Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

Aidan had caught up with her. “We should go,” he said.

“But the restaurant…”

“That is the restaurant.”

Scarlett couldn’t move. She stared at the gaping hole, the smoke billowing out, the smashed furniture and the bodies. It was a restaurant. He was right.

“Come on…!” Aidan pleaded.

Scarlett could already hear the sirens of the police cars and ambulances moving in from some other part of the city. It was amazing how quickly they had been alerted. She allowed Aidan to lead her away. She didn’t want to be found there. Part of her even wondered if she might somehow have been to blame.

It was the first story on the news that night. A restaurant called The Happy Garden had been the target of a lethal attack. Three people had been killed and a dozen more injured by a bomb that had been concealed under one of the tables. According to the police, this wasn’t a terrorist incident. They put the blame on Chinese gangs which had been operating in the West End.

“Police today are speculating that the attack is the result of rising tension within the Chinese community,” the newscaster said.

Scarlett watched the broadcast with Mrs Murdoch. The housekeeper was knitting. “Weren’t you in Soho today, Scarlett?” she asked.

“No,” Scarlett lied. “I was on the other side of the town. I was nowhere near.”

“This is the most serious attack so far,” the report went on. “It follows other incidents involving gangs in Peckham and Mile End. Any witnesses are urged to come forward and Scotland Yard has set up a special phone line for anyone with any information that might help.”

Scarlett texted Aidan that night before she went to bed and he texted back. They both agreed that it was just a coincidence. Despite what they had thought earlier, it would be absurd to suggest that a restaurant in the middle of London had been blown up just to stop them meeting someone there.

But as she turned out the lights and tried to get to sleep, Scarlett knew that it wasn’t. The newscaster had been lying. The police were lying. There were no gangs… just an enemy who was still playing with her and who wouldn’t stop until she was completely in their control.

Sunday

A bomb has gone off in London. I’ve just been watching it on the television news and I wonder if it might have something to do with Scarlett. Richard thinks it’s unlikely. According to the reports, the bomb had been hidden in a restaurant in Chinatown. It was something to do with Chinese gang warfare. Three people have been killed.

I saw the images on the big plasma screen TV in my hotel room. Dead people, ambulances, screaming relatives, smoke and broken glass… it was hard to believe that it was all happening in the middle of Soho. You just don’t expect it there. It made me feel even further away than I actually was.

Miami. I’ve never been here before and I certainly never dreamed that I’d wind up in a five-star hotel overlooking the beach, surrounded by Cadillacs, Cuban music and palm trees. The Nexus has certainly put us up in style while we wait for my new passport to arrive. The only trouble is, it’s taking longer than we had hoped. We’re now booked onto a flight leaving on Monday evening and we’ll have to kick our heels until then. Scarlett will just have to manage without us for a couple more days. We’ll be with her soon enough.

It feels strange, being back in a big city after spending so much time in a backwater like Nazca. Miami is full of rich people and expensive houses. It’s too cold to swim at this time of the year, but a lot of life still seems to be happening in the street. We didn’t do much today. I bought myself some new clothes, replacing the stuff that got lost in the fire. We walked. And tonight we ate on Ocean Drive, a long strip of fancy cafes and bars with bright pink neon lights, cocktails and live bands. It was good to be able to enjoy ourselves, sitting there, watching the crowds go past.

Nobody noticed us. For a few hours we could pretend we were normal .

Monday afternoon

This morning, the passport finally arrived, delivered in a brown, sealed envelope by a motorbike rider who didn’t say a word. Terrible photograph. The Nexus have sent Jamie a new passport too, and they’ve decided that we should both travel under false names, for extra security. So now I’m Martin Hopkins. He is Nicholas Helsey. Richard is going to stay as himself but then, as far as we know, nobody is trying to kill him.

We have economy tickets. The Nexus could have flown us first class but they didn’t want us to stand out.

We had our final meal on Ocean Drive. A huge plate of nachos and two Cokes. Richard had a beer. I wondered what the waiter must have made of us: Richard in a gaudy, Hawaiian shirt, sitting between two teenagers, the two of us wearing sunglasses even though there wasn’t a lot of sun. We’d bought them the day before and hadn’t got round to taking them off. We liked them because they kept us anonymous. If anyone had asked, we were going to say that he was a teacher and that we were on a school exchange. It was a pretty unlikely story – but nothing compared to the truth.

I’ve spoken to Pedro via satellite phone a couple of times while we’ve been here. He and Scott reached Vilcabamba without any problem. We’ve agreed to contact each other every day while we are apart. If there’s silence, we’ll know something is wrong. Pedro told me that Scott was OK. But Scott didn’t come on the line.

Jamie asked me something today. It took me by surprise. “Why did you really leave Scott behind? You didn’t think you could rely on him, did you?”

“I never said that.”

“But you thought it.” He lowered his voice. “You have no idea what he went through with Mrs Mortlake. It was worse than anything you can imagine.”

“Has he talked to you about it?”

Jamie shook his head. “He’s put up barriers. He won’t go there. He’s not the same any more. I know that. But you have no idea how he looked after me all those years. When Uncle Don was beating me around or when I was in trouble at school, Scott was always there for me. The only reason he got caught was that he was helping me get away.” He suddenly took off his sunglasses and laid them on the table. “Don’t underestimate him, Matt. I know he’s not himself right now, but he’ll never let you down.”

I hope Jamie is right. But I’m not sure.

I looked across the road. There were some little kids throwing a ball on a lawn beside the beach. A couple of rollerbladers swung by. A pale green convertible drove past with music blaring. And just a few metres away, we were talking about torture and thinking about a war that we might not be able to win. Two different worlds. I know which one I’d have preferred to be in.

We finished eating and went back to the hotel. Our car was already there. The concierge carried out our cases and then it was a twenty-minute drive across the causeway. The water, stretching out on both sides, looked blue and inviting. We reached Miami International Airport and went in, joining the crowds at the check-in desks. Thousands of people travelling all over the world. And this is what I was thinking…

Suppose the Old Ones are already here. Suppose they control this airport. We are allowing ourselves to be swallowed up by a system… tickets, passports, security. How do we know we can trust it, that it will take us where we want to go, or even let us out again?

We got to the baggage check. Richard took one look at the X-ray machines and stopped. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“What is it?”

He was carrying a backpack on his shoulder, cradling it under one arm. He’d had it with him at the restaurant too and I knew that among other things, the monk’s diary was inside. But now he was watching as people took out their computers and removed their belts and I could see that he was furious with himself. “The tumi,” he said. “I meant to transfer it to my main luggage. They’ll never let it through.”