Anthony Horowitz - Raven_s Gate

“You’re lying!”

“I won’t have that sort of language in my house, if you don’t mind, young man. It may have been allowed with your aunt in Ipswich, but it won’t do with me!”

“I know what I saw! He was dead in his room and the whole place had been torn apart. I didn’t imagine it. I was there!”

“What would it take to persuade you otherwise? What would it take to make you believe me?”

The telephone rang.

“Exactly on time,” Mrs Deverill said. She didn’t move from her seat but waved with a single hand. “I think you’ll find it’s for you.”

“For me?”

“Why don’t you answer it?”

With a sinking feeling, Matt got up and went over to the telephone. He lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“Matthew – is that you?”

Matt felt a shiver work its way down his spine. He knew it was impossible. It had to be some sort of trick.

It was Tom Burgess.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” the farmer said. No. It wasn’t the farmer. It was the farmer’s voice. Somehow it had been duplicated. “I’m afraid I missed you this morning. I had to go down to a market in Cirencester. I’m going to be away for a couple of weeks but I’ll come round and see you when I’m back…”

Was it Matt’s imagination or had it suddenly become very cold in the living room? The fire was still burning but there was no warmth from the flames. He hadn’t said a word to whoever – or whatever – it was at the other end of the line. He slammed down the phone.

“That wasn’t very friendly,” Mrs Deverill said.

“That wasn’t Tom Burgess.”

“I asked him to call you.” The firelight danced in her eyes. Matt glanced at the portrait and shivered. It was smiling at him, just like the woman who was sitting beneath it. “I thought it was best that he spoke to you himself.”

“How did you…?” Matt began.

But there was no point asking questions. He remembered the roads that led round in impossible circles, the cat that had been shot and come back to life. And now there was a farmer who had been dead but was somehow phoning from Cirencester. Matt was in the grip of a power much stronger than himself. He was helpless.

“I hope this is the end of the matter, Matthew,” Mrs Deverill was saying. “And I think you should be careful before you tell any more of these stories. Anybody who knows anything about you is unlikely to believe you. And I would have said that the last thing you need is to get into any more trouble with the police.”

Matt didn’t hear her. He had stopped listening. Silently he walked upstairs to his room. He was defeated – and he knew it. He undressed, slid under the covers and fell into a restless sleep.

The building was in Farringdon, close to the centre of London. It was two storeys high, Victorian, a survivor in a street which had been bombed in the Second World War and redeveloped ever since. It looked like a private house or perhaps a solicitor’s office. There was a single black door with a letter box, but the only letters that were ever delivered were junk mail. Once a month the doormat was cleared, the letters taken away and burned. Lights came on and off inside the building but they were on time switches. Nobody lived there. Despite the high cost of property in London, for most of the year the building was unused.

At eight o’clock in the evening, a taxi drew up outside and a man got out. He was Indian, about fifty years old, dressed in a suit with a light raincoat draped around his shoulders. He paid the driver and waited until the taxi had driven away. Then, taking a key out of his pocket, he walked over to the door and unlocked it. Briefly, he glanced up and down the pavement. There was nobody in sight. He went in.

The narrow hallway was empty and spotlessly clean. Ahead, a flight of stairs led up to the first floor. The man had not been here for several months and he paused for a moment, remembering the details of the place: the wooden steps, the cream-coloured walls, the old-fashioned light switch next to the banister. Nothing had changed. The man wished he hadn’t come here. Every time he came, he hoped he would never have to return.

He went upstairs. The top corridor was more modern, expensively carpeted, with halogen lighting and a swivelling security camera at every corner. There was another door at the far end, this one made of darkened glass. It opened electronically as the man approached, then closed quietly behind him.

The Nexus had come together again.

There were twelve of them – eight men and four women. They had travelled here from all parts of the world. They only saw each other very occasionally but they were always connected, communicating with each other by phone or email. All of them were influential. They were linked to government, to the secret service, to business, to the Church. They had told nobody that they would be here tonight. Very few people outside the room even knew that their organization existed.

Apart from the table and twelve leather chairs, there was very little else in the room. Three phones and a computer sat next to each other on a long wooden console. Clocks showed the time in London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Beijing and – curiously – Lima, in Peru. Various maps of the world hung on the walls, which, although there was no way of knowing it, were soundproofed and filled with sophisticated surveillance equipment to prevent the room from being bugged.

The Indian man nodded and sat down in the last empty seat.

“Thank you for coming, Professor Dravid.” The speaker was sitting at the head of the table. It was a woman in her late thirties, dressed in a severe black dress and a jacket fastened at the neck. She had a thin, chiselled face and black hair, cut short. Her eyes were strangely out of focus. She didn’t look at the professor as she spoke. She couldn’t look at anyone: she was blind.

“I’m very glad to see you, Miss Ashwood,” Dravid replied. He spoke slowly. His voice was deep, his accent very precise. “As a matter of fact, I was in England anyway. I’m working at the Natural History Museum. But I’m grateful to everyone else for coming. This meeting was called at short notice and I know some of you have travelled a long way.” He nodded at the man sitting next to him, who had flown in from Sydney, Australia. “As you are all aware, Miss Ashwood called me three nights ago, requesting an emergency session of the Nexus. Having spoken with her, I agreed that it was critical we should meet straight away. Again, I thank you for coming.”

Dravid turned to Miss Ashwood. “Tell them what you told me, Miss Ashwood,” he said.

“Of course.” Miss Ashwood glided her hand to a glass in front of her and took a sip of water. “Seven months have passed since we last met,” she began. “At that time I told you that I was aware of a growing danger, a sense that something was very wrong. We agreed that we would continue to monitor the situation, as we have always done. We are the eyes of the world. Although I, of course, have other ways of seeing.”

She paused.

“The danger has become more acute,” she continued. “For weeks now I’ve been thinking I should call you and I’ve spoken several times with Professor Dravid. Well, I can’t leave it any longer. I am certain, in my heart, that our worst fears are to be realized. Raven’s Gate is about to open.”

There was a stir around the table. But several of them were looking doubtful.

“What evidence do you have, Miss Ashwood?” one of the men asked. He was tall and olive-skinned. He had travelled from South America to be here.

“You know my evidence very well, Mr Fabian. You know why I was invited to join the Nexus.”

“Even so… What have you been told?”

“I haven’t been told anything. I wish it were as simple as that. I can only tell you what I feel. And right now, it’s as if there’s poison in the air. I’m aware of it all the time and it’s getting worse. The darkness is coming. It’s taking shape. You have to trust me.”