by Paul Adam
‘Max!’ Helen Cassidy threw her arms wide and hugged him tightly.
Max hugged her back, fighting to hold in the tears. He hated this place. Hated it with a vengeance. He wanted to destroy it, to rip it apart brick by brick with his bare hands for what it had done to his mother.
‘How are you, Mum?’
‘I’m OK. You?’
‘Fine.’
Helen embraced Consuela and sat down with them around the small table. She took Max’s hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m so glad to see you both. It seems ages since your last visit.’
She was looking thinner, Max thought. She’d always been slim, but now she was verging on the scrawny. Her complexion was pale and pasty from the poor prison food, and her hair was getting more and more grey. In her pre-prison days she’d coloured it, but not now. Hair dye wasn’t allowed in Levington.
‘What’ve you been up to?’ Helen said brightly. ‘How’s school?’
‘School’s OK,’ Max replied. ‘But a lot’s happened since I last saw you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’ve been to Santo Domingo.’
Helen frowned. ‘To Santo Domingo? What on earth for?’
‘To find evidence to prove that you’re innocent.’
‘Oh, Max, you’re such an optimist. What evidence? It was two years ago. How can you find evidence now?’
Max took hold of his mother’s hands and gripped them hard. ‘Mum, I want you to prepare yourself for a shock. Dad’s alive.’
Helen stared at him. Her whole body had gone rigid. ‘What?’ Her voice was just a whisper.
‘He’s alive.’
‘Max—’
‘Let me finish, Mum. I found a letter he wrote – there’s other stuff too. But I need to start at the beginning.’
He told her about their trip to Central America, about their ordeal on Shadow Island – everything that had happened. He spoke quietly so they weren’t overheard by the warders patrolling the room, and quickly, one eye on the clock on the wall. He had a lot to say and there wasn’t much time.
Helen was silent when he finished. She didn’t move, just looked at him in astonishment. Then tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Oh, Max,’ she murmured. ‘Is this true? I can’t believe it. Not after all this time.’
‘It’s true,’ Max said.
‘I was there,’ Consuela added. ‘I saw the letter.’
‘You’re sure it was from your dad?’
‘It was his handwriting. It was from him all right.’
‘What did he say? Where is he? What’s happened to him?’
The letter had been taken away by Penhall, but Max had read it so many times he knew every word off by heart. He recited it to his mother as if he had the text there on the table in front of him.
Helen listened, tears pouring down her face. Max didn’t like to see his mother crying, but these were tears of joy. Consuela found some tissues in her bag and passed them to Helen, who dabbed at her eyes and cheeks.
‘He wrote that?’ Helen said hoarsely. ‘Alex said that?’
‘Those were his exact words,’ Max replied.
‘I don’t understand. Where’s he been for the past two years?’
‘I think he’s been seriously ill. The drug he was given, it affects the mind and memory. He wrote me that letter recently, so I think – I hope – he’s getting better, but I don’t know for sure.’
‘Then why hasn’t he come home?’
‘He said in his letter that he had work to do. He’s frightened that if he surfaces, he will be killed.’
‘Who would want to kill him?’
‘The same person who drugged him – Julius Clark.’
‘But why? Why would a wealthy businessman want to kill your father?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ Max said.
He waited a moment. One of the warders was coming past – a big, hefty woman with the build of an Olympic shot-putter. She didn’t give Helen a second glance. The prison staff were used to tears at visiting time: those precious contacts with family and friends were emotional moments for all concerned.
Max lowered his voice. ‘Mum, I need to ask you about Dad.’
‘Ask me what?’
‘About his life. Julius Clark told me that Dad had a secret life; that his travels abroad to do his show were just a cover for other things. But he didn’t say what other things.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Helen said. ‘He didn’t have a secret life. He was an escapologist – you know that.’
‘But was he something else as well?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. A spy perhaps? Spies have covers, don’t they? They pretend to be something they’re not to hide what they’re really doing.’
‘A spy?’ Helen said incredulously. ‘You mean working for MI6, or the CIA, or something like that? Come on, Max.’
‘What did Julius Clark mean then?’
‘I have no idea.’ Helen looked at Consuela, who had been Alexander Cassidy’s stage assistant before she took on the role for Max. ‘You travelled everywhere with him, Consuela. Did you see any evidence of a secret life?’
Consuela shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Of course, I wasn’t with him every hour of the day. We had free time on our trips. We didn’t do the same things. I don’t know what Alex did when I went off shopping or sightseeing.’
‘Well, he did something,’ Max said. ‘He wasn’t just an escapologist. That’s why Clark had him abducted, then injected him with a brainwashing drug. Dad was some kind of threat to him, that’s what I think.’
‘A threat?’ Helen said. ‘In what way?’
‘I don’t know. There are a lot of things I don’t know.’
The hefty warder walked past again. ‘Two minutes!’ she called out.
Max glanced at the clock. He was running out of time and there was still one other thing he had to ask his mum.
‘This Cedar Alliance that Dad mentioned in his letter. Do you know what it is?’
Helen gave him a blank look. ‘No.’
‘Are you sure? He never said anything about it?’
‘Not that I can recall. I’m sorry.’
Max took hold of his mother’s hands once more. ‘We’ll have to go soon, but with any luck we won’t have to do this many more times. Dad’s alive, and I’m going to find him. I’m going to bring him home and get you out of here, Mum.’
Helen was crying again now, but smiling through her tears. All around them, the other visitors were finishing their conversations, getting ready to leave. Max stood up and gave his mother a long hug.
‘He’s alive. Thank God!’ Helen whispered in his ear.
Max pulled away reluctantly. He always found these meetings distressing. His mum had spent the first eighteen months of her sentence in a Santo Domingo jail, but since her transfer to the UK six months ago, Max had come to see her every week. That was twenty-four visits. Each time he left, he felt as if he was abandoning her, leaving nothing behind except pain and loneliness. But this time was different: he was leaving her with hope.
In the afternoon, Max went upstairs to his room to finish off some homework – a history project on the First World War that had been hanging over him for weeks. But he struggled to concentrate on life in the trenches when his mother was foremost in his mind. He could still see her crying, could still feel the touch of her hands, hear the sound of her voice in his ears. The injustice of her situation made him furious.
But before he could get her out of prison, he needed proof that his dad was alive; proof that a court would accept. He had to get his file back from Rupert Penhall.
Max’s mobile rang. He picked it up off the desk. ‘Hello?’
‘Don’t say my name. You know who this is, don’t you?’ a man’s voice said.
Max went rigid. It was Chief Superintendent Richardson. ‘Yes.’
‘We need to meet. Can you make tomorrow evening?’
‘Yes.’
> ‘The same time and place as before. And be careful, Max.’
The line went dead. Max kept the phone in his hand for a few seconds, staring at the illuminated screen. Well, that was short and to the point, he thought. Not the warm, friendly chief superintendent he was used to. But what troubled Max more was not what Richardson had said, nor his uncharacteristically brusque manner, but the underlying tone and implications of the call. Don’t say my name … Be careful, Max. The detective had sounded worried. More than worried. Max wondered whether he had imagined it, but Chief Superintendent Richardson had sounded scared.
EIGHT
Be careful, Max.
The chief superintendent’s words echoed round and round inside Max’s head all the next day. What had Richardson meant? Be careful of what? Be careful of whom? Did he suspect that someone was listening in to the call – that someone might follow them to their meeting and eavesdrop on their conversation?
Max thought about it obsessively at school, trying to work out what he should do. If a senior police officer like Richardson was worried – or even scared – then Max knew that something serious was going on and he had to take every precaution to make sure that their meeting was kept a secret.
During last period – a chemistry lesson in the science laboratories – Max decided to confide in Andy.
‘You’re kidding me?’ Andy said in disbelief, after Max had told him about the bugs in his house, the men out at the front watching his comings and goings.
‘I wish I were,’ Max replied. ‘I’m being spied on. I think they follow me to school and back. That’s why I need your help.’
‘My help? How?’
‘I’ve got a meeting after school, in town. It’s vital that I’m not followed to it. Can you give me cover? You and maybe some of the footie guys? Get me out of the building so no one sees me?’
‘Wow, this is serious stuff, isn’t it?’
Max nodded. ‘You don’t know the half of it. I can’t tell you any more, I’m afraid. I don’t want to put you in danger.’
Andy stared at him. ‘You’re not kidding about that either, are you?’
‘No.’
Andy glanced around the laboratory. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll rope in Sam, Matt, Joe and a few others. I’ll ask Lucy too. She’ll get some of the girls to come along.’
At the final bell Max collected up his books and went down to the school’s front entrance. Eight or nine of his classmates accompanied him. They waited for the crush to build up in the foyer – hundreds of kids all pushing and shoving to get out – then moved off in a group, Max in the middle, the others surrounding him in a protective wall. He ducked down a little, so his head was hidden by his bodyguards as they left the building. Other pupils swarmed around them, all wearing identical black trousers and sweat-tops. If anyone was waiting outside, watching for him to come out, they would have a difficult job identifying him in the seething mass of teenagers.
The crowd surged through the school gates onto the street, splitting up into smaller groups, some going left, some right, some flooding across the road in a stream that was so dense and determined that the traffic was forced to give way to it. Max’s friends stayed in a huddle around him, shielding him from view while they crossed the road, then held their positions to escort him down a side street and into the mouth of a pedestrians-only passage that cut between two houses.
‘You’re in the clear,’ Andy said. ‘Go!’
The cluster of friends broke apart at the front and Max sprinted clear, calling out his thanks as he dashed off along the passage. He was half a mile away before he slowed to a walk. He glanced back at intervals, but he saw no sign of anyone following him.
Ten minutes later, he reached the nearest tube station. Waiting on the platform, he looked carefully at all the other people around him, checking to see if anyone seemed to be watching him. He saw nothing to arouse his suspicions. The people all appeared to be wrapped up in their own affairs – reading the paper, talking to friends. Max noted faces and clothes and anything else he could, filing the information away in his head so that he would recognize these individuals if he saw any of them later in his journey.
Avoiding the more direct route, he went south a few stops before changing from the Northern to the Victoria Line at Euston. Then, at Victoria, he changed trains again and headed east on the Circle Line. At Westminster he got off and did what Chris Moncrieffe had done that day he’d been tailed from the airport – he swapped platforms and went back the way he’d come. At St James’s Park he let all the other disembarking passengers off ahead of him and waited until the doors were just about to close before jumping down onto the platform. He loitered for a few minutes, but saw no familiar faces. As sure as he could be that he wasn’t being followed, he went up to the surface and walked to the café near New Scotland Yard where he’d met Chief Superintendent Richardson the previous Friday.
It was twenty-five past four. The detective wasn’t there yet. Max found a vacant table at the rear of the café and sat down with his back to the wall so that he could watch the entrance. On the dot of four thirty, Richardson came in. He saw Max immediately, but didn’t go across to his table. Instead, he went to the counter and ordered a cup of tea, a Coke and two brownies. While he was waiting to pay, he turned round and surveyed the room. His gaze seemed casual, but Max knew he was taking note of every person in the café – just as Max himself had done when he’d first come in.
‘Hello, Max. How are you?’ Richardson said, putting his tray down on the table and pulling out a chair.
‘I’m fine,’ Max replied.
‘I thought you could probably do with a drink and something to eat. I know how it is with you teenagers – always hungry. My two boys were, anyway.’
‘Thanks. One of your sons is a policeman too, isn’t he?’ Max had a vague recollection of the fact from one of those dinner parties Richardson and his wife had attended at their house a few years earlier.
‘That’s right. Kevin. He’s a detective sergeant in the Met now. Doing well for himself. My other boy’s a teacher at a comprehensive in Nottingham. I don’t envy him. Given a choice between a class of unruly teenagers and a bunch of hardened criminals, I’d choose the criminals every time.’
The chief superintendent seemed friendly enough, but Max detected a certain distance in his manner. He didn’t seem as warm as last time. He wasn’t smiling.
‘Good day at school?’ Richardson asked.
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘How was your journey into town?’
‘That was OK too.’
‘No problems?’
‘No. I did as you advised. I was careful.’
‘How careful?’
‘I changed tube trains a few times, doubled back, kept an eye out for tails. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t followed.’
Richardson broke open a sachet of sugar and added it to his tea. He stirred the drink slowly for a few seconds, then looked straight at Max. ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said softly. ‘But it’s also a little worrying. You seem to know a lot about losing tails. You’re a fourteen-year-old schoolboy, Max. Why would anyone be following you?’
The question made Max uneasy. ‘Well …’ He fumbled for a reply. ‘I suppose it was what you said on the phone. You know, not giving your name, not mentioning the place where we were to meet, telling me to be careful. It made me nervous. Why would you do that? Why would you tell me to be careful?’
The chief superintendent smiled for the first time – a twitch of the lips that came and went in an instant. ‘Answer a question with a question of your own, eh?’ he said. ‘That’s an old tactic for avoiding awkward enquiries.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Max said.
‘I think you do. I’ve been a copper for a long time. Too long, I sometimes think. I’ve interviewed thousands of people – criminals, victims, witnesses. I have a nose for people who have something to hide. Have you got something to hide, Max?’
Max d
idn’t reply. He took a bite of his brownie and drank some Coke to give himself time to think.
Richardson’s mouth twitched again. ‘That’s another old tactic too. You could eat a ton of brownies, drink a thousand bottles of Coke, but at the end of the day I’d still be sitting here waiting for an answer.’
Max swallowed. ‘I don’t have anything to hide.’
‘Don’t you?’ Richardson said. ‘I want you to be straight with me. I can’t help you unless you come clean and tell me what’s going on.’
‘I don’t know what’s going on.’
‘That’s your third evasive reply.’
‘It’s the truth. I don’t know.’
‘Maybe you don’t know everything, but you do know something, don’t you?’ Richardson gazed at him seriously. ‘You’re not sure whether to trust me. Is that it?’ he said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can trust me, Max. I promise you that.’
The detective took a sip of tea and wiped his moustache with the edge of a forefinger. ‘OK, I’ll do you a deal,’ he went on. ‘I’ll tell you what I know, and then, in return, you can tell me what you know. Agreed?’
Max hesitated. Then he nodded. Richardson was helping him. The least he could do was be honest with him. ‘OK.’
‘The search of your house first,’ the chief superintendent said. ‘I’ve made some enquiries and discovered that the warrant was granted to the Met’s Special Branch. Do you know what that is?’
‘Not really.’
‘Special Branch are a sort of political police. They deal with things like terrorism and subversion – people who want to overthrow the state. They work very closely with the Security Service, better known as MI5.’
Max’s mouth went suddenly dry. He gulped down a mouthful of Coke. ‘MI5 are interested in me?’ he asked anxiously.
‘So it would seem.’
‘And Rupert Penhall? How does he fit in?’
‘Mr Penhall is an interesting character. I had great difficulty in finding out anything about him. The only thing I know for certain is that he’s bad news.’
‘Bad news?’ Max repeated.
