The Soul Collector (34 page)

The phone rang.

“’Allo, darling,” Hinkley said with a wide grin. “Yeah, 312

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you’re bloody right I’m waiting for you. Get that pretty little Chinese ass of yours over here right now, you hear?”

He dropped the phone and dug around in his pocket for the bag of coke he’d scored earlier. He chopped some lines on the antique farmhouse table that Lou had made such a fuss about polishing and got to work with a rolledup fifty-pound note.

“Yeehah!” he shouted, as he made his way unsteadily to his top-of-the-range Bang & Olufsen stereo system. A few seconds later, The Jam were crashing their way through his favorite track, “Private Hell”—another set of genuine London sons; well, Surrey sons. And with Chop Suzy on her way, what more could a man ask? Josh Hinkley slid slowly to the parquet floor. His head was spinning, but he still couldn’t get Matt Wells out of his mind. The fucker. He was knobbing that blond bint from the VCCT, so he got the heads-up on every big case in the city. She probably knew exactly where he was and what he was doing. The rozzers were letting Matt break as many laws as he liked. But he was going to get the tosser; he’d already set the wheels in motion. Mr. I Know More About Crime Than Any Other Novelist was going to become a very big cropper.

The buzzer went. Hinkley went to the door and pressed the entry button. Suzy and her honey-pot would be on their way up in the lift. He spat on his fingers and smoothed them over his hair.

“All right, darling,” he said, pulling open the door,

“let’s be having you!”

Before Josh Hinkley’s lights went out, he registered that something very bizarre had happened to his visitor’s face.

Twenty-Two

The half hour before midnight had passed more slowly than a penguin marathon. I looked at my watch so often that Rog asked if I’d discovered a new way of jerking off. I couldn’t make sense of what Pete and Andy had found in Sara’s Oxford house. The apologetic note on the dead man suggested that someone else may have dumped the body. I’d be thinking about that later, though there was no chance of checking the house again—Pete’s call to the cops would have turned the street into CSI Oxford. London cops would soon be swarming all over the clinic in Harley Street, too. At last the deadline was close. I logged on to my e-mail server. There was a message from a different address,
answerplease3.
I wrote, Your target is Adrian Brooks, the crime writer Alistair Bing. I expect you to keep your word about not killing him.

At exactly midnight, I hit Send. The message moved to the Sent Items folder without any problems. I felt like a footballer who’d just won the Cup final. I’d taken on Sara, or whoever she’d hired to kill the crime writers, and I’d won. How would she like that?

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There was a chime as an instant reply came through. My heart dropped like a stone.

Well done, Matt. Though I did say it was an easy one. The thing is, I made the rules and I can break them. You know where Josh Hinkley lives, don’t you? Maybe you should get around there. Then again, given how nasty he’s been about you in print recently, maybe you shouldn’t. The delightful Karen might put you in the frame as the killer.

Doctor Faustus

“Fuck!” I yelled.

Rog pushed me aside and keyed out a string of abuse. I managed to stop him before he sent the reply.

“Forget it,” I said. “There’s nothing we can do.” I turned away.

“Maybe it’s just a bluff,” Rog said. “Why don’t you ring this Hinkley guy from a public phone?”

It wasn’t a bad idea. There was a phone across the road. I pressed out the number, my heart thundering. It rang ten times before it was picked up.

“Hello,” came a neutral male voice.

“Is that Josh?” I asked, in a Cockney accent.

“Who’s calling, please?”

This time I recognized the voice. It was DI John Turner, his Welsh vowels not completely obscured. I broke the connection. If Taff Turner was there, something terminal had happened to Josh Hinkley. It would be on the TV and radio stations soon enough.

“What now?” Rog asked.

“I’ve got a visit to make. You should get some sleep.”

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“I won’t be sleeping much tonight. I want to get Sara even more now.”

“Get back to nailing her funds,” I said, squeezing his arm. “I don’t care where you put them, but I want her running on empty. Then we’ll see how clever she is.”

“She probably has accounts we don’t know about.”

“Find them, Dodger. I’m depending on you.”

“Right,” he said. “Don’t worry, Matt. We’ll get her.”

I got my gear together and left the flat. I had to do this on my own and I couldn’t tell the others where I was going. The chips were down now and anything might happen. I had to be sure I didn’t land my friends in even more danger. The death of Dave still haunted me like a witch’s curse. I looked at my watch, all traces of the naive optimism I’d felt before I sent the answer vanished. I resisted the temptation to make a surreptitious visit to the crime scene at Josh Hinkley’s house, and started walking southwest.

“Who was that?” Karen Oaten asked.

“Some wide boy,” John Turner replied. “He hung up rather than give a name.”

The chief inspector glanced at him. They were wearing white coveralls, the hoods up. They had arrived at eleventhirty, called to the scene by DCI Younger. The narrow street in Soho had been blocked at both ends by patrol cars, their roof lights flashing. Uniformed personnel, some of them armed, were present and a striped barrier tape had already been set up around the street door to keep curious local residents, passersby and journalists at bay. The CSI vans were parked haphazardly and personnel in blue coveralls were already heading into the building. The ground and first two floors were used as offices. Josh Hinkley occupied the top two.

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Younger brought them up to speed. “One of the neighbors called about the noise at ten forty-three,” he said.

“Uniformed officers got here at ten fifty-seven. There was no answer to their buzzing and knocking. They got the phone number and tried it. Nothing. The music was seriously loud and—”

“Loud music’s a matter for the council, Colin,” Oaten said. “We wouldn’t usually intervene, never mind kick the door down.”

“No, but that wasn’t all. There was blood on the outside of the street door. And the uniforms found that—”

Younger pointed to a clear plastic evidence bag on the hall table “—in the lift.”

Oaten picked it up. Inside was a long-bladed combat knife with a serrated edge. There was a streak of blood down the center of the blade.

“The body’s upstairs,” Younger said.

“All right,” said Oaten. “We should get up there. Was anything else reported?”

Colin Younger nodded. “The officers said there was a strong smell of perfume.”

Oaten looked at him. “It couldn’t have been aftershave?”

“I asked. They were pretty sure. So there had recently been a woman in the flat.”

“Did they see any women on the street?” Turner asked. Younger shook his head. “People only started to gather when the sirens started.”

There was a bustle at the door.

“Here we all are again,” said Redrose, the pathologist.

“When did you last eat, Inspector Turner?”

Taff muttered something that no one else caught. It
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could have been Welsh for “Delighted to see you, Doctor,”

but Oaten thought it unlikely.

“Come along, then,” said the potbellied doctor. “Let’s see what our killer’s left us this time.”

Younger led the way. Three CSIs were examining different parts of the spacious flat. There was a long living area filled with high-quality furniture, including an Eames chair. An expensive-looking stereo system was on a mahogany table. There was a CD in a plastic evidence bag next to it.

“Do we know what music was playing?” Oaten asked the nearest technician.

“Not yet,” replied the woman. “I’ve checked the disk. The same song’s repeated all the way through.”

“I presume there’s a timer on that machine,” the chief inspector said. “Was it activated?”

The CSI nodded. “It was set for 10:30 p.m. And the volume was at maximum.”

“I’ve finished with the stairs,” another white-suited technician said. “Just keep clear of the areas I’ve flagged up.”

Oaten stepped ahead and started up the wooden staircase. It looked like it had been newly built.

“This would originally have been attic space,” the medic said. “A friend of mine lives in a similar place around the corner. He hasn’t been able to get planning permission for a conversion.”

“I wonder how the dead man managed that,” Turner said. His boss rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.

“Surely not,” Redrose said, feigning shock. “Corruption in the City of Westminster? Never.”

Oaten reached the top step and found herself in a wide hallway. There were five doors, all of them open. Flashes 318

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from the police photographer suggested which room was occupied by the body.

“Look at this, Taff,” Oaten said over her shoulder.

“Jesus.” The Welshman’s eyes were fixed on the far wall. “Is that blood?”

Redrose pushed past them. “I think the odds are very high.” He went over to the bed, on which the naked body of a middle-aged man was sprawled.

Oaten and Turner moved into the thickly carpeted bedroom. On the wall above the king-size bed, there was a pentagram. The circle enclosing the five-pointed star was about a meter across. The red liquid that had been used had dripped in places, but the words within the lines were legible.

“‘FECIT DIABOLUS,’” Turner read. “The Devil’s done it yet again.”

Oaten took in the scene and moved forward. When they got to the bed, the Welshman’s hand went to his mouth.

This time even Oaten had to blink hard. The victim’s abdomen looked like a grenade had gone off over it. Shortly afterward the female CSI advised them about the music that had been playing. One of the uniformed policemen had identified it as “Devil Woman” by Cliff Richard.

“No wonder the neighbors called us,” Colin Younger quipped.

Oaten looked at him thoughtfully. “The reference to

‘woman’ is interesting, isn’t it?”

“Oh, you mean Sara Robbins.”

“Maybe.” Karen Oaten saw Dr. Redrose wave.

“Look what I’ve found,” he said, brandishing a bloodstained object in a pair of forceps.

“It’s paper,” Turner said. “Where was it?”

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“Under the body,” the pathologist replied. “In case anybody’s interested, the cause of death was a stab wound to the throat, which was then cut from ear to ear. The abdomen has been slashed open numerous times. There was no shortage of blood for the killer to use as ink.”

“Can you read it?” Karen Oaten asked, straining to make out the words that had been laser-printed on the paper. Colin Younger nodded. “It says ‘Ask Matt Wells about this.’”

There was a sudden silence in the dead writer’s bedroom. I tried not to, but eventually I’d dropped off in the armchair. I hadn’t turned any lights on in the house and I’d reactivated the alarm system, so I had to keep still. Obviously I managed that, although my sleep had been anything but peaceful. Dave’s body flashed before me, and then I was chasing a woman who I thought was Sara, but showed herself to be a hideous devil when she turned on me, snarling.

I woke up when the key was turned in the lock and the alarm started to beep. I listened to the footsteps on the polished wood hall floor. Fortunately, only one person had come in. I stood up slowly and took the silenced Glock from my pocket. I heard a bag being dropped on the floor and then a long sigh. I padded to the door, and then showed myself.

“Matt!” Karen said, her hand flying to her chest.

“Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack.” She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, one boot removed. I checked that she’d put the chain on the front door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

“And why are you holding a gun?”

“Are you going to behave?” I asked, trying for a 320

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winning smile but giving up. “I’m serious, Karen. I need to talk to you. After that, I’m going to walk out of here and you aren’t going to follow me.”

She stood up and glared at me. “Who do you think you are? You disappear, leaving all sorts of questions unanswered, and then you come back and order me about. Screw you!”

I glanced at my watch. It was four-thirty in the morning and we were in danger of waking the neighbors. “Calm down, will you? I’ll answer any question you ask.”

That seemed to mollify her slightly, though she stepped out of the way when I tried to embrace her. She went to the kitchen and filled the kettle.

“You know that Josh Hinkley’s been murdered?” she said over her shoulder.

I had decided I was going to come clean. “Yes.”

Karen told me the details, watching me cringe. “There was a message under the body, saying ‘Ask Matt Wells about this,’ like there was with Sandra Devonish.” She caught my eye. “I’m asking.”

I sat down at the minuscule kitchen table and started to talk. A mug of coffee was thumped down in front of me and Karen sat opposite. Our knees touched. She tried to move back, but there wasn’t room.

After I’d gone through the clues I’d tried to answer and the sender’s responses, she slumped in her chair.

“Why didn’t you tell me about all that earlier?” she asked, her tone acid.

I shrugged. “Because I was specifically told not to involve the police—other people could have been murdered.”

“What, more than Sara Robbins has killed so far?”

She looked at me in disbelief. “And you’ve had a hot line
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to her. Anybody else would have run screaming to us, but Matt Wells? No, he’s smarter than the Met’s finest, he can handle serial killers on his own.” She laughed bitterly. “I’ll be sure to mention that to Sandra Devonish’s family when they arrive to collect her body.”