Necropolis (17 page)

"How many nights?" she asked.

"We're not sure," Richard said.

"Two rooms. I see they've been prepaid…"

The telephone rang. The receptionist plucked the receiver as if it were an overripe fruit and held it to her ear. "The Tannery Hotel," she said. A moment's silence. Her eyes fluttered and she handed the phone to Richard. "It's for you, Mr. Cole."

Richard took the phone. Whatever he was hearing, it wasn't good news. He muttered a few words, then put the phone down.

"What is it?" Matt asked.

"Scarlett Adams…She's leaving London."

"What?" Matt couldn't believe what he had just said. "Where's she going?"

"We can still catch her." Richard looked at his watch. "She's going to Hong Kong. She's booked on the three-thirty flight…"

"Not back to Heathrow!" Jamie groaned.

"No." Richard weighed up the options. He was finding it hard to concentrate. He needed a shave more than ever, and his eyes were red with jet lag. "We can't intercept her at Heathrow," he said. "It's too public. She's never met us. She might not even want to talk to us. But her taxi isn't collecting her until midday. We can reach her before she leaves."

The decision had been made. The three of them dumped their luggage with the receptionist, turned round, and walked out again. Fortunately, the driver was still waiting. Richard went up to him and told him where they wanted to go. The driver didn't argue. Matt and Jamie got back in again.

They hadn't even seen their rooms. The next moment they were off again, threading their way through Farringdon and down to Blackfriars Bridge. It was now approaching the lunch hour, and London had changed. Although they had made good progress from the airport, the traffic had snarled up. Every traffic light was red. It felt as if the entire city had turned against them.

"Who was it on the phone?" Matt asked.

"Susan Ashwood. She's already in London."

Miss Ashwood was a medium who also happened to be blind. Matt had first met her in Yorkshire, and it had been she who had introduced him to the Nexus.

"How did she know?" Matt asked.

"The Nexus are still bugging Scarlett's phone. They had two people following her too…"

It didn't look as if they were going to make it. The whole of South London had become one long traffic jam. The car crossed Tower Bridge — giving Jamie a quick glimpse of the River Thames and St. Paul's

— but after that, the city just felt drab and overcrowded with an endless stretch of cheap shops and restaurants punctuated by new office developments that would have looked out-of-date the moment they were built. Bermondsey, Walworth, Camberwell…they crawled from one district to the next without ever noticing where one ended and the next began, and all the time they were aware of time ticking away. Half past eleven, twenty to twelve…they didn't seem to be getting any nearer.

"This is hopeless," Richard said. "Maybe we'd better go to Heathrow after all."

The driver shook his head. "We're nearly there," he said.

They dropped down a steep hill — Dog Kennel Hill, it was called — and, looking out of the window, Matt began to feel something very strange. He had never visited this part of London — he was sure of it.

And yet, at the same time, he knew where he was. He glimpsed a radio mast in the distance, a road sign pointing to King's College Hospital. They meant something to him. He had been here before.

And then it hit him. Of course he knew this part of the city. He had lived here — from the time when he was a baby to when he had been about eight years old.

He should have remembered it. It hadn't been that long ago. But perhaps he had blocked it out. It wouldn't have been surprising after everything he had been through. Now it all came flooding back. The mast belonged to Crystal Palace. He had often played football there. He had gone into the hospital on his seventh birthday with suspected food poisoning. He remembered sitting miserably in the waiting room with a plastic bowl balanced on his knees. They drove past a very ordinary house, but Matt knew at once who lived there. It was a boy named Graham Fleming who had been his best friend at school. The two of them had always thought they would be inseparable.

Matt wondered if he was still living there. What would he say if the two of them met now?

And there was something else he remembered. If he went past Graham's house, turned the corner, and walked past the old scout hut, he would come to a small, terraced house in a leafy street where all the houses were small and terraced. Number 32. It would have a green door and — unless they'd finally mended it — a cracked front step. That was where he had once lived.

"How much farther?" Richard asked.

The driver glanced at the GPS. "We're a minute away," he said.

They went through a traffic light at a busy junction, then drove up toward North Dulwich station, turning onto Half Moon Lane, which was just opposite. Matt felt dazed. It was extraordinary to think that for half their lives, he and Scarlett had almost been neighbors. They might have passed each other a dozen times without even knowing it. She lived on Ardbeg Road, which was the next on the left, and just for a moment, the way ahead was clear. The driver accelerated, glad to be able to use the Jaguar's power.

"Look out!" Richard shouted.

A car shot out from a private driveway and smashed right into them.

Matt saw everything. He heard the roar of an engine, and that made him turn his head. The car was coming straight at them. The driver was staring at them, his hands clenched on the wheel, not even trying to avoid them. He was middle-aged, clean-shaven — and there was no emotion in his face. He should have been scared.

He should have been showing some sort of reaction, knowing what was about to happen. But there was nothing at all.

Half a second later, there was a huge crash of metal against metal as he smashed into them.

The other car was an SUV, and it was like being hit by a tank. The Jaguar was swept off the road, the world tilting away as it was hurled toward a wide, modern house with a short driveway sloping steeply down to the front door. There was a second collision as it hit the door, more crumpling metal. The house alarm went off. Jamie cried out as he was thrown sideways, his head hitting Matt's shoulder. Matt tasted blood and realized that he had bitten his tongue. The Jaguar was lying at an angle, almost underneath the front wheels of the BMW, which was still on the road above them. Both the windows on the driver's side had shattered. The engine had cut out.

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Richard swore — which at least meant he was alive. He twisted round in the front seat. "Are you two all right?" he asked.

"What happened?" Jamie groaned.

"An accident," Richard said. "Idiot…wasn't looking where he was going."

He was wrong — Matt knew that already. He had seen what had happened. The BMW driver had been waiting for them, knowing they would come this way. Why else would he have shot out like that, slamming straight into them? Matt had seen him, gripping the wheel. He had known exactly what he was doing.

Richard was already out of the car.

"Wait…" Matt said.

But Richard hadn't heard. He staggered up onto the road, only now becoming aware that he was in pain.

There were no cuts or bruises, but, like all of them, he had suffered from whiplash. "What the hell do you think you were doing?" he demanded when he got to the SUV.

The driver had gotten out and was standing in the road. He was a middle-aged man, well built, wearing a long black coat and leather gloves. His mouth was soft and flabby, with small teeth, like a child's. His skin was very pink. His head was almost perfectly round, like a soccer ball. He had curly hair.

"I'm so terribly sorry," he said. "I didn't see you. I was in a hurry. I hope none of you are hurt."

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 Richard. They had left their driver where he was, recovering from the shock of the accident. Jamie stared at the SUV driver, and the color 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…" Jamie 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 quite fit. One of them, an old man who had suddenly become a giant scorpion, had almost killed Jamie 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 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 farther 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 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, chaos 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 the man.

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 Matt 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 officers asked.

"Our driver is in shock," Richard said.

The right-hand side of the Jaguar had taken the full force of the impact, and it looked as if the driver might have also broken his arm. He was only semiconscious and in pain. One of the officers 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 Breathalyzed him, and it almost made him smile, seeing the man blow into the machine. His breath wasn't human, and if he'd drunk a crate of whiskey, it was unlikely that it would register. Meanwhile their driver was loaded into an ambulance and driven off to the 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 down at the station.

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.

Richard had called the Nexus to let them know; he hoped they would be able to catch her in time.

They left the police station and dropped into a local café, but Matt refused the offer of a drink. He was angry and depressed. The Old Ones were outmaneuvering 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 trash cans. 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 tied-back black hair 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."