Anthony Horowitz: Necropolis

She looked at Aidan, then at the white van. A few people were already helping the driver out, laying him on the pavement. Steam was rising out of the crumpled bonnet. Next to her, the policeman was speaking urgently into his shoulder mike, doing all the stuff with Delta Bravo Oscar Charlie, summoning help.

Finally, Aidan made it over to her. “Scarl…?” That was his name for her. “Are you OK?”

She nodded, suddenly tearful without knowing why. Maybe it was just the shock, the knowledge of what could have been. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, noticing that her nails were grimy and all her knuckles were grazed. Her dress was torn. She realized she must look a wreck.

“You were nearly killed…!” Why was Aidan telling her that? She had more or less worked it out for herself.

Even so, his words reminded her of the man who had saved her. She looked down and was surprised to see that he was no longer there. For a moment she thought that it was a conjuring trick, that he had simply vanished into thin air. Then she saw him, already on the far side of the road – the side that she had been heading towards – hurrying past the shops. He reached a hair salon on the corner, where a woman with hair that was too blonde to be true had just come out. He pushed past her and then he was gone.

Why? He hadn’t even stayed long enough to be thanked.

After that, things unravelled more slowly. An ambulance arrived and although Scarlett didn’t need it, the van driver had to be put on a stretcher and carried away. Scarlett herself was examined but nothing was broken and in the end she was allowed to go home. Aidan went with her. A WPC accompanied them both. Scarlett wondered how that would go down with Mrs Murdoch. Somehow she knew it wasn’t going to mean laughter and back-slapping at bedtime.

In fact, the accident had several consequences.

Paul and Vanessa Adams were told what had happened when they got home that night and as soon as they had got over the shock, the knowledge of how close they had come to losing their only child, they began to argue about whose fault it was: their own for allowing Scarlett too much freedom, Aidan for distracting her, or Scarlett for showing so little road sense, even at the age of thirteen. In the end, they decided that in future Mrs Murdoch would take up her old position at the school gates. It would be another nine months before Scarlett was allowed to walk home on her own again.

The identity of the man who had saved her remained a mystery. Where had he come from? How had he seen what was about to happen? Why had he been in such a hurry to get away? Mrs Murdoch decided that he must be an illegal immigrant, that he had taken off at the sight of the approaching policeman. For her part, Scarlett was just sorry that she hadn’t been able to thank him. And if he was in some sort of trouble, she would have liked to have helped him.

That was the night she had her first dream.

Scarlett had never been one for vivid dreams. Normally she got home, ate, did her homework, spent forty minutes on her PlayStation 3 and then plunged into a deep, empty sleep that would be ended all too quickly by Mrs Murdoch, shaking her awake for the start of another school day. But this dream was more than vivid. It was so realistic, so detailed that it was almost like being inside a film. And there was something else that was strange about it. As far as she could see, it had no connection to her life or to anything that had happened during the day.

She dreamed that she was in a grey-lit world that might be another planet… the moon perhaps. In the distance, she could see a vast ocean stretching out to the horizon and beyond – but there were no waves. The surface of the water could have been a single sheet of metal. Everything was dead. She was surrounded by sand-dunes – at least, that was what she thought they were, but they were actually made of dust. They had somehow blown there and – like the dust on the moon – it would stay the same forever. She walked forward. But she left no footprints.

There were four boys standing together, a short distance away.

The boys were searching for her. If she listened carefully, she could actually hear them calling her name. She tried to call back, but although there was no wind, not even a breeze, something snatched the words away.

The boys weren’t real. They couldn’t be… Scarlett had never seen them before. And yet somehow she was sure that she knew their names.

Scott. Jamie. Pedro. And Matt.

She knew them from somewhere. They had met before.

That was the first time, but over the next two years she had the same dream again and again. And gradually, it began to change. It seemed to her that every time she saw the boys, they were a little further away until finally she had to get used to the fact that she was completely on her own. Every time she went to sleep, she found herself hoping she would see them. More than that. She needed to meet them.

She never spoke about her dreams, not even to Aidan. But somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that finding the four boys had become the single most important thing in her life.

Two years later, Scarlett had turned fifteen – and she had become an orphan for a second time.

Paul and Vanessa Adams hadn’t died but their marriage had, one inch at a time. In a way, it was amazing they had stayed together so long. Scarlett’s father had just started a new job, working for a multi-national corporation based in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, her mother was spending more and more time with her own business, looking after customers who seemed to demand her attention twenty-four hours a day. They were seeing less and less of each other and suddenly realized that they preferred it that way. They didn’t argue or shout at each other. They just decided they would be happier apart.

They told Scarlett the news at the end of the summer holidays and for her part she wasn’t quite sure what to feel. But the truth was that in the short term it would make little difference to her life. Most of the time she was on her own with Mrs Murdoch anyway and although she’d always been glad to see her parents, she’d got used to the fact that they were seldom, if ever, around. The three of them had one last meeting in the kitchen, the two adults sitting with grim faces and large glasses of wine.

“Your mother is going to set up a company in Melbourne, in Australia,” Paul said. “She has to go where the market is and Melbourne is a wonderful opportunity.” He glanced at Vanessa and in that moment Scarlett knew that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. Maybe the Australians were desperate for exotic holidays. But the fact was that she had chosen somewhere as far away as possible. Maybe she had met someone else. Whatever the reason, she wanted to carve herself a whole new life. “As for me, Nightrise have asked me to move to the Hong Kong office…”

The Nightrise Corporation. That was the company that employed her dad.

“I know this is very difficult for you, Scarly,” he went on. “Two such huge changes. But we both want to look after you. You can come with either of us.”

In fact, it wasn’t difficult for Scarlett. She had already thought about it and made up her mind. “Why can’t I stay here?” she asked.

“On your own?”

“Mrs Murdoch will look after me. You’re not going to sell the house, are you? This is my home! Anyway, I don’t want to leave St Genevieve’s. And all my friends are here…”

Of course, both her parents protested. They wanted Scarlett to come with them. How could she possibly manage without them? But all of them knew that it was actually the best, the easiest solution. Mrs Murdoch had been with the family for ten years and probably knew Scarlett as well as anyone. In a way, they couldn’t have been happier if they had suggested it themselves. It might not be conventional but it was clearly for the best.