Read Bloody Horowitz for Free Online Page A

Perhaps that was deliberate too.
    But then they turned a corner and went through a set of double doors. On the other side, everything was dark and Danny could make out the great bulk of a wall, made of wood, hammered together almost haphazardly. There were cables trailing everywhere, fastened to the floor with lengths of duct tape. He knew he was looking at the back of the set. Through the cracks, he could make out the studio lights. The floor manager rested a hand on his arm.
    â€œTen seconds,” she said.
    The familiar music began. Danny had heard it a hundred times, playing at the start of the show. Although, of course, it had never come up as a question, he knew that it was an adaptation of a piece by Wagner (the German composer born in Leipzig on May 22, 1813, and who died in 1883). The music stopped. There was a round of applause. Danny felt a hand tap him on the shoulder and he moved forward, into the light.
    And there was the set of Bet Your Life, with five metal lecterns arranged in a semicircle around a central control panel—looking like something out of a spaceship—where the question master would take his place. The lecterns could have been designed for a politician or a lecturer to stand behind when giving a speech. Each one stood on a low, square platform and came up to the contestant’s waist, with a television monitor built into the surface. Every question was written out as well as spoken and the screens would also be used if there was a picture round. The lecterns were black, and polished so that they reflected the studio audience sitting in long rows, facing them. They looked somehow dangerous—but of course, that was the whole idea.
    On one side of the stage, there was a giant television screen. On the other, a strangely old-fashioned clock face would count down from fifteen to zero. Inside the zero was a cartoon of a human skull.
    Danny had already been told which platform was his. The numbers had been drawn the evening before so that nobody would have a psychological advantage. Raife Plant was number one. Richard Verdi was two. Mary Robinson was three. Ben Osmond was four. Danny was on the edge at number five. He was glad to have Ben next to him. He had studied recordings of the other contestants, trying to find out as much as he could about them, the way they played the game. The professor and the computer programmer had been the most worrying. He had been struck by how grim and professional they were. Raife Plant, with his easy smile, seemed somehow untrustworthy. He would feel less intimidated next to Ben, who was, after all, the closest in age to himself.
    All five of them were appearing at the same time, walking in through separate entrances, dazzled by the studio lights that formed a barrier between them and the audience. Danny could just make out the security guards in their silver BYL anoraks. There were half a dozen of them, huge men, standing with their backs to the stage, their arms crossed, their job being to make sure that nobody came close. The Wagner was playing, pounding out of a bank of speakers. Danny could sense the tension in the air. He could smell it. The heat of the lights was unforgiving, sucking out all the emotions of the crowd and keeping it trapped in the closed, windowless place.
    He reached his platform and climbed onto it. At once, one of the floor managers—a young man in a black T-shirt—came forward and shackled his ankles into place. Now he couldn’t move. He would be forced to stand in front of the lectern until the game, or his part in it, was over. In the beginning, this had worried him. Now he was used to it. He moved one foot and felt the steel chain jangle against his shin. The other four contestants had been locked in place, just like him. He didn’t look at them. He didn’t want to meet their eyes.
    The music changed. A circular trapdoor had slid open in the middle of the stage and clouds of white dry ice were pouring