Anthony Horowitz - Raven_s Gate

“I’m telling the truth.”

“Let’s not have any more of that, thank you.”

The policeman had made up his mind. Matt could see that. He bit his tongue.

“I understand you’ve been in trouble a few times before,” Sergeant Rivers continued. “You’re with the LEAF Project, is that right? You ought to count yourself lucky. Personally I don’t believe in all this do-good stuff, to tell you the truth. You’re a thief, and the best thing for you would be to be birched and locked up where you can’t do any more harm. But that’s not my decision. The courts have sent you here and if you had any sense, you’d be grateful and stop trying to draw attention to yourself. Now, we’ll say no more about this nonsense. But I don’t want to see or hear from you again.”

Matt watched as the two policemen drove away. Then he turned round. Miss Creevy was smiling at him, her long grey hair flapping in the breeze. There was a movement at the door and Ken Rampton appeared with the paintbrush still clutched in his hand. He said nothing. But he too was smiling.

“Go back to Hive Hall,” Miss Creevy said. “Mrs Deverill is waiting for you.”

“To hell with her!” Matt shouted.

“You can’t escape from us, Matthew. There’s nowhere you can go. Surely you can see that by now.”

Matt ignored her and grabbed the bike.

“There’s nowhere you can go.” The woman echoed the words in a high-pitched voice.

Ken Rampton began to laugh.

Matt pedalled away as fast as he could.

Greater Malling had once been a small, attractive village but it had grown into a large, unattractive town. There were still a few reminders of what it had once been: a pond, a row of almshouses and a lopsided sixteenth-century pub. But the roads had come, cutting in from every side and joining together at noisy intersections. New houses had elbowed out the old. Offices and car parks had sprung up, joined by cinemas, supermarkets and a clattering bus station. Now it was very ordinary. Somewhere to pass through on the way to somewhere else.

It had taken Matt an hour to cycle here from Glendale Farm. He had been afraid that the road would play another trick on him and deposit him somewhere he didn’t want to be. But he was still wearing the stone talisman that Tom Burgess had given him. Somehow the little golden key had unlocked the maze of country lanes and allowed him to find his way.

Matt parked the bike outside a launderette. It occurred to him that someone might steal it but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t be needing it again.

He was looking for a railway station and a train to London. That was the decision he had made: to get as far away as possible from Yorkshire and never come back. Unfortunately, there was no station. The line to Greater Malling had been closed down years ago, and if he wanted a train he would have to go all the way to York. He found a traffic warden and asked about buses. There were two a day. The next one wouldn’t be leaving until three o’clock. That left three hours to kill.

Matt walked aimlessly down the high street and found himself facing a library – a modern building that already looked down-at-heel, with shabby, pebbledash walls and rusting window frames. He thought for a moment, then went in through a revolving door and up a staircase that was signposted REFERENCE. He found himself in a wide, brightly lit room with about a dozen bookcases arranged along the walls, a bank of computers and an enquiry desk, where a young man sat reading a paperback.

Something nasty, something very dangerous, was going on in the village of Lesser Malling. Somehow it involved many of the villagers, Mrs Deverill, an abandoned nuclear power station and something called Raven’s Gate. It also involved Matt. That was what unnerved him most of all. He had been chosen. He was sure of it. And before he left Yorkshire, he was determined to find out why.

Raven’s Gate. It was the only clue he had, so that was where he decided to begin.

He started with the books in the local history section. The library had about a dozen books on Yorkshire and half of them made brief references to Greater and Lesser Malling. But not one of them mentioned anything by the name of Raven’s Gate. There was one book that seemed more promising and Matt carried it over to a table. It was called Rambles Around Greater Malling and had been written – some time ago to judge from the old-fashioned cover and yellowing pages – by a woman named Elizabeth Ashwood. He opened the book and ran his eye down the contents page. He had found it. Chapter Six was entitled Raven’s Gate.

Matt turned the pages and found Chapter Seven. He went back and found Chapter Five. But Chapter Six wasn’t there. A jagged edge and a gap in the binding told their own story. Someone had torn out the whole chapter. Was it just a random act of vandalism or had it been done deliberately? Matt thought he knew.

But the library offered more than books.

Matt went over to the man at the enquiry desk. “I need to use the Internet,” he said.

“What for?” the librarian asked.

“It’s a school project. We’ve been told to find out something about Raven’s Gate.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Nor have I. That’s why I want to go on the Internet.”

The man pointed and Matt went over to the nearest computer. There was a girl clicking away with the mouse at the next desk but she ignored him. He called up a search engine, then typed in:

RAVEN’S GATE

He remembered the words scrawled on the farmer’s wall in green paint. Once again he saw the dead man, his body torn apart, his eyes wide and empty.

He pressed ENTER.

There was a brief pause and then the screen came up with a list of results. Matt saw that his search had listed over twelve thousand possible sites relating to ravens and to gates, but none of them were even slightly relevant. There was an American football team, the Baltimore Ravens, whose players had walked out of the gate. There was a Golden Gate park, also in America, where birdwatchers had spotted a variety of ravens. Apparently ravens were also nesting in the Kaleyard Gate in Chester. But there was no Raven’s Gate… Not on the first page, not on the second, not even on the third. Matt realized he would have to scroll through all twelve thousand entries. It would take him hours. There had to be another way.

He was about to give up when a pop-up window suddenly appeared on the computer screen. Matt looked at the three words, floating in the white square:

›Who are you?

There was no way of knowing who they had come from.

He didn’t quite know how to answer, so he typed back:

›Who r u?

There was a pause. Then:

›Sanjay Dravid

Matt waited a moment to see what would happen next.

›You have made an enquiry about Raven’s Gate. What is your field of research?

Field of research? Matt didn’t know how to reply. He leant forward and typed again:

›I want to know what it is.

›Who are you?

›My name is Matt.

›Matt who?

›Can you help me?

There was a long pause and Matt began to think that the person at the other end – Sanjay Dravid – had gone away. He was also puzzled. How had Dravid known that he was making the search to begin with? Had his enquiry triggered some sort of alarm on the Net?

Then the window flickered again:

›Goodbye

So that was it. Nothing more happened inside the pop-up window and after a while Matt gave up. He went back to the enquiry desk.

“Yes?” The librarian looked up from his paperback.

“Is there a newspaper office in Greater Malling?”

“A newspaper…?” He considered. “There’s the Gazette. I’d hardly call it a newspaper. They never print any news. Otherwise there’s the Yorkshire Post.”