Anthony Horowitz - South by South East

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“It was easy. He had a number of agents working for him. The man who knocked out the magician, for example. We got a message to them. They passed it to Charon.”

“So you hired him to kill Kusenov.”

“Yes. We chose Kusenov because we knew he had no intention of coming to England. He doesn’t like England. In fact he never leaves Moscow. In other words, in order to kill him, Charon would have to go to Russia. And so of course, there was something he would need…”

“An aeroplane?” Tim suggested.

“A visa. You can’t enter Russia without a visa. Don’t you see? It was brilliant. All we had to do was monitor all the people applying for a visa to Russia and one of them would have to be Charon. And of course if anyone who applied for a visa had only nine fingers…”

“So you never really wanted Kusenov dead.”

“Oh no. That was just the point. We were certain that Charon would be unable to kill him. He was meant to be an impossible target.”

Suddenly I understood. Waverly was right. It had been a brilliant plan until it had gone terribly wrong. “But Kusenov decided to come to England after all!” I said.

“Exactly. That wretched painting, ‘The Tsar’s Feast’, came up for auction at Sotheby’s. Kusenov was a collector, and he had this fixation about the artist, Salvador Dali. He believed the painting had to hang in Russia — so he came over to bid for it. It was the last thing we’d expected.”

“I get it…” I said.

“I don’t,” Tim muttered.

I turned to him. “If Charon had killed Kusenov on British soil and the Russians had then found out he’d been paid by MI6-”

“It’s too horrible to contemplate.” Waverly finished the sentence. He had sunk into his chair as if he were deflating.

“You still haven’t found Charon,” I said. “Kusenov still isn’t safe.”

“My dear boy.” Mr Waverly recovered quickly. “The man with the scar! He was Charon.”

“Scarface…?”

“Yes. He’s in a prison cell now. It has to be him. He has only four fingers on his right hand.”

I thought back to the theatre in Amsterdam. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Of course he’s only got four fingers on his right hand!” I exclaimed. “Ted shot the other one off!”

That sent a ripple of alarm through the three agents. Quickly they conferred. Then Ted spoke. “It’s true I shot him in the hand,” he admitted. “But I didn’t see him lose a finger.”

“He must have lost it!” I insisted. “He certainly had all his fingers when we first met.”

Ted shook his head smugly. “Relax, kid. Your Mr Scarface is Charon, all right.”

“Has he admitted it?” I asked.

“No. But we’ll crack him.”

Personally, I doubted Ted could even crack a walnut without help from a friend but I didn’t say that. I turned back to Mr Waverly. He was my only hope. “Mr Waverly,” I said. “I know that Scarface is not Charon. Please believe me. You’ve got the wrong man.”

But Mr Waverly wasn’t having any of it. Suddenly he was all suit and old school tie. “I think I can be the best judge of this,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m the head of MI6 and you’re just a fourteen-year-old boy!”

Tim shrugged. “He has a point.”

I started to speak, then bit my tongue. There was no point arguing with them. I’d be better off working it out on my own. “What about us?” I asked.

Mr Waverly smiled. “You can go,” he said. “I’ve had a word with the police. That business with the bank. Everything’s been explained. You’re no longer wanted.”

We weren’t wanted. Not in any sense of the word.

Tim stood up. “So that’s it,” he said.

“That’s it.”

“Right.” Tim thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose you could lend us the bus fare home?”

We walked home. Every step of the way the same thought went through my mind. They’ve got the wrong man. They’ve got the wrong man. I knew Charon wasn’t Scarface. He had been in the room at the Winter House with Ugly and a third man. It was the third man who was Charon.

I thought back to the desk, the drawer with the cigarettes, the mirror and… something else. I couldn’t remember any more. I was tired. I needed to rest. But I couldn’t — not yet. They’d got the wrong man.

Tim picked up a newspaper on the way back. Someone had left it on a bench and now that the adventure was over he was keen to cut out any photographs of himself. But there wasn’t even a mention of him. He was yesterday’s news, already forgotten.

We climbed the stairs into the office and while Tim went through the paper again I put on the kettle and made us some tea. By the time I’d carried it into the office and sat down opposite Tim, my mind had begun to click into action. Carefully, I set out the pieces of the puzzle and tried to make sense of them.

Charon.

A white hammer.

A mirror in a drawer.

South by south east.

We still didn’t know what McGuffin had been trying to tell us. Had he really wanted us to travel south on the South East rail network? Was that all it boiled down to? I still couldn’t believe it could have been as unimportant as that. I thought back to the moment he had died, struggling to speak in Tim’s arms, with the train thundering past overhead.

“They’re auctioning that painting today,” Tim said. He folded the paper in half and tapped one of the articles.

South by south east.

“There’s a story about it here.”

“A story about what?”

“The painting.” He read out the headline.

“Sotheby’s. ‘Tsar’s Feast’.”

South by…

I sat up. “What?”

Tim sighed. “I was just telling you-”

“I know. What did you say? The headline…”

Tim waved the paper in my direction. “‘The Tsar’s Feast’! It’s the first lot to come under the hammer this afternoon.”

I snatched the paper. “Of course!” I shouted. “You’ve done it, Tim! You’re brilliant!”

Tim smiled. “Yeah. Sure I am.” The smile faded. “Why? What have I done?”

“You’ve just said it. The hammer…!”

“Where?”

“At Sotheby’s!” I turned the paper round and showed him the headline. “That’s what McGuffin was trying to tell you. But what with the train and everything you didn’t hear him properly.”

“What?”

“He didn’t say south by south east. He said Sotheby’s… ‘Tsar’s Feast’.”

I grabbed Tim’s wrist and twisted it round so that I could look at his watch. It was half past one. “When does the auction start?” I yelled.

“Two o’clock.”

“Half an hour. Maybe we can still get there in time…”

I was already moving for the stairs but Tim stayed where he was, his eyes darting from the newspaper to me then back to the paper. “The auction?” he muttered. “Why do you want to go there?”

I stopped with my hand on the door. “Don’t you see?” I said. “We’ve got to stop it.”

“Stop the auction?”

“Stop Charon. He’s planning to blow up Kusenov.”

We managed to catch a bus outside the office — but were we going to make it? The traffic was heavy and the bus was slow. I looked at Tim’s watch. It was already twenty to two. We weren’t going to make it.

Tim must have read my thoughts. “Why don’t we telephone them?” he said.

“They’d never believe me.”

Tim shifted uncomfortably in his seat. I stared at him. “You don’t believe me either!” I exclaimed.

“Well, it does seem a bit-”

“Listen.” I knew I was right. I’d worked it out. I had to be right. “You remember the hammer we saw at the Winter House? An antique white hammer…?”