Everything that had happened in the last few days had done so against his wishes. And what happened next would be the same. There was no way out for him. He had to get used to it. There were strange forces all around him and they were never going to let him go.
Ten thousand miles away, a man was approaching his desk.
It was the middle of the afternoon here in the town of Ica, south of the Peruvian capital of Lima. Peru was six hours behind Britain. The sun was shining brilliantly and as the room was open to the elements, with a tiled floor that stretched past a row of pillars into the courtyard, the entire room was flooded with light. High above, a ceiling fan turned slowly, not actually cooling anything but giving the illusion that it might. The man could hear the gentle sound of water splashing. There was an old fountain in the courtyard. A few chickens pecked at the gravel. Flowers grew everywhere and their scent hung heavily in the air.
The man was fifty-seven years old, dressed in a white linen suit that hung off him stiffly, as if it was still in the wardrobe. He moved slowly and with difficulty, reaching out with his hands to find his chair and lower himself into it.
His body was all wrong.
He was unnaturally tall – well over six feet – but what gave him his extra height was his head, which was twice as long as it should be. It was huge, with eyes so high up that on anyone else, they would have been in the middle of the forehead. He had a few tufts of hair that were really no colour at all, but mainly he was bald, with liver spots all over his skin. His nose extended all the way down to his mouth, which was too small in relation to everything else. A child’s mouth in an adult face. A muscle twitched in the side of his neck as he moved. The neck was obviously struggling to hold up such a great weight.
The man’s name was Diego Salamanda, and he was the chairman of one of the largest companies in South America. Salamanda News International had built an empire with newspapers and magazines, TV stations, hotels and telecommunications. Some people claimed that SNI owned Peru. And Diego Salamanda was the sole owner, the chairman and single stockholder of SNI.
His head had been stretched quite deliberately. It was a practice from more than a thousand years before. Some of the ancient tribes of Peru had selected newly born babies whom they believed to be “special” and had forced them to live with their heads sandwiched between two wooden planks. This was what caused the abnormal growth. It was supposed to be an honour. Salamanda’s parents had known that their baby was special, so they had done the same to him.
And he was grateful to them.
They had caused him pain. They had made him hideous. They had prevented him from ever enjoying a normal human relationship. But they had been right. They had recognized his talents the very day he was born.
The telephone rang.
Still moving slowly, Salamanda reached out and took the receiver. It looked slightly ridiculous, far too small, as he held it against his ear.
“Yes.” He didn’t need to give his name. This was a private number. Only a handful of people had it. And they would know whom they were calling.
“It’s at twelve o’clock tomorrow,” the voice at the other end said. “He’s going to be at a church in London. St Meredith’s.”
“Very good.” Both of them were speaking in English. It was the language that Salamanda used for all his business.
“What do you want me to do?” the voice asked.
“You have done enough, my friend. And you will be rewarded. Now you can leave it to me.”
“What will you do?”
Salamanda paused. An ugly light shimmered in his strangely colourless eyes. He didn’t like being asked questions. But he was in a generous mood. “I will take the diary and kill Mr Morton,” he replied.
“And the boy?”
“If the boy is there, then of course I will kill him too.”
ST MEREDITH’S
The church was beyond Shoreditch, in a forgotten backwater of London that really wasn’t likeyou are
London at all. At school, Matt had learned about the Blitz – when German bombers had destroyed great chunks of the city, particularly in the East End. What the teachers hadn’t told him was that the blank spaces and rubble had been replaced with modern, concrete office blocks, multistorey car parks, cheap, tacky shops and – cutting between them – wide, anonymous highways that carried an endless stream of traffic with a lot of noise but not a great deal of speed.
He had been brought here by taxi, dropped off at the end of Moore Street, which turned out to be a grubby lane running between a pub and a launderette. The church stood at the bottom end, looking sad and out of place. It had been bombed too. A new steeple had been added at some time in the last twenty years and it didn’t quite match the stone pillars and arched doorways below. St Meredith’s was surprisingly large and at one time must have been quite grand, standing at the centre of a thriving community. But the community had moved on and the church looked forlorn and slightly abandoned.
Once again, Matt wondered why the bookseller, William Morton, had chosen this place for their meeting. But at least they would have no difficulty recognizing each other. There were few people around – and certainly no sign of the hundred armed policeman that the Assistant Commissioner had promised. As Matt made his way down the lane, the door of the pub opened and a bearded man with a broken nose stepped unsteadily out. It was only twelve o’clock but he was already drunk. Or perhaps he was still hung over from the night before. Matt quickened his pace. There was a mobile phone in his pocket and Richard Cole was only a few minutes away if he needed help. Matt wasn’t afraid. He just wanted to get this over with and go back to ordinary life.
He walked up to the front door of the church, wondering if he would even be able to get in. The door was very solid and somehow gave the impression of being locked. He reached out and lifted the handle. It was cold and heavy in his hand. It turned reluctantly, with a creaking sound. The door swung open and Matt stepped forward, passing from bright daylight to a strange, shadow-filled interior. The sun was shut out. The sound of the traffic disappeared. Matt had left the door open but it swung closed behind him. The boom of the wood hitting the frame echoed through the empty space.
He was standing at the end of the nave, which stretched out to an altar some distance away. There were no electric lights in the church and the stained glass windows were either too dusty or too darkly coloured to let in any light. But there were about a thousand candles illuminating the way forward, flickering together in little crowds, gathered round the chapels and alcoves that lined the sides of the building. As Matt’s eyes got used to the gloom, he made out various figures, older men and women, kneeling in the pews or hunched up in front of the tombstones, looking like ghosts that had somehow drifted up from the catacombs below.
He swallowed. He was liking this less and less and he wished now that he had insisted on Richard coming with him. The journalist had wanted to, but Fabian and the other members of the Nexus had dissuaded him. Matt was to enter alone. That was what they had agreed with William Morton and if they broke faith, they may never see him again.
Matt looked around but there was no sign of the bookseller. He remembered the face he had seen on the DVD. At least he would know what he looked like when Morton chose to reveal himself. Where was he? Hiding somewhere in the shadows, perhaps. Well, that made sense. He would check that Matt was alone. If someone had come with him, there would be other ways out of the church. Morton could slip away without ever being seen.
Matt continued down towards the altar, passing a carved wooden pulpit shaped like an eagle. The priest would address the congregation from above its outspread wings. The walls of the church were lined with paintings. A saint shot full of arrows. Another broken on a wheel. A crucifixion. Why did religion have to be so dark and cruel?