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 cafe. 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 our 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
