The Blurred Man by Anthony Horowitz Page A

rose from the surface of Tim’s desk. “I’m a writer, Mr Diamond. You may have read some of my books.”
    That was unlikely – unless he wrote children’s books. Tim had recently started
Just William
for the fourth time.
    “I’m pretty well-known in the States,” Carter continued. “
The Big Bullet. Death in the Afternoon. Rivers of Blood
. Those are some of my titles.”
    “Romances?” Tim asked.
    “No. They’re crime novels. I’m successful. I make a ton of money out of my writing – but, you know, I believe in sharing it around. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. So I give it to charity. All sorts of charities. Mostly back home in the States, of course, but also in other parts of the world.”
    I wondered if he’d like to make a donation to the bankrupt brothers of dumb detectives, a little charity of my own. But I didn’t say anything.
    “Now, a couple of years back I heard of a charity operating here in England,” he went on. “It was called Dream Time and I kind of liked the sound of it. Dream Time was there to help kids get more out of life. It bought computers and books and special equipment for schools. It also bought schools. It helped train kids who wanted to get into sport. Or who wanted to paint. Or who had never travelled.” Carter glanced at me. “How old are you, son?” he asked.
    “Fourteen,” I said.
    “I bet you make wishes sometimes.”
    “Yes. But unfortunately Tim is still here.”
    “Dream Time would help you. They make wishes come true.” Carter reached into his pocket and took out a hip-flask. He unscrewed it and threw it back. It seemed to do him good. “A little Scotch,” he explained.
    “I thought you were American,” Tim said.
    “I gave Dream Time two million dollars of my money because I believed in them!” Carter exclaimed. “Most of all, I believed in the man behind Dream Time. He was a saint. He was a lovely guy. His name was Lenny Smile.”
    I noticed that Carter was talking about Smile in the past tense. I was beginning to see the way this conversation might be going.
    “What can I tell you about Lenny?” Carter went on. “Like me, he never married. He didn’t have a big house or a fancy car or anything like that. In fact he lived in a small apartment in a part of London called Battersea. Dream Time had been his idea and he worked for it seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Lenny loved leap years because then he could work three hundred and sixty-six days a year. That was the sort of man he was. When I heard about him, I knew I had to support his work. So I gave him a quarter of a million dollars. And then another quarter. And so on…”
    “So what’s the problem, Mr Starter?” Tim asked. “You want your money back?”
    “Hell, no! Let me explain. I loved this guy Lenny. I felt like I’d known him all my life. But recently, I decided we ought to meet.”
    “You’d never met him?”
    “No. We were pen pals. We exchanged letters. Lots of letters – and e-mails. He used to write to me and I’d write back. That’s how I got to know him. But I was busy with my work. And he was busy with his. We never met. We never even spoke. And then, recently, I suddenly realized I needed a break. I’d been working so hard, I decided to come over to England and have a vacation.”
    “Wouldn’t you have preferred a holiday?” Tim asked.
    “I wrote to Lenny and told him I’d like to meet him. He was really pleased to hear from me. He said he wanted to show me all the work he’d been doing. All the children who’d benefited from the money I’d sent. I was really looking forward to the trip. He was going to meet me at Heathrow Airport.”
    “How would you know what he looked like if you’d never met?” I asked.
    Carter blushed. “Well, I did sometimes wonder about that. So once I’d arranged to come I asked him to send me a photograph of himself.”
    He reached into his jacket and took out a photograph. He handed it to