Point Blanc (7 page)

"Dinner
is in half an hour," Lady Caroline said. "Do you eat
venison?" She sniffed. "Perhaps you'd like to shower before
you eat? I'll show you to your room."

Sir David
stood up. "You've got a lot of reading to do. I'm afraid I
have to go back to London tomorrow--I have lunch with the president of
France--so I won't be able to help you. But, as I say, if
there's anything you don't know..."

"Fiona
Friend," Alex said.

Alex had been
given a small, comfortable room at the back of the house. He took a quick
shower, then put his old clothes back on again. He liked to feel clean but he
had to look grimy--it suited the character of the boy he was supposed to
be. He opened the first of the files. Sir David had been thorough. He had given
Alex the names and recent histories of just about the entire family, as well as
photographs of vacations, details of the house and stables in Mayfair, the
apartments in New York, Paris, and Rome, and the villa in Barbados. There were
newspaper clippings, magazine articles ... everything he could possibly need.

A gong
sounded. It was seven o'clock. Alex went downstairs and into the dining
room. The room had six windows and a polished mahogany table long enough to
seat fifteen. But only the three of them were there: Sir David, Lady Caroline,
and Fiona. The food had already been served, presumably by a butler or cook.
Sir David gestured at an empty chair. Alex sat down.

"Fiona
was just talking about Soloman," Lady Caroline said. There was a pause.
"Soloman is a horse. We have lots of horses." She turned to Alex.
"Do you ride?"

"Only
my bicycle," Alex said.

"I'm
sure Alex isn't interested in horses," Fiona said. She appeared to
be in a bad mood. "In fact, I doubt if we have anything in common. Why do
I have to pretend he's my brother? The whole thing is completely--"

"Fiona...,"
Sir David muttered in a low voice.

"Well,
it's all very well having him here, Daddy, but it is meant to be my
Easter vacation." Alex realized that Fiona must go to a private school.
Her term would have ended earlier than his. "I don't think
it's fair."

"Alex
is here because of my work," Sir David continued. It was strange, Alex
thought, the way they talked about him as if he weren't actually there.
"I know you have a lot of questions, Fiona, but you're just going
to have to do as I say. He's with us only until the end of the week. I
want you to look after him."

"But
he's a city boy!" Fiona insisted. "He's going to hate
it here. And anyway, how can pretending he's my brother help you with
your supermarkets?"

"Fiona..."
Sir David didn't want any more argument. "It's what I told
you. An experiment. And you will make him feel welcome!"

Fiona picked
up her glass and looked directly at Alex for the first time since he had come
into the room. "We'll see about that," she said.

The week seemed
endless. After only two days, Alex was beginning to think that Fiona was right.
He was a city boy. He had lived his whole life in London and felt utterly lost,
suffocating in the big green blanket of the countryside. The estate went on for
as far as the eye could see, and the Friends seemed to have no connection with
the real world. Alex had never felt more isolated. Sir David himself had
disappeared to London. Lady Caroline did her best to avoid Alex. Once or twice
she drove into Skipton--the nearest town--but otherwise she seemed to
spend a lot of time gardening or arranging flowers. And Fiona...

She had made
it clear from the start how much she disliked Alex. There could be no reason
for this. It was simply that he was an outsider, and Fiona seemed to mistrust
anything that didn't belong to the miniature world of Haverstock Hall.
She'd asked him several times what he was really doing there. Alex had
shrugged and said nothing, which had only made her dislike him all the more.

And then, on
the third day, she introduced him to some of her friends.

"I'm
going shooting," she told him. "I don't suppose you want to
come?"

Alex
shrugged. He had memorized most of the details in the files and figured he
could easily pass as a member of the family. Now he was counting the hours
until the woman from the academy arrived to take him away.

"Have
you ever been shooting?" Fiona asked.

"No,"
Alex said.

"I go
hunting and shooting," Fiona said. "But of course, you're a
city boy. You wouldn't understand."

"What's
so great about killing animals?" Alex asked.

"It's
part of the country way of life. It's tradition." Fiona looked at
him as if he were stupid. It was how she always looked at him. "Anyway,
the animals enjoy it."

The shooting
party turned out to be young and--apart from Fiona--entirely male.
Five of them were waiting on the edge of a forest that was part of the
Haverstock estate. Rufus, the leader, was sixteen and well built with dark,
curling hair. He seemed to be Fiona's boyfriend. The others--Henry, Max,
Bartholomew, and Fred--were about the same age. Alex looked at them with a
heavy heart. They had uniform Barbour jackets, tweed trousers, flat caps, and
Huntsman leather boots. They spoke with uniform upper-class accents. Each of
them carried a shotgun, with the barrel broken over his arm. Two of them were
smoking. They gazed at Alex with barely concealed contempt. Fiona must have
already told them about him. The city boy.

Quickly, she
made the introductions. Rufus stepped forward.

"Nice
to have you with us," he drawled. He ran his eyes over Alex, not
bothering to hide his contempt. "Up for a bit of shooting, are
you?"

"I
don't have a gun," Alex said.

"Well,
I'm afraid I'm not going to lend you mine." Rufus snapped the
barrel back into place and held it up for Alex to see. It was a beautiful gun,
with twenty-five inches of gleaming steel stretching out of a dark walnut stock
decorated with ornately carved, solid silver sideplates. "It's an
over-and-under shotgun with detachable trigger lock, handmade by Abbiatico and
Salvinelli," he said. "It cost me thirty grand--or my mother,
anyway. It was a birthday present."

"It
couldn't have been easy to wrap," Alex said. "Where did she
put the ribbon?"

Rufus's
smile faded. "You wouldn't know anything about guns," he
said. He nodded at one of the other teenagers, who handed Alex a much more
ordinary weapon. It was old and a little rusty. "You can use this
one," he said. "And if you're very good and don't get
in the way, maybe we'll let you have a bullet."

They all
laughed at that. Then the two smokers put out their cigarettes and everyone set
off into the woods.

Thirty
minutes later, Alex knew he had made a mistake in coming. The boys blasted away
left and right, aiming at anything that moved. A rabbit spun in a glistening
red ball. A wood pigeon tumbled out of the branches and flapped around on the
leaves below. Whatever the quality of their weapons, the teenagers
weren't good shots. The animals they managed to hit were only wounded,
and Alex felt a growing sickness, following this trail of blood.

They reached
a clearing and paused to reload. Alex turned to Fiona. "I'm going
back to the house," he said.

"Why?
Can't stand the sight of a little blood?"

Alex glanced
at a hare about fifty feet away. It was lying on its side with its back legs kicking
helplessly. "I'm surprised they let you carry guns," he said.
"I thought you had to be seventeen."

Rufus
overheard him. He stepped forward, an ugly look in his eyes. "We
don't bother with rules in the countryside," he muttered.

"Maybe
Alex wants to call a policeman!" Fiona said.

"The
nearest police station is forty miles from here," Rufus said with a cold
smile.

"Do you
want to borrow my cell phone?" one of the other boys asked.

They all
laughed again. Alex had had enough. Without saying another word, he turned
around and walked off.

It had taken
him thirty minutes to reach the clearing, but thirty minutes later he was still
stuck in the woods, completely surrounded by trees and wild shrubs. Alex
realized he was lost. He was annoyed with himself. He should have watched where
he was going when he was following Fiona and the others. The forest was
enormous. Walk in the wrong direction and he might blunder onto the North
Yorkshire moors ... and it could be days before he was found. At the same
time, the spring foliage was so thick that he could barely see ten yards in any
direction. How could he possibly find his way? Should he try to retrace his
steps or continue forward in the hope of stumbling on the right path?

Alex sensed danger
before the first shot was fired. Perhaps it was the snapping of a twig or the
click of a metal bolt being slipped into place. He froze--and that was
what saved him. There was an explosion--loud, close--and a tree one
step ahead of him shattered, splinters of wood dancing in the air.

Alex turned
around, searching for whoever had fired the shot. "What are you
doing?" he shouted. "You nearly hit me!"

Almost
immediately there was a second shot and, just behind it, a whoop of excited
laughter. And then Alex realized what was happening: They hadn't mistaken
him for an animal. They were aiming at him for fun.

He dived
forward and began to run. The trunks of the trees seemed to press in on him
from all sides, threatening to bar his way. The ground underneath was soft from
recent rain and dragged at his feet, trying to glue them into place. There was
a third explosion. He ducked, feeling the gunshot spray above his head,
shredding the foliage.

Anywhere else
in the world, this would have been madness. But this was the middle of the
English countryside and these were rich, bored teenagers who were used to
having things their own way. Somehow, Alex had insulted them. Perhaps it had
been the jibe about the wrapping paper. Perhaps it was his refusal to tell
Fiona who he really was. But they had decided to teach him a lesson, and they
would worry about the consequences later. Did they mean to kill him? "We
don't bother with rules in the countryside," Rufus had said. If
Alex was badly wounded--or even killed--they would somehow get away
with it.
A dreadful accident.
He wasn't looking where he was going and stepped into the line of fire
.

No. That was
impossible.

They were
trying to scare him--that was all.

Two more
shots. A pheasant erupted out of the ground, a ball of spinning feathers, and
screamed up into the sky. Alex ran on, his breath rasping in his throat. A
thick briar reached out across his chest and tore at his clothes. He still had
the gun he had been given, and he used it to beat a way through. A tangle of
roots almost sent him sprawling.

"Alex?
Where are you?" The voice belonged to Rufus. It was high-pitched and
mocking, coming from the other side of a barrier of leaves. There was another
shot, but this one went high over his head. They couldn't see him. Had he
escaped?

No, he
hadn't. Alex came to a stumbling, sweating halt. He had broken out of the
woods but he was still hopelessly lost. Worse--he was trapped. He had come
to the edge of a wide, filthy lake. The water was a scummy brown and looked
almost solid. No ducks or wild birds came anywhere near the surface. The
evening sun beat down on it and the smell of decay drifted up.

"He
went that way!"

"No
... through here!"

"Let's
try the lake."

Alex heard
the voices and knew that he couldn't let them find him here. He had a
sudden image of his body, weighed down with stones, at the bottom of the lake.
But that gave him an idea. He had to hide.

He stepped
into the water. He would need something to breathe through. He had seen people
do this in films. They would lie in the water and breathe through a hollow
reed. But there were no reeds here. Apart from grass and thick, slimy algae,
nothing was growing at all.

One minute
later, Rufus appeared at the edge of the lake, his gun still hooked over his
arm. He stopped and looked around with eyes that knew the forest well. Nothing
moved.

"He
must have doubled back," he said.

The other
hunters had gathered behind him. There was tension between them now, a guilty
silence. They knew the game had gone too far.

"Let's
forget him," one of them said.

"Yeah..."

"We've
taught him a lesson."

They were in
a hurry to get home. As one, they disappeared back the way they had come. Rufus
was left on his own, still clutching his gun, searching for Alex. He took one
last look across the water, then turned to follow them.

That was when
Alex struck. He had been lying under the water, watching the vague shapes of
the teenagers as if through a sheet of thick brown glass. The barrel of the
shotgun was in his mouth. The rest of the gun was just above the surface of the
lake. He was using the hollow tubes to breathe. Now he rose up--a
nightmare creature oozing mud and water, with fury in his eyes. Rufus heard him
but he was too late. Alex swung the shotgun, catching Rufus in the small of the
back. Rufus grunted and fell to his knees, his own gun falling out of his
hands. Alex picked it up. There were two cartridges in the breech. He snapped
the gun shut.