Somehow he managed to stumble through history and then physics and PE. But the last lesson of the morning just had to be English with Mr King. They were reading Macbeth and Matt found Shakespeare difficult enough at the best of times. Today it meant nothing to him – and Mr King seemed to have built-in radar that allowed him to home in on anyone who wasn’t paying attention. It only took him a few minutes before he pounced on Matt.
“Am I boring you, Freeman?” he asked with an unpleasant sneer.
“No, sir.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me what I was just saying about the three weird sisters?”
Matt shook his head. He might as well admit it. “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t listening.”
“Then come and see me at the end of the lesson.” Mr King brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. “The weird sisters tell Macbeth his future,” he went on. “And of course he believes them. In Shakespeare’s time, many people still believed in witchcraft and black magic…”
The end of the lesson took for ever to arrive and when it finally came, Matt didn’t hang around to receive whatever punishment Mr King had in mind. It seemed to be getting hotter and hotter in the school. The glass in the windows was magnifying the sun, dazzling him. The walls seemed to be bending and shimmering in the heat. But he knew that he was only imagining it. This was early summer. Looking around him, he could see that none of the other boys were feeling anything.
There was a fifteen-minute break before the entire school would cross over the road and go into the temporary dining room in the sports centre for lunch. Once again he thought about phoning Richard and asking him to help. Mobiles weren’t allowed at Forrest Hill, but there were three public phones on the other side of the quad.
“Matthew…?”
He turned round and saw Miss Ford walking towards him, on her way to the staff room.
“Mr King is looking for you,” she said.
Of course, he would be. Matt had defied him. That would mean more trouble than ever.
“I wanted to tell you that your last essay was a real improvement,” Miss Ford went on. She was looking at Matt a little sadly. Now she frowned. “Are you feeling ill?” she asked. “You don’t look very well.”
“I’m OK.”
“Well, maybe you should go and see matron.” She had said enough. Even the teachers at Forrest Hill didn’t want to be seen spending too much time with Matt. She brushed past him and continued on her way.
And that was when Matt made his decision. He wasn’t going to see the matron, a thin, scowling woman who seemed to treat any suggestion of illness as a personal insult. Nor was he going to call Richard. It was time to leave Forrest Hill. Today. The other boys had made it perfectly clear to him on the day he had arrived that he didn’t belong here. Well, maybe they were right. What was he doing in a private school in the middle of Yorkshire? The only thing that he had in common with the rest of them was the uniform he was forced to wear.
There was a litter bin in the corridor, just outside the staff room. Matt had been holding a pile of books but now, without even thinking about it, he threw them all in. Macbeth. Maths. A GCSE guide to the Second World War. Then he took off his tie and threw that in too. He felt better already.
He turned round and began to walk.
Gwenda Davis had stopped at the top of the hill. She knew what she had to do but she still couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Gwenda had never liked pain. If she so much as cut her finger, she’d have to sit down for half an hour and smoke several cigarettes before she was ready to move. And she was fairly sure that her death was going to hurt very much indeed.
Could she really do it? The school was spread out in front of her. She could see it through the windscreen. It looked like a very posh place, very different from the comprehensive she had sent Matt to when he lived with her. She couldn’t imagine him going to a place like this. It wasn’t him at all.
There were a whole load of old buildings grouped round a church – but she knew that she wouldn’t find Matt there. He was going to be in the big brick building next to the football pitch. There would be lots and lots of boys in there with him. It was a shame, really, that so many of them would have to die too. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if this was a good idea. It wasn’t too late. So far she had only killed one person – Brian. At the last minute, she had decided to hit the driver of the petrol tanker with the flat side, rather than the blade, of the axe. He’d seemed a friendly sort of person. She hadn’t even really wanted to fracture his skull.
The police would never catch up with her, anyway. She could just get out of the petrol tanker and walk away. Maybe that’s what she ought to do.
On an impulse, she reached out and turned on the radio. It was one o’clock. The news would be on and she would find out if the driver had been found yet. But strangely enough, nothing came out of the speaker. She knew the radio was on. There was a faint hiss. But nobody was talking.
And then she heard a single word.
“Gwenda…”
It was coming out of the dashboard, from the radio. She knew who it was and she was so glad to hear him. But at the same time she felt ashamed of herself. How could she have had second thoughts?
“What are you doing, just sitting there?” Rex McKenna asked.
“I don’t know…” Gwenda muttered.
“You weren’t thinking of walking away, were you, you naughty girl?” It made Gwenda tingle when he talked like that. She had seen him do it on the television. Sometimes he treated adults like children. It was part of his act.
“I don’t want to die,” she said.
“Of course you don’t, Gwenda. Nor do I. Nor does anybody. But sometimes, you know, it just has to happen. Sometimes you don’t have any choice.”
“Don’t I have any choice?” Gwenda asked. A single tear trickled down her cheek. She caught sight of herself in the driver’s mirror but it only told her what she already knew. She was looking very old and dirty. There was dried blood on her coat. Her skin had no colour at all.
“Not really, my love,” Rex answered. “It’s a bit like the Big Wheel in a way. You spin the wheel and your number comes up. There’s not much you can do about it.” He sighed. “Your whole life was a bit of a waste of time if you want the honest truth. But at least you’ve been given the chance to do something important now. We need this boy killed. Matthew Freeman. And you’re the one who’s been chosen to do it. So off you go! And don’t worry. It’ll all be over very soon.”
Gwenda could imagine Rex McKenna winking at her. She could hear it in his voice.
The radio had gone silent again but there was nothing more to be said. Gwenda turned the engine on, pressed her foot on the accelerator, then slammed the gears into first.
Matt was on his way out. He could see the double doors at the end of the corridor with noticeboards on both sides, lining the way. There were boys everywhere, getting ready to go for lunch, but for once they didn’t notice him. Nor had anyone seen him dump his books. He felt a sense of elation. No matter what happened, he would be glad to leave Forrest Hill behind him.
And then Matt smelled it again. Burnt toast. And at exactly the same moment, the doors burst open and as he stared in horror, a river of flame rushed in towards him, rolling down the corridor, peeling away the walls, scorching everything in its path. There were two boys standing there and suddenly they were black, skeletons, X-rays of themselves as they had been seconds before. It was as if hell had come to Forrest Hill. Matt saw a dozen more boys swallowed up instantly, too quickly even for them to cry out. They were incinerated where they stood. And then the fire reached him and he flinched, waiting for his own death.
But it didn’t come.
There was no flame.
Matt must have closed his eyes. When he opened them again, everything was exactly as it had been before. It was two minutes to one. Morning lessons had ended. Everyone was on their way to lunch. He had simply imagined it.
&n
bsp; Except that he knew. It wasn’t his imagination.
He couldn’t just walk out of the school after all. The fire hadn’t happened but it was about to. That was what he had been sensing from the moment he had arrived that day.
He looked around him. A bell sounded. The lunch bell. It told him what he had to do. He took three steps down the corridor and found a fire alarm, set behind a glass panel and mounted on the wall. He used his elbow to smash the glass, then pressed the alarm button with his thumb.
At once, much louder bells sounded throughout the school. Everyone stopped what they were doing and began to look at each other, half-smiling, wondering what was going on. They knew the sound of the fire alarm. There had been fire drills often enough. But it was as if no one wanted to make the first move, afraid of looking foolish.
“There’s a fire!” Matt shouted. “Move!”
One or two boys began to make their way past him, walking away from the double doors and back towards the other side of the school. The main assembly point was a football field next to the chapel. As soon as the first few had started moving, others followed. Matt heard doors opening and slamming. People were asking questions but the alarm was so loud that Matt couldn’t make out any words.
Then Mr O’Shaughnessy appeared. The assistant head-master was looking flustered. His face, never cheerful at the best of times, was thunderous. There were pinpricks of red in his usually pallid cheeks. He saw Matt standing next to the fire alarm. His eyes moved and took in the broken glass.
“Freeman!” he exclaimed. He had to shout to make himself heard. “Did you do that?”
“Yes.”
“You set off the alarm?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the fire?”
Matt said nothing.
Mr O’Shaughnessy took his silence as an admission of guilt. “If you’ve done this as a prank, you will be in serious trouble!” he boomed. And then, an afterthought that was so bizarre it almost made Matt want to laugh. “Why aren’t you wearing your tie?”
“I think you should get out of the school,” Matt said.
There was nothing to be done. The alarm could only be switched off in the bursar’s office, and only with the approval of the fire brigade. Mr O’Shaughnessy grabbed Matt by the arm and the two of them followed the other boys out of the school. In minutes, all the buildings were empty. On the other side of the main road, the dinner ladies had spilled out of the sports centre. The few boys who had arrived for lunch early were with them. They crossed the road and joined the rest of the pupils, who had congregated on the football pitch. The teachers were with them, trying to get them into some sort of order. Everyone was looking for the flames or at least a little smoke but already it was being whispered that the alarm had been set off as a joke and that Matthew Freeman was to blame. The headmaster had also arrived. He was a short, solid-looking man, built like a rugby player and known as the Bulldog. He saw his assistant, who was standing next to Matt, and came striding over.
“Do you know what’s going on?” he demanded.
“I’m afraid I do, headmaster,” O’Shaughnessy replied. “It’s a false alarm.”
“Well, I’m glad of that!”
“Of course.” O’Shaughnessy nodded. “But this boy set the alarm off on purpose. His name is Freeman and…”
But the headmaster wasn’t listening any more. He was staring past Mr O’Shaughnessy. Slowly, Matt turned round to see what was happening. The assistant headmaster did the same.
They were just in time to see the Shell tanker come careering down the hill. It was clear at once that something was wrong. It was zigzagging across the road, seemingly out of control. Matt could just make out the figure – a woman with wild eyes and straggling hair – sitting in the driving seat. He recognized her, and at the same moment he realized that she knew exactly what she was doing, and that she had come especially for him.
Gwenda Davis had her eyes fixed on the sports centre where, according to Rex McKenna, the entire school would be having lunch. The petrol tanker was now facing away from the football pitch. As Matt watched, it left the road, ploughed through a bush and began to career across the playing fields. Matt saw the tyres cutting up the turf.
Some of the other boys had seen it too. Faces turned. Hands pointed. There could be no doubt what was about to happen.
The tanker smashed into the wall of the sports centre and continued right through it. Its window smashed and Gwenda was killed instantly, thrown into the brickwork even as it disintegrated all around her. With its engine screaming, the tanker continued, disappearing from sight, swallowed up by the building. There was a moment’s pause. Then everything exploded. A fireball erupted into the sky, hurling hundreds of tiles in every direction. It rose higher and higher, carrying with it a huge fist of black smoke that threatened to punch out the very clouds. Matt put a hand up to protect his face. Even at this distance, he could feel the fantastic heat of thousands of litres of petrol as they ignited. Flames poured out of the wrecked building, falling crazily onto the grass, the trees, the road, the edges of the main school, setting everything alight. It was like a battle zone.
Matt knew that he had cheated death by minutes. And if the whole school had been in the sports centre, if they had been queuing up for lunch as they should have been, hundreds of children would have died.
The headmaster was thinking the same thing. “My God!” he croaked. “If we had been in there…!”
“He knew!” Mr O’Shaughnessy let go of Matt and backed away. “He knew before it happened,” he whispered. “Freeman knew.”
The headmaster looked at him, his eyes wide.
Matt hesitated. He didn’t want to stay here a minute longer. In the distance he could already hear sirens.
He walked. Six hundred and fifty boys stepped out of his way, forming a corridor to allow him to pass. Among them, Matt saw Gavin Taylor. For just a brief instant, their eyes met. The other boy was crying. Matt didn’t know why.
Nobody said anything as he passed between them. Matt no longer cared what they thought of him. One thing was certain. He would never see any of them again.
THE DIARY
“You don’t have to do this,” Richard said.
It was the first time he had spoken since the train had pulled out of the station on its way to London. Matt was sitting opposite him, his head buried in a book that he had bought at the station. The book was meant to be funny but Matt couldn’t even bring himself to smile. For the last hour he had been skipping from paragraph to paragraph but the story simply wouldn’t let him in.
“Matt…?” Richard began again.
Matt snapped the book shut. “You saw what happened at Forrest Hill,” he said. “It was Gwenda! She’d come to kill me and she’d have killed everyone else in the school if I hadn’t warned them.”
“But you did warn them. You saved their lives.”
“Yes. And they all came running up to thank me for it.” Matt stared out of the window, taking in the rushing countryside. Raindrops crawled slowly across the glass, moving from left to right. “I can’t go back,” he said. “They don’t want me there. And I’ve nowhere else to go. Miss Ashwood was right. Raven’s Gate wasn’t the end of it. I don’t think it’s ever going to end.”
It was the day after the destruction of the school. The blazing petrol had spread from the gymnasium to the old buildings and by the time the fire brigade had arrived, there hadn’t been very much left. By then Matt had returned to the flat in York, joining a shocked Richard, who had already heard the first reports on the radio. The school did their best to keep Matt out of the newspapers – and fortunately nobody yet knew the identity of the madwoman who had been driving the petrol tanker. But there had been too many witnesses, too many boys willing to talk. And all the headlines were screaming the same, impossible story:
BOY FORESEES SCHOOL CATASTROPHE
PRECOGNITION BOY SAVES SCHOOL
DID FORREST HILL BOY SEE FUTURE?
&
nbsp; At least nobody had a photograph of Matt apart from one muddy, almost unrecognizable image that had been taken on a mobile phone. And by the time the first editions of the newspapers came out, Richard and Matt had already gone. Richard had spoken with Susan Ashwood on the phone and she had arranged a “safe house” for them in Leeds – an empty flat where they had stayed overnight. While they were there, Matt had agreed to travel to London to meet the Nexus, just as they had asked. Looking back, it seemed to him that there had been something inevitable about it.
“It was meant to happen. It was planned…”
Susan Ashwood had said that too. She had been talking about the discovery of the Spanish monk’s diary. But she could just as easily have been talking about him. It was beginning to seem to Matt that his every move was being dictated for him. It didn’t matter what he wanted. Someone, somewhere had other ideas.
“Maybe it’ll work out OK,” Richard said. “All you’ve got to do is meet this guy, William Morton, get him to hand over the diary and then you and I can go back to York or somewhere and start over again.”
“You really think it will be as easy as that?” Matt asked.
Richard shrugged. “Nothing’s ever easy where you’re concerned,” he said. “But at the end of the day, Matt, you’re still in control. Whatever they ask, you only have to say no.”
A taxi had been sent to meet them at the station and it took them to a hotel in Farringdon. Matt hardly knew London. The first time he had been here, he had been under police escort, whisked in and out of an office with barely enough time to smell the air. Farringdon was an old part of the city which seemed to slip further back in time as the evening drew on. There were dark alleyways and gas lamps and even, in places, cobbled streets. If an air-raid siren had suddenly split the air, Matt wouldn’t have been surprised. It was the London he had seen in films that took place during the Second World War.