Necropolis (13 page)

"Scott and I don't like being apart," Jamie said.

"I know that and I'm sorry," Matt said. "It's true that we're stronger together. That's why I want to stay in pairs. Two and two. If anything goes wrong in London, I'll need someone to back us up."

"So why not take Pedro?"

"Because Pedro doesn't know London. He's never been to England."

"Neither have I."

Matt sighed. "Jamie…if you really don't like the idea, I'll go on my own. I don't mind doing that. I just don't think we should all go. That's all. I'm trying to do what's best for everyone."

"And since when did you get to tell everyone what they should do?" Scott demanded. "I thought we were meant to be equal. Who put you in charge?"

There was another long pause. Richard opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. The day was getting warmer as the sun climbed over the mountains, but the atmosphere right then was anything but.

Matt looked across the lawn to the track that led back to the town of Nazca. He had been there a couple of days ago, kicking a ball, waiting for Professor Chambers to get back from the shops. Now she was dead, her house was in ruins, and the four of them were at each other's throats. How could things have gone wrong so quickly?

"Scott, I don't think…" Jamie began.

"Are you on his side?" Scott directed his anger at his brother.

"We're all on the same side," Matt cut in. "And if we turn against each other, we might as well give up."

'You've never been on my side, Matt. You've never trusted me, not from the day I arrived here. Well, you go without me. You can all go without me. I don't care."

Scott got up angrily, knocking his chair over behind him. He didn't even notice. He walked away in the direction of the house and disappeared through the front door. Nobody spoke. Then Jamie stood up. "I'm sorry, Matt," he said. "I'll go and talk to him. He'll be all right."

Jamie followed his brother. That left Richard, Pedro, and Matt. Richard poured a glass of the lemonade.

He offered it to Matt, who shook his head. Richard drank it himself.

"Where do you want me to go?" Pedro asked. "I don't think it is good for us to stay here."

Matt sighed. "I thought you'd go back to Vilcabamba with Tiso and the other Incas," he said. "I was hoping you could spend a bit more time with Scott…" Pedro understood. Scott still needed help after his experiences as a prisoner of Nightrise.

"I'll do what I can," he said. "But Scott has a lot of pain. There are things happening here…" He tapped the side of his head. "I do not understand."

'You were nearly killed last night. He didn't help you."

'Yes. But he and Jamie are very close. Twins. Maybe it is not such a great idea to split them up."

There didn't seem to be anything more to say. Pedro collected the jug and the glasses and carried them in. Richard and Matt were left on their own.

"That went well," Matt said gloomily.

Richard finished his lemonade and set the glass down. "Don't be too hard on yourself," he said. "We're all feeling bad about last night, and Joanna's death. Jamie will talk to Scott. He knows you're doing the best you can. They'll work it out."

"I hope so."

"In just a week, you'll be in Vilcabamba. All of you. You've got the diary now. And despite what happened last night, you all came out of it okay. None of you was badly hurt. I'm sure you've made the right decision, Matt. It's all going to work out."

But Matt wasn't so sure. He twisted round and looked at the house, at the scorched wood, what was left of the roof, and suddenly he was aware that something was wrong, that it didn't quite add up.

If Ramon had been able to find them so easily, why had it taken the Old Ones so long? And if they had wanted the diary back so badly, why hadn't they sent a larger force? Matt had seen the sort of creatures the Old Ones had at their disposal. They had crawled out of the floor of the Nazca Desert…the armed soldiers, the giant animals, the hoards of shape-changers. But they hadn't been there last night.

Was he making the right decision, splitting them up? Or was this what he was meant to do? Was he reacting to decisions that had already been made?

Later that afternoon, two cars came to the house. One would take Pedro and Scott to Arequipa, the famous "White City" in the south of Peru. They would have to stay there overnight before flying to Cuzco. Because of the thin air high up in the Andes, planes were only able to take off and land in the morning. Two of the Incas would go with them and escort them up through the cloud forest to Vilcabamba.

Jamie, Richard, and Matt had a shorter drive to Nazca Airport where a private plane was already waiting to fly them up to Miami. They would wait in Miami until Matt's new passport arrived and then they would cross the Atlantic to England. If things went well, they would only be apart for a few days.

Matt took one last look at the professor's house. The town children would probably raid it in the next few days, stripping it of anything of value. He had been there for a long time. He had almost begun to think of it as his home, but now it was nothing. Burned out. Broken. Empty.

Richard loaded their bags into the trunk.

"Vilcabamba," Matt said.

"Vilcabamba," Pedro agreed.

The two of them shook hands. Scott and Jamie said nothing — but Matt knew that they were communicating even so.

It was all over very quickly. The four boys climbed into their different cars and went their separate ways.

ELEVEN

The Happy Garden

In London, Scarlett Adams was trying to get back to her old life.

The doctors had decided there was nothing wrong with her. The police had asked more questions but had finally given up. Maybe she had suffered from amnesia. Maybe the whole thing about her disappearance had been a prank — but either way, they had better things to do. Even the press had decided to leave her alone. A new president, a man named Charles Baker, had just been elected in the U.

S.A., and according to all the reports, there had been something strange about the way the votes had been counted. It was turning into a huge scandal that left no room in the papers for a girl who had been missing for less than a day.

Just forty-eight hours after he had flown all the way to England, Paul Adams went back to Hong Kong.

Scarlett understood why he couldn't stay with her. He had only recently started his new job, working in the legal department of a huge company involved, amongst other things, in the manufacture of computer equipment and software. It hadn't made a good impression, shooting off to London at such short notice.

He had to get back again.

Back to Nightrise.

Paul Adams took Scarlett out to dinner on his last night at home. The two of them went to a little Italian restaurant that he liked in Dulwich. He ordered half a bottle of wine for himself and a lemonade for her, and the two of them sat facing each other trying to think of things to say. Paul was wearing expensive jeans and a shirt that didn't really suit him. The truth was that he was only really comfortable in a jacket and tie. They were like a second skin to him. Maybe it was his age. He was forty-nine years old, and he had been a lawyer for more than half that time, devoting his life to contracts, complicated reports, and charts. It was hard to imagine what he had been like as a teenager.

"Are you going to be all right, Scarly?" he asked.

'Yes." Scarlett nodded.

Neither of them had spoken very much about St. Meredith's. Paul Adams seemed to have accepted her story. She had fallen ill. She had forgotten whatever had happened. Scarlett wondered why she hadn't confided in him. He had always been kind to her. Why was she lying to him now?

"I'm sorry, Dad," she said.

"There's nothing to be sorry about." Paul Adams paused and sipped his wine. "Do you really have no idea what happened to you?"

"I wish I did."

'You could tell me, you know. I wouldn't be cross with you. I mean, if there's some sort of secret or something you're afraid of…"

Scarlett shook her head. "I told the police everything."

Paul Adams nodded. Then the waiter arrived with spaghetti carbonara for him and a pizza for Scarlett.

There was the usual business with the oversize pepper grinder, the sprinkle of parmesan cheese. At last they were on their own again.

"How's the job going?" Scarlett asked, deliberately changing the subject.

"Oh. It's not too bad." Paul Adams twirled his fork in the spaghetti. "Do you want to come to Hong Kong for the Christmas holidays? I've spoken to your mother, and she's happy for me to have you this year. I'll get a few days off and we can travel together."

"I'd like that," Scarlett said, although she wondered what it would be like, traveling, just the two of them.

They seemed to have grown apart so quickly.

They ate in silence. Paul Adams didn't seem to be enjoying his food. He left half of it, then took off his glasses and began to rub them with his napkin. Looking at him just then, Scarlett thought how old he had become. It wasn't just his hair that was going gray. It was all of him.

"I'm sorry, Scarly," he said. "I'm afraid I've rather let you down, haven't I? If I'd known that Vanessa and I weren't going to stay together…maybe we should have thought twice about adopting a child, although, of course, I'm glad we did. I think the world of you. But it hasn't been fair. Leaving you on your own with Mrs. Murdoch."

"It was my decision," Scarlett reminded him.

"Well, yes. I suppose it was."

"Why do you have to work in Hong Kong?" Scarlett asked.

"It's a wonderful opportunity. Not just the money. Nightrise has offices all over the world, and if I can work my way up the ladder…" His voice trailed off. "I'll only be there a couple of years. I've told them already. Then I want them to transfer me to the London office and we'll be together again."

"Don't worry about me, Dad. I'll be all right."

"Will you, Scarly? I hope so."

He left on the early flight the next day.

Scarlett had already gone back to school — and that hadn't been easy either. The headmistress, a gray-haired woman who looked more severe than she actually was, had made a speech in assembly, telling everyone to leave her alone, but of course they had been all over her, bombarding her with questions, desperate to know where she had really been. Scarlett had been on TV. She was a minor celebrity. Some of the younger girls even asked her for an autograph. On the other hand, some of the teachers had been less than happy to see her —Joan Chaplin in particular. The art teacher had taken some of the responsibility for Scarlett's disappearance, and she in turn blamed Scarlett for that.

The next couple of days passed with the usual routine of lessons and games. There were piles of homework and rehearsals for the Christmas play. Everything had returned to normal — at least, that was what Scarlett told herself. But in her heart, she knew that nothing was really normal at all. Maybe it never would be again.

She had already decided that there was only one person she could talk to and tell the truth about her disappearance. Not her father. Not Mrs. Murdoch. It had to be Aidan. He was her closest friend. He wouldn't laugh at her. She had already texted him, and the two of them met after school and walked home together, taking their time, allowing the other schoolkids to stream ahead.

She told him everything: the door, the monastery, Father Gregory, the escape. She was still talking as they turned into Dulwich Park, opposite the art gallery, taking the long way round, past the playground and across the grass.

"Do you think I'm mad?" she asked when she had finished. There had been times when she had begun to wonder herself. Could it be that the official version of events was actually true? Had she somehow hit her head against a wall and dreamed the whole thing?

"I always thought you were pretty strange," Aidan said.

"But to dream something like that…"

'You don't make it sound like a dream." His eyes brightened. "Hey — maybe we could go back to the church. We could go through the door a second time and see what happened."

Scarlett shuddered. "I couldn't do that."

"Why not? If you went with me, at least it would prove it was true."

"I couldn't go back. They might be waiting for me. They'd grab me, and the whole thing would just start again."

"I'd protect you!"

"They'd kill you. They'd kill both of us."

They had reached the other side of the park and were coming out of the Court Lane Gate on the north side. From here the road cut down to the lights where, two years before, Scarlett had almost been killed.

Scarlett had just turned the corner when she saw the car.

It was a silver Mercedes with tinted windows so that even though she could make out two people inside it, she couldn't see their faces. It was parked on the opposite side of the road, and she might not even have noticed it…except that it was the fourth time she had seen it. It had been in the street that morning, parked outside The Crown and Grayhound when she was on her way to school. Once again, there had been two people sitting inside. It had overtaken her when she was walking to the Italian restaurant with her father. And she had seen it from her bedroom, cruising down the street where she lived. She had made a note of the license plate number. It contained the letters GEN, which just happened to be the first three letters of St. Genevieve's. That was why she remembered it now.

She stopped.

"What is it?" Aidan asked.

"Those two men." She pointed at the car. "They're watching me."

"Scarl…"

"I mean it. I've seen them before."

Aidan looked in their direction. "Maybe they're journalists," he said. 'You're still a mystery. They could be after an interview."

"They've been following me."

"I'll ask them, if you like."

They must have seen him coming or guessed what he had in mind. As Aidan stepped off the sidewalk, the driver started the engine up and tore away, disappearing round the corner with a screech of tires.

Scarlett didn't see the Mercedes again, but that wasn't the end of it. Quite the opposite. It told her something that she had been feeling all along.