Evil Star

love?"
    "I'm all right. . . ." She bit her lip and folded her hands in her lap.
    "Well, listen, my darling. I wonder if you've given any more thought to what we were talking about. Matt Freeman. That guttersnipe. That little creep. Have you decided what you're going to do about him?"
    Rex McKenna had started talking to Gwenda two months ago. At the beginning, it had puzzled her. How could he interrupt the show (watched by ten million people) just to speak to her? Somehow he Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star even managed to do it in the repeats — and that couldn't be possible, because some of them had been recorded years ago. At first, it had worried her. When she'd told Brian about it, he'd laughed in her face and said she was going mad. Well, Rex had soon put her straight about Brian. And now she didn't worry about it anymore. It was bizarre but it was happening. The truth was, she was flattered. She adored Rex McKenna and it seemed he was equally fond of her.
    "Matt Freeman made a fool out of you," Rex went on. "He came into your house and he ruined your relationship with Brian. Then he got into trouble and everybody said it was your fault. Now look at you!
    No money. No job. You're a mess, Gwenda. . . ."
    "It's not my fault," Gwenda muttered.
    "I know it's not your fault, old love," Rex replied. For a moment the camera cut away and Gwenda could see the stu-dio audience getting restless, waiting for the show to begin. “You looked after the boy.
    You treated him like a son. But he's pushed off without so much as a by-your-leave. No gratitude, of course. Kids these days! He's full of himself now — and you should hear the things he says about you!
    I've been thinking about it and I have to say... I believe the boy ought to be punished."
    "Punished ..." Gwenda muttered the word with a sense of dread.
    "Just like you punished Brian for being so rude to you." Rex shook his head. Maybe it was a trick of the studio light-ing, but he seemed almost to be reaching out of the television set, about to climb into the room. "The fact of the matter is that Matt is a very nasty piece of work," he went on. "Everywhere he goes, he causes trouble. You remember what happened to his parents."
    "They died."

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "It was his fault. He could have saved them. And there are other things you don't know about. He recently upset some very good friends of mine. In fact he more than upset them. He killed them.
    Can you believe that? He killed all of them. If you ask me, there's no question about it. He needs to be punished very severely indeed."
    "I don't know where he is," Gwenda said.
    "I can tell you that. He goes to a school called Forrest Hill. It's in Yorkshire, just outside the city of York. That's not so far away."
    "What do you want me to do?" Gwenda asked. Her mouth was dry.
    The can of beans had tilted forward in her hands and cold tomato sauce was dripping into her lap.
    “You like me, don't you, Gwenda?" The television host gave her one of his special smiles. There were little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. "You want to help me. You know what has to be done."
    Gwenda nodded. For some reason she had begun to cry. She wondered if this would be the last time Rex McKenna would talk to her. She would go to York and she wouldn't come back.
    “You go there on the train and you find him and you make sure that he never hurts anyone again. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to everyone. What do you say?"
    Gwenda couldn't speak. She nodded a second time. The tears were flowing faster.
    Rex backed away. "Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for Gwenda Davis. She's a lovely lady and she deserves a big round of applause."
    The audience agreed. They clapped and cheered until Gwenda left the room and went upstairs.
    Brian remained where he was, sitting on the sofa, his legs slightly Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star apart, his mouth hanging open. He had been like that ever since Gwenda had stuck the kitchen knife into his chest. It was still there, jutting out of the bloodwy rag that had once been his shirt. Rex had told her to do that, too. Brian had laughed at her. He had said she was mad. She'd had to teach him a lesson he wouldn't forget.
    A few minutes later, Gwenda left the house. She'd meant to pack, but in the end she hadn't been able to find anything worth taking, apart from the ax that she once used to chop wood. She'd slipped that into the handbag