He was about sixty years old, wearing a suit that looked about the same age. He had slept in it and the material was terribly crumpled. Nearly all the buttons were missing and his shirt hung outside his trousers. He was unshaven, with grey stubble spreading around a mouth that was thin and rather cruel. The man’s eyes were bloodshot and sly. For a long minute he said nothing at all, looking at Matt as if he was weighing him up, trying to work out what he might be worth. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and swallowed. Then, at last, he spoke.
“Welcome,” he said.
It was the first friendly word of English Matt had heard since he had been separated from Richard and he felt a flood of relief. But at the same time, examining the man, he began to wonder if his troubles were yet over. Certainly this wasn’t the saviour he had been hoping for.
“Pedro tells me that you are American,” the man said. His English accent was unattractive. Or maybe it was the suspicious tone of his voice, the way he drawled the words.
“No. I’m English,” Matt said.
“From England!” The man was amused. “From London?”
“I flew from London. But I live in a place called York.”
“York.” He repeated the word but had obviously never heard of it. “Pedro says that you are alone. That you were beaten by the police. That they were going to arrest you.”
“Yes. Can you thank him for helping me?”
“He does not need your gratitude. What makes you think he wants anything from you?”
The man reached down beside the bed and produced a bottle, half filled with some transparent liquid. He drank and as he lowered it, Matt caught the whiff of alcohol. Next he took out half a cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it. All the time, his eyes never left the new arrival.
“Pedro says you have money,” he said.
Matt hesitated – but once again he knew he had no choice.
He took out the ten-pound note and gave it to the man.
The man turned the note in his hands, then slid it into his jacket pocket with a twitch of the lips that might have been a smile. A moment later, he snapped something at Pedro. Pedro scowled. The man waited. Pedro slipped Matt’s watch off his wrist and handed it over.
“What is your name?” the man asked.
Once again, Matt hesitated. What name should he use? But there was no point trying to pretend he was someone he wasn’t. The fake passport had already proved itself to be useless. “I’m Matt,” he said.
“And I am Sebastian.” The man blew out smoke. It hung in the air, silvery grey. “It seems that you need help, my friend.”
“I haven’t got any more money to give you,” Matt muttered angrily.
“Your money and your watch will buy me food. But right now, I think, they are of no use to you. If you want them, take them and go. You will probably be dead, or in jail, before the sun comes down. But if you want my help, be polite to me. You are in my house. Remember that.”
Matt bit his lip. Sebastian was right. The money was irrelevant. “Who are you?” he asked. “What is this place?”
“This community has a name,” Sebastian replied. “The local people call it Ciudad del Veneno. In English, you would say… Poison Town. They call it that because of the amount of disease that there is here. Cholera. Bronchitis. Pleurisy. Diphtheria. None of us has any right to live in this place. We have stolen this land and built our homes. But the authorities never come here. They are too scared.”
Matt looked around, almost afraid to breathe.
“Don’t worry, Matt.” Sebastian smiled, showing two gold-capped teeth. “There is no illness in this house or in this street. And nobody understands why. Nine of us live here. And there are seven more next door. We have nothing… but we have our health.”
“Does Pedro live here?”
Pedro glanced up, hearing his name. Until now, he had been examining Matt with a look of mistrust. But he had shown no interest in what was being said.
“He sleeps on the floor, right where you are standing now. He works for me. He and the other children. But why are we wasting time, talking about him? There are a million kids like him in Lima. They live. They die. They are of no use at all. But an English boy in Poison Town, that is another matter. How do you come to be here, Matt? Why are the police looking for you? You must tell me everything and then we will see how we can help. If we can help. If we want to…”
Everything?
Matt didn’t know where to start. His story was so huge. It had swallowed up his life. And where did he begin? With the death of his parents six years ago, or his involvement with Raven’s Gate and the Nexus? It was hopeless. Matt knew that. He could talk all day and this man wouldn’t believe a word of it.
“I can’t explain it all to you,” he said. “I came to Peru because something bad is about to happen and there are people who thought I could stop it. There were two of us. Me and a friend. His name is Richard Cole and he’s older than me… twenty-five. Neither of us wanted to come here but we were sent.”
“To stop this thing from happening.”
“Yes. I have no passport. The passport I was given is a fake. It was meant to protect me. But the moment I arrived, I was attacked. Richard was kidnapped and the police tried to arrest me. There was a police captain. He said he was working for someone called Diego Salamanda.”
Sebastian had been listening to all this with a look of puzzlement and disbelief. The mention of Salamanda was the first thing to provoke any real reaction. His eyes narrowed and he allowed a trickle of cigar smoke to escape from the corner of his mouth. “Salamanda!” he exclaimed. “Do you know who he is?”
“Some sort of businessman.”
“One of the richest men in South America. Certainly the richest man in Peru. They say he has more money than the rest of the population put together, with his mobile phones and his newspapers and his satellites.” He rapped a few words in Spanish at Pedro, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the bed. Pedro shrugged. Then Sebastian turned back to Matt. “If I was going to have an enemy, he is not the man I would choose.”
“I think he chose me… not the other way round,” Matt said. Then, “Where can I find him?”
“Why do you want to?”
“Because I think he must have been the one who kidnapped my friend. He knew we were coming. He got Richard first, and then he tried to get me.”
Sebastian raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed some more. The alcohol must have been strong. Matt could smell it from where he was standing. But Sebastian drank it as if it was water.
“Salamanda News International is based here in Lima,” he said. “They have offices all over Peru. What do you want to do? Do you want to visit all of them? It doesn’t matter because you won’t find him there. He has his main research base near the town of Paracas. That’s south of here. But he spends most of his time at a farm – what we call a hacienda – near Ica. He is never seen in public. It is rumoured that he is very ugly, that maybe he has three eyes or something wrong with his face. If you want to talk to Senor Salamanda, you go to Ica. I’m sure he will be delighted to see you.”
Matt ignored the sarcasm in Sebastian’s voice. “Can you help me go there?”
“No.”
“Then maybe I’m wasting my time talking to you.”
“Is that what you believe?” Sebastian stared at Matt and now he was angry. “Well, let me give you some advice. Don’t you worry about your time. Time is cheap here.” He stubbed out the cigar. “I must leave you,” he went on. “There are things here I do not understand and there are people I must talk with. Maybe I will help you and maybe I won’t. But right now, I would say you need food and you need sleep.”
“Can I sleep here?” Matt asked. He was too tired to eat.
“You can sleep on the floor. There are blankets. Not the bed, you understand? The bed is mine! You will be safe in this place. Later today, we will talk again. And we will see what we can do.”