“And then I met Kelvin, who lived down the road from me, and he became my mate. Kelvin was always in trouble at school. He had a brother who was in prison and people were scared of him. But at least he was on my side – or that’s what I thought. It felt good having him around.
“But in the end he only made things worse. I started missing a lot of school and even the teachers who’d been trying to help gave up on me. We used to go shoplifting together and of course we got caught, and that was when I had to start seeing a social worker. We used to take things from supermarkets. It wasn’t even things we needed. We just got a buzz out of doing it. Kelvin used to like scratching new cars. He’d run his key ring up the paintwork… just for the hell of it. We did all sorts of stuff together. And then one day we broke into this warehouse to nick some DVDs and we were caught by a security guard. It was Kelvin who stabbed him, but it was my fault as much as his. I shouldn’t have gone there. I shouldn’t have been there. I just wish I’d tried to talk him out of it.”
Matt rubbed his eyes.
“Anyway, you know the rest. I got arrested and I thought I’d be sent to prison, but in the end I didn’t even have to go to court. They sent me to Lesser Malling as part of this thing called the LEAF Project. Liberty and Education… that was what it’s meant to stand for. But since I arrived it’s been more like Lunatics and Evil Freaks. I’ve already told you about Mrs Deverill and all the rest of it, and you didn’t believe me. I suppose that’s fair enough. I wouldn’t have believed any of it either. Except I’ve had to live it. And what I told you, at the paper – it’s all true.”
“Why do you think she wants you?” Richard asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t got the faintest idea. But I think I know what she is. I think I know what they all are.”
“And what’s that?”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“No, I won’t.”
“I think they’re witches.”
Richard laughed.
“You saw the dogs!” Matt protested. “You think they came out of Battersea Dogs’ Home? I saw how she made them. She sprinkled some sort of powder on the flames and they just appeared. It was like… magic!”
“It was an illusion,” Richard said.
“Richard, this wasn’t like something on TV. There wasn’t a girl there in spangly sequins. I saw the dogs. They came out of the fire. And what about this?”
Matt was still wearing the stone talisman. He tore it off and threw it on to the table. The golden key lay face up in the light.
Richard looked at it. “Yeah. All right,” he said. “Witches! Yorkshire used to be full of them, it’s true. But that was five hundred years ago.”
“I know. She’s got a picture in her house… some sort of ancestor. And Mrs Deverill said she got burned. Maybe she was burned as a witch!” Matt thought for a moment. “If there were witches five hundred years ago, why can’t there be witches now?”
“Because we’ve grown up. We don’t believe in witches any more.”
“I don’t believe in witches. But the cat was killed and it came back. Tom Burgess died but I heard his voice on the phone. And there was a detective from Ipswich…”
“What?”
“His name was Mallory. He said he was going to help me. He argued with Mrs Deverill. And the next thing I knew, he was dead too. He was killed on the motorway.”
There was a brief silence. Then Richard spoke again.
“They’re not witches, Matt,” he said. “They may think they’re witches. They may act like witches. They might have made you believe they’re witches. But whatever’s going on at Lesser Malling, it’s real. It’s something to do with the power station. And that’s science, not magic.”
“What about the dogs?”
“Genetically modified. Mutants. I don’t know. Maybe they’d been exposed to some sort of radiation.”
“So you don’t believe in magic?”
“I enjoy Harry Potter, like everyone else. But do I believe in it? No.”
Matt stood up. “I’m tired,” he said. “I want to go to bed.”
Richard nodded. “You can have the spare room upstairs.”
The spare room was built into the roof of the house. It was filled with junk. Richard used it as a dumping ground for anything he no longer needed. Matt was lying on a sofa bed, tucked under a duvet and feeling warm and drowsy. He was gazing up at the ceiling that slanted over his head, when there was a knock at the door and Richard came in.
“I just wanted to check you were all right,” he said.
“I’m fine.” Matt turned on to his side to face him. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “How long can I stay here?”
“I don’t know. A couple of days, maybe.” Matt’s face fell. “I told you, Matt. You can’t stay with me. It’s just not right. I don’t even know you. But I do want to help you.” Richard sighed. “I must be crazy, because the last two people who tried to help seem to have ended up dead – and, personally, I had other plans. But at least we can take a look into Omega One. I mean, forget witches and all that stuff. The old power station seems to be at the heart of whatever it is that’s going on.”
“You said you knew the man who built it.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow. All right?”
Matt nodded.
“Goodnight then.” Richard turned to go.
“Wait!” Matt said. “There was something I didn’t tell you.”
Richard hovered once again in the doorway.
“You said you wanted to know who I am, so you might as well know all of it. My mum always used to say I was strange. All my life, I’ve been involved in a lot of strange things. Mrs Deverill and all the rest of it… I sometimes think it was meant to happen. I’m meant to be here. I don’t know why.
“The night before my mum and dad were killed, I had a bad dream. I often had dreams but this was something else. I saw the bridge. I saw the tyre burst. I even saw the water, flooding in through the windows, filling the car. It was like I was in the car with them and it was horrible. I couldn’t breathe.” He stopped. He had never told anyone this before. “And when I woke up the next morning, I knew they would never get to the wedding. I knew the accident was going to happen exactly the way it did…”
Matt hesitated. This was the difficult part.
“My dad was like you. He didn’t believe in stuff like witches and magic, and things he couldn’t understand. I suppose it was because he was a doctor. And I knew that if I told him about my dream, he’d just get angry. It had happened before… once or twice, when I was very young. Dad would say I was just being silly, letting my imagination run away with me. And maybe he was right. That’s what I told myself. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream. Everything’s going to be all right. Don’t get into trouble with Dad…
“So I said nothing.
“But I was too scared to get in the car. I pretended I was ill. I threw a tantrum and made them leave me with Mrs Green, next door. I was only young. I didn’t know what was going on. I still don’t. But I know that I’m different. Sometimes I seem to be able to do things that are impossible. You won’t believe me, Richard. But I can break a jug just by looking at it. I can do it! I have done it! I know when something bad is going to happen before it does. When I was in the warehouse, I knew the guard was there. And tonight! Maybe I managed to call to you – when I was in the bog – without opening my mouth. I don’t know. It’s like I’ve got some sort of power but I can’t control it. It just flickers on and off by itself.”
Matt yawned. Suddenly he was exhausted. He’d had enough.
“I told Mrs Green,” he said. “I told her that my mum and dad weren’t going to come back from the wedding. I told her about the tyre. I even knew about the bridge and the river underneath. She got very angry with me. She didn’t want to hear all this stuff. And what was she meant to do? She couldn’t ring my parents and tell them not to go to the wedding. In the end, she told me to go out and play in the garden. She didn’t want to hear any more.