It appeared that Brookie and Rico were the only ones who knew the real story behind the bandage on Fran's arm. Arthur had raised an eyebrow on seeing the cut when he helped her change the bandage the next day, but he didn't comment, and Fran ended up telling Mathilda herself when the girl asked why she was injured.
"What?" Mathilda demanded blankly, completely forgetting that they were supposed to be working on a chemistry assignment together and dropping the Bunsen burner on the floor with a loud clang.
Fran looked away, not really wanting to repeat herself.
"I wondered why Brookie sounded weird over the phone last night," Mathilda muttered to herself. She bent to pick up the Bunsen burner. "How are you feeling now, anyway?"
"My arm hurts," Fran said truthfully.
Mathilda nudged her glasses back up her nose. "Funnily enough, that's something I could have deduced from your expression of constant pain. I meant, what's going through your head? Do I have to make sure that you don't use any sharp objects during this experiment, just in case?"
Fran considered. "I don't know. I had a long conversation with Bruno last night. At the moment, I think I want to live, but I'm worried about what might happen if I find myself on my own with something I could harm myself with."
"Well, wanting to live is a good thing," Mathilda said decisively. "And if you don't know how you'll react to those kind of temptations, just remove the possibility of those temptations occurring."
"Mathilda, it's not that simp—"
"If you start complicating things, it's not going to get any simpler," Mathilda pointed out. "And I'm sure that one of the things that feeds the depressive state of mind is over-thinking things, so just try to under-think this one. Leave it at 'remove possibility of temptations' rather than 'but what happens in the dorm if Rico's not there and I find his penknife on the floor?'"
Fran smiled reluctantly. Mathilda busied herself with test tubes and chemicals.
"And you can come talk to me anytime, you know," Mathilda went on. "I honestly don't care if you wake me up in the middle of the night. I'd much rather miss a few hours' sleep if it meant you felt okay."
"I'd much rather you didn't," Fran muttered. "You're very ratty when you're tired."
"I promise to take it out solely on Joey."
Fran actually laughed at that.
True to form, when Fran went to talk to Brookie that evening, he immediately started blaming himself for her injury. Fran clocked him round the side of the head before he'd got further than "shouldn't have left you alone".
"Bruno said you'd be like this," she told him, "and I'm under orders to punch you as hard as I can if you continue to be an idiot and think that this is your fault."
Brookie rubbed his head ruefully. "I still feel I could have done more."
"And I could have done less," Fran reasoned. "But we can't change the past. I just have to figure out how to cope with my head."
Her lip trembled. The veneer of bravado felt even faker than usual. The truth is, I'm still shaken and can't really believe I actually did that.
"You're very calm about this," Brookie noted, searching her face.
"I'm worried I'll go into hysterics if I'm not calm," Fran admitted. "I'm still terrified out of my wits because they actually came to this school."
"Bruno and Conrad said that they've been searching all the schools in this area since it came out that you were still alive."
"They seemed interested in you, though," Fran pointed out. "They might come back."
"Yes, the police are also interested in me, and they haven't come back."
Fran worried her lower lip. She'd been doing it so much recently that her incisors had actually cut it, and it started bleeding again.
"I'm wondering if it might not be a good idea for me to disappear somewhere else."
"And how suspicious do you think people would find that?"
"That's pretty much the only reason I'm not going. Plus I think I would have gone insane if I didn't have people to support me in this."
"Frankie," said Brookie. "We're not going to let them get you. They're going to have to walk over our dead bodies first."
Fran shuddered. "I don't want to think about that."
They were interrupted by a call from Conrad. Brookie put the phone on speaker.
"I've just done something illegal," Conrad announced.
"You've hacked their system?"
"No, still working on that. But there was a riot in town and a football match, and since the police station was pretty much unmanned, I snuck in there and hid recording devices all over the place. They'll probably find them sooner or later, but when they do, Freddie's managed to plant enough seeds of doubt on their minds for them to suspect an insider selling information, so they'll probably attribute it to that and we'll see a huge breakdown of trust in the local police force."
Brookie glanced at Fran. "Is that wise?"
"If we want to catch the b*gger with access to police data, yes."
"Won't they be able to trace the transmission signals back to you?" Fran asked anxiously.
"Don't worry." Conrad sounded extremely proud of himself. "I've left them a false trail that'll be a mammoth task to unravel, so they'll probably have to get that d*mn hacker onto it, which should leave me with enough time to break through the defences he keeps putting up. All I need is to get a day or so working without him around to oppose me and put up new defences."
"But doesn't breaking through their firewalls require them discovering your microphones first?"
"Oh, yeah. I planted a pretty obvious one in a drawer in Malcolm's office. Malcolm is one of the ones who's been working most closely on Frankie's case, isn't he?"
"He was my ex-bodyguard," Fran supplied.
"Excellent. His drawer was a bit of a tip, but he should come across the recording device next time he rummages around in it for some stationery. He'll just assume he didn't notice it before because he's not a neat freak."
"Then how can you be sure he'll notice it this time?"
"Because his previous rummaging has put it on top."
"Your brother's a genius," Fran told Brookie when Conrad hung up.
"He's as mad as a hatter. Bertie's greatest aspiration is to become the second Conrad, only he's even worse than Conrad ever was at his age."
"Your brother's still a genius."
Brookie snorted and patted her on the back. "Whatever. You probably ought to go to bed, Frankie - your lights out was ten minutes ago."
"Um...." Fran hesitated. "Can you make sure Rico doesn't come back to my room for at least twenty minutes, then? The bathroom door hasn't been fixed yet...."
Either Malcolm was blind or he never used any form of stationery, because Conrad updated them daily for the rest of the week about what was going on at the police station. The only interesting, new piece of news was that Aidan, Malcolm and a few others had been discussing the possibility of going to talk to Joey again about the killer he'd seen who apparently looked like Frankie and claimed to go to school at Darkwood, but as Arthur pointed out, that wasn't really related to Fran's case.
"Remember when people thought Frances Pelham was the killer?" Isaac said, picking congealed cheese off the side of his toastie.
"What was weirder was that that was a theory at the same time that she was assumed to be a victim," Arthur put in. "You know what's really depressing, though? At the moment, we actually know more about this case than the police do."
"We have the advantage of not having a mole," Piers reminded them.
Brookie pulled a face. "Yeah, and we don't exactly know much. Arthur, I thought you were supposed to be doing a tour."
Arthur jerked upright. "Sh*t! What time is it?"
"Half one."
"D*mn." Arthur bolted for the door. "I totally forgot I had to show that couple around the boarding house! I'll be back in half an hour!"
Isaac held out the remainder of his toastie and sighed melodramatically. "Oh, Arthur," he said to the food, "what are we to do with you?"
During prep that evening, Rico went over to the music school to continue a composition he had to do. Fran sat on her bed, distressed by the silence and feeling lonely. Unable to concentrate on her homework for more than about ten minutes, she flopped about listlessly before finally ringing Bruno.
"You kept your promise," he said with surprise the instant he picked up. "How are you?"
"I want to cry my heart out," Fran said tremulously. "And I don't even know why."
"It happens, it happens," Bruno soothed her. "Are you supposed to have any work due in tomorrow?"
"Yeah. French and History." Fran blinked back tears.
"Forget about it."
"But—"
"Forget about it. You can't work properly in an emotional state, even if you're putting up a calm front. You shouldn't push your limits when you're ill."
"I'm not ill."
"And I'm a flying monkey. What is a mental illness, Fran?"
Fran thought about it.
"An illness," she concluded.
"Just because it's not obvious to other people doesn't make it any less real or any less valid," Bruno said firmly. "And don't forget that."
"I'll try not to," Fran murmured.
"Good. What do you want to talk about?"
"I don't know. I just wanted company."
"I'm touched."
To Fran's surprise, Bruno actually did sound touched.
"Well, what can I talk about?" Bruno went on. "There seems to have been a resurgence in religion recently; apparently some new form of Paganism is getting popular. The Middle East is still in conflict. There's another G8 summit being organised for December. Bertie made me start watching a cartoon series – wait, that's probably actually interesting. Have you heard of Avatar: The Last Airbender?"
"The what?"
"Really?" Bruno seemed surprised. "Are you sure you weren't the one in the coma instead of me? Avatar used to be huge. You should look it up. There are some serious feel-good moments on it. You'll love Zuko."
Fran's curiosity got the better of her gloom. "What's Zuko?"
"Who's Zuko. He's one of the characters, and he's a firebending prince."
"F... fire bending?"
"It's a little like being a fire elemental," Bruno explained. "And Zuko's cool. Toph's my favourite, though. She totally kicks *ss. And Sokka's like you - he has no luck with his love life. One of his crushes turns into the moon."
"Wait, wait, wait." Fran held up a hand, even though there was no way Bruno could see it. "Start at the beginning." She paused. "Somebody turns into the moon?"
"Yup. And there are flying six-legged bison, awesome fights, subterfuge, betrayal – it's probably one of the best animated TV series ever. You should watch an episode whenever you're feeling down. It's good to do something totally brainless every once in a while."
"What did you say the name was again?"
"Avatar: The Last Airbender. The principle characters are called Katara and Aang."
"Aang?" Fran repeated dubiously. "By any chance, does this show come from somewhere in Asia?"
"Nope. It's American."
Fran raised an eyebrow.
"It'll probably take you a week to get through all the episodes if you watch them all back to back," Bruno went on glibly. "If you want, I can drop the DVDs off next time I come to visit."
At that, Fran's mood perked up properly. "You're going to come again?"
"Why not?" asked Bruno. "It's fun hanging out with you guys, and there's only so much I can take of Bertie wrapping everything in my room up in individual pieces of silver foil. When I got back from dropping you off, I found he'd covered the floor of my room with plastic cups filled with water. It took me nearly four hours to get rid of the lot. The rooms in Brookie's house are gigantic."
Fran couldn't help giggling. "Remind me to do that to somebody."
"Could you please do it to Bertie as payback for me?"
"Sure. I'll ask Brookie if I can come over tomorrow."
They continued chatting until the bugle sounded for the end of prep, and Fran hung up with the guilty notion of not having done any work whatsoever, though she did feel distinctly better.
I should at least do history before I go to sleep, she told herself as she let herself out of the room, but Bruno's voice instantly echoed in her mind. Forget about it.
Fran cocked her head to one side. You know, I don't think he called me some flirty nickname once in that conversation. It was like it had when he'd come to the hospital with her. Serious Bruno was seriously nice.