Trying desperately to get back on to an even keel after the ruby incident, I threw myself into hockey as best I could.
The first thing I noticed was that the lassoed-stomach sensation, the one that tugged me towards the tower while I was down on the astro, had grown more intense since the ruby had appeared on my throat. It had spread to my head too, a flurry of unwanted thoughts like ‘I need to get back to the tower’ whirring through my mind like a blizzard in summer.
Despite these unsettling developments, I started to perform a little better in practice. Nowhere near my old Kent county levels, but a definitive improvement on the lurching nausea and clumsy strikes of try-outs. Several of my teammates noticed the ruby in my throat, but I parroted the same story about a dermal piercing – only this time, my goth roommate talked me into it. There was a chance I could get caught in the lie, but the odds of Alice ever talking to my hockey friends seemed incredibly slim. She was far too spooky for sports, and seemed to disapprove of them as a concept.
The first home match came and went, and while I was only subbed in for the last five minutes, it was delightfully normal to be out there running around in the rain and dirt, not thinking about anything but the game. I felt like myself again, if only until the final whistle blew.
Still, the reason I was here at Carvell sat heavy on my chest. I had to do Janie justice. I’d been distracted by my own pain and fear, my convictions that the tower was somehow to blame, but I knew it sounded absurd to the outside ear. I had to find some kind of proof. I felt the need to solve the murders more urgently than ever; a visceral tug from my ribs to my sternum.
One brisk blue afternoon, I stashed my Kodak SLR camera into my backpack and headed to the campus bus stop. There was a newspaper archive in the nearest town dating all the way back to the early 1900s, which meant all the local coverage of the North Tower murders was also held there. I wanted to trawl through old articles looking for any peculiar references – to possession, to the tower, to the supernatural pulse, to dark forces. Had any of the witnesses or faculty members been concerned that there was something larger at play? Had any of them dared vocalise those concerns?
Riding on the bus away from Carvell, I couldn’t focus on the beauty of the rolling landscape because the lasso around my stomach tightened with every passing mile. Nausea roiling, my breath grew shallower and shallower, as though my body was protesting being this far away from the North Tower. As we approached the outskirts of town, it became so bad that my vision danced and blackened, and I had to grip on to the seat in front of me to keep from passing out.
Then, with a sudden internal snap, everything stopped. My vision washed back with a wave of blue sky, and the nausea cleared immediately. It was as though the invisible lasso had been stretched as far as it could go, and I’d passed some kind of threshold where it could no longer keep a hold on me.
After that, everything felt a little brighter, my thoughts a little clearer. I hadn’t realised how much of a shadow the North Tower had cast over me until I was out from under it. It brought me immense relief; itwaspossible to get out from under it. If this all got too much, I could just leave. Ruby or not, the supernatural pulse hadn’t dragged me under just yet.
But I didn’twantto leave. Not yet. Not without justice for Janie and her family. For reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, being on the campus, burying my own roots there . . . it only solidified my resolve. An insistent, bone-deep desire.
The local newspaper archive was a small, musty building attached to a red-brick parish church. The sandy-haired, middle-aged man working behind the front desk looked appalled that someone had dared to enter his lair. Judging by the dog-eared stack of historical novels beside the computer and his ring-marked coffee mug saying ‘Grumpy Old Men’s Club’, he was not used to being disturbed.
Nonetheless, he led me begrudgingly to the back room and left me alone in the dank, windowless space filled with shelves upon shelves of box files and clippings. It smelled of old paper, sawdust and something oddly sour.
Everything was labelled diligently and chronologically, so it didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. I grabbed four box files marked 1986–87 and took a seat.
Reading the first few pieces about Sam Bowey filled me with a sense of vicarious dread. There was a brief but generic statement from Mordue about the tragic suicide of a promising young student; she had no idea what was still to come. The piece itself was a small column on page four. Carvell hadn’t yet secured its place in the region’s dark history.
Then, Janie. This was front-page material: the death of two young lovers within a week of each other. And this time, the body showed signs of a struggle.
As the weeks drew on and more bodies fell, the case dominated the papers. Page after page of information, including a timeline of events – of which I took a photo on my camera – and sympathetically written profiles of all the victims. There were also details of a memorial service at St Mark’s, which I realised was the church next door to the archive.
I read an entire year’s worth of coverage, but there was nothing in the papers that I didn’t already know about the killings, and nothing that could possibly be considered a reference to the paranormal. And I was an English student; I was used to reading into things.
The one useful piece of information I did glean, however, was the name of the local reporter who had covered the story: Peter Frame. I jotted his name down in my notebook and headed out.
I stopped by the front desk again on my way out, and the crotchety man actually sighed at me as I said, ‘Excuse me?’ in my peppiest voice.
‘Yes?’ The word was clipped with irritation.
‘Does Peter Frame still work for the paper?’
‘No, he moved to theGazettelast year.’ He peered impatiently at me over wire-framed glasses.
I had what I needed.
On my way back to the bus stop, I stopped by a small newsagent’s and found a copy of theNorthumberland Gazette. Peter Frame was listed as crime editor, with a phone number and postal address. As well as a giant stash of pick ‘n’ mix, I bought a copy of the newspaper and tucked it in my backpack.
Even if the archives didn’t have any answers, Peter Frame might.