The Death List (11 page)

John Turner walked out of her office with a heavy heart. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to be seeing Naomi and the kids much in the coming weeks. At least he didn’t have to read any more old plays. What was the line he’d copied down? “See the corrupted use some make of books.”

Dead right. He was glad he’d never made it past A levels.

9

I pushed my chair back from the desk. My armpits were drenched and my stomach was in turmoil. The lunatic. He’d murdered the boy who’d bullied him at primary school. Not only that. At the age of twelve, he’d planned and carried out the killing with what seemed like a total lack of emotion. This guy could have had a great career as a hit man. Jesus, maybe that’s what he was.

Thinking more about the text he’d sent me, I realized I could make it into a convincing narrative without too much difficulty. Not because it would be based on real life—I was convinced the murder had actually happened and didn’t see the need of wasting time searching newspaper archives, especially when I didn’t know the year it took place or whether the name Richard Brady was real—but because I found myself empathizing with the Devil. He’d suffered years of violence from his father, so he killed him. He’d been ridiculed and physically assaulted by the bully, so he hung him from a tree. He’d been abused by the priest, so he slaughtered him in his own church. And his adoption of the White Devil as an alias suggested that, like the Jacobean playwrights, he was obsessed with revenge. That was something I could relate to, not that it made me feel proud of myself.

Ever since I’d been cut loose by my publishers and my agent, resentment had been festering in me. In the early days after my double rejection, I’d come up with numerous schemes to get my own back—by pouring paint stripper over my agent Christian Fels’s beloved vintage Bugatti, by sending an envelope full of shit to my editor Jeanie Young-Burke, by bad-mouthing them to everyone I knew, by showing up at other authors’ launch parties and dousing with beer the critics like Alexander Drys and Lizzie Everhead, who’d knifed me. In the event, all I’d managed was the article in the newspaper bitching about the callousness of modern publishing. The following day, a crime writer who’d never liked me much sent an e-mail consisting of two words:
Sad git.

Vengeance, retribution, the avenging angel—there was something attractive about those ideas, something that seemed right. Perhaps because the Old Testament concept of an eye for an eye underpinned our concepts of justice, of crime and punishment, but perhaps also because revenging yourself on someone was an ethical act. An injustice had been perpetrated and there was nothing inappropriate about exacting due recompense. Everyone had heard of the wronged wives who cut up their husband’s Savile Row suits, buried their CD collections or broadcast tapes in the local pub of the adulterers cavorting with their lovers. They became popular heroines, women who’d taken a deserved pound of flesh. The desire for vengeance was hardwired into the human psyche. The question was, how far did you take it? How many laws were you prepared to break? In my case, the answer to the second question was a pathetic none. The Devil was clearly situated at the opposite end of the scale.

But that didn’t mean the emotions I felt were any less strong. I didn’t want to kill Christian or Jeanie, but I’d happily have humiliated them or made them weep. How different was I from my tormentor? I thought of Robert Louis Stevenson’s
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
—two sides of the same man, the evil “hidden” beneath the good. Or Joseph Conrad’s “secret sharer”—the doppelganger, a reflection of yourself that you struggle to come to terms with. Was that why the Devil had chosen me? Was he so smart? Nothing he’d done up till now contradicted such a conclusion. He’d read my books—Sir Tertius in the violent stew of a London enthused by revenge tragedy, Zog Hadzhi in the vendetta-stricken badlands of Albania. He’d also read my article. The bastard knew me better than I did myself. He may even have understood my fascination with revenge before I found myself in the position of wanting it.

Sickened by the realization that I was driven by the same urges as the murderer, I hammered out a couple of thousand words about the death of the bully. When I reread it, I saw that I’d given the narrator/murderer, Wayne Deakins, a psychological profile based as much on my own as on the one I’d inferred the Devil possessed. Bloody hell. He was pulling my strings as if I were a marionette.

By three o’clock in the afternoon, I’d had enough. I walked down to the village and went into the newsagent’s, planning to read the paper while I was waiting for Lucy. I couldn’t miss the tabloid headlines. Dead Priest Was Pedophile, Shame of Church Cover-Up, Murder Victim Was Pervert. I bought a selection of tabloids and broadsheets, and found a bench in Dulwich Park.

The consensus was that the Catholic Church had spirited Father Prendegast away from his church in the East End of London in May 1979, when complaints were made about his conduct by some altar and choirboys. He’d been sent to a remote monastery in western Ireland and given a new identity. The Church had taken out injunctions against all the papers, threatening to sue if the dead man’s former name was published. Its line was that the boys and their families needed to be protected from “unwanted intrusion into their privacy.” The tabloids weren’t cowed any longer. They’d gone ahead and printed the priest’s real name of Patrick O’Connell and the name of his church—St. Peter’s in Bonner Street. They also had interviews, no doubt paid for, with two boys, now in their late thirties, who claimed that Father Pat, as he’d encouraged them to call him, had fondled them, taken off their clothes and submitted them to repeated sexual abuse. They expressed horror that he’d been given a new identity and another job by the Church. The archbishop wasn’t commenting, and neither were the police. They were the only ones who’d shut up shop. Everyone from MPs to Anglican bishops had got in on the act, condemning the Catholic Church and demanding that it put its house in order. Lawyers, no doubt in private rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of juicy compensation cases, were also to the fore.

I looked up at the sky, pale blue dotted with cotton-wool clouds, and worked through what this meant for me. I now knew where the priest had worked, and the names of two of his victims. It wouldn’t be difficult to find out the names of other boys who had attended St. Peter’s. In fact, it would be very easy. I wondered if the White Devil was indirectly challenging me to discover who he was. He must have known that the priest’s background would come out. Was he relying on the fact that I would be too frightened for Lucy and Sara to take any steps? I lowered my eyes and looked around. Apart from some women with buggies and toddlers, there was no one in the vicinity. But the Devil—or someone working for him—could be watching from the bushes, waiting for me to make a wrong move. I wasn’t prepared to do that, especially now that I was about to have Lucy with me.

But later? Maybe I would try to contact the men who’d been interviewed. One of them ran a tool shop in Carlisle now, while the other had a fruit and vegetable stall on the Roman Road—Harry Winder was his name. Then I had a thought that made me sit up. Could he be the Devil? Or could Andrew Lough, the hardware man in the north? I examined their photographs. Winder was tall, thickset and balding, a family man with four children, while Lough was in a wheelchair suffering from early-onset multiple sclerosis. Neither of them were likely candidates, though I couldn’t rule them out. In any case, they would probably remember the names of other boys.

My mobile phone rang. No number was displayed on the screen.

“Hello, Matt.” It was the White Devil. “Enjoying the papers?”

“Where are you?” I said, standing up and turning round 360 degrees. I could see no one speaking on a phone.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He chuckled, but there was no warmth in his voice. “So now you know about the good father’s dirty past. What are you going to do? Dash off down the Roman and talk to Harry Winder? Ring up Andy Lough? I didn’t know he had MS. Still, he always was a bit of a tosser.”

Bastard. He was way ahead of me.

“Matt? You’ve gone all quiet.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, just passing the time of day. Have you written up the bully episode?”

“Yes. I’ll send it to you later.”

“You
are
doing well. Another chapter and you’ll be in line for the next cash payment.”

“I don’t want your filthy money.”

“Oh, yes, you do.” The Devil’s tone hardened. “That’s our agreement, remember?” He gave a dry laugh. “Besides, you never know. You might catch me when I deliver it.”

“What the fuck are you playing at?” I shouted, getting a sharp look from a woman with a small girl. I lowered my voice. “Are you trying to frame me? Did you have to kill the priest the way you did?”

“That was a token of my admiration for your books,” he replied smoothly. “You shouldn’t go putting ideas in people’s heads, Matt. Yes, you’re right to be concerned. One anonymous call to Scotland Yard and you become suspect number one.”

“Oh, bollocks,” I said, trying to play tough. “Who’s going to believe that a crime novelist would go around murdering people the way he does in his books? Not even the police are that thick.”

“Don’t panic, Matt. Remember, you’ve got an alibi.” He paused. “Of course, you could have hired someone else to do your dirty work. That happens in your books, too.”

“Screw you,” I said under my breath.

“Careful,” the Devil replied, his tone sharp again. “Your alibi would disappear if I decided to make a move on Sara.”

I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. “You—” I broke off when I realized the danger of provoking him further.

“Now, go off like a good daddy and pick up Lucy, Matt. I’m looking forward to the piece you’ve written. I know you’re enjoying this project. It’s right up your street, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer.

“Isn’t it?”

“I suppose I have an interest in revenge, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I mean, all right, Matt. You’re no different from me. Oh, in case you were thinking of it, don’t bother checking up on my background in the East End.” He laughed. “Priests aren’t the only people who can get new identities. And priests aren’t the only people who die in agony for their sins.”

He rang off.

I shivered. The threat was clear. I was no nearer to him than when he’d first contacted me. But, as he’d just shown, he was very close to me and the ones I loved. Then an alternative meaning of his last words struck me. Jesus, was he lining up to murder someone else? Was he going to use another of the methods from my novels?

I didn’t know what to do.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder when I was in the playground waiting for Lucy. I whipped my head round, my eyes wide.

“Christ, Matt, what’s up?”

“Sorry, mate.” I slapped my friend Dave Cummings on the arm. “Don’t go creeping up on people.” I nodded to Ginny, who was hanging back as if she didn’t want to intrude. Her face was pale, but her eyes were fixed on her husband with a mixture of boredom and dislike. I’d begun to wonder how their marriage survived.

He eyed me dubiously. “Are you all right? You don’t look too good.”

“Not enough sleep,” I said, yawning.

Dave grinned. He was a Yorkshireman, of medium height but heavily built. His nose had been broken so many times that the surgeons could do nothing but shape it into a ragged slalom. He used to be a useful scrum-half with a turn of speed that brought us a lot of scores. “New book on the go?”

“Yeah,” I replied listlessly.

“Got a contract?”

“Not yet.”

“You should get a real job, mate.” He ran his hand over his thick brown hair.

All the time I’d known him, he’d worn it short at the front and long at the back in the much-mocked mullet style—he said he’d missed his chance when he was young.

“What, like yours?” Dave was an ex-paratrooper. He had a reputation for barely restrained ferocity on the field and his club nickname was Psycho. He was equally forceful in his business. He ran a demolition company and took great pleasure in operating the machines himself whenever he could.

“What’s wrong with my line of work?” he said, squaring up to me with mock aggression. “At least I don’t sit around making things up all day.”

I wished that was what I was engaged in at present. “What are you doing here, anyway? Have you knocked down every old building south of the river?”

He gave me another manic grin. “No. I gave myself the afternoon off. I’m taking Tom go-karting.”

“Don’t get behind the controls yourself, you lunatic.”

He laughed and slapped his gut. He’d given up playing around the same time I had. “I wish I could.”

The bell rang and the sound of children’s voices started to rise to a crescendo.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Matt?” Dave said, looking at me with concern.

I nodded and concentrated on finding Lucy. “Of course I am.”

“Here, Tom!” he shouted, waving to his crew-cut eight-year-old. He nudged me in the ribs. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” he said, smiling at Lucy. “I mean it.”

I bent down to kiss my daughter. Over her head I watched Dave wait for Ginny and their daughter, Annie, with ill-concealed impatience. I felt my eyes sting. That was the problem. I couldn’t tell Psycho or anyone else about the bastard who was haunting me in case he turned on them and theirs.

Lucy chattered away as we walked back to Ferndene Road, but I found it difficult to follow what she was saying. I was thinking about the Devil and how to get to him before he killed again. He’d made it clear that he’d changed his name. Of course, that could have been a lie to put me off his trail, but I didn’t think so. He’d shown how careful he was at planning and carrying out his crimes. It wasn’t hard to believe that he had covered himself by assuming another identity. How did you go about doing that? I wasn’t sure. The old crime-novel staple was obtaining a replacement birth certificate for someone of similar age who had died young. But I had the feeling that was less secure than it used to be now that records were computerized. In which case, it came down to the standard solution to all problems. Money. The Devil didn’t seem to work, or he could afford to hire sidekicks. Was he rich? If so, how had he got there from being a fatherless teenager in Bethnal Green? People who had wealth were often in the public eye, one way or another.