worktable.
    Of course now was the deadline to get this website done, one of her biggest and most lucrative jobs of the year. The contract had no provision for lateness due to the fact that the Ripper chose to strike directly across the street, at her pub . In fact, she had installed the CCTV cameras at the pub after they had been robbed last year. Because she was friendly with the owner, she’d done it for a fraction of the normal cost. In return, he provided her with free drinks. Earlier in the day, she’d watched the police remove the recorder. They would be watching the results of her work . . .
    Didn’t matter. Nor did the sirens, the noise of the everincreasing numbers of police going in and out of the mobile lab parked outside of her building, the helicopter that flew overhead constantly, the police who came to her door to ask if she’d seen anything. Normally, she could wander out in her bleach-stained TALK NERDY TO ME T-shirt, her old tracksuit bottoms, her slippers, her pink and bleached blond hair piled into a messy knot on top of her head and secured with a plastic clamp meant to tie back computer wires. This was completely acceptable attire for grabbing a double espresso at Wakey Wakey. Today, she couldn’t even step outside because the whole area was roped off and all the world’s press was standing at the end of the road.
    Nope. No excuses. Either she finished today, or she didn’t get paid.
    As a concession to the event, she had the news on her muted television. Every once in a while, she would glance over and stare at aerial views of her own building, long shots of the front of her house. Once, she even caught a glimpse of herself in the window. She resolutely ignored the two dozen messages from friends and family, begging to know what was going on.
    But then something caught her attention. It was a new banner at the bottom of the news screen. It read: CCTV FAILURE . She quickly turned up the sound in time to catch the gist of the report.
    â€œ. . . as in the first murder on Durward Street. This second failure of CCTV to capture any useful images of the individual dubbed the New Ripper calls into question the effectiveness of London’s CCTV system. ”
    â€œFailure?” Veronica said out loud.
    The website instantly faded in importance.
    No. She had not failed. She had to prove those cameras had not failed. It took a moment of thought, but then she remembered that the footage was backed