He searched for a word to describe the test-tube creations that had been sent out of Point Blanc.
‚…his offspring could have caused a great many problems. At the very least they would have had money. God knows what they would have done had they remained undiscovered.'
‚What’s happened to them?' Alex asked.
‚We’ve traced all fifteen of them, and we have them under lock and key,' Mrs. Jones answered. ‚They were quietly arrested by the intelligence services of each country where they lived. We’ll take care of them.'
Alex shivered. He had a feeling he knew what Mrs. Jones had meant by those last words.
And he was certain that nobody would ever see the fifteen Grief replicas again.
‚Once again, we’ve had to hush this up,' Blunt continued. ‚This whole business of …
cloning. It causes a great deal of public disquiet. Sheep are one thing—but human beings!' He coughed. ‚The families involved in this business have no desire for publicity, so they won’t be talking. They’re just glad to have had their real sons returned to them. The same, of course, goes for you, Alex. You’ve already signed the Official Secrets Act. I’m sure we can trust you to be discreet.'
There was a moment’s pause. Mrs. Jones looked carefully at Alex. She had to admit that she was worried about him. She knew everything that had happened at Point Blanc, how close he had come to a horrible death, only to be sent back into the academy for a second time. The boy who had come back from the French Alps was different from the one who had left. There was a coldness about him, as tangible as the mountain snow.
‚You did very well, Alex,' she said.
‚How is Wolf?' Alex asked.
‚He’s fine. He’s still in the hospital, but the doctors say he’ll make a complete recovery. We hope to have him back on operations in a few weeks.'
‚That’s good.'
‚We had only one fatality in the raid on Point Blanc. That was the man you saw falling from the roof. Wolf and another man were injured. Otherwise, it was a complete success.' She paused. ‚Is there anything else you want to know?'
‚No.' Alex shook his head. He stood up. ‚You left me in there,' he said. ‚I called for help and you didn’t come. Grief was going to kill me, but you didn’t care.'
‚That’s not true, Alex.' Mrs. Jones glanced at Blunt for support, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
‚There were difficulties…'
‚It doesn’t matter. I just want you to know that I’ve had enough. I don’t want to be a spy anymore, and if you ask me again, I’ll refuse. I know you think you can blackmail me. But I know too much about you now, so that won’t work anymore.' He walked over to the door. ‚I used to think that being a spy would be exciting and special, like in the films. But you just used me. In a way, the two of you are as bad as Grief. You’ll do anything to get what you want. Well, I want to go back to school. Next time, you can do it without me.'
There was a long silence after Alex had left. At last Blunt spoke. ‚He’ll be back,' he said.
Mrs. Jones raised an eyebrow. ‚You really think so?'
‚He’s too good at what he does—too good at the job. And it’s in his blood.' He stood up.
‚It’s rather odd,' he said. ‚Most schoolboys dream of being a spy. With Alex, we have a spy who dreams of being a schoolboy.'
‚Will you really use him again?' Mrs. Jones asked.
‚Of course. There was a file that came in only this morning. An interesting case. Right up his alley.' He smiled. ‚We’ll give him a few days to settle down and then we’ll call him.'
‚He won’t answer.'
‚We’ll see,' Blunt said.
Alex walked home from the bus stop and let himself into the elegant Chelsea house that he shared with his housekeeper and closest friend, Jack Starbright. Jack knew where Alex had been and what he had been doing. But the two of them had made an agreement never to discuss his involvement with MI6. She didn’t like it, and she worried about him. But ultimately, they both knew, there was nothing more to be said.
She seemed surprised to see him. ‚I thought you’d just gone out,' she said.
‚No.'
‚Did you get the message by the phone?'
‚What message?'
‚Mr. Bray wants to see you this afternoon. Three o’clock at the school.'
Henry Bray was the principal at Brookland. Alex wasn’t surprised by the summons. Bray was the sort of principal who managed to run a busy school and still find time to take a personal interest in every pupil there. He had been worried by Alex’s long absence at the start of spring term. The fact that Alex had also missed the last two weeks of the same term had worried him more. So he had called a meeting.
‚Do you want lunch?' Jack asked.
‚No, thanks.' Alex knew that he would have to pretend he had been ill again. Doubtless MI6 would produce another doctor’s note in due course. But the thought of lying to his principal had spoiled his appetite.
He set off an hour later, taking his bicycle, which had been returned to the house by the Putney police. He cycled slowly. It was good to be back in London, to be surrounded by normal life. He turned off the King’s Road and pedaled down the side road where—it felt like a month ago—he had followed the man in the white Skoda. The school loomed up ahead of him. It was empty now and would remain so until the summer term.
But as Alex arrived, he saw a figure walking across the yard to the school gates and recognized Mr. Lee, the elderly school caretaker.
‚You again!'
‚Hello, Bernie,' Alex said. That was what everyone called him.
‚On your way to see Mr. Bray?'
‚Yeah.'
The caretaker shook his head. ‚He never told me he was going to be here today. But he never tells me anything! I’m just going down to the shops. I’ll be back at five to lock up, so make sure you’re out by then.'
‚Right, Bernie.'
There was nobody in the school yard. It felt strange, walking across the tarmac on his own.
The school seemed bigger with nobody there, the yard stretching out too far between the redbrick buildings with the sun beating down, reflecting off the windows. Alex was dazzled.
He had never seen the place so empty and so quiet. The grass on the playing fields looked almost too green. Any school without schoolchildren has its own peculiar atmosphere, and Brookland was no exception.
Mr. Bray had an office in D block, which was next to the science building. Alex reached the swinging doors and opened them. The walls here would normally be covered in posters, but they had all been taken down at the end of the term. Everything was blank, off-white. There was another door open to one side. Bernie had been cleaning the main laboratory. He had rested his mop and bucket to one side when he had gone to the shops—to pick up cigarettes, Alex presumed. The man had been a chain smoker all his life, and Alex knew he’d die with a cigarette between his lips.
Alex climbed up the stairs, his heels rapping against the stone surface. He reached a corridor—left for biology, right for physics—and continued straight ahead. A second corridor, with full-length windows on both sides, led into D block. Bray’s study was directly ahead of him. He stopped at the door, vaguely wondering if he should have dressed up for the meeting.
Bray was always snapping at boys with their shirts hanging out or crooked ties. Alex was wearing a Gortex jacket, T-shirt, jeans, and Nike sneakers—the same clothes he had worn that morning at MI6. His hair was still too short for his liking, although it had begun to grow back.