Alex Rider // Stormbreaker//

|3|

The day dragged on. SJ had left Alex's briefly to tell her dad about the accident, but returned shortly after.

Alex hadn't gone to football training even though, secretly, he had wanted to. He would have preferred to escape back into normal life - the shrill sound of the coach's whistle, the familiar faces - instead he was sitting there, trapped inside the house. But apparently he had to be there for the visitors who came throughout the morning and afternoon.

There were five of them. A solicitor who knew nothing of a will, but seemed to have been charged with organizing the funeral. A funeral director who had been recommended by the solicitor. A vicar who seemed disappointed that Alex didn't look more upset.  A nosy neighbour from across the road. And finally a man from the bank.

"All of us at the Royal & General are deeply shocked," he said. He was in his thirties, wearing a polyester suit with a Marks and Spencer tie. He had the sort of face you forgot even while you were looking at it, and had introduced himself as Crawley, from Personnel. "But if there is anything we can do..."

"What will happen?" Alex asked for the second time that day.

"You don't have to worry," Crawley said. "The bank will take care of everything. That's my job. You leave everything to me."

The day passed. Alex and SJ killed a couple of hours in the evening playing the PlayStation - a FIFA tournament that had ended with SJ winning on penalties. Later Jack took them to McDonalds. Alex was glad to get out of the house, but the three of them barely spoke, SJ only pointing out Mr. Bridges, the old man who lived next to the school, playing with the toy from the Happy Meal.

Alex assumed that Jack would have to go back to America. She certainly wouldn't stay in London for ever. So who would look after him? By law, he was still too young to look after himself. He was sure that SJ's family would take care of him without hesitation, but he felt that he couldn't and shouldn't ask. They were crazily busy already - with Chris working and SJ  and Harry trying to basically raise two boys without a mother. His whole future  looked so uncertain that he preferred not to talk about it. He preferred not to talk at all. And he had a feeling that SJ's mind was taken up on the same subject.

And then the day of the funeral arrived and Alex found himself wearing a suit, preparing to leave in a black car that had come from nowhere, surrounded by people he had never met. Ian Rider was buried in the Brompton Cemetery on the Fulham Road, just in the shadow of the Chelsea football ground, and Alex knew where he would have preferred to be.

About thirty people turned up but he had hardly recognised any of them. He only really knew the Brennans, who were standing in a group directly across from them. All had been dressed in dark clothes and Alex fought a laugh when he saw SJ looking grumpy in a pretty navy dress and her old black denim jacket that was a few sizes too big. She was also trying to console a crying Will who was clinging to her side. Ben was standing silently next to Harry, with a dazed look in his eyes and Harry was completely emotionless, or so he seemed. Chris however, looked genuinely upset and appeared to be fighting back a rogue tear.

As the service began, a black Rolls-Royce drew up, the back door opened and a man stepped out. Alex tensed. There was something about the new arrival that made his skin crawl.

And yet the man was ordinary to look at. Grey suit, grey hair, grey lips and grey eyes. His face was expressionless, the eyes behind the square, gunmetal spectacles completely empty. Perhaps that was what disturbed Alex. Whoever this man was, he seemed to have less life than anyone in the cemetery. Above or below ground.

Alex glanced over at SJ, who too had spotted the man and was watching him with a light scowl and furrowed eyebrows, her eyes puzzled.

Someone tapped Alex on the shoulder and he turned around to see Mr. Crawley leaning over him. "That's Mr. Blunt," the personnel manager whispered. "He's the chairman of the bank."