Skeleton Key

THE CRIBBER

It had taken the engineer just a few minutes to take the water dispenser apart. Now he reached inside and carefully disengaged a slim glass phial from a tangle of wires and circuit boards.

“Built into the filter,” he said. “There’s a valve system. Very ingenious.”

He passed the phial to a stern-looking woman who held it up to the light, examining its contents. The phial was half filled with a transparent liquid. She swilled it round, applied a little to her index finger and sniffed it. Her eyes narrowed. “Librium,” she announced. She had a clipped, matter-of-fact way of speaking. “Nasty little drug. A spoonful will put you out cold. A couple of drops, though… they’ll just confuse you. Basically knock you off balance.”

The restaurant, and indeed the entire Millennium Building, had been closed for the night. There were three other men there. John Crawley was one. Next to him stood a uniformed policeman, obviously senior. The third man was white-haired and serious, wearing a Wimbledon tie. Alex was sitting to one side, feeling suddenly tired and out of place. Nobody apart from Crawley knew that he worked for MI6. As far as they were concerned, he was just a ballboy who had somehow stumbled on the truth.

Alex was dressed in his own clothes now. He had phoned Crawley, then taken a shower and changed, leaving his ballboy uniform back in his locker. Somehow he knew that he had worn it for the last time. He wondered if he would be allowed to keep the shorts, shirt and Hi-Tec trainers with the crossed racquets logo embroidered on the tongue. The uniform is the only payment Wimbledon ballboys and girls receive.

“It’s pretty clear what was going on,” Crawley was saying now. “You remember, I was worried about that break-in we had, Sir Norman.” This to the man in the club tie. “Well, it seems I was right. They didn’t want to steal anything. They came here to fix up the water dispensers. In the restaurant, in the lounge and probably all over the building. Remote control… is that right, Henderson?”

Henderson was the man who had taken the water dispenser apart. Another MI6 operative. “That’s right, sir,” he replied. “The dispenser functioned perfectly normally, giving out iced water. But when it received a radio signal-and that’s what our friend was doing with the fake mobile phone-it injected a few millilitres of this drug, Librium. Not enough to show up in a random blood test if anybody happened to be tested. But enough to destroy their game.”

Alex remembered the German player. Blitz, Leaving the court after he’d lost his match. He had looked dazed and out of focus. But he had been more than that. He had been drugged.

“It’s transparent,” the woman added. “And it has virtually no taste. In a cup of iced water it wouldn’t have been noticed.”

“But I don’t understand!” Sir Norman cut in. “What was the point?”

“I think I can answer that,” the policeman said. “As you know, the guard isn’t talking, but the tattoo on his arm would indicate that he is-or was-a member of the Big Circle.”

“And what exactly would that be?” Sir Norman spluttered.

“It’s a triad, sir. A Chinese gang. The triads, of course, are involved in a range of criminal activities. Drugs. Vice. Illegal immigration. And gambling. I would guess this operation was related to the latter. Like any other sporting event, Wimbledon attracts millions of pounds’ worth of bets. Now, as I understand it, the young Frenchman-Lefevre-began the tournament with odds of three hundred to one against his actually winning.”

“But then he beat Blitz and Bryant,” Crawley said.

“Exactly. I’m sure Lefevre had no idea, personally, what was going on. But if all his opponents were drugged before they went onto the court… Well, it happened twice. It could have gone on right up to the final. Big Circle would have made a killing! A hundred thousand pounds bet on the Frenchman would have brought them thirty million.”

Sir Norman stood up. “The important thing now is that nobody finds out about this,” he said. “It would be a national scandal and disastrous for our reputation. In fact we’d probably have to begin the whole tournament again!” He glanced at Alex but spoke to Crawley. “Can this boy be trusted not to talk?” he asked.

“I won’t tell anyone what happened,” Alex said.

“Good. Good.”

The policeman nodded. “You did a very good job,” he added. “Spotting this chap in the first place and then following him and alt the rest of it. Although, I have to say, I think it was rather irresponsible to lock him in the deep freeze.”

“He tried to kill me,” Alex said.

“Even so! He could have frozen to death. As it is, he may well have lost a couple of fingers from frostbite.”

“I hope that won’t spoil his tennis playing.”

“Well, I don’t know…” The policeman coughed. He was clearly unable to make Alex out. “Anyway, well done. But next time, do try to think what you’re doing. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt!”

To hell with the lot of them!

Alex stood watching the waves, black and silver in the moonlight as they rolled into the sweeping curve of Fistral Beach. He was trying to put the policeman, Sir Norman and the whole of Wimbledon out of his mind. He had more or less saved the entire All England Tennis Tournament and although he hadn’t been expecting a season ticket in the royal box and tea with the Duchess of Kent, nor had he thought he would be bundled out quite so hastily. He had watched the finals, on his own, on TV. At least they’d let him keep his ballboy uniform.

And there was one other good thing that had come out of it all. Sabina hadn’t forgotten her invitation.

He was standing on the veranda of the house her parents had rented, a house that would have been ugly anywhere else in the world but which seemed perfectly suited to its position on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Cornish coast. It was old-fashioned, square, part brick, part white-painted wood. It had five bedrooms, three staircases and too many doors. Its garden was more dead than alive, blasted by salt and sea spray. The house was called Brook’s Leap, although nobody knew who Brook was, why he had leapt, or even if he had survived. Alex had been there for three days. He had been invited to stay the week.

There was a movement behind him. A door had opened and Sabina Pleasure stepped out, wrapped in a thick towelling robe, carrying two glasses. It was warm outside. Although it had been raining when Alex arrived-it nearly always seemed to be raining in Cornwall -the weather had cleared and this was suddenly a summer’s night. Sabina had left him outside while she went in to have a bath. Her hair was still wet. The robe fell loosely down to her bare feet. Alex thought she looked much older than her fifteen years.

“I brought you a Coke,” she said.

“Thanks.”

The veranda was wide, with a low balcony, a swing chair and a table. Sabina set the glasses down then sat down herself. Alex joined her. The wooden frame of the swing chair creaked and they swung together, looking out at the view. For a long time neither of them said anything. Then, suddenly…

“Why don’t you tell me the truth?” Sabina asked.

“What d’you mean?”

“I was just thinking about Wimbledon. Why did you leave straight after the quarter finals? You were there one minute. Court Number One! And then-”

“I told you,” Alex cut in, feeling uncomfortable. “I wasn’t well.”

“That’s not what I heard. There was a rumour that you were involved in some sort of fight. And that’s another thing. I’ve noticed you in your swimming shorts. I’ve never seen anyone with so many cuts and bruises.”

“I’m bullied at school.”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got a friend who goes to Brookland. She says you’re never there. You keep disappearing. You were away twice last term and the day you got back, half the school burned down.”

Alex leaned forward and picked up his Coke, rolling the cold glass between his hands. An aeroplane was crossing the sky, tiny in the great darkness, its lights blinking on and off.

“All right, Sab,” he said. “I’m not really a schoolboy. I’m a spy, a teenage James Bond. I have to take time off from school to save the world. I’ve done it twice so far. The first time was here in Cornwall. The second time was in France. What else do you want to know?”

Sabina smiled. “All right, Alex. Ask a stupid question…” She drew her legs up, snuggling into the warmth of the towelling robe. “But there is something different about you. You’re like no boy I’ve ever met.”

“Kids?” Sabina’s mother was calling out from the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you be thinking about bed?”

It was ten o’clock. The two of them would be getting up at five to catch the surf.

“Five minutes!” Sabina called back.

“I’m counting.”

Sabina sighed. “Mothers!”

But Alex had never known his mother.

Twenty minutes later, getting into bed, he thought about Sabina Pleasure and her parents; her father a slightly bookish man with long grey hair and spectacles, her mother round and cheerful, more like Sabina herself. There were only the three of them. Maybe that was what made them so close. They lived in west London and rented this house for four weeks every summer.

He turned off the light and lay back in the darkness. His room, set high up in the roof of the house, had only one small window and he could see the moon, glowing white, as perfectly round as a one penny piece. From the moment he had arrived, they’d treated him as if they’d known him all his life. Every family has its own routine and Alex had been surprised how quickly he had fallen in with theirs, joining them on long walks along the cliffs, helping with the shopping and the cooking, or simply sharing the silence-reading and watching the sea.

Why couldn’t he have had a family like this? Alex felt an old, familiar sadness creep up on him.

His parents had died before he was even a few weeks old. The uncle who had brought him up and who had taught him so much had still been, in many ways, a stranger to him. He had no brothers or sisters. Sometimes he felt as isolated as the plane he had seen from the veranda, making its long journey across the night sky, unnoticed and alone.

Alex pulled the pillows up around his head, annoyed with himself. He had friends. He enjoyed his life. He’d managed to catch up with his work at school and he was having a great holiday. And with a bit of luck, with the Wimbledon business behind him, MI6 would leave him alone. So why was he letting himself slip into this mood?

The door opened. Somebody had come into his room. It was Sabina. She was leaning over him. He felt her hair fall against his cheek and smelled her faint perfume; flowers and white musk. Her lips brushed gently against his.

“You’re much cuter than James Bond,” she said.

And then she was gone. The door closed behind her.

Five-fifteen the next morning.

If this had been a schoolday, Alex wouldn’t have woken up for another two hours, and even then he would have dragged himself out of bed unwillingly. But this morning he had been awake in an instant. He had felt the energy and tension coursing through him. And walking down to Fistral Beach with the dawn light pink in the sky, he could feel it still. The sea was calling to him, daring him to come in. “Look at the waves!” Sabina said. “They’re big,” Alex muttered. “They’re huge. This is amazing!” It was true. Alex had been surfing twice before-once in Norfolk, once with his uncle in California -but he had never seen anything like this. There was no wind. The local radio station had warned of deep water squalls and an exceptionally high tide. Together these had produced waves that took his breath away. They were at least ten feet high, rolling slowly inland as if they carried the weight of the whole ocean on their shoulders. The crash as they broke was huge, terrifying. Alex could feel his heart pounding. He looked at the moving walls of water, the dark blue, the foaming white. Was he really going to ride one of these monsters on a flimsy board made of nothing more than a strip of fibreglass? Sabina had seen him hesitate. “What d’you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know…” Alex replied and realized he was shouting to make himself heard above the roar of the waves.

“The sea’s too strong!” Sabina was a good surfer. The morning before, Alex had watched her skilfully manoeuvring some nasty reefbreaks close to the shore. But now she looked uncertain. “Maybe we should go back to bed!” she yelled.

Alex took in the whole scene. There were another half-dozen surfers on the beach and, in the far distance, a man steadying a jet ski in the shallow water. He knew that he and Sabina would be the youngest people there. Like her, he was wearing a three millimetre neoprene wetsuit and boots which would protect him from the cold. So why was he shivering? Alex didn’t have his own board but had rented an Ocean Magic thruster. Sabina’s was a wider, thicker board, going for stability rather than speed, but Alex preferred the thruster for its grip and the feeling of control provided by its three fins. He was glad also that he had chosen an eight-foot-four. If he was going to catch waves as big as these, he was going to need the extra length. If…

Alex wasn’t sure he was going into the water. The waves looked about twice as tall as him and he knew that if he made a mistake he could all too easily get killed. Sabina’s parents had forbidden her to go in if the sea looked too rough and he had to admit, it had never looked rougher. He watched another wave come crashing down and might have turned back if he hadn’t heard one surfer calling to another, the words whipping across the empty sands.

“The Cribber!”

It couldn’t be true. The Cribber had come to Fistral Beach. Alex had heard the name many times. The Cribber had become a legend not just in Cornwall but throughout the surfing world. Its first recorded visit had been in September 1966, more than twenty feet high, the most powerful wave ever to hit the English coast. Since then there had been occasional sightings, but few had seen it and fewer still had managed to take the ride.

“The Cribber! The Cribber!” The other surfers were calling its name, whooping and shouting. He watched them dance across the sand, their boards over their heads. Suddenly he knew that he had to go into the water. He was too young. The waves were too big. But he would never forgive himself if he missed the chance.

“I’m going!” he shouted and ran forward, carrying his board in front of him, the tail connected to his ankle by a tough urethane leash. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sabina raise a hand in a gesture of good luck, but by then he had reached the edge of the sea and felt the cold water grip his ankles. He threw the board down and dived on top of it, the momentum carrying him forward. And then he was lying flat on his stomach, his legs stretched out behind him, his hands paddling furiously over the top of the board. This was the most exhausting part of the journey. Alex concentrated on his arms and shoulders, keeping the rest of his body still. He had a long way to go. He needed to conserve energy.

He heard a sound above the pounding of the sea and noticed the jet ski pulling away from the shore. That puzzled him. PWCs-personal water craft-were rare in Cornwall and he certainly hadn’t seen this one before. Normally they were used to tow surfers out to the bigger waves, but this jet ski was striking out on its own. He could see the rider, hooded, in a black wetsuit. Was he-or she-planning to ride the Cribber on a machine?

He forgot about it. His arms were getting tired now and he hadn’t even made it halfway. His cupped hands scooped the water and he felt himself shoot forward. The other surfers were well ahead of him. He could see the point where the waves crested, about twenty metres away. A mountain of water rose up in front of him and he duck-dived through it. For a moment he was blind. He tasted salt and the chill of the water hammered into his skull. But then he was out the other side. He fixed his eyes on the horizon and redoubled his efforts. The thruster carried him forward as if it had somehow been filled with a life of its own.

Alex stopped and drew breath. Suddenly everything seemed very silent. He was still lying on his stomach, rising and falling as he was swept over the waves. He looked back at the shoreline and was surprised to see how far he had come. Sabina was sitting watching him, a tiny speck in the distance. The nearest surfer was about thirty metres away; too far to help if anything went wrong. There was a knot of fear in his stomach and he wondered if he hadn’t been a bit hasty, coming out here on his own. But it was too late now.

He sensed it before he saw it. It was as if the world had chosen that moment to come to an end and all nature was taking one final breath. He turned and there it was. The Cribber was coming. It was hurtling towards him. Now it was too late to change his mind.

For a few seconds Alex stared in astonishment at the rolling, curving, thundering water. It was like watching a four-storey building wrench itself out of the ground and hurl itself onto the street. It was built entirely out of water, but the water was alive. Alex could feel its incredible strength. Suddenly, awesomely, it rose up in front of him. And went on rising until it had blotted out the sky. Techniques that he had learned a long time ago took over automatically. Alex grabbed the edge of the board and turned round so that he was once again facing the shore. He forced himself to wait until the last second. Move too late and he would miss everything. But too early and he would simply be crushed. His muscles tensed. His teeth were chattering. His whole body seemed to have become electrified. Now!

This was the most difficult part, the movement that was hardest to learn but impossible to forget. The pop-up. Alex could feel the board travelling with the pulse of the wave. His speed and the speed of the water had become one. He brought his hands down, flat on the board, arched his back and pushed. At the same time, he brought his right leg forward. Goofy-footed. When he was snowboarding, he was exactly the same. But he didn’t care, as long as he could actually stand up without losing his balance, and already he was doing just that, balancing the two main forces, speed and gravity, as the thruster sliced diagonally across the wave.

He stood straight, his arms out, his teeth bared, perfectly centred on the board. He had done it! He was riding the Cribber. Sheer exhilaration coursed through him. He could feel the power of the wave. He was part of it. He was plugged into the world and although he must be travelling at sixty, seventy kilometres per hour, time seemed to have slowed down almost to a halt and he was frozen in this one, perfect moment that would be with him for the rest of his life. He yelled out loud, an animal cry that he couldn’t even hear. Spray rushed into his face, exploding around him. He could barely feel the thruster under his feet. He was flying. He had never been more alive.

And then he heard it over the roar of the waves. It was coming up fast to one side of him, the whine of a petrol engine. To hear anything mechanical here, at this time, was so unlikely that he thought he must have imagined it. Then he remembered the jet ski. It must have gone out to sea and then circled round, behind the waves. Now it was coming in fast.

His first thought was that the rider was “dropping in”. It was one of the unwritten laws of surfing. Alex was up and riding. This was his wave. The rider had no right to cut into his space. But at the same time, he knew that was crazy. Fistral Beach was practically deserted. There was no need to fight for space. And anyway, a jet ski coming after a surfer…it was unheard of.

The engine was louder now. Alex couldn’t see the jet ski. His entire concentration was fixed on the Cribber, on keeping his balance, and he didn’t dare turn round. He was suddenly aware of the rushing water, thousands of gallons of it, thundering under his feet. If he fell he would die, ripped apart before he could drown. What was the jet ski doing? Why was it coming so close?

Alex knew he was in danger quite suddenly and with total certainty. What was happening had nothing to do with Cornwall and his surfing holiday. His other life, his life with MI6, had caught up with him. He remembered being chased down the mountainside at Point Blanc and knew that the same thing was happening again. Who or why didn’t matter. He had just seconds to do something before the jet ski ran him down.

He flicked his head and saw it for just a second. A black nose like a torpedo. Gleaming chrome and glass. A man squatting low over the controls, his eyes fixed on Alex. The eyes were filled with hatred. They were less than a metre away.

There was only one thing Alex could do and he did it instantly, without thinking. The aerial is a move that demands split-second timing and total confidence. Alex twisted round and projected himself off the top of the wave and out into the air. At the same time, he crouched down and seized hold of the thruster, one hand on each side. Now he really was flying, suspended in midair as the wave rolled away beneath him. He saw the jet ski race past, covering the area where he had been only seconds before. He spun round, drawing an almost complete circle in the air. At the last moment, he remembered to place his foot right in the centre of the board. This would take all his weight when he landed.

The water rushed up to meet him. Alex finished his circle and plunged once again onto the face of the wave. It was a perfect landing. Water exploded around him but he remained upright and now he was just behind the jet ski. The rider turned back and Alex saw the look of astonishment on his face. The man was Chinese. Impossibly, incredibly, he was holding a gun. Alex saw it come up, water dripping off the barrel. This time there was nowhere he could go. He didn’t have the strength to try another aerial. With a shout, he threw himself off the board and forward, onto the jet ski. He felt a jolt, his leg almost being pulled off as his board was torn away by the suddenly malevolent water.

There was an explosion. The man had fired. But the bullet missed. Alex thought he felt it pass over his shoulder. At the same moment, his hands grabbed the man’s throat. His knees crashed into the side of the jet ski. And then the entire world was whipped away as man and machine lost control and tumbled into a spinning vortex of water. Alex’s leg jerked a second time and he felt the leash snap. He heard a shout. Suddenly the man wasn’t there any more. Alex was on his own. He couldn’t breathe. Water pounded down on him. He felt himself being sucked helplessly into it. He couldn’t struggle. His arms and legs were useless. He had no strength left. He opened his mouth to scream and the water rushed in.

Then his shoulder hit something hard and he knew he had reached the bottom of the sea and that this would have to be his grave. He had dared to play with the Cribber and the Cribber had taken its revenge. Somewhere, far above, another wave broke over him, but Alex didn’t see it. He lay where he was, finally at peace.