The hotel was small and so discreet that it didn’t even have a name on the front door. Richard and Matt both had rooms on the third floor – paid for, of course, by the Nexus. After they’d unpacked, they took the tiny lift back to the ground floor and had an early supper together in the dining room. They were still eating when Mr Fabian appeared, this time in a dark suit with black, brightly polished shoes.
“Good evening,” he said. “I have been asked to take you to the meeting. But you must finish your meal first. We have plenty of time. Do you mind if I join you?”
He drew up a third chair and sat down.
“Is it far from here?” Richard asked.
“No. A short walk.” Fabian was in a good mood. He seemed to have forgotten the way their last meeting had ended.
“Can I ask you something?” Richard asked.
“Please. Go ahead.”
“I know nothing about you. I mean, you once told me you lived in Lima…”
“In fact I live in Barranco. It’s a suburb of Lima.”
“But what do you do? How did you get chosen by the Nexus? Do you have a wife or any children?”
Fabian had raised a finger to his lips at the mention of the Nexus but there was nobody else in the room and he relaxed. “I will answer your questions,” he said. “No. I am not married. Not yet, anyway. As to my work, I’m a writer. I have written many books about my country, its history, its archaeology. That was how I came into contact with the Nexus. I was a good friend of Professor Dravid before he was killed. It was he who recruited me.”
Richard and Matt finished eating. A waiter came into the room to clear away the plates.
“If you’re ready…” Fabian began.
“Lead the way!” Richard replied.
They left the hotel and went down the street, walking for about five minutes before they arrived at a plain, black door set between an estate agent’s and a café. Fabian had a key and unlocked the door, leading them through a narrow hallway and up a flight of stairs. The second floor was more modern than the rest of the building, with doors of dark glass and security cameras. Matt had thought they were entering a private house but the upper level was more like an office. The carpet was thick. The doors were closed. Everything felt silent and secretive.
“It’s through here.” Fabian gestured with a hand and, as if by magic, one of the doors slid open automatically. On the other side was a room with a long table and eleven people sitting together in silence, waiting for them. Fabian went in ahead of them and sat down next to Susan Ashwood. That left two empty chairs.
One for Matt. One for Richard.
“Please, come in.” Matt wasn’t sure who had spoken. All he was aware of was that everyone was looking at him. Matt felt himself beginning to blush. He didn’t like being the centre of attention at the best of times but this was definitely weird. They were staring at him as if he were a film star. He felt that at any moment they were going to break into applause.
Richard walked in. Matt followed and the door closed behind them.
So this was the Nexus! Quickly, Matt weighed up the twelve people sitting around the table. Now that Fabian had joined them, there were eight men and four women. Two of the men were black. One looked Chinese. Their ages ranged from about thirty to seventy. The oldest person in the room was wearing a clerical collar and a crucifix: a bishop. They were all smartly dressed. Matt could imagine them sitting at the theatre together, or perhaps the opera. They shared the same sort of seriousness. None of them were smiling.
The room itself was long and narrow with only one window giving a view over the street. The glass was tinted so that nobody outside could look in. The furniture was quietly expensive but there were no paintings or ornaments, just a number of clocks showing different times and some maps. Matt dropped into the nearest chair, trying to avoid anyone’s eye. But not Richard. He was still standing by the door, looking around him in amazement.
“I know you!” he said. He pointed to a grim-faced man sitting with a straight back and an immaculately cut suit. “You’re a policeman. Tarrant. Isn’t that your name? You’re something high up in New Scotland Yard. I’ve seen you on television.” He turned to the woman who was next to him. Expensively dressed with red hair that was surely dyed. Two strings of pearls around her neck. “And you’re Nathalie Johnson.”
Even Matt knew that name. He had seen it often enough in the papers. She was sometimes called the female Bill Gates. She had made her fortune in computers and was one of the richest women in the world.
“Let’s not bother with names, Mr Cole,” she said. She had an American accent. “Please take a seat and we can get started.”
Richard sat down next to Matt. It was difficult to be sure who was in charge. Miss Ashwood was at the head of the table but there was no obvious leader. It also occurred to him that someone in the room must be new. Fabian had told him that there were twelve members of the Nexus, and sure enough there were twelve men and women here. But Professor Dravid had once been a member of the organization too and he had died. Presumably he had been replaced.
“We are very grateful to you for coming to London, Matt,” another man began. His accent was Australian. He was more casually dressed than the others with an open-necked shirt and rolled-up sleeves. He was about forty, with the pale skin and bloodshot eyes of a man who has spent too many hours on long-distance planes. “We know you don’t want to be here and we wouldn’t have asked you if there was any other way.”
“You must let us protect you,” Miss Ashwood said. Her hands were resting on the table but her fists were clenched. “You were nearly killed at Forrest Hill. That can’t happen. We are here only to help you.”
“I thought it was Matt who was meant to be helping you,” Richard said.
“We’ve got to help each other,” the Australian went on. “There’s a whole lot of things we don’t know, but this much is certain: things are going to get bad. Worse than you can imagine. The reason that the twelve of us are here tonight is because we want to do something about it.”
“About what? What are you talking about?” Richard asked.
“A third world war,” Miss Ashwood said. “Worse than the two wars that preceded it. Governments out of control. Destruction and death all across the planet. We don’t know exactly what form the future will take, Mr Cole. But we think even now that we can prevent it from happening.”
“With your help.” The bishop nodded at Matt.
“Look, let’s get one thing straight,” Richard said. “Matt and I don’t want to know about death and destruction. We’re not interested in world wars. The only help we need is to find somewhere else to live because right now Yorkshire doesn’t seem to be an option and we don’t have anyone else we can turn to.”
“The petrol tanker that drove into your school…?” The policeman had spoken. He left the question hanging in the air.
“It was driven by my aunt,” Matt said. “Gwenda Davis. I saw her behind the wheel.” He shivered. He had known it was her, even as his every sense told him it was impossible. He had never liked her, not in all the years he had known her. But she had never been a monster. Not until the end.
“Your aunt…?” the Australian muttered.
“Yes.”
The information caused a stir in the room. The twelve members of the Nexus muttered briefly to each other and Matt saw Fabian write something down.
“She didn’t know what she was doing,” Susan Ashwood said. “To steal a petrol tanker and somehow find her way to your school … she couldn’t have done it on her own.”
“The Old Ones,” Fabian muttered in a low voice.
“Of course. They helped her. They influenced her. Maybe they forced her. But undoubtedly they were behind it.”
“All right,” Richard cut in. “You want us to go and meet this man … William Morton. Matt’s agreed to that. But I’m telling you now, if it means putting him in any more danger…”
“That’s the last thing in ou
r minds,” the American woman said. She leant forward, her long hair falling over her eyes. She must have been about fifty years old but she had obviously spent a lot of money making herself look younger. “All right, Richard. You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Let’s give it to you straight. We need Matt to meet with this guy William Morton tomorrow at twelve o’clock, because it’s the only way we think we can get him to hand over the diary. But Matt is more important than the diary. Right now, if he really is who we think he is, he’s just about the most important kid in the world.”
“You’ve told Morton that Matt is one of the Five,” Richard said. He was speaking slowly, working it out as he went. “And Morton wants to meet him to see if it’s true. But how’s he going to do that? Is Matt going to have to see into the future or blow something up to prove it?”
“We don’t know,” Nathalie replied. “Remember. He’s read the diary. We haven’t. He may know more than we do.”
“All we know is that he’s afraid,” Miss Ashwood cut in. “He’s afraid of the man he was dealing with in South America. And he’s afraid of what he’s read in the diary itself. William Morton has realized he’s stumbled into something bigger and darker than anything he’s experienced in his life, and he’s looking for a way out.”
“Where does he want to meet me?” Matt asked.
“At first he wouldn’t tell us.” This time it was a Frenchman who had picked up the story. He was slim and grey-haired and looked like a lawyer. “He speaks to us only with his mobile phone and he gives us no idea where he can be found. But now he has mentioned a church, in the city, not so far from here.”
“St Meredith’s in Moore Street,” Miss Ashwood said.
“He will be there at twelve o’clock tomorrow. He will meet with you but with you alone…”
“Matt’s not going in there on his own,” Richard said.
“He tells us that he will be watching out for the boy,” the Frenchman said. “We have not described to him what Matt looks like but it is unlikely that there will be any other fourteen-year-old adolescents near the church at that time. The deal is very simple. If Matt is not alone, Monsieur Morton will disappear. We will never see him again. And whoever it is that he has been dealing with in South America will have the diary.”
“Why this church?” Richard asked. “It seems to be a strange place to meet. Why not a restaurant or a café or something like that?”
“Morton insisted,” Nathalie said. “I guess we’ll find out the answer to that when Matt gets there.”
“Maybe the church is mentioned in the diary,” the bishop suggested. “As it happens, St Meredith’s is one of the oldest churches in the city. In fact, there’s been a church on the site since the Middle Ages.”
“And how can we be sure Matt will be safe there? For all we know, this mysterious South American businessman or whoever he is could have already got to Morton. This could all be a trap.”
“Leave that to me,” the policeman said. Richard had been right. His name was Tarrant and he was an Assistant Commissioner, one of the highest-ranking officers in London. “I’ll have access to the security cameras all around Moore Street. We can’t go into the church, but I’ll make sure there are a hundred officers in the immediate area. One word from me and they’ll move in.”
“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 to
ok 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.”
ST MEREDITH’S
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.
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