Escape from Shadow Island (4 page)

Max was on edge, scared. He wanted to get this over with and leave. He returned to the body by the bed. Averting his eyes from Lopez-Vega's face, he concentrated on the rest of him. He was wearing the same light-gray suit and white shirt he'd worn at the theater the night before. It was a cheap-looking suit, with shiny patches on the trouser knees and frayed edges along the lapels of the jacket. The clothes confirmed what Max had already worked out from the choice of hotel. Lopez-Vega was not a rich man. Max couldn't bring himself to touch Lopez-Vega's hands, but he could see how rough and calloused the skin was. They were the hands of a man accustomed to manual labor, to working outdoors on the land.

Max took a deep breath and knelt down beside the body. He didn't want to do this—the very thought turned his stomach—but he had to know. Lopez-Vega
had invited him there to give him something. Max had to find out if that something was still here. Carefully but quickly, not wanting to linger any longer than necessary, he went through the pockets of the dead man's suit. They were all empty. No wallet, no passport or money, not even a few coins or a handkerchief. The killer must have cleaned them out.

Max straightened up, bitterly disappointed. He'd never know now what Lopez-Vega had intended to give him or what information he had about his father. A sadness came over him. He'd met the man only once, knew nothing about him, yet his death touched him nonetheless. Who had done it? Why would anyone have wanted to kill this man?

Another icy tingle shot down Max's spine. His stomach fluttered. He suddenly sensed that he'd been in the room long enough. It was time to get out.

He turned toward the door—and out of the corner of his eye saw something he hadn't noticed before. There was something strange about Lopez-Vega's hair. Max made himself look more closely. The line of bangs across the top of the forehead had an odd, unnatural appearance—as if the hair had been torn out of the scalp. Max crouched down and touched the bangs. They were indeed raised clear of the skin, but it wasn't
real hair. Lopez-Vega was wearing a wig.

Gingerly, Max peeled back the wig to reveal the scalp underneath. It seemed a horrible thing to do—taking the hair off a corpse. The skin of Lopez-Vega's head was smooth and shiny, devoid of even a single hair. Then Max saw it.

Taped to the underside of the wig was a small piece of paper about an inch square. Max unstuck the tape and lifted the paper off. Written on one side was a sequence of numbers:

 

11138352

 

That was all. No words, just eight numbers. Max knew the piece of paper was important. Why else was it concealed in such a strange place? He studied the numbers. What did they mean? Could this fragment of paper be what Lopez-Vega had wanted to give him?

Max slipped the paper into his pocket and went to the door, thinking again about what he should do next. Going downstairs and asking someone to phone the police no longer seemed such a good idea. He'd have to answer questions, explain what he was doing there. After what had happened to his mother, Max was suspicious of homicide investigations. It was a gut feeling,
but he knew instinctively that it would be wise not to get involved, that in some way it would be dangerous to get mixed up in this.

He took out his handkerchief and wiped all the surfaces he'd touched to remove any fingerprints, then went out into the corridor. He couldn't expect the reception desk to still be unattended. If he went down the main stairs, he would almost certainly be seen and challenged. But there had to be a back way out. Hotels always had more than one exit.

There was another, smaller staircase at the far end of the corridor and an illuminated sign on the wall that read
FIRE EXIT
. Max headed toward it and went carefully down the stairs, pausing occasionally to listen for footsteps. He didn't want to bump into anyone coming up. He passed the third floor, then the second. As he neared the ground floor, he heard voices below him and stopped. He peered cautiously over the banister but couldn't see anyone. The voices came again, then the sound of metal scraping on metal, like a spoon in a pan. Max realized what it was—the noise of the hotel kitchen.

He kept going. At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped again and poked his head around the corner. The kitchen was to the right. Through the open door
Max could see a couple of sweaty-looking men in white aprons and caps cooking over a long range of gas burners. Next to the kitchen was an exit that led out into the backyard, a small, enclosed space with overflowing dustbins lined up along a wall and an open gateway to the street at the far side.

Max waited until the cooks had their backs toward him, then darted past the kitchen and out into the yard. He ran across it and through the gate onto the street, turning left and sprinting away from the hotel.

It was almost dark now. The streetlamps were on and the pavements were bathed in an eerie yellow light. Max slowed to a walk. This back street was quiet, no pedestrians about, no cars coming past. He took a turn and was glad to get onto the main road. He felt safer with the traffic streaming by and other people around him.

He walked rapidly back to King's Cross, his stomach churning with anxiety. Once or twice, he felt a prickle on the back of his neck and turned around, sure that someone was following him. But there was no one there.

He remained jittery all the way home, studying his fellow passengers on the Underground to see if they were taking an unusual interest in him, then looking
over his shoulder continually as he half walked, half jogged the final few hundred yards to his house. Only when he was inside, the door locked and bolted behind him, did he relax a bit.

Consuela came out into the hall.

“Good game?” she asked

“Uh? Oh, the snooker. Yeah, good.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

Consuela looked at him curiously. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'll see you in the morning.”

Max hung his jacket on the hook and went upstairs to bed.

MAX SLUMPED BACK ONTO HIS PILLOW AND stared up at his bedroom ceiling. The horrific vision of Luis Lopez-Vega's face was still imprinted vividly on his mind. That was all he could see. The bullet hole, the blood, those lifeless eyes…

He shuddered, wondering whether he'd done the right thing. Perhaps he should have gone down to the hotel reception and reported what he'd found, then waited for the police to arrive. He had nothing to hide, after all. He'd done nothing wrong. But it was too late to go back now. What good would it do, in any case? Lopez-Vega was dead. Max had no obvious information that might help the police find out who'd killed him. The more he
thought about it, the more Max was sure that his initial reaction not to get involved had been correct.

What he had to try to do was put the body out of his mind. He took the piece of paper out of his pocket and concentrated on the numbers: 11138352. It was a simple sequence, but what did the numbers signify? What did they mean? And why had Luis Lopez-Vega concealed them on the underside of his wig? Max pondered these questions as he got ready for bed.

He found it hard to fall asleep. He lay awake for a long time, thinking about the numbers and Luis Lopez-Vega, wondering what the man knew about his dad. He worried about the hotel room too. Had he left any fingerprints behind? He'd wiped all the obvious surfaces, but maybe he'd missed somewhere important. He'd touched Lopez-Vega's clothes! Could the police get fingerprints from those? And was there anything else he might have forgotten, any other evidence to show that he'd been there? Had anyone seen him leaving? The very thought broke him out in a cold sweat, gave him palpitations.

In the morning, after a restless, troubled night, he was still worrying. He studied the piece of paper again over breakfast. Maybe the answer was something obvious. What if it was a phone number? Max punched
the numbers into his cell but got only a mechanical, computer-generated voice telling him the number was not recognized.

What else could it be? A code of some sort? That was possible. Or what about a combination to a lock or a safe? That could be it too. If so, where was the safe?

“Max?”

Consuela touched him on the shoulder and he started violently. “You'd better get a move on, or you'll be late for school.”

“What? Oh, yes.”

Max bolted the rest of his toast and gulped down a mouthful of orange juice. He folded the piece of paper in two and was about to put it in his pocket when he realized there was no need for him to keep it. Eight numbers weren't hard to remember: 11138352—they were lodged in his brain already.
Keep them there,
he told himself,
where no one else can touch them, and destroy the written version
. Max tossed the piece of paper into the downstairs toilet and flushed it away.

The numbers continued to distract him all morning. Lessons passed him by in a haze, almost nothing registering on his brain. History, IT, English—they all seemed the same, just a tedious mixture of droning teachers and boring facts that were keeping Max away
from the more important business of working out what the numbers meant.

At lunchtime, he didn't head for the cafeteria as usual, but went instead to the library, where he found a book on codes and ciphers. He leafed through the book, seeing if any of the more common kinds of code-breaking techniques could be applied to the eight numbers. He tried a simple system of matching the numbers to the letters of the alphabet—A = 1, B = 2, and so on—but just ended up with an incomprehensible jumble of letters. He tried other methods, reversing the alphabet, looking for patterns in the numbers, but nothing seemed to work. What he needed was some kind of code-breaking software that could crack the sequence, but neither the computers at school nor his home PC had such a program. Maybe it wasn't a code at all. Maybe he was simply wasting his time.

The afternoon went by in the same sort of soporific blur as the morning. Max was only vaguely aware of the lessons he had to sit through, impatiently waiting for the final bell, when he could escape and go somewhere quiet to think.

On the walk home from school, he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn't notice the three boys waiting for him until he was almost on top of them.

They'd chosen their spot carefully—the secluded path through a patch of woodland at the edge of the school playing fields that Max always took home. It was far enough away from both the school buildings and the surrounding houses to ensure that they weren't seen by anyone. It was the perfect place for an ambush.

“Well, look who we've got here,” the biggest of the boys said. “If it isn't Max Cassidy. Or should that be ‘The Great Maximilian'?”

Max stopped, gazing warily at the three boys—Harry Ross, the one who'd spoken, and his two companions, Dominic Mulgrew and Tom Sutcliffe. They were all two years older than him and had a reputation for violence and intimidation. Max knew he was in trouble.

“‘The Great Maximilian'?” Ross repeated. “What kind of loser name is that?”

Max tried to walk around the three of them, but Ross stepped out to block his path.

“What's the hurry, Cassidy? You got somewhere to go? Like visiting your mum in jail? What's it like, eh? Having a mum who's a killer?”

Max resisted the urge to lash out at Ross, to punch him hard in his big fat face. He didn't want to get in a fight. He was outnumbered and, in any case, he
couldn't afford to injure himself. A sprained wrist or a pulled muscle would mean having to cancel his next show.

“What do you want, Ross?” he asked.

“We want a little chat with you, don't we, guys?” Ross said, glancing at Mulgrew and Sutcliffe. “I asked you a question,” he went on. “What's it like having a mum who's a murderer? A jailbird. Who else has she killed, apart from your dad? Shame she's locked up, or she could do us all a favor and knock you off, too.”

Ross laughed, and Mulgrew and Sutcliffe joined in. Max looked around casually, seeing if he could get away, but the boys had positioned themselves around him, cutting off his escape. Max couldn't go forward, or to the sides, and he knew that if he attempted to retreat they'd jump on him immediately.

“You got any money on you?” Ross said.

“No, I haven't,” replied Max.

“Yeah? A big star like you—you must be raking it in.”

“I don't have any money on me,” Max said. “Okay?”

He was used to the resentment and envy his show-business activities aroused in some of his fellow pupils and was always careful not to show off or brag, or flash money and possessions around at school. Not that he
had that much money. Since his dad's disappearance and his mum's imprisonment, his fees all went into a bank account to cover the mortgage and household bills and to pay for other expenses like food and clothes. When all that was taken care of, there was very little left for Max to spend on himself.

“Let's see what he's got, guys,” Ross said.

Max backed away a couple of paces. “Look, I don't want any trouble,” he said.

Ross smiled at him coldly. “But maybe we do.”

Mulgrew and Sutcliffe grabbed hold of him, one on each side, and Ross hooked an arm around his neck, gripping him in a vicious headlock.

“If you're such a world-famous escapologist,” taunted Ross, “get out of that.”

He pulled Max's head down, still holding his neck tight. Max grunted with pain. It felt as if the bully was trying to screw his head off.

“You know what to do, guys,” Ross said.

Max felt Mulgrew and Sutcliffe going through his pockets and backpack. He was powerless to stop them.

“A couple of quid,” said Mulgrew eventually. “That's all.”

“What about his bag?” Ross asked.

“Just a bunch of books.”

“You hiding something, Cassidy?” Ross said, jerking at Max's head so a stab of pain lanced up his neck.

“If you are, you're going to regret it.”

Ross tightened his grip. Max knew he had to do something or he'd end up badly hurt. He didn't want to retaliate, but sometimes the only form of defense was attack. He brought his elbow back and hammered it hard into Ross's groin. Ross yelled an obscenity. He let go of Max and clutched at himself, his eyes watering. Before the others could react, Max was tearing away along the path.

The ground was rough and uneven, but Max was fast and agile. His feet skimmed over the stones and potholes, dodging tree roots and twigs. He burst out of the wood and sprinted down the hill toward some houses. Glancing back, he was dismayed to see the three thugs right on his tail. They were twenty or thirty yards back, but they were running hard, showing no sign of abandoning the chase.

Max slowed for the gate at the bottom of the hill, then whipped it open and raced through, heading along the passage that ran between two houses. The gang came after him, Ross describing in graphic detail what he was going to do to Max when he caught him.

At the end of the passage was the main road. As Max
skidded out onto the pavement, he saw a car parked by the curb, its rear door open.

A man leaned out through the door and waved urgently at Max. “Quick! In here.”

Without thinking, Max jumped into the car and slammed the door shut. It was an impulse decision. He wanted only to get away from the thugs and he didn't care how. The car moved off just seconds before Ross and his mates hurtled out of the passage. Max twisted around to look through the back window. The three boys were bent over, hands on knees, gasping for breath. Ross looked up, staring hard at Max, his face twisted with anger and hate. The car kept going, speeding away up the road. Ross receded into the distance, getting smaller and smaller until finally he was lost from sight.

“Having a spot of trouble, Max?”

Max turned to look at the man next to him. Only then did he realize that he'd accepted a lift from a complete stranger without a second thought. He felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. The man was in his forties, short and plump, with red cheeks, a fleshy nose, and hair that was graying at the temples. He wore a smart black suit, a pale-pink shirt, and a gray silk tie, and he smelled of fresh aftershave.

“How do you know my name?” Max said. He was breathing heavily, his heart pounding.

“I know many things.” The man clicked a switch on the armrest beside him and spoke to the driver through an intercom.

“Keep going around the block until I say stop, Mason.”

The driver, separated from the back of the car by a thick, soundproof glass window, nodded and eased the car smoothly into a bend. It was a luxurious, top-of-the-line Mercedes with tinted windows, leather upholstery, a minibar, and a television built into the back of the front seat. Max couldn't hear the engine, it was so quiet, or feel the bumps in the road. It was as if the car were gliding along on a cushion of air.

“What's going on?” he asked. “Who are you?”

“My name is Rupert Penhall.” The man smiled at Max, but there was no warmth in it. “I think we should have a little chat, don't you?”

A little chat?
Max was struck by the similarity between Penhall's words and Harry Ross's. Neither time had the invitation sounded remotely enticing.

“A chat about what?” he demanded.

“Shall we start with dead bodies in hotel rooms?” Penhall said.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Max replied.

Penhall sighed. “I was hoping you weren't going to
be difficult, Max. You know what a CCTV camera is, of course?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me tell you that on the foyer wall in the Rutland Hotel there's a CCTV camera. A CCTV camera that recorded you entering the building at just after eight yesterday evening.”

Max didn't say anything.

“Shall we start again?” Penhall said.

“Are you a policeman?” asked Max.

Penhall gave a snort of laughter. “Good God, no. Do I look like a policeman? I sincerely hope not.”

“What are you then?”

“Let's say I'm connected to the government.”

Max stared at him contemptuously. He loathed the government. They were the people who'd stood by and done nothing while his mother was put on trial for a crime she obviously hadn't committed. The people who'd allowed her to be convicted and imprisoned, then left her languishing in a filthy Santo Domingo jail for eighteen months before belatedly negotiating her transfer to a prison in Britain.

“Do you have some ID?” Max said.

Penhall seemed offended by the question. “ID? People like me don't carry identification.”

“So how do I know you're who you say you are?”

“You'll have to take it on trust.”

Trust? Max almost laughed. The last person he was going to trust was this smooth, perfumed toad.

“What were you doing at the hotel?” Penhall demanded.

“What makes you think I was?” Max fired back. “CCTV pictures are always grainy. How do you know it was me?”

“Don't play games,” snapped Penhall. “Let me spell it out for you. You cooperate with me now, or I turn you and the CCTV tape over to the police and you can explain to them why you left the scene of a murder.”

Max was suddenly frightened. The mask had fallen away, and he saw that beneath all the smart trappings—the suit, the silk tie, the flashy car—Rupert Penhall was nothing but a thug. A grown-up, more sophisticated Harry Ross.

“Do you understand me?” Penhall said. “
Do
you?”

“Yes, I understand,” Max said quietly.

“Well?”

“I went to see Luis Lopez-Vega.”

“Why?”

“Because he asked me to.”

“When did he ask you?”

“He came backstage after my show on Wednesday evening.”

“You knew him?”

The questions were coming at Max like a salvo of gunfire.

“No, I'd never seen him before in my life.”