Necropolis (7 page)

Scarlett had begun to realize that she was in trouble almost from the moment she found herself back in St. Meredith's, sitting opposite the policeman, who had immediately launched into a series of questions.

"Where have you been?" he asked again.

Scarlett was still in shock, thinking about her narrow escape from Father Gregory. She pointed at the door with a trembling finger. "There…"

"What do you mean?" The policeman was young and out of his depth. He had already radioed for backup, and an ambulance was on the way. Even so, he was the first on the scene. There might even be a promotion in this. He took out a notebook and prepared to write down anything Scarlett said.

"The monastery," Scarlett muttered. "I was in the monastery."

"And what monastery was that?"

"On the other side of the door."

The policeman walked over to the door and opened it before Scarlett realized what he was going to do.

At the last minute, she screamed at him, a single word.

"Don't!"

She had visions of Father Gregory flying in, dragging her back to her cell. She was sure the nightmare was about to begin all over again. But the policeman was just standing there, scratching his head. There was no monastery on the other side of the door, no monks —just an alleyway, a brick wall, a line of trash cans. It was drizzling — gray, London weather. Scarlett looked past him. She couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

And that was when she knew that she was going to have to start lying. How could she explain where she had been and what had really happened to her? Magic doors? Psycho monks in Ukraine? People would think she was mad. Worse than that, they might decide that the whole thing had been a schoolgirl prank.

She would be expelled from St. Genevieve's. Her father would kill her. She had to come up with an answer that made sense.

The next forty-eight hours were a nightmare almost as bad as the one she had left behind. More policemen and paramedics arrived, and suddenly the church was crowded with people all asking questions and arguing amongst themselves. Scarlett didn't seem to be hurt, but even so, she was wrapped in a blanket and whisked off to the hospital. Somehow, the press had already found out that she was back. The street was jammed with photographers and journalists threatening to mob her as she was bundled into the ambulance, and there were more of them waiting when she was helped out on the other side. All Scarlett could do was keep her head down, ignore the flashes of the cameras, and wish that the whole thing would be over soon.

Mrs. Murdoch was called to the hospital and stayed with Scarlett as she was examined by a doctor and a nurse. The housekeeper looked shell-shocked. It was obvious that nothing like this had ever happened to her before. The doctor took Scarlett's pulse and heart rate and then asked her to strip down to her underwear.

"Where did you get these?" He had noted a series of scratches running down her back.

"I don't know…" Scarlett guessed that she had been hurt in her final confrontation with Father Gregory, but she wasn't going to talk about that now. She was pretending that she was too dazed to explain anything.

"How about this, Scarlett?" The nurse had found blood on her school jersey. "Is this your blood?"

"I don't think so."

The jersey was placed in a bag to be handed over to the police for forensic examination. It occurred to Scarlett that they would be unable to find a match for it…not unless their database extended all the way to Ukraine.

Finally, Scarlett was allowed to take a shower and was given new clothes to wear. Two policewomen had arrived to interview her. Mrs. Murdoch stayed with her, and just for once Scarlett was glad to have'

her around. She wouldn't have wanted to go through all this on her own.

"Do you remember what happened to you from the time of your disappearance? Perhaps you'd like to start when you arrived at the church…"

The policewomen were both in their thirties, kind but severe. The rumor was already circulating that Scarlett had never been in any danger at all and that this whole thing was a colossal waste of police time.

By now, Scarlett had worked out what she was going to say. She knew that it would sound pretty lame.

But it would just have to do.

"I don't remember anything," she said. "I. wasn't feeling well in the church. I was dizzy. So I went outside to get some fresh air — and after that, everything is blank. I think I fell over. I don't know…"

"You fainted?"

"I think so. I want to help you. But I just don't know…"

The two policewomen looked doubtful. They had been on the force long enough to know when someone was lying, and it was obvious to them that Scarlett was hiding something. But there wasn't much they could do. They asked her the same questions over and over again and received exactly the same answers.

She had fallen ill. She had fainted. She couldn't remember anything else. And what other explanation could there be?

The interview ended when Paul Adams appeared. A taxi had brought him straight from Heathrow Airport, and he burst into the room, his suit crumpled, his face a mixture of anxiety, relief, and irritation, all three of them compounded by a generous dose of jet lag.

"Scarly!" He went over and hugged his daughter.

"Hello, Dad."

"I can't believe they've found you. Are you hurt? Where have you been?" The two policewomen exchanged a glance. Paul Adams turned to them. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take my daughter home.

Mrs. Murdoch…"

They left the hospital by a back exit, avoiding the press pack who were still camped out at the front. By now, Scarlett was exhausted. She had been found midmorning, but it was early evening before she was released. She was desperate to go to bed, and once she got there, she slept through the entire night.

Maybe that was just as well. She would need all her strength for the headlines that were waiting for her the next day.

MISSING SCHOOLGIRL FOUND AFTER JUST ONE DAY

POLICE ASK— WAS THIS A PRANK?

Mystery still surrounds the return of fifteen-year-old schoolgirl Scarlett Adams, who was discovered by police just one day after she went missing on a school trip. Scarlett was feared abducted after she vanished during a visit to St. Meredith's church in East London, prompting a national search. She was later found unhurt inside the church itself.

Although she received hospital treatment for minor scratches, there was no indication that she had been assaulted or kept against her will. So far, the girl — described as "bright and sensible" by the teachers at the ,000-a-year private school that she attends in Dulwich — has been unable to offer any explanation, claiming that she is suffering from memory loss. Her father, Paul Adams, a corporate lawyer, angrily dismissed claims that the whole incident might have been a schoolgirl prank. "Scarlett has obviously suffered a traumatic experience, and I'm just glad to have her back," he said.

Meanwhile, the police seem anxious to close the file. "What matters is that Scarlett is safe," Detective Chris Kloet said, speaking from New Scotland Yard. "We may never know what happened to her in the eighteen hours she was gone, but we are satisfied that no crime seems to have been committed."

The report had been sent ten thousand miles by fax. It was being examined by a boy in a room in Nazca, Peru. After he was done reading it, he got up and went over to a desk. He held the sheet of paper under a light. There was a picture of Scarlett next to the text. She had been photographed holding a hockey stick with two more girls, one on each side. A team photo. The boy examined her carefully. She was quite good-looking, he thought. Asian, he would have said. Almost certainly the same age as him.

"When did this arrive?" he asked.

"Half an hour ago," came the reply.

The boy's name was Matthew Freeman. He was the first of the Gatekeepers and, without quite knowing how, he had become their unelected leader. Four months ago, he had faced the Old Ones in the Nazca Desert and had tried to close the barrier, the huge gate, that for centuries had kept them at bay. He had failed. The King of the Old Ones had cut him down where he stood, leaving him for dead. The last thing he had seen was the armies of the Old Ones, spreading out and disappearing into the night.

It had taken him six weeks to recover from his injuries, and since then he had been resting, trying to work out what to do next. He was staying in a Peruvian farmhouse, a hacienda just outside the town of Nazca itself. Richard Cole, the journalist who had traveled with him from England, was still with him.

Richard was his closest friend. It was he who had just come into the room.

"It's got to be her," Matt said.

Richard nodded. "She was in St. Meredith's. She must have gone through the same door that you went through. God knows what happened to her. She was missing for eighteen hours."

"Her name is Scarlett."

"Scar." Richard nodded again.

Matt thought for a moment, still clutching the article. He had spent the past four months searching for Scarlett in the only way that he could — through his dreams. Night after night he had visited the strange dreamworld that had become so familiar to him. It had helped him in the past. He was certain that she had to be there somewhere. Perhaps it would lead him to her, helping him again.

And now, quite unexpectedly, she had turned up in the real world. There could be no doubt that this was her, the fifth of the Five. And she was in England, in London! A student at an expensive private school.

"We have to go to her," Matt said. "We must leave at once."

"I'm checking out tickets now."

Matt turned the photograph round in the light, tilting it toward himself. "Scar," he muttered. "Now we know where she is."

"That's right," Richard said. He looked grave. "But the Old Ones will know it too."

SIX

Matt's Diary [1]

I never asked for any of this. I never wanted to be part of it. And even now, I don't understand exactly what is happening or why it had to be me.

I hoped that writing this diary might help. It was Richard's idea, to put it all down on paper. But it hasn't worked out the way I hoped. The more I think about my life, the more I write about it, the more confused it all becomes.

Sometimes I try to go back to where it all began, but I'm not sure anymore where that was. Was it the day my parents died? Or did it start in Ipswich, the evening I decided to break into a warehouse with my best friend…who was actually anything but? Maybe the decision had already been made the day I was born. Matthew Freeman, you will not go to school like other kids. You won't play football and take your A-levels and have a career. You are here for another reason. You can argue if you like, but that's just the way it's got to be.

I think a lot about my parents even though sometimes it's hard to see their faces, and their voices have long since faded out. My dad was a doctor, a GP with a practice round the corner from the house. I can just about remember a man with a beard and gold-rimmed glasses. He was very political. We were recycling stuff long before it was fashionable, and he used to get annoyed about the National Health Service — too many managers, too much red tape. At the same time, he used to laugh a lot. He read to me at night…Roald Dahl…

The Twits was one of his favorites. And there was a comedy show on TV that he never missed. It was on Sunday night, but I've forgotten its name.

My mum was a lot smaller than him. She was always on a diet, although I don't think she really needed to lose weight. I suppose it didn't help that she was a great cook. She used to make her own bread and cakes, and around September she'd set up a production line for Christmas puddings, which she'd sell off for charity. Sometimes she talked about going back to work, but she liked to be there when I got back from school. That was one of her rules. She wouldn't let me come home to an empty house.

I was only eight years old when they died, and there's so much about them I never knew. I guess they were happy together. Whenever I think back, the sun always seems to be shining, which must mean something. I can still see our house and our garden with a big rosebush sprawling over the lawn.

Sometimes I can even smell the flowers.

Mark and Kate Freeman. Those were their names. They died in a car accident on their way to a wedding, and the thing is, I knew it was going to happen. I dreamed that their car was going to drive off a bridge and into a river, and I woke up knowing that they were both going to die. But I didn't tell them. I knew my dad would never have believed me. So I pretended I was sick. I cried and kicked my heels. I let them go, but I made them leave me behind.

I could have saved them. I tell myself that over and over again. Maybe my dad wouldn't have believed me. Maybe he would have insisted on going, no matter what I said. But I could have poured paint over the car or something. I could even have set fire to it. There were all sorts of ways that I could have made it impossible for them to leave the house.

But I was too scared. I had a power and I knew that it made me different from everyone else and that was the last thing I wanted to be. Freakshow Matt…not me, thanks. So I said nothing. I stayed back and watched them go, and since then I've seen the car pull away a thousand times and I've yelled at my eight-year-old self to do something and I've hated myself for being so stupid. If I could go back in time, that's where I would start, because that's where it all went wrong.

After that, things happened very quickly. I was fostered by a woman called Gwenda Davis, who was related in some way to my mother — her half sister or something. For the next six years, I lived with her and her partner, Brian, in a terraced house in Ipswich. I hated both of them. Gwenda was shallow and self-centered, but Brian was worse. They had what I think is called an abusive relationship, which means that he used to beat her around. He hit me too. I was scared of him — I admit it. Sometimes I would see him looking at me in the same way, and I would make sure my bedroom door was locked at night.

And yet, here's something strange. I might as well admit it. In a way, I was almost happy in Ipswich.