Escape from Shadow Island Page 4

  “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.

  4

  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 someth
ing, 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.”

  “Did he say why he wanted to see you?”

  “No.”

  Penhall looked at him suspiciously. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Penhall sniffed. “So this man you’ve never seen before asks you to go to his hotel and you go? I find that hard to believe.”

  “It’s true,” Max said.

  “Describe to me what you found when you got there.”

  “His door was already open,” Max said. “I went in and he was there on the floor. Dead.”

  “Did you touch his body?”

  “No.”

  “Or anything in the room?”

  “No.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No.”

  Max wasn’t going to tell him about the piece of paper with the numbers on it. He knew instinctively that he should be wary of Rupert Penhall.

  “Why didn’t you report it to the hotel manager?”

  “I don’t know,” Max said. “I was scared. I’d never seen a dead body before. I suppose I just panicked, got out as quickly as I could. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d done it.”

  “Why would anyone think you’d done it? A fourteen-year-old schoolboy?”

  Max stared at him. “People get accused of things they haven’t done,” he said.

  “You’re referring to your mother, I presume?”

  Max didn’t answer. He looked out of the car window. They were driving past the local shopping center for the second time. Max wanted to get out—he felt like a prisoner in the back of the car—but he knew Penhall hadn’t finished with him.

  “Lopez-Vega mentioned your mother, didn’t he?” Penhall said.

  Max hesitated, wondering how much he should reveal. He decided he had more to gain by seeming to cooperate. Perhaps Penhall would let something slip that
would be useful. “Yes, he mentioned her.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That her trial was rigged.”

  “He was lying, Max. He knew nothing about your mother’s trial.”

  “Didn’t he?”

  “Luis Lopez-Vega was a criminal and a con man. He was well known to the police in Santo Domingo. He had a conviction for drug dealing and spent the last two years in prison.”

  Was that what Lopez-Vega had meant when he said he’d been “away” for a while? It was possible. But he hadn’t looked, or sounded, like a criminal, much less a drug dealer. Max had a hunch that Penhall wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

  “You’d do anything to clear your mother’s name, wouldn’t you, Max?” Penhall said.

  “She’s innocent,” Max answered firmly.

  “She was convicted by a court of law.”

  “A Santo Domingan court. Where the judge had been bribed.”

  “You don’t know that. The evidence all pointed to your mother being the killer.”

  Max rounded on him furiously. “That’s rubbish. She didn’t do it.”

  “Your faith in her is touching,” Penhall said sardonically.

  “She didn’t do it!” Max yelled at him. “And I’m going to prove it.”

  The words just came out impulsively. But the moment he’d said them, Max knew that was exactly what he was going to do.

  “And how exactly are you going to do that?”

  “Why should you care? What have you ever done for her?”

  “Her trial was a matter for the authorities in Santo Domingo. The British government can’t interfere in the affairs of a foreign state.”

  “Can’t it?” Max said bitterly.

  “Let me give you a warning, Max,” Penhall said, his voice low and menacing. “You’re meddling in things you know nothing about. Continue meddling, and you may end up getting hurt. I’m sure that’s something neither of us wants to happen. Do I make myself clear?”

  He clicked on the intercom again and spoke to the driver. “Pull over here, Mason.” The car glided to a stop by the curb. Penhall looked at Max. “You can get out now,” he said, as if he were dismissing a servant.