Richard was still angry but he suddenly knew something was wrong. “You did it on purpose,” he said. His voice had faltered. “You tried to kill us.”
“Not at all. I just pulled out without looking. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Thank goodness you don’t seem to be seriously hurt.”
By now, Matt and Jamie had joined him. There was nothing they could do for their driver and they left him, unconscious in the front seat. Jamie stared at the man and the colour drained out of his face. He knew at once what he was looking at. It was the last thing he had expected to find here.
“Matt…” he whispered. “He’s a shape-changer.”
Matt didn’t doubt him. Jamie had met shape-changers when he had gone back in time. Shape-changers were able to take on human form but it didn’t suit them. It didn’t quite fit. One of them, an old man who had suddenly become a giant scorpion, had almost killed him at the fortress at Scathack Hill. He knew what he was talking about. And Matt could see it for himself. Everything about the BMW driver was fake, even the way he stood there, stiff and unnatural, like a dummy in a shop window. The words he was saying could have been written out for him, on a script.
“I’m insured,” he continued. “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. It was my fault. No doubt about it.”
Richard stared. None of them knew quite what to do. Barely a minute had passed since the collision but already other people were arriving on the scene. A bus, on its way to Brixton, had pulled up and the driver was climbing out of his cabin, coming over to help. Two more cars had stopped further up the road. Matt had seen a taxi pull out of Ardbeg Road and thought it might be coming their way, but it had already turned off and driven away.
They couldn’t risk a fight. They were in the middle of a suburban, South London street. If they challenged the shape-changer, if he decided to drop his human form, all hell would break loose. And already the police had arrived. A squad car turned the corner and pulled over. Two officers got out.
“Good afternoon, officers.” The BMW driver was pretending that he was pleased to see them. “Glad you’re here. We’re in a bit of a pickle.”
His language was as fake as the rest of him and for just a few seconds, Matt was tempted to take him on, to show the entire crowd what was really happening here. He could use his own power. Without so much as moving, he could tear a strip of metal off the shattered car and send it flying into him. There were a dozen witnesses on the scene. How would they react when the blushing, curly-haired BMW driver turned into a half-snake or a half-crocodile and bled green blood? Maybe it was time to show the world the war that was about to engulf it.
It was Richard who stopped him.
“No, Matt.”
He must have seen what Matt was thinking because he muttered the two words under his breath, never taking his eyes off the man who was standing in front of them. Matt understood. For some reason, the shape-changer was playing with them. It was pretending that this was just an ordinary accident. If he took it on, if he began a fight here in the street, innocent people might get hurt. And he was in England with a fake passport and a false name. This was the wrong time to be answering questions. Right now he had everything to lose.
“I’m so very sorry,” the shape-changer said.
“I saw what happened!” the bus driver exclaimed. He nodded at the BMW driver, his face filled with outrage. “He pulled out at fifty miles an hour. He didn’t look. He didn’t signal. It was all his fault.”
“Is anyone hurt?” one of the policeman asked.
“Our driver,” Richard said.
The right-hand side of the Jaguar had taken the full force of the impact and it looked as if the driver had suffered a broken arm. He was only semi-conscious and in pain. One of the policemen helped him out and laid him on the pavement and they waited about fifteen minutes for an ambulance to arrive. Meanwhile the other officer began questioning the BMW driver – “Mr Smith”. He had no ID.
“I was on my way to Chislehurst. I’m a piano teacher. I pulled out without looking. I can’t tell you how dreadful I feel…”
Matt watched as they breathalysed him and it almost made him smile, seeing him blow into the machine. His breath wasn’t human and if he’d drunk a crate of whisky it was unlikely that it would register. Meanwhile, their driver was loaded into an ambulance and driven off to hospital. Thirty minutes or more had gone by and Richard was desperate to be on his way, but the police weren’t having any of it. They would have to take a statement. Will you come with us to the station, sir? There was no way out. Richard, Matt and Jamie were driven away.
It was almost four o’clock by the time the police finished with them. Even if they had wanted to go to Heathrow, it would have been too late. Scarlett would already be in the air, on her way to Hong Kong.
They left the police station and dropped into a local cafe but Matt refused the offer of a drink. He was angry and depressed. The Old Ones were out-manoeuvring him at every turn. They seemed to know exactly what he was going to do and the trap they had set had been childishly simple. He didn’t mention the taxi that he had seen pulling out of Ardbeg Road, but it had already occurred to him that Scarlett might well have been inside it. Their paths had finally crossed … but seconds too late.
“Let’s go to her house,” Matt suggested.
“Why?” Richard didn’t even look up from his tea.
“I don’t know. She could still be there. But even if she isn’t, now that we’ve come this far…”
Neither Richard nor Jamie spoke.
“I’d just like to see where she lives,” Matt said.
The three of them walked back to Ardbeg Road. It reminded Matt a little of the street where he had once lived. All the houses were terraced with bay windows, neat front gardens and shrubs to hide the wheelie bins. Scarlett’s was about halfway down.
They rang the bell, not expecting it to be answered, but after about half a minute the door opened and they found themselves being examined by a short, stern-looking woman with black hair tied back and eyes that seemed to be expecting trouble.
“Yes?” she said. She had a Scottish accent.
“We’re looking for Scarlett Adams,” Matt said.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed her. She left this morning.”
Richard moved forward. “Do you live here?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m the housekeeper. Are you friends of Scarlett’s?”
“Not exactly,” Matt said. “We’ve just arrived from America. We were hoping to see her.”
“That’s not going to be possible. She’s going to be out of the country for a while.”
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“It could be a week or two. I’m very sorry, if you’d been here just a few hours ago, you’d have caught her. Do you want to leave a message?”
“No, thank you.”
“Right.”
The woman closed the door.
And that was it. There was nothing more to be done. For a moment, nobody spoke. Then Richard sighed. “Anyone fancy a trip to Hong Kong?” he said.
PUERTO FRAGRANTE
Originally, there had been twelve members of the Nexus – the organization that existed only to fight the Old Ones. Professor Sanjay Dravid had been the first to be killed, stabbed at the Natural History Museum the same night that he had met Matt. Later on, a man called Fabian had also died. That just left ten – powerful people who lived in America, Australia, Europe … all over the world.
They had all flown in to meet Matt and Jamie and at half past seven that evening they came together in the secluded, wood-panelled room which was their London base.
The building, which the Nexus owned, stood between two shops and there was nothing, no name or other marking, to suggest that it was anything but a private house. The room itself, up on the first floor, was equally plain. It could have been the meeting place of some small business, perhaps a firm of expensive solicitors. There didn’t seem to be much there – jus
t a long table with thirteen antique chairs, a handful of telephones and a computer and a lot of clocks showing the time all over the world. But the glass door that slid open automatically and then hissed shut, sealing itself as the ten men and women came in, suggested that there might be more to the place than met the eye. A sophisticated camera blinked quietly in the corridor. And the Nexus arrived one at a time, each one entering a different six-digit code before they were allowed in.
Matt wasn’t looking forward to seeing them again. He knew that they were supposed to be on his side, but even so he felt a certain dread entering the room. It was like facing ten head teachers at the same time, knowing he was about to be expelled. There were only two people there who he felt he knew. He had met Susan Ashwood, the medium, at her home near Manchester, and although he had thought she was completely mad, at least he was fairly sure that her heart was in the right place. And he had got to know Nathalie Johnson in the past few months. She was the American computer billionaire who had helped Scott and Jamie and she had travelled down to Nazca a couple of times to make sure they were all right.
But that still left eight strangers. There was an Australian, broad and bullish with a round face and close-cropped hair. His name was Harry Foster and he owned a newspaper empire. Next to him, there was a bishop who dressed like a bishop and talked like a bishop but who hadn’t actually told Matt his name. He was about sixty years old. Tarrant, the senior policeman who had helped put taps on Scarlett’s phone, was at the head of the table, dressed in a smart blue and silver uniform.
Among the others, Matt had noted a Frenchman in an expensive suit, a small Chinese man who was continually rubbing his hands, a German who was something big in politics and two others who had made no impression on him at all. They might all be world leaders. But tonight they just looked tired and scared.
Richard, Jamie and Matt had taken their places at the table, bunched together at one end. The three of them were in a gloomy mood. Scarlett Adams, the fifth Gatekeeper, had turned up in London and they had flown thousands of miles to see her. But she had slipped through their fingers and even as they sat there, she would be thirty thousand feet up in the air. Every word that they spoke, every second that passed, only carried her further away.
“We made a mistake.” Nathalie Johnson came straight to the point. “We knew who she was. We knew where she lived. We should have approached her ourselves.”
“It was my fault,” Susan Ashwood said. “I didn’t want to frighten her. I thought it would be easier for her if she heard it all from you.” She turned to Matt. “I hoped you’d be here sooner. I didn’t realize we’d have to wait for the new passports.”
“I thought you had people watching her,” Matt cut in. “Weren’t there two private detectives or something?”
“They were ex-policemen,” Tarrant said. “Duncan and McKnight. Good men, both of them. I’d worked with them before.” He paused. “Scarlett may have caught sight of them. They were parked in a car outside a park in Dulwich and they had to be more careful after that. They kept their distance. But they were still on top of the case. Until last night…”
“What happened” Richard asked.
“They’ve both disappeared. Vanished without a trace. I’ve tried to contact them but with no luck. I have a feeling they may have been killed.”
There was a brief silence while the rest of the room took this in. It was obvious to all of them that they had underestimated the Old Ones. From the moment Scarlett had been identified, they had been running rings around the Nexus.
“So why has she gone to Hong Kong?” Matt asked.
“Her father is there,” Tarrant replied. “He’s a lawyer. He works for the Nightrise Corporation.”
“Nightrise?” Jamie spoke for the first time. Jet lag had hit him badly and he was exhausted. He’d only managed to keep himself awake with a black coffee and a can of Red Bull. “They’re the people who came after Scott and me. Are you saying her dad is one of them?”
“Nightrise is a legitimate business,” Nathalie Johnson reminded him. “They have offices all over the world. They employ hundreds of people. The vast majority of them probably have no idea who – or what they’re working for.”
“Even so…”
“We don’t know, Jamie. His name is Paul Adams. He’s divorced. He and his wife adopted Scarlett fifteen years ago and as far as we can tell, he doesn’t know anything about the Old Ones.”
“So what do we do now?” Richard asked. “Scott and Pedro are still in Peru. Matt and Jamie are here. And Scarlett will soon be in Hong Kong. The one thing we know is that we have to get the five Gatekeepers together. How are we going to do that?”
“You may have to follow her there.”
It was the bishop who had spoken and the other members of the Nexus nodded. But for his part, Matt wasn’t so sure. He knew nothing about the city except that some of the toys he’d played with when he was younger had been manufactured there. MADE IN HONG KONG: it had always been a sign that they would probably break five minutes after they came out of the packaging. Certainly, he had no desire to go there. He had flown enough for one week.
“If I may…” The Chinese man had a soft, very cultivated voice. He hadn’t spoken until now. He was small, with heavy, plastic glasses and an off-the-peg suit. Perhaps he adopted this sort of appearance on purpose. It was as if he didn’t want to be noticed. “My name is Mr Lee,” he said, bowing his head towards Matt. “If you are thinking of making the journey to Hong Kong, I may be able to help you. I have connections throughout Asia and especially in that area. However, I would like to make one observation if I may.”
He waited for someone to speak against him, as if he was nervous that there might be someone at the table who didn’t want to hear what he had to say. When nobody protested, he went on.
“There is something very strange happening in Hong Kong,” he began. “I know the place well. In fact, I was there – passing through – just a week ago. On the face of it, there is nothing I can put my finger on. Life continues as normal. Business is done. Tourists arrive and leave. But there is something in the city that makes no sense. How can I put it? There is an atmosphere there that is not pleasant. Friends of mine who live there, people I have known for many years, seem to be in a hurry to leave and when I ask them why, they are afraid to say. And those who remain are nervous.”
“The Old Ones are there,” Susan Ashwood said, as if she had known all along. She worked as a medium, talking to ghosts. Matt wondered if they had told her.
“That is what I believe, Miss Ashwood,” Mr Lee agreed. “It is hardly a coincidence. Nightrise is based in Hong Kong. It is quite possible that much of the city is now in the control of the Old Ones. And if that is the case, then the moment this girl, Scarlett Adams, arrives there, it will be as if she is in prison and none of us will be able to reach her.”
“We have to reach her,” Richard said. “If we don’t, we might as well all pack up. There have to be five Gatekeepers.”
“Then we have to get her out of there – and that means following her. We have failed here in London. Maybe Matthew and Jamie will have more success over there.”
“You want to send the two of them to Hong Kong?”
“They have certain powers, Mr Cole, which may be of use to them.” Mr Lee nodded. “Yes. In my opinion they must find a way to enter the city, but without the Old Ones knowing they are on their way.”
“The two of them travelled here with false names and false ID,” Tarrant said. He sounded disapproving. “They can use them again.”
“Absolutely.” The Australian, Harry Foster banged a fist on the table. “They could be on the next flight out of here. There must be fifty thousand people a day flying in and out of Hong Kong. Who’s going to notice a couple of kids in a crowd like that?”
“I don’t agree.” Susan Ashwood shook her head. “If Mr Lee is correct and the Old Ones are there, it would be complete madness to attempt to go in by air. Matt and J
amie would be seized the moment they stepped off the plane … and I don’t care how many people there are at the airport.”
“I have an office in Hong Kong,” Harry Foster said. “I could look in there on my way back to Australia. Why don’t you let me try and find her? I can explain what’s going on and she – and her father, for that matter – can leave with me. I’ll take them down to Sydney and you can pick them up there.”
“I think it’s too dangerous,” Mr Lee said.
“Well, at least I can get a message to her. Let her know the score.” The Australian took out a pad and scribbled a note to himself. “A letter to warn her that she’s in danger. I can get someone in my Hong Kong office to deliver it by hand.”
“I think we have to be very careful,” Susan Ashwood said. “We all know what happened today. The Old Ones were waiting outside her house in Dulwich. They knew Matt was on his way and they were determined to stop him.” She glanced at Tarrant. “You had two men watching Scarlett and now you say they may have been killed. How many more mistakes do we have to make before we realize what we’re up against?”
“Then maybe it’s time to use one of the doors,” Richard said.
He had the diary and he slid it onto the table in front of him. All ten members of the Nexus stared at it. Only a few months before, they had been prepared to spend two million pounds to get their hands on it and here it was, right in front of them. They wanted to reach out and touch it. And yet at the same time they were afraid of it, as if it was a snake that might bite.
“I’ve been trying to work this out ever since Ramon brought it to us,” Richard went on. “I’ve read bits of it, though I won’t pretend I’ve understood very much … even with a Spanish dictionary and a magnifying glass. But there is one thing we do know. Twenty-five doors were built around the world for the Gatekeepers to use. They all connect with each other and they can all be found in sacred places. One of them is in St Meredith’s. When Matt went through it, it took him directly to the Abbey of San Galgano in Tuscany.”
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