Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

He looked around. He had been sitting, slumped against a low, brick wall beneath a tattered poster advertising mobile phones. The wasteland that he had crossed was in front of him, with a row of partly built houses on the other side. All the buildings looked as if they had been cut in half with a knife. Wires and metal poles sprouted out where the roofs should have been. It was still dark, the area lit by ugly arc lamps, curving out of concrete posts. But the first grey fingers of the morning light were already creeping through the sky. Matt glanced at his watch. It wasn’t there. The boy shuffled uneasily.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got the time?” he asked.

The boy held out his hand. Matt’s watch was on his wrist.

It was five o’clock in the morning.

Matt didn’t even try to take the watch back. He was a little surprised that the boy hadn’t run off and abandoned him. Perhaps he was curious. A foreign tourist lost in a city. And one who was about his own age. Perhaps he could see a chance to make more money. Well, it was possible that he might come in useful – even if he was a thief. After all, he was Peruvian. He knew the city.

It was time to think.

Matt had to get back in contact with the Nexus… and in particular with Fabian, who must be searching for him even now. The trouble was, nobody had counted on Richard and Matt being separated. Richard had money and credit cards. He had phone numbers for reaching Fabian day or night. But he hadn’t given them to Matt.

Apart from the ten pounds, Matt had nothing. Perhaps if he could work out how to use directory enquiries he might be able to get a number for Susan Ashwood back home in Manchester… But even that seemed complicated and somehow unlikely. How about the police? That was the obvious choice, although Matt doubted that the Peruvian boy would be too keen to show him the way to the nearest station. Perhaps he could find his way to Barranco, the suburb where Fabian lived. It couldn’t be too far from here.

Then Matt remembered what the driver, Alberto, had said. Fabian was waiting for them at a hotel. What was its name? It took Matt a few moments to get his brain back into gear. The Hotel Europa. That was it. The Hotel Europa in Miraflores.

The boy was still waiting for him to say something. Matt tapped himself on the chest. “Matt,” he said. There was no point in hiding behind a false name now.

The boy nodded. “Pedro.”

So that was what he was called. And the strange thing was that Matt knew his name before he said it. Could he have heard it when he was asleep?

“Do you know the Hotel Europa in Miraflores?” he asked.

Pedro looked blank.

Matt tried again, more slowly. “Hotel Europa.” He pointed to himself. “I go.”

“Hotel Europa?” This time Pedro got it. “Si…”

“Can you show me the way?” Matt gestured down the street. “Do you understand?”

Pedro understood. But he wasn’t agreeing to anything. Matt saw the doubt in his eyes. Why should he help this foreign boy?

Matt took out the ten pounds. “If you take me there, I’ll give you this. It’s a lot of money.”

Pedro’s eyes zeroed in on the banknote. It was what he had been looking for in the first place. He nodded a second time. “Hotel Europa,” he repeated.

“Let’s go.”

The two of them set off.

It took them an hour to reach the hotel: a modern building, twelve storeys high, with a drive that swept up to the front door, where a uniformed doorman was already standing waiting to receive early-morning guests. Miraflores was one of the most exclusive parts of Lima. The streets were quiet and ran between well-manicured lawns decorated with palm trees and fountains. There was an expensive-looking arcade boasting the sorts of shops and restaurants that wouldn’t have been out of place in London. The whole suburb was perched on the end of a miniature cliff. Far below, the sea formed a giant crescent, stretching into the distance with the rest of the city barely visible, a mile away.

Hotel Europa. Matt felt a surge of relief as he saw the name written in large, white letters above the entrance lobby. And there was something else. He hadn’t noticed them at first, but there were two police cars parked outside. He had no doubt at all that they were there because of him. Fabian would have been waiting for him and Richard to arrive. When they hadn’t, he must have raised the alarm.

Matt started forward but Pedro reached out and grabbed hold of him.

“Yeah. All right.” Matt took out the ten-pound note and offered it to the other boy. “Here you are. Thanks.”

“No!” Pedro was looking scared. He pointed at the two cars and uttered the single word that was almost the same in so many different languages. “Policia!”

“It’s OK, Pedro. I want to see them. It’s not a problem.”

But Pedro was worried. He shook his head and seemed unwilling to let Matt go.

Matt broke free, pocketing the note. “I’ll see you around,” he said, knowing that he never actually would.

He walked up the drive and into the hotel. The doorman glanced briefly in his direction and then decided to let him in. He was a child and he was scruffy – but he was a European and that was all that mattered. Somewhere inside himself, Matt knew that Pedro wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near.

The front doors opened onto a large reception area with leather sofas, antique tables, oversized potted plants and mirrors. Matt had hardly ever been inside a luxury hotel before – and never on his own. He felt uncomfortable walking into this enormous space. The Hotel Europa was a place for rich tourists and businessmen and he was neither. There were two smartly dressed women standing behind the slab of marble that served as a reception desk and they watched him with faces of frozen politeness as he walked over to them.

“I need your help,” he said.

“Yes?” The younger of the two receptionists sounded surprised, as if helping wasn’t part of her job description.

“My name is…” Matt hesitated. What name should he give? He decided not to bother. “I was meant to meet someone here.”

“Who are you meeting, please?”

“His name is Mr Fabian.”

The receptionist tapped at the keyboard of a computer hidden just below the level of the desk. Her nails clacked against the keys. A moment later, she looked up. “I’m sorry. There is nobody of that name staying at the hotel.”

“He may not be staying here.” Matt tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I arrived at the airport yesterday. I was on the way here to meet him. But I got delayed.”

“Where are you from?”

“From England.” Matt took out his passport and laid it on the desk. He hoped the cover, with its gold lettering, would impress the girl more than he could.

The girl opened it and looked at the name underneath the photograph. “Paul Carter?” She glanced at him strangely, as if she had been expecting him. The other girl picked up a telephone and dialled a number. “Where is your brother?” she asked.

“My brother?” Matt realized that they were talking about Richard. So he was right. They were expected. “I don’t know. Where is Mr Fabian?”

“Mr Fabian is not here.”

Next to her, the second girl had been connected. She spoke briefly in Spanish, then put the phone down.

A side door opened.

Four men came out, walking purposefully towards him. There was something menacing about the way they walked. They could have been coming out of a bar, half drunk, looking for a fight. If it weren’t for the police cars parked outside, Matt would have assumed they were soldiers. They were wearing grey trousers, tucked into their boots, dark-green jackets that zipped up the front and caps. Their leader was a huge, pot-bellied man with a heavy moustache and leathery, pock-marked skin. His hair was dark. Was there a single man in Peru who didn’t have dark hair? He had the body of a wrestler. His hands were enormous. Everything about him seemed brutal and oversized and Matt had to remind himself that he was the one who needed the police, that he hadn’t himself committed any crime.