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reassess their environmental credentials and forced many companies that endangered the environment to close. Max’s parents were known and respected by everyone associated with science and ecology. These brave, pioneering trouble-shooters were quietly acknowledged as being at the forefront of the fight against corruption. But four years ago, Max’s mum had died in the Central American rain forest. His father had barely spoken of it, other than to explain to Max that she had fallen ill and that they had been so isolated he could not reach help in time to save her. His father’s pain seemed even deeper than his own, and their shared grief brought father and son emotionally closer together. Until Tom Gordon’s closest and best friend, Angelo Farentino, betrayed him.
    Max had recently been caught up in a violent conflict in the French Alps, and fate had brought him face to face with Farentino. The Judas bargained for his life when Max could have abandoned him to a cruel death in the desolate mountains. Max could see his face, hear his screams as Farentino begged the boy to save him.
    Your mother ! I know how she died . How she really died !
    The memory inflicted the same cutting pain now as when he had first heard the bitter accusations.
    She died alone, Max, because your father saved himself ! And he can’t live with the shame ! Why do you think he stuck you away in that boarding school ? Why do you see so little of him ? WHY ? Because he ran and left her to die ! He knows he killed your mother !
    “No!” Max yelled, unable to keep the shout of denial in his head.
    Was it the hot water or the tears that stung his eyes? He slid down the shower wall and sat huddled, arms round his knees.
    Max had endured a lot of violence when he’d tried to save his father in Africa. Now the tormented whisperings of his mind—that his dad, whom he loved so much, might have betrayed them both by lying to him and abandoning his mother to die—was a poison eating away his insides.
    Max stayed hunched until the racking sobs and tears ended; then he washed the snot from his face and turned off the shower.
    The open window allowed steam to escape. Cold air prickled his skin. He didn’t mind. He felt better now. Cleansed of the moor’s grime. Emptied of self-pity. Stronger.
    He needed food and sleep.
    Then to find out if his dad had really lied to him.
    And why Danny Maguire had been killed.

Max fell asleep at the long, scrubbed table in the school’s kitchen before he’d finished his meal. Fergus Jackson left him where he sprawled, threw an old multicolored blanket from his study over the boy and let him be.
    He’d been relieved when Max had volunteered to take part in the Dartmoor exercise when an older boy could not compete due to an injury, because Max Gordon had started behaving erratically. His temper was short, his attitude often sullen. Jackson knew teenagers got like that: all part of “growing into your skin” is what he told them. But this was something different. Max was carrying a burden, and he wasn’t sharing it. It was probably something to do with his injured father.
    Sayid Khalif and Max were as thick as thieves, but Jackson’s questioning of Sayid had yielded nothing to explain Max’srecent behavior. And Jackson suspected that Max Gordon had not shared whatever was bothering him with even his best friend.
    “Get your elbows off the table, bog rat!” A boot kicked the chair and Max tumbled onto the floor. He rolled instinctively, protecting his head, and quickly found his balance.
    Baskins!
    The older boy grinned—it was what he would have done to his best mate, Hoggart, if he’d been there instead of Max. But Hoggart’s parents had dragged away their protesting son to spend time together on a stupid holiday, on a beach somewhere abroad where there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to do. Baskins had managed to avert a similar fate with his family and had opted to spend the half-term at Dartmoor High, where at