Crocodile Tears Read Free Page B

nothing of the sort, and their meeting had led only to betrayal and death.
    And that was really it, wasn’t it? That was what the boy in the mirror was trying to tell him. He was still only fourteen years old, but the last year—a year whose end they were about to celebrate—had almost destroyed him. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel Major Yu’s walking stick smashing into the side of his head, the crushing weight of the water under the Bora Falls, the punishment he had taken in the Thai boxing ring in Bangkok. And those were just the most recent in a string of injuries. How many times had he been punched, kicked, beaten, knocked out? And shot. His wounds might have healed, but he would still be reminded of them every time he undressed for bed. The scar left by the .22 bullet fired into his chest by a sniper on a rooftop on Liverpool Street would always be with him. Along with the memory of pain. They say that never leaves you either.
    Had it changed him? Of course it had. Nobody could come through what he had and stay the same. And yet . . .
    “Alex! Stop admiring yourself in the mirror and get downstairs.” It was Sabina. Alex turned and saw her standing in the doorway, wearing a silver dress with lots of glitter around the collar. Her dark hair—she had grown it long—was tied back. Unusually for her, she was wearing makeup: pale blue eye shadow and pink, glossy lipstick. “Dad’s waiting. We’re about to leave.”
    “I’ll just be one minute.”
    Alex twisted the bow tie again, wondering what he had to do to stop the darn thing from going crooked. He looked ridiculous. Nobody under the age of fifty should have to dress like this. But at least he’d been able to resist Sabina’s suggestion that he should go to the party dressed in a kilt. She’d been teasing him about it since Christmas.
    Despite everything, the last six weeks had been fantastic for Alex Rider. First of all, Sabina and her parents had unexpectedly arrived in England. Edward Pleasure was a journalist. He had almost been killed once, investigating the pop singer Damian Cray. Alex had blamed himself for that, and when, at the end of it all, Sabina had left for America, he had been certain he would never see her again. But now she was back in his life, and although she was a year older than him, the two had never been closer. It helped perhaps that she was one of the few people who knew about his involvement with MI6.
    Better still, the Pleasures had invited Alex to join them for the New Year at the house they had rented in the West Highlands of Scotland. Hawk’s Lodge was a Victorian pile that had been named after an obscure poet rather than the bird. It stood, three stories high, on the edge of woodland with Ben Nevis in the background. It was the sort of house that needed roaring log fires, hot chocolate, old-fashioned board games, and too much to eat. Liz Pleasure, Sabina’s mother, had supplied all of this and more from the moment they had arrived. In the past few days, the four of them had gone hiking and fishing. They had visited ruined castles and isolated villages and strolled along the famous white sands of Morar. Sabina had hoped it might snow—there was good skiing over at Avi emore and she had brought her gear with her—but although it was freezing outside, so far the weather had only managed a few flurries. There was no television in the house, and Edward had banned Sabina from bringing her Nintendo DS, so they had spent the evenings playing Scrabble or Perudo, the Peruvian game of liar dice, which Alex nearly always won. If there was one thing he had learned in his life, it was certainly how to lie.
    Meanwhile, Jack Starbright, Alex’s housekeeper and in some ways still his closest friend, was in Washington, D.C. She had been invited to Scotland too, but had decided to go home for New Year with her parents. Following her out of the house, it had crossed Alex’s mind that one day she would go back to America for