Anthony Horowitz - Point Blank

A gong sounded. It was seven o’clock. Alex went downstairs and into the dining room. The room had six windows and a polished mahogany table long enough to seat fifteen. But only the three of them were there: Sir David, Lady Caroline, and Fiona. The food had already been served, presumably by a butler or cook. Sir David gestured at an empty chair. Alex sat down.

‚Fiona was just talking about Soloman,' Lady Caroline said. There was a pause. ‚Soloman is a horse. We have lots of horses.' She turned to Alex. ‚Do you ride?'

‚Only my bicycle,' Alex said.

‚I’m sure Alex isn’t interested in horses,' Fiona said. She appeared to be in a bad mood. ‚In fact, I doubt if we have anything in common. Why do I have to pretend he’s my brother? The whole thing is completely—'

‚Fiona…,' Sir David muttered in a low voice.

‚Well, it’s all very well having him here, Daddy, but it is meant to be my Easter vacation.'

Alex realized that Fiona must go to a private school. Her term would have ended earlier than his. ‚I don’t think it’s fair.'

‚Alex is here because of my work,' Sir David continued. It was strange, Alex thought, the way they talked about him as if he weren’t actually there. ‚I know you have a lot of questions, Fiona, but you’re just going to have to do as I say. He’s with us only until the end of the week. I want you to look after him.'

‚But he’s a city boy!' Fiona insisted. ‚He’s going to hate it here. And anyway, how can pretending he’s my brother help you with your supermarkets?'

‚Fiona…' Sir David didn’t want any more argument. ‚It’s what I told you. An experiment.

And you will make him feel welcome!'

Fiona picked up her glass and looked directly at Alex for the first time since he had come into the room. ‚We’ll see about that,' she said.

The week seemed endless. After only two days, Alex was beginning to think that Fiona was right. He was a city boy. He had lived his whole life in London and felt utterly lost, suffocating in the big green blanket of the countryside. The estate went on for as far as the eye could see, and the Friends seemed to have no connection with the real world. Alex had never felt more isolated. Sir David himself had disappeared to London. Lady Caroline did her best to avoid Alex. Once or twice she drove into Skipton—the nearest town—but otherwise she seemed to spend a lot of time gardening or arranging flowers. And Fiona…

She had made it clear from the start how much she disliked Alex. There could be no reason for this. It was simply that he was an outsider, and Fiona seemed to mistrust anything that didn’t belong to the miniature world of Haverstock Hall. She’d asked him several times what he was really doing there. Alex had shrugged and said nothing, which had only made her dislike him all the more.

And then, on the third day, she introduced him to some of her friends.

‚I’m going shooting,' she told him. ‚I don’t suppose you want to come?'

Alex shrugged. He had memorized most of the details in the files and figured he could easily pass as a member of the family. Now he was counting the hours until the woman from the academy arrived to take him away.

‚Have you ever been shooting?' Fiona asked.

‚No,' Alex said.

‚I go hunting and shooting,' Fiona said. ‚But of course, you’re a city boy. You wouldn’t understand.'

‚What’s so great about killing animals?' Alex asked.

‚It’s part of the country way of life. It’s tradition.' Fiona looked at him as if he were stupid.

It was how she always looked at him. ‚Anyway, the animals enjoy it.'

The shooting party turned out to be young and—apart from Fiona—entirely male. Five of them were waiting on the edge of a forest that was part of the Haverstock estate. Rufus, the leader, was sixteen and well built with dark, curling hair. He seemed to be Fiona’s boyfriend.

The others—Henry, Max, Bartholomew, and Fred—were about the same age. Alex looked at them with a heavy heart. They had uniform Barbour jackets, tweed trousers, flat caps, and Huntsman leather boots. They spoke with uniform upper-class accents. Each of them carried a shotgun, with the barrel broken over his arm. Two of them were smoking. They gazed at Alex with barely concealed contempt. Fiona must have already told them about him. The city boy.

Quickly, she made the introductions. Rufus stepped forward.

‚Nice to have you with us,' he drawled. He ran his eyes over Alex, not bothering to hide his contempt. ‚Up for a bit of shooting, are you?'

‚I don’t have a gun,' Alex said.

‚Well, I’m afraid I’m not going to lend you mine.' Rufus snapped the barrel back into place and held it up for Alex to see. It was a beautiful gun, with twenty-five inches of gleaming steel stretching out of a dark walnut stock decorated with ornately carved, solid silver sideplates.

‚It’s an over-and-under shotgun with detachable trigger lock, handmade by Abbiatico and Salvinelli,' he said. ‚It cost me thirty grand—or my mother, anyway. It was a birthday present.'

‚It couldn’t have been easy to wrap,' Alex said. ‚Where did she put the ribbon?'

Rufus’s smile faded. ‚You wouldn’t know anything about guns,' he said. He nodded at one of the other teenagers, who handed Alex a much more ordinary weapon. It was old and a little rusty. ‚You can use this one,' he said. ‚And if you’re very good and don’t get in the way, maybe we’ll let you have a bullet.'

They all laughed at that. Then the two smokers put out their cigarettes and everyone set off into the woods.

Thirty minutes later, Alex knew he had made a mistake in coming. The boys blasted away left and right, aiming at anything that moved. A rabbit spun in a glistening red ball. A wood pigeon tumbled out of the branches and flapped around on the leaves below. Whatever the quality of their weapons, the teenagers weren’t good shots. The animals they managed to hit were only wounded, and Alex felt a growing sickness, following this trail of blood.

They reached a clearing and paused to reload. Alex turned to Fiona. ‚I’m going back to the house,' he said.

‚Why? Can’t stand the sight of a little blood?'

Alex glanced at a hare about fifty feet away. It was lying on its side with its back legs kicking helplessly. ‚I’m surprised they let you carry guns,' he said. ‚I thought you had to be seventeen.'

Rufus overheard him. He stepped forward, an ugly look in his eyes. ‚We don’t bother with rules in the countryside,' he muttered.

‚Maybe Alex wants to call a policeman!' Fiona said.

‚The nearest police station is forty miles from here,' Rufus said with a cold smile.

‚Do you want to borrow my cell phone?' one of the other boys asked.

They all laughed again. Alex had had enough. Without saying another word, he turned around and walked off.

It had taken him thirty minutes to reach the clearing, but thirty minutes later he was still stuck in the woods, completely surrounded by trees and wild shrubs. Alex realized he was lost.

He was annoyed with himself. He should have watched where he was going when he was following Fiona and the others. The forest was enormous. Walk in the wrong direction and he might blunder onto the North Yorkshire moors … and it could be days before he was found. At the same time, the spring foliage was so thick that he could barely see ten yards in any direction. How could he possibly find his way? Should he try to retrace his steps or continue forward in the hope of stumbling on the right path?

Alex sensed danger before the first shot was fired. Perhaps it was the snapping of a twig or the click of a metal bolt being slipped into place. He froze—and that was what saved him. There was an explosion—loud, close—and a tree one step ahead of him shattered, splinters of wood dancing in the air.