“Keep your voice down!” said Mary in a hissed whisper. “What are you doing here anyway? Disturbing people like this!”
Mary looked past Amanda over to her neighbours and then the field; when she saw that that grey rainy world outside was empty of anyone but the young and pale woman on her doorstep, she relaxed a little but maintained her hard expression.
“As I said,” replied Amanda, “I’ve come from the Tithonus School. Deputy head Chester sent me here to ask a few questions about an attack that happened here just over a week ago. A boy was attacked on a street just outside north Radcliff, not too far from here. A vampire attack.”
“Well, young lady, why do you think I would know anything about that?”
Amanda gave herself a second to recompose herself. The interview was going even worse than she had anticipated, but she saw no reason to give in even though she was becoming ever more uncomfortable standing out in the rain.
“I don’t think that anyone really thinks you were involved…”
“Well, of course I wasn’t involved! Haven’t I got enough problems trying to scrape by without having the school and who knows who else getting involved in my life. And god forbid that the police would get involved. Do you know what I’d have to do if they poked around in my life?”
“Look, Mary,” stated Amanda as firmly as she could without barking at the woman before her, “I’m just here to see whether you can help shed some light on the case. I’m not here to cast aspersions on anyone, but someone has broken the code and they could do so again. Just think, if more people start to be attacked around here, then the police may well end up poking around.”
“I doubt that there’ll be another attack around here.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You know what I mean. It was probably one of those, the others, the shadow walkers. They’ll be long gone by now.”
Amanda was fairly sure the attack had not been carried out by one of what some called the ‘shadow walkers’: the vampires who actively hunted the living and did not follow the principles on which such institutions as the Tithonus School were based. While they did exist, from what she had heard about their practices during her time at the school, Amanda did not think that these outcasts would be so foolish as to let one of their victims become a vampire and end up amongst those who followed the principles they so abhorred. One of the main reasons for this was that by letting such an attack victim fall into the hands of the school, they would run the risk of being caught. What was more, there was no indication that Brenden’s attacker had needed to flee after killing the boy. Indeed, Brenden’s broken body has just been left at the side of a quiet, rural road, almost as if the attacker had put no thought into what they were doing at all.
As she seemed to be getting nowhere with Mary, and as the woman truly seemed to be on edge, Amanda decided to try a different line of questioning.
“Do you know of any others around here who might’ve been involved in the attack? Or rather, do you know of anyone who might know something about what happened?”
“What do you mean?” whispered Mary, looking perhaps a little more concerned than she had before.
“For example, I’ve heard that there is someone called Johann Milch who lives in the area and the school has lost all contact with him. It might not lead anywhere, but if you knew where he is living, this could help.”
“Oh, Johann,” said Mary looking relieved. “Yes, I know Johann. He was living just near here not too long ago. Not that I think that he would have been involved in anything like what you’re talking about.” She paused a moment. “Though I guess you never know, especially when you’re in a position like him. You know,” said Mary leaning a little closer to Amanda and lowering her voice “he’s one of those who’ve taken to living off the blood of vermin and the like. You never know with them, do you? Turns you a bit odd; never have your full wits about you anymore. He was around here not too long ago; he even used to visit me every now and again. Tried to give him some of the real stuff, once in a while, when I had enough to get by, but he’d never take it. Odd, as I said.”
“Do you know where he might be now?”
“Oh, he’ll be around here somewhere, I can tell you that. But, I can’t say where for sure. Now, I think that’s about all I know about anyone else around here, really, so if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get back to my work.”
Amanda quickly tried to think of something to keep Mary at her door, but no question came to mind and so she ended up saying nothing further but a thank you to a closing door.
***
Amanda opened the manila folder on the third vampire the school knew lived in and around Radcliff, but before she even looked at what was within, she put the papers to one side and started to think about Mary. Though the woman clearly could not be guilty, she seemed far too defensive to Amanda, suggesting there was something Mary was not telling her: whatever that thing was, she just did not know. There was the point that as far as Amanda could remember, Mary had been on edge from the beginning of their conversation, meaning that perhaps her strange behaviour was just a reflection of her personality. Amanda knocked her fists together, just as she had done after
