Scorpia

overcoats. With them, a young man with his hands bound in front of him. This must be the son. He looked younger than eighteen. He was shivering.

    “You are looking at the southern end of the bridge,” Mrs Rothman explained. “This was what had been agreed.
    Our agents would bring the son up from the park. MI6 and your father would be on the other bank. The two of them would walk across the bridge and the exchange would be made. As simple as that.”
    “There’s no traffic,” Alex said.
    “At six o’clock in the morning? There would have been little anyway, but I suspect MI6 had probably closed the roads.”
    The image changed. Alex felt something twist in his stomach. The camera was concealed somewhere on the edge of the bridge, high up. It was showing him his father, the first moving image of John Rider he had ever seen. He was wearing a thick padded jacket. He was looking around him, taking everything in. Alex wished the camera would zoom in closer. He wanted to see more of his father’s face.
    “This is the classic method of exchange,” Mrs Rothman told him. “A bridge is a neutral area. The two participants—in this case the boy and your father—are on their own. Nothing should go wrong.”
    She reached out a finger and pressed the pause button.
    “Alex,” she warned. “Your father died on Albert Bridge. I know you never knew him; you were just a baby when this happened. But I’m still not sure it’s something you should see.”
    “Show me,” Alex ordered. His voice sounded far away.
    Mrs Rothman nodded. She pressed play.
    The image unfroze. The pictures were now being taken by a hidden camera, hand-held, out of focus. Alex caught sight of the span of the bridge, hundreds of light bulbs curving through the air. There was the river again and, captured briefly in the distance, the great chimneys of Battersea Power Station. There was a cut. Now the picture was steady, a wide angle perhaps taken from a boat.
    The three men with the civil servant’s son were at one end. His father was at the other. Alex could make out three figures behind him; presumably they worked for MI6. The image quality was poor.
    Dawn was only just breaking and there was little light. The water had no colour. A signal must have been given because the young man began to walk forward. At the same time, John Rider left the other group, also with his hands bound in front of him.
    Alex wanted to reach out and touch the screen. He was watching his father walk towards the three Scorpia men.
    But the figure in the picture was only a centimetre high. Alex knew it was his father. The face matched the photographs he had seen. But he was too far away. He couldn’t see if John Rider was smiling or angry or nervous. Could he have had any idea of what was about to happen?
    John Rider and the civil servant’s son met in the middle of the bridge. They paused and seemed to speak to each other—but the only sound on the film was the soft patter of the rain and the occasional rush of an unseen speeding car. Then they began to walk again. The son was on the north side of the bridge, the side controlled by MI6. John Rider was moving south, a little faster now, heading for the waiting men.
    “This is when it happened,” Mrs Rothman said softly.
    Alex’s father was almost running. He must have sensed that something was wrong. He moved awkwardly, his hands still clasped in front of him. On the north side of the bridge, one of the MI6 people took out a radio transmitter and spoke briefly. A second later, there was a single shot. John Rider seemed to stumble and Alex realized that he had been hit in the back. He took two more steps, twisted and collapsed.
    “Do you want me to turn it off, Alex?”
    “No.”
    “There’s a closer shot…”
    The camera angle was lower. Alex could see his father lying on his side. The three Scorpia men had produced guns. They were running, aiming at the civil servant’s son. Alex wondered why. The teenager hadn’t had anything to do with what had just taken place. But then he understood. MI6 had shot John Rider. They hadn’t kept their side of the bargain. So the son had to die too.
    But he had reacted incredibly quickly. He was already running, his head down. He seemed to know exactly what was happening. One of the Scorpia men fired and missed. Then there was a sudden explosion, a machine gun opening fire. Alex saw bullets ricocheting off the iron girders of the bridge. Light bulbs smashed. The tarmac