Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

Jamie and Scott had come downstairs, fully dressed. Pedro followed them – barefoot like Matt, but then he often preferred to walk without shoes. When the two boys had first met, he had been wearing sandals made out of old car tyres and he still mistrusted proper trainers. He was yawning and pulling on a sweater. Joanna Chambers had arrived ahead of everyone. She was wearing an old dressing gown. Matt watched her open the gun cabinet and take out a rifle. So far, nobody had spoken.

“What’s happening?” Jamie asked.

“A single figure moving through the garden.” She nodded at the computer. “It looks like there’s only one of them, but we can’t be sure.”

Richard went over and examined the screen. “I’d say he’s trying not to be seen,” he muttered. “Why don’t we take a look at him?”

He leaned over and pressed a switch. This was another part of the security system. The entire garden was instantly lit up by a series of arc lamps so bright that it was as if he had set off a magnesium flare. Matt blinked. It was quite shocking to see the brilliant colours, the wide green lawn, so late at night.

There was a single figure, a man, trapped in the middle of the lawn. He was dressed in a linen jacket, jeans and a polo shirt, buttoned up to the neck. There was a canvas bag across his shoulder. As the lights had come on, he had frozen and stood there with his hands half-covering his eyes, momentarily blinded. He seemed to be on his own. He certainly wasn’t carrying any visible weapons. Richard opened the French windows. Professor Chambers stepped outside.

“Stay where you are!” she shouted. “I have a gun pointing at you.”

“There is no need for that!” the man shouted back in heavily accented English. “I am a friend.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to speak to the boy. Matthew Freeman. Is he here?”

Richard glanced at Matt who moved forward, stepping through the French windows. He was careful not to go too far. Professor Chambers lifted the gun, covering him. “What’s your name?” he called out.

“Ramon.” The man cupped his hand over his eyes, shielding them, trying to make him out.

“Where have you come from?”

“From Lima.” The man hesitated, unsure what to do, whether to move forward or not. He seemed to be pinned there by the light. “Please… are you Matthew? I am here because I want to help you.”

Pedro had come over to the window. He was standing next to Matt. “Why does he come, like a thief, in the middle of the night?” he muttered. Matt nodded. He knew that Pedro was the most suspicious of them all. Maybe it was something to do with the life he’d once led.

Richard agreed. “We can ask him to come back in the morning,” he muttered.

But Matt wasn’t so sure. “What do you want?” he shouted.

The man hadn’t moved. “I will show you when I am inside,” he said. He looked around him. “Please… it is not safe for me out here.”

Matt knew he had to make a decision. It was something he was finding more and more. Although he was in the professor’s house and she and Richard were far older than him, he always seemed to be the one in charge.

Quickly, he turned over the options. They were all supposed to be leaving the house at ten o’clock the next morning, driving up to Lima to catch the flight that would take them to London. This was no time to be meeting with complete strangers. On the other hand, there were six of them and one of him. Professor Chambers had a weapon. And the man seemed genuine enough.

“All right!” Matt called out. “Come in…”

The man began to walk towards the house. At the same time, Richard went over to the cabinet and reached inside. There was another gun there. He wasn’t taking any chances.

The man came into the main room, Professor Chambers following him with the rifle. Now that he was inside, Matt could see that he was a few years older than Richard, with the dark hair and olive skin of a native Peruvian. He had obviously been on the road for a while. He was dusty and unshaven and his clothes were crumpled with sweat patches under the arms. There was a haunted look in his eyes. From the look of him, he didn’t seem to be a threat.

The first thing he did was to take a pair of spectacles out of his top pocket and put them on. Now he looked like a school teacher or perhaps an accountant working in a small, local office. He had a cheap watch on his wrist and his shoes were scuffed and down-at-heel. He looked straight at Matt. “Are you Matthew Freeman?” He blinked. “I did not think I would find you here.”

“Sit down,” Richard said.

The man sat on the sofa with his back to the French windows. Richard pressed the button that turned off the garden lights and everything outside the room disappeared into blackness again. It had clouded over during the night. The moon and the stars had disappeared. Richard came back over to the sofa and sat down on one of the arms. He hadn’t reset the security system. But then the visitor wouldn’t be staying very long. Scott and Jamie perched on the edge of the coffee table. Professor Chambers sat in a chair with the rifle between her knees.

“So what do you want?” she demanded.

“I will tell you everything you want to know,” Ramon said. “But can I first ask you for a drink? I have been travelling all day and I had to wait until night before coming here. Believe me, if I had been seen I would have been killed.”

“I’ll get it,” Pedro said. He got up and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass of water. The man took it in both hands and gulped greedily.

“How do you know about me?” Matt asked.

“I know a great deal about you, Matthew. May I call you that? I know how you came to Peru and I think I know what you have been doing since you arrived here. I was present, also, the night you came to the hacienda at Ica, although perhaps you did not see me. I was there because I was hired to work for Diego Salamanda.”

Ramon must have known the effect the name would have on everyone in the room. Salamanda had been the chairman and owner of a huge news corporation in South America. Deliberately deformed as a child – his head had been grotesquely stretched – he had used his power and wealth to bring back the Old Ones. Matt and Pedro had gone to his hacienda searching for Richard, and later on Matt and Salamanda had confronted each other in the Nazca Desert. Matt had killed him, turning back the bullets fired from his own gun.

“Please… do not think of me as your enemy,” Ramon continued, hastily. “I swear to you that I was not part of his plans.” He paused. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. “I am not even in business. I am a lecturer at Lima University and Senor Salamanda paid me to help him with a special project. I should explain that my speciality is Ancient History.” He bowed in the direction of Professor Chambers. “I have heard you speak many times, Senora. I was there, for example, last April when you gave the presentation at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. I thought it was a brilliant talk.”

Professor Chambers thought for a moment. “It’s true that I was there,” she said. “But anyone could know that.”

“ Senor Salamanda told me that he was in possession of a diary which he wanted me to interpret on his behalf,” Ramon went on. “The diary had been written in the sixteenth century by a man called Joseph de Cordoba. This man travelled here to Peru with the Spanish conquistadors. Salamanda told me that he bought the diary from a bookseller in London, a man called William Morton.”

“He didn’t buy it,” Matt said. “He stole it. He killed William Morton to get it.” Matt knew because he had been there at the time. Morton had been demanding two million pounds but all he had got was a knife in the back.