Nightrise

NATIVE SON

They did nothing at all the next day. Jamie needed to rest and Alicia and Daniel were glad to have time alone with each other. They felt safe in the trailer park. People came and went and nobody asked too many questions. Jamie hadn’t been seen. They could have been a family trying to sort themselves out or they could have been on the run from the law – to the other inhabitants, it made no difference.

Alicia was worried about Jamie. She had brought him lunch and changed the dressing on his wound. They had spoken a little, but most of the time he wanted to be by himself. He had been gone only a week, but now that he had come back he was completely changed. Of course, he had been shot. He had nearly died. And she could sense his disappointment at not finding Scott. But it was something more even more than all that. He had aged. He was looking at the world with different eyes.

The next day was a Saturday and Jamie woke late. The trailer only had one bedroom, which Alicia was sharing with Daniel, and Jamie had a sofa bed in the main room. They all knew that they couldn’t stay here much longer. They were wasting their time in Reno. There were still things they had to do.

When Alicia came through, Jamie was sitting up. She was glad to see that a lot of his colour had returned and he seemed to be moving more easily.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Thanks.” He looked around him. “Where’s Danny?”

“Still asleep.”

Alicia went into the kitchen area and boiled the kettle. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I’m tired, Alicia. But I’m going to be all right. I just need to start looking for Scott.” Jamie hesitated but there was something he had to know. “When are you and Danny going back to Washington?” he asked. “You’ve got your work to go back to. There must be a lot of stuff you have to do.”

Alicia brought the coffee over to the bed. “You can get one thing out of your head,” she said. “I’m not going to leave until we’ve found Scott. I told you that from the start. We’re in this together… and Danny agrees. We’re going to stick with you.”

Jamie nodded his thanks. “I don’t have any idea where to start,” he said.

“But I do.” Alicia sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. “A lot has happened in the last few days,” she explained. “Starting with the fact that the Feds took over Silent Creek while you and Danny were hiding out in the mountains.”

“They went in…?”

“It was John Trelawny. He’s been desperately worried about you. He called the authorities.”

“I thought he couldn’t do that.”

“Something changed. He wants to speak to you urgently. I’d have called him yesterday only he was travelling from the East Coast – and anyway you were out of it.”

“So what happened to Silent Creek? Did they find the Block?”

Alicia nodded. “All the prisoners – the ones they called the Specials – have been released and the other kids are going to be transferred to state facilities. I spoke to Patrick. Do you remember him?”

Jamie thought back to the silver-haired man they had met at the hotel in Los Angeles. He had been the senator’s California campaign chairman.

“He told me as much as he could, which actually wasn’t very much. For the moment, nobody’s talking. Of course, Nightrise is denying any knowledge of the kidnappings or anything to do with them. They’re trying to claim that it was all down to Colton Banes, that he was running some sort of independent operation – and since he’s dead, he’s not going to argue.”

“Has there been anything in the newspapers?”

“Not yet. The story is so huge and nobody quite understands what’s been going on. For the time being, they’re keeping it quiet.”

Jamie understood. He knew there would be a cover-up. There were too many questions that were not only unanswered but unanswerable. He didn’t care. He was just glad that Daniel’s friend – Billy – and the other kids would be returned to their families. And it was good news for Baltimore, Green Eyes and the other prisoners too. They’d be better off with the Nevada authorities looking after them. Maybe they’d even earn an early release.

“It’s all good news,” Alicia said, and Jamie could tell that she wasn’t just trying to cheer him up. “The Feds are in control. They arrested a man called Max Koring and they seized all the paperwork in the administration block. They’re going through it now. There must be some record of what happened to Scott. Someone must know where he is. They’ll find something. I’m sure of it.”

Jamie wanted to share her optimism. But he wasn’t so sure. It seemed to him that Nightrise was bigger and more powerful than any of them suspected. But then he had seen the Old Ones. The shape-changers. The fire riders. The mutilated humans. So much death, delivered without a second thought. Sitting here in this trailer on the edge of Reno airport, Alicia thought the world was safe. Jamie knew how wrong she might be.

“Why does Senator Trelawny want to see me?” he asked.

“He didn’t say. He just said that he had new information and there was someone you had to meet. He thought they’d find you at the prison. The people who went in… their first job was to get you out and bring you to him. We’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Where is he now?”

“Not all that far from here. He’s just over the state line in California… in the High Sierra. Have you heard of a place called Auburn?”

Jamie shook his head.

“It’s an old mining town. It got big in the gold rush days. John was born there and today it’s his fiftieth birthday, so they’re giving him a parade.” There was a television in the room, on the kitchen counter, and a remote control next to the bed. Alicia reached out and picked it up. “There should be something on the news,” she said.

She switched on the TV.

It was already tuned to a twenty-four-hour news channel. The anchor man was talking about the result of a trial following some big financial scandal. Then there were advertisements. Then a story about a basketball player charged with murder.

“We’ll meet the senator in Los Angeles,” Alicia said.

“Are the police still looking for me?” Jamie asked. It suddenly dawned on him how ridiculous his situation had become. He had committed no crime but he was still wanted for the murders of Don White and Marcie Kelsey. And as Jeremy Rabb, he was presumably wanted for various drug offences and for escaping from Silent Creek. How had he got himself into this mess?

But Alicia never got a chance to answer the question.

“… and in Auburn, California, last-minute preparations for a very special birthday party. John Trelawny, the man most people believe will win the November election, is returning to his home town, where he was born fifty years ago. These are the streets where, in just a few hours’ time, five thousand people are expected to gather to welcome the senator…”

The story they had been waiting for came onto the screen. Glancing at the picture, Jamie froze. It was as if a chasm had opened up underneath him and he had been sucked into it. He found himself grabbing hold of the bed as if to steady himself. His eyes were fixed on the TV.

He had seen a face he recognized. Not John Trelawny. It was the last face he had expected to see. It wasn’t anyone he had met in the real world. It wasn’t a real person at all.

It was a statue.

A grey stone face. Skin like putty. Hollowed-out eyes. The figure was wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a cowboy hat. It was resting on one knee, holding a bowl. There was some sort of metal bridge in the background and a few pieces of old mine works around.

“What is it?” Alicia demanded. She had seen the look on his face.

The camera had only lingered on it for a moment but Jamie had heard the words of the commentary, “… looking for gold, the town was first founded in the nineteenth century…” And suddenly he understood what this man was… the man he had first seen kneeling by the water in his dreams.

Not a cowboy. A gold prospector.

Why?

“Jamie…?” Alicia was becoming alarmed.

“Did you see? Just now…”

“What?”

“On the screen!”

It was too late. The picture had changed. Now it was showing old footage of John Trelawny waving to the crowd at another rally.

“There was a man on the screen just now. Not a man. A statue. I’ve seen it before and. I don’t know why, but it means something. It’s important.”

“In Auburn?”

“Yes. I think so.”

Alicia slid off the bed. She had a laptop with her and she opened it, powering it up and connecting it to the Internet. Meanwhile, Jamie was thinking furiously. He knew he had been sent a sign and that it was up to him, and him alone, to make sense of it.

The statue of a gold prospector in Auburn. A grey giant kneeling on a beach. They were one and the same – Jamie was sure of it. He remembered what Matt had told him. The dream world was there to help them. But sometimes it sent them messages in strange ways. What had the grey man told him?

“He’s gonna kill him. And it’s your job to stop him.”

Was Scott going to be killed in Auburn? Was that what he had meant?

“His name is Claude Chana,” Alicia said. She had accessed an Auburn website on her computer and was looking at a picture of the statue now. “He found gold in the Auburn ravine in 1848 and that led to the establishment of a mining camp which later became the town. There’s a statue of him down by the old firehouse.”

“ He’s gonna kill him.”

“You mean… Scott?”

“No, boy. You don’t understand-”

But suddenly, with horrible clarity, Jamie did understand. There were two men fighting to become president: John Trelawny and Charles Baker. Nightrise supported Baker. But Trelawny was winning.

So Nightrise were going to assassinate him.

And they were going to use Scott.

“He’s gonna kill him.” The “he” was Scott. The “him” was Trelawny. It was as simple as that.

“You have to call the senator,” Jamie said, and it almost sounded to him as if it was someone else who was talking. “You have to warn him.”

“What…?”

“They’re going to try to kill him.”

Alicia stared at him. “What are you saying? How can you know that?”

“Please, Alicia. Don’t argue with me. I can’t explain it to you but they’re going to kill Senator Trelawny in Auburn today and you have to get him on the phone and stop him going there.”

Alicia hesitated only a few seconds more. Then she grabbed her cell phone and speed-dialled a number. Jamie waited as the number was connected. He saw her face fall.

“Senator…” she said, and he could tell she was leaving a message. “This is Alicia McGuire. I’ve been talking to Jamie and he says you’re in danger, that you mustn’t go to Auburn. Please call me back.”

She snapped the phone shut.

“He wasn’t there,” Jamie said.

“I only have his personal cell phone number,” Alicia explained. “He wanted me to be able to call him directly. But he may have left his own phone behind. He may have switched it off. I don’t know how to reach him.”

“How far is it to Auburn?”

“I don’t know. It’s the other side of Lake Tahoe.”

“How long would it take us to get there?”

Alicia’s face brightened. “Not that long. A couple of hours.”

“And when does the parade start?”

“Midday.” She looked at her watch. It was a few minutes after ten o’clock. She made a decision. “We can make it,” she said. “Get dressed. I’ll wake Daniel. It’s going to be tight, but we can get there…”

The crowds had started arriving early for the birthday parade and by eleven o’clock there must have been two thousand people lining the pavements, with more spilling out of their cars every minute. There were dozens of police officers on special duty. The secret service had gone in the night before and cordoned off the area where the parade would take place. While the local residents slept, they had discreetly swept the entire town, using dogs to sniff out any trace of high explosives, installing security cameras, identifying the rooftops and the second-floor windows that might provide a marksman with cover.

There were two quite separate parts of Auburn. The modern section was unremarkable, a couple of streets that met at an angle with the usual assortment of shops and offices. But the Old Town, as everyone called it, had been almost perfectly preserved, a living echo of the nineteenth century and the gold rush that had created it.

It stood – or nestled, rather – at the bottom of a hill. The main street swept down and then split into two, each side curving round like the two halves of a horseshoe with an open area, like a town square, in the middle. Shops and houses ran all the way along the edges, most of them brick or timber-framed. But it was the buildings in the middle of the square that were the town’s pride and joy. One was an old post office, the other a firehouse, which looked like an oversized toy with its pointed roof and red and white stripes.

Auburn had its own courthouse that stood high above the town, its great dome glinting in the sunlight. In the summer months, the heat could be almost too much to bear and the town would resemble not so much a horseshoe as a frying pan. But someone, a long time ago, had planted a cedar tree behind the firehouse and its branches had spread in every direction, the dark green leaves providing at least some shelter from the sun.

The statue of Claude Chana stood next to the cedar tree. This was where the Old Town came to an abrupt end, with Highway 80 carrying six lanes of traffic, roaring past east and west. There were two filling stations facing each other and a railway bridge behind. This was what Jamie had seen on the TV.

It was going to be a hot day.

The sky was almost cloudless and the sun dazzled as it bounced off the tarmac and the shop windows. The entire town had been dressed up for the parade, with a row of bleachers, six high, constructed in front of the post office and facing back up the hill. The parade would come this way. It would turn off past the main shopping parade and make a complete circle behind the cedar tree before stopping once again at the bleachers. There was a platform, a row of microphones, an area for the press. The mayor would make a speech welcoming John Trelawny. John Trelawny would make a speech thanking the mayor. Then everyone would have lunch.

There were flags everywhere. Hundreds of them. Flags on lampposts and street corners, attached to cars, bikes and prams, fluttering from the dome of the courthouse. A great banner had been erected above the bleachers so that everyone would see it as they came down the hill.

AUBURN WELCOMES SENATOR TRELAWNY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOHN!

And although the shops had been closed for the day, their windows were filled with messages of support.

VAL’S LIQUOR SUPPORTS JOHN TRELAWNY FOR PRESIDENT PLACER COUNTY BANK WELCOMES JOHN TRELAWNY – NATIVE SON

The local dignitaries were already taking their places on the bleachers. The mayor’s wife was there, sitting next to Grace Trelawny and her two sons. The chief of police and the fire chief, both in uniform, had taken seats in the front row. The town’s founding families and its most prominent businessmen had been invited, as had many of the people who had known John Trelawny when he was growing up: his principal, his teachers, the local minister, the football coach. By quarter to twelve, every seat had been taken apart from two, right in the middle. They had both been marked with RESERVED signs.

Barriers had been erected for crowd control and by now people were lining the pavements, five or six rows deep. The local police were patrolling the edge of the street, occasionally barking out orders through their bullhorns – even though there was no need for it and nobody was listening. The atmosphere was light-hearted. It was obvious that everyone in Auburn supported John Trelawny and, if there were any protestors, they had been wise enough to stay away.

At midday exactly the parade began.

First up was the local high school marching band: the trumpets and trombones glinting brilliantly, the music blasting out. Among them was a tiny boy with a huge drum and a huge boy with a triangle. Two baton twirlers led the way and they were followed by a drill team: a dozen girls in sparkling silver, going through a series of tightly rehearsed steps. Someone threw a switch and a rap song burst out, fighting with the music from the band. But it didn’t matter. The jumble of noise and colour was what it was all about.

Then came the vehicles: open-top Cadillacs and sports cars. The president of the Chamber of Commerce, waving and looking pleased with himself. Miss Auburn and two other beauty queens with their sequins and sashes. A single fire truck with half a dozen firefighters (they got the biggest cheer from the crowd). War veterans, some of them in wheelchairs. Then dozens more children walking behind. Boy scouts, girl scouts, cub scouts. And flag bearers – all dressed identically in silver and blue – spinning flags over their heads and around their shoulders, perfectly in step.

As the procession made its way down the hill, two latecomers slipped through the seated dignitaries on the bleachers. One was a middle-aged woman with short grey hair, a thin neck and glasses that were slightly too big for her face. The other was a teenage boy, rather strangely dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, open at the collar. The clothes didn’t look right on him, as if someone had chosen them for him against his wishes. The boy was very pale. His eyes were empty. He had no expression on his face at all.

The woman muttered her apologies as the two of them took their places in their reserved seats. Susan Mortlake and Scott Tyler had arrived. Now they sat and waited for the man they had come to kill.

“We’re not going to make it,” Jamie said.

“This car won’t go any faster,” Alicia muttered. “I’m doing the best I can…”

But it was already twelve fifteen and although they had seen signs for Auburn along Highway 80, the town refused to come into sight. There were three of them in the car. Jamie was next to Alicia. Daniel was sitting in the back, leaning over them both.

Jamie hadn’t been able to explain how he had worked it out but he knew, with cold certainty, that he was right. He had seen photographs of Charles Baker when he was in the Nightrise offices in Los Angeles and Senator Trelawny had explained how the corporation was bankrolling his rival’s campaign. Perhaps this was why they had wanted Scott and Jamie in the first place. Scott could order Trelawny to throw himself under a car. He could tell him to stop breathing and the senator would suffocate then and there. The two boys had always tried to keep their powers hidden. They had learned, from bitter experience, what they were capable of. If Scott had been turned into a weapon, he would be unstoppable.

Scott. That was the other thought racing through Jamie’s mind. Of course he wanted to save the senator’s life. But if they got to Auburn in time, he would see his brother again and that mattered to him more.

“We’re here!” Alicia spoke the words and a moment later veered off the highway, taking an exit that sloped up to a bridge and over to the other side. As they turned, Jamie saw the statue of Claude Chana crouching below. Was this really the same figure that had haunted him, repeatedly, in his dreams? There could be no doubt of it. The statue might look harmless now. It wasn’t a giant or a monster. But somehow it had been sent to bring him a warning. Jamie glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Twenty-five past twelve! He wondered if he was already too late.

They reached the other side of the bridge. Now Jamie saw some of the crowds spilling over the pavements and heard the music of the marching bands. There was a policeman ahead, signalling them to move forward. But that was the wrong way. The road would lead them past the courthouse and up to the new town. Alicia needed to turn right – but that way had been blocked off. From this position, there was no sight of the bleachers, the post office, the stage where Trelawny would speak. But one thing was certain. There was nowhere to park, no way they could drive into the crowd.

The policeman was waving at them, more angrily now.

“Mum…?” Daniel muttered from the back seat.

“Hold on,” Alicia said.

She spun the wheel to the right and slammed her foot down on the accelerator. The tyres screamed. The car shot forward and down the hill towards the crowd.

John Trelawny was in the back of a vintage 1960s Cadillac. The mayor of Auburn was next to him. As usual there was a secret-service man driving. Warren Cornfield was in the front passenger seat, his eyes completely hidden behind a pair of solid black wraparound sunglasses. There were two more secret-service men walking with the car, one on each side. They had followed Trelawny all the way down the street and the strange thing was that, despite the heat, they had barely broken into a sweat.

Trelawny could see his wife sitting in the bleachers next to another woman, whom he had met earlier that morning – she was married to the mayor. His two sons were sitting there too and he knew that they wouldn’t be enjoying this. Both of them felt shy about being out in public. His car had almost completed its circuit around the bleachers and any minute now it would stop and he and the mayor would get out. The speeches would begin. It seemed so strange to be here. Trelawny remembered playing in these streets as a child. And now here he was, fifty years old, and all these people had turned out on account of him. He wished his parents were alive to see this moment. He also hoped the speeches wouldn’t go on too long.

The car slowed down and stopped. Warren Cornfield was the first out, his hand resting on the car door, his head swivelling to take in the crowds.

About fifteen metres away, in the middle of the bleachers, Susan Mortlake leant over and rested her hand on Scott’s arm.

“All right, my dear,” she whispered. “It’s time. Do it now.”

There was a filling station at the bottom of the slope and it was the one thing in the town that hadn’t closed. Alicia drove off the ramp and into the forecourt, skidding to a halt beside the pumps. She and Jamie left the car. Daniel scrambled out after them.

“Hey!” The garage attendant had come out of his office. “You can’t leave that here!”

But they were already on their way, abandoning the car, pushing their way through the crowds. Alicia knew that they were in danger. The policeman on the bridge must have seen what they had done and he would have put out a radio alert. There was a presidential candidate in the area and anyone behaving strangely would have to be brought down quickly. In other words, shoot first – ask questions later. She wished now that she had left Daniel behind.

“How are we going to find him?” Jamie shouted.

He couldn’t absorb it all: the people in their thousands, the bands still playing, the welcoming banners, the sunlight, the flags flying red, white and blue. He felt he was being stifled. The wound in his shoulder was throbbing badly. For a moment he lost sight of Alicia.

“Watch where you’re going!” He had barged into a family. The father was a fat man, wearing a Homer Simpson T-shirt. He was scowling at him.

Alicia was a little way behind, clinging tightly onto Daniel. “Use your power!” she called to him. “You can find Scott. You don’t have to look for him.”

Jamie understood. He didn’t need to look. He could think. If Scott was anywhere near, surely he would be able to sense him. He turned his head…

And saw his brother.

Scott! He was there!

At first, Jamie didn’t recognize him. Scott was sitting so still. And he was pale, as if the life had been sucked out of him. His hair had been cut short in a style that didn’t suit him and he was too smartly dressed in a black jacket, black trousers and a shirt that was a brilliant white. It was Scott but it wasn’t him. Jamie had never seen him like this before and he was suddenly afraid.

He noticed the woman sitting next to him and knew her instantly, even though he had only ever seen her once – and then very briefly. She was part of Nightrise. She had come out of the Los Angeles office when he was there. Her eyes, behind the oversized glasses, were fixed on Scott. She was like a mother who was overly proud of her son, but – Jamie could see it in her face – this was a son who was about to do something horrible.

“Jamie!” Alicia had called out a warning. The policeman who had seen them drive down the ramp was searching for them. He was in front of the filling station – and would have spotted them if it hadn’t been for the crush of people between them. There were three more policemen with him.

“Ladies and gentlemen. It is my very great honour to welcome a fine politician and a fine man back to his home town on this… his big day!”

The mayor was speaking. His voice was being amplified by speakers positioned all the way up the street. Jamie saw him, standing on a platform in front of a bank of microphones. Senator Trelawny was next to him.

The crowd burst into applause.

Scott was staring at something, deep in concentration. Jamie couldn’t run over to him. He would have to push his way through four lines of people, climb over the barrier and cross the road. He would never even get close. There was only one thing he could do.

Scott…! He projected his thoughts over the crowd, directly into his brother’s head.

And reeled back, stunned.

It was as if he had run into a brick wall. He actually felt it, a physical blow. His head snapped back. He tasted blood.

“Jamie? What are you doing?” Alicia had managed to reach him. Daniel was with her. But Jamie couldn’t explain it to her. Not now.

“Fifty years old today – and before he’s fifty-one, he’ll be the next president of the United States.” The mayor grinned and put an arm around Senator Trelawny. The crowd applauded again.

Scott! It’s me! Jamie tried again. Once again, he was rocked backwards. His brother had built a sort of force field around himself. It had never happened before. Scott wasn’t letting him in.

“Mum…!” Daniel pointed. The policemen had seen them.

What was Scott doing? His eyes seemed to be fixed on the senator. No. It was the big fair-haired man next to him. The security chief. What was his name?

Warren Cornfield removed his sunglasses. Jamie saw him drop them on the ground as if he no longer cared about them. Then he took out his gun.

Jamie understood exactly what was happening. He could see it in the eyes of the grey-haired woman, her expectant smile. This was her doing. It was all happening exactly as she had planned.

A presidential candidate may feel safe, but he is always surrounded by men with guns – and one of those men had just been turned against him. Scott’s powers must have grown stronger than ever. He was giving orders telepathically, without opening his mouth. Jamie could see it happening now.

He was ordering Warren Cornfield to assassinate his boss.

And standing next to him, Susan Mortlake felt the power flow and almost wanted to laugh out loud. How ironic it was that it should be one of the Five who should be instrumental in creating the new world – one that would have President Charles Baker in the driving seat. It was perfect. The blond-haired man would kill Trelawny. There would be two thousand witnesses. Nothing would connect him with Nightrise. Later on, they would assume he had gone mad. And she and the boy would slip quietly away. It was almost too easy. And this was just the beginning…

Jamie was sweating. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t break through the crowd. He couldn’t connect with Scott. But now he could see the gun in Warren Cornfield’s hand. The security man was staring into space, unable to stop himself. Nobody else had seen him. Everyone was watching Trelawny and the mayor.

“Ma’am – I want you to come with us…” The policemen had reached them, the crowd parting to let them through. The officer who had seen them on the bridge was leading them. He was short and plump with brown-tinted glasses and a moustache. Alicia turned to argue with him.

Warren Cornfield aimed his gun at Trelawny.

Jamie was still fighting, trying to reach Scott. But the wall was solid. There was no way through.

It was over.

No.

There was another way…

Jamie turned away from his brother and focused all his mental energy on Cornfield. He sent his thoughts across the street, through all the noise and the confusion, the cheering and the applause, and immediately it was as if he had broken into a private room and Scott was there with him, inside the security man’s head. Jamie heard him giving the orders that were forcing Cornfield to commit murder. At the same moment, he felt the gun in his hand, his finger tightening on the trigger and knew that it was already too late, that he couldn’t stop the man firing.

The secret-service men closest to the platform saw the gun.

Somebody screamed. The policeman had taken hold of Alicia but now he turned to see what had happened.

Jamie did the only thing he could do. He knew he was about to make the most terrible decision of his life but he could see no other option.

He gave the order.

Not Trelawny. The woman!

Warren Cornfield fired.

But at the very last moment, he swivelled round and shot directly into the bleachers. His bullet hit Susan Mortlake in the centre of her forehead. She was thrown backwards. And at once everything changed as the crowd went crazy, screaming and struggling to get away, and the entire parade exploded into chaos.

The secret-service people had acted too late but now they moved fast. Two of them threw themselves on top of Trelawny, dragging him to the ground. Two more dealt with Warren Cornfield. If there hadn’t been so many people around, he would have been shot and killed. Instead, they tackled him, knocking him down and disarming him. He didn’t even try to resist. All the life had gone out of his eyes. He didn’t seem to know where he was or what he had just done.

The policeman let go of Alicia. He suspected that she was part of what had just happened but he couldn’t be sure, and his job right now was to try to bring the crowd under control before anyone else was killed. There were people running everywhere, screaming, trying to protect their children. The barriers were being knocked over. The bands had abandoned their instruments and were trying to get out of sight, afraid that there might be more shots. As Jamie watched, Senator Trelawny was led away and thrown into a car as if it was his turn now to be kidnapped. But of course his safety was the first priority. His wife and children were also being bundled out of their seats. The whole family had to be removed from the scene before any more shots were fired.

And what about Scott? He was sitting in the same place and looked dazed, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had happened. Susan Mortlake was next to him, her head flung back, her legs apart. She was quite spectacularly dead. Jamie took advantage of all the confusion around him. The way ahead was clear. He ran forward, leapt over a barrier and crossed the road. A moment later, he was climbing up the bleachers. There was a doctor crouching next to the mayor’s wife, who was screaming, in hysterics. A few people were still in their seats, traumatized, blood-splattered. Jamie ignored them.

Finally he had reached his brother.

“Scott!”

Scott turned but didn’t recognize him and that was when Jamie knew how much had been done to him, how badly he had been hurt.

He didn’t know what to do. He felt a burning in his throat. He had dreamed of the moment when he would find his brother again but he had never expected it to be like this.

And then a woman he didn’t know came up to him. Jamie glanced at her only briefly, taking in her dark red hair and expensive clothes. But she seemed to know him. “Are you Jamie Tyler?” she asked.

He didn’t know what to say. He just wanted her to leave him alone.

“You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of John Trelawny.” She had to shout to make herself heard above all the confusion. “My name is Nathalie Johnson. I was here today as his guest but I’ve been looking for you. For both of you…”

“My brother…” Jamie could only think of Scott.

The woman nodded. “Please. Trust me. I can help you. We have to get you both away.”

On the other side of the street, the policeman who had been about to arrest Alicia was making connections. He had worked out that he knew the boy from the car. He was the boy who was wanted in Nevada – the one who had shot his uncle. And there he was on the bleachers, talking to someone, right next to the woman who had been shot.

The policeman didn’t understand what was going on. There was too much going on to understand. But one thing was certain. The boy was a wanted felon.

He picked up his radio and began to talk.