Authors: Anthony Horowitz

The Blurred Man (7 page)

BOOK: The Blurred Man

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“I cannot afford shame!” He gestured with the gun, pointing at the shattered glass and the swirling rain. “Now which one of you is going to step out first?”

“He is!” Tim pointed at me.

“No, I’m not,” I said. I turned back to Hoover. “It won’t work, Hoover. Why don’t you take a look in the next pod?”

Hoover’s eyes narrowed. Fiona Lee went over to the window. There were about twenty people in the pod above us on the London Eye. All of them were dressed in blue. “It’s full of policemen!” she exclaimed. She went over to the other side. “And the one below us! That’s full of police too!”

“It must be their day out!” Tim said.

“Forget it, Tim.” It was my turn to smile. “You’ve been set up, Hoover. Every word you’ve said has been recorded. The pod’s bugged. Your confession is on tape right now, and as soon as the ride is over you and Fiona will have another ride. To jail!”

Fiona had begun to tremble. Hoover’s eyes twitched. His grip tightened on the gun. “Maybe I’ll kill you anyway,” he said. “Just for the fun of it…”

And that was when the helicopter appeared – a dark-blue police helicopter, its blades beating at the rain outside the broken window. It had come swooping out of the clouds and now hovered just a few metres away. I could see Snape in the passenger seat. Boyle was in the back, dressed in a flak jacket, cradling an automatic rifle. I just hoped he was pointing it at Hoover, not at Tim.

“Why do you think the police released you?” I shouted above the noise of the helicopter. “I rang Snape this morning and told him what I’d worked out and he asked me to meet you. You walked into a trap. He knew you’d feel safe up in the air, just the four of us. He wanted you to confess.”

A second later there was a crackle and Snape’s voice came, amplified, from the helicopter. “Put the gun down, Hoover! The pod is surrounded!”

Hoover swore in Ukrainian, and before I could stop him he had twisted round and fired at the helicopter.

I threw myself at Hoover.

He fired a second time. But his aim had gone wild. The bullet hit Fiona in the shoulder. She screamed and fell to her knees.

Hoover, with my hands at his throat, crashed into the window. This one didn’t break. I heard the toughened glass clunk against his un-toughened skull. His eyes glazed and he slid to the ground.

I turned to Tim. “Are you all right, Tim?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.” He pointed past the helicopter. “Look! You can see Trafalgar Square!”

It took another fifteen minutes for the pod to reach the ground. At once we were surrounded by uniformed police officers. Hoover and Lee were dragged out. They’d spend a few days in hospital on their way to jail. The helicopter with Snape and Boyle in was nowhere to be seen. With a bit of luck a strong gust of wind would have blown it out of London and maybe into Essex. The trouble with those two was that no matter how many times we helped them, they’d never thank us. And I’d probably end up with a detention for missing a day of school.

“We’d better go to the Ritz,” I said.

“For tea?” Tim asked.

“No, Tim. Joe Carter…”

The American was still waiting to hear about his best friend, Lenny Smile. I wasn’t looking forward to breaking the bad news to him. Maybe I’d leave that to Tim. After all, discreet was his middle name.

It had stopped raining. Tim and I walked along the South Bank, leaving the London Eye behind us. There were workmen ahead of us, shovelling a rich, black ooze onto the surface of the road. On the pavement, a tramp stood with an upturned hat, playing some sort of plinky-plonk music on a strange instrument – a zither, I think. I found a pound coin and dropped it into the hat. Charity. That was how this had all begun.

“Ta!” the tramp said.

“Tar? Don’t worry,” Tim said. “I’ve seen it…”

We crossed the river, the sound of the zither fading into the distance behind.