Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

“But I still don’t understand what happens,” Matt said. “This man – William Morton – meets me. Maybe he asks me some questions. But what then? Is he going to give me the diary?”

“He’s said hell sell it to us if he believes you,” Nathalie replied. “He’s not giving it to anyone! He still wants his money.”

There was a pause.

Richard turned to Matt. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

Matt shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said. He glanced around the table. Everyone was staring at him. He could see his own face reflected in the black glasses that covered Susan Ashwood’s eyes. “But I will,” he went on. “If you’ll give me something in return.”

“What do you want?” the Australian asked.

“You people have a lot of influence. You stopped Richard getting his article about Omega One published in the newspapers. So maybe you can get him a job, here in London.”

“Matt…” Richard began.

“That’s what you always wanted,” Matt said. “And I want to go to an ordinary school. I’m not going back to Forrest Hill. I want you all to promise me that if you get the diary, you’ll leave me alone.”

“I’m not sure we can promise that,” Fabian said. “You’re part of all this, Matt. Don’t you see that?”

“But if there’s any way we can leave you out of this, we will,” Miss Ashwood cut in. “We don’t like this any more than you do, Matt. We never wanted to bring you here.”

Matt nodded. “All right.”

A decision had been made but even now Matt wasn’t convinced that he’d been the one who’d made it. Much later that night, as he lay in his bed on the third floor of the hotel, he told himself that soon it would all be over. He’d meet Morton. He’d get the diary. And that would be the end of it.

But somehow he didn’t believe it.

Everything that had happened in the last few days had done so against his wishes. And what happened next would be the same. There was no way out for him. He had to get used to it. There were strange forces all around him and they were never going to let him go.

Ten thousand miles away, a man was approaching his desk.

It was the middle of the afternoon here in the town of Ica, south of the Peruvian capital of Lima. Peru was six hours behind Britain. The sun was shining brilliantly and as the room was open to the elements, with a tiled floor that stretched past a row of pillars into the courtyard, the entire room was flooded with light. High above, a ceiling fan turned slowly, not actually cooling anything but giving the illusion that it might. The man could hear the gentle sound of water splashing. There was an old fountain in the courtyard. A few chickens pecked at the gravel. Flowers grew everywhere and their scent hung heavily in the air.

The man was fifty-seven years old, dressed in a white linen suit that hung off him stiffly, as if it was still in the wardrobe. He moved slowly and with difficulty, reaching out with his hands to find his chair and lower himself into it.

His body was all wrong.

He was unnaturally tall – well over six feet – but what gave him his extra height was his head, which was twice as long as it should be. It was huge, with eyes so high up that on anyone else, they would have been in the middle of the forehead. He had a few tufts of hair that were really no colour at all, but mainly he was bald, with liver spots all over his skin. His nose extended all the way down to his mouth, which was too small in relation to everything else. A child’s mouth in an adult face. A muscle twitched in the side of his neck as he moved. The neck was obviously struggling to hold up such a great weight.

The man’s name was Diego Salamanda, and he was the chairman of one of the largest companies in South America. Salamanda News International had built an empire with newspapers and magazines, TV stations, hotels and telecommunications. Some people claimed that SNI owned Peru. And Diego Salamanda was the sole owner, the chairman and single stockholder of SNI.

His head had been stretched quite deliberately. It was a practice from more than a thousand years before. Some of the ancient tribes of Peru had selected newly born babies whom they believed to be “special” and had forced them to live with their heads sandwiched between two wooden planks. This was what caused the abnormal growth. It was supposed to be an honour. Salamanda’s parents had known that their baby was special, so they had done the same to him.

And he was grateful to them.

They had caused him pain. They had made him hideous. They had prevented him from ever enjoying a normal human relationship. But they had been right. They had recognized his talents the very day he was born.

The telephone rang.

Still moving slowly, Salamanda reached out and took the receiver. It looked slightly ridiculous, far too small, as he held it against his ear.

“Yes.” He didn’t need to give his name. This was a private number. Only a handful of people had it. And they would know whom they were calling.

“It’s at twelve o’clock tomorrow,” the voice at the other end said. “He’s going to be at a church in London. St Meredith’s.”

“Very good.” Both of them were speaking in English. It was the language that Salamanda used for all his business.

“What do you want me to do?” the voice asked.

“You have done enough, my friend. And you will be rewarded. Now you can leave it to me.”

“What will you do?”

Salamanda paused. An ugly light shimmered in his strangely colourless eyes. He didn’t like being asked questions. But he was in a generous mood. “I will take the diary and kill Mr Morton,” he replied.

“And the boy?”

“If the boy is there, then of course I will kill him too.”

The church was beyond Shoreditch, in a forgotten backwater of London that really wasn’t likeyou are

London at all. At school, Matt had learned about the Blitz – when German bombers had destroyed great chunks of the city, particularly in the East End. What the teachers hadn’t told him was that the blank spaces and rubble had been replaced with modern, concrete office blocks, multistorey car parks, cheap, tacky shops and – cutting between them – wide, anonymous highways that carried an endless stream of traffic with a lot of noise but not a great deal of speed.

He had been brought here by taxi, dropped off at the end of Moore Street, which turned out to be a grubby lane running between a pub and a launderette. The church stood at the bottom end, looking sad and out of place. It had been bombed too. A new steeple had been added at some time in the last twenty years and it didn’t quite match the stone pillars and arched doorways below. St Meredith’s was surprisingly large and at one time must have been quite grand, standing at the centre of a thriving community. But the community had moved on and the church looked forlorn and slightly abandoned.

Once again, Matt wondered why the bookseller, William Morton, had chosen this place for their meeting. But at least they would have no difficulty recognizing each other. There were few people around – and certainly no sign of the hundred armed policeman that the Assistant Commissioner had promised. As Matt made his way down the lane, the door of the pub opened and a bearded man with a broken nose stepped unsteadily out. It was only twelve o’clock but he was already drunk. Or perhaps he was still hung over from the night before. Matt quickened his pace. There was a mobile phone in his pocket and Richard Cole was only a few minutes away if he needed help. Matt wasn’t afraid. He just wanted to get this over with and go back to ordinary life.

He walked up to the front door of the church, wondering if he would even be able to get in. The door was very solid and somehow gave the impression of being locked. He reached out and lifted the handle. It was cold and heavy in his hand. It turned reluctantly, with a creaking sound. The door swung open and Matt stepped forward, passing from bright daylight to a strange, shadow-filled interior. The sun was shut out. The sound of the traffic disappeared. Matt had left the door open but it swung closed behind him. The boom of the wood hitting the frame echoed through the empty space.