Paul Johnston - The Soul Collector

“Nobody at home,” the American reported, lowering his pistol.

“What a relief,” Pete said. He put his weapon in his jacket pocket and looked around the place. It had been furnished sparely, but with good taste. A burgundy-colored leather sofa and armchair were facing a medium-size high-definition TV, with a modern standard lamp between them. The walls had been papered in white and there were a couple of framed Cezanne posters. At the back, a breakfast bar separated the living area from a well-equipped kitchen. The windows, front and rear, were covered by Venetian blinds that let in only a small amount of light. In the bedroom, there was an antique wardrobe and a double bed, its pale blue cover neatly in place.

Pete opened the wardrobe. He found three pairs of black jeans, one of which he held against his hip. The flat’s occupant was shorter than he was, so around five foot nine, and solidly built-the shirts were size large. There were bundled pairs of socks on the floor of the wardrobe, as well as folded boxer shorts.

“Looks like a bloke lives here,” Pete said.

Andy went into the bathroom. It smelled of pine. He touched the washbasin. It was wet, as was the bath behind the shower curtain.

“Someone was in here earlier today, Boney,” he called. He ran his eye over a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, a razor and can of foam and a plastic comb. There were no hairs on the latter, nor were there any in the bath. The metal bin was empty, suggesting that the occupant was very fastidious-or very careful. Andy looked at himself in the round mirror, wondering whose face had been in it a few hours before.

Pete was in the kitchen, opening drawers. They were filled with cutlery and other utensils. The pedal bin was empty and there were no plates in the sink or on the drying-stand.

“Someone’s taking a lot of care not to leave traces,” he said.

Andy checked the cupboards. There was very little food in the place, only a few tins of tuna and mackerel. The fridge contained a tub of butter and a jar of capers, and the freezer seemed to be filled with ice-cube trays.

“Hang on,” he said, dropping to his knees. He took out the trays and stacked them on the floor. “What have we here?” He removed a clear freezer bag. Inside it was a padded envelope, with no writing on it. He felt the weight. “There’s something heavy in here,” he said. The envelope wasn’t sealed. He slid his hand in and pulled out a switchblade knife.

Pete put down his pistol and took the knife from Andy. He opened the blade and ran his latex-covered finger along it. “Jeez, this baby is sharp enough to skin a cat. It’s clean, though, and it’s been oiled.”

Pete looked around. “Look at this lot,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Nine-millimeter rounds,” Andy said. “Oh, shit. Where’s the gun?”

They searched the flat again, but found nothing. Another striking feature was the complete lack of anything personal-documents, bills, books, music, photographs.

“Whoever hangs out here is armed,” Pete said when they’d finished.

“And it looks like he or she doesn’t have any interests except weapons.”

“I’m pretty sure that knife is a spare,” Andy said. “The other one will be in our friend’s pocket. Say, isn’t it around here that those gang murders have been happening?”

The bald man stared at him and nodded. “What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know….” Andy moved lightly over the bare floorboards. “Shall we ask the old guy downstairs about his neighbor?”

“And leave a witness that we were here? I don’t think so, Slash. Judging by the racket coming through the floor, he’s in a world of his own anyway.”

“What are we going to do, then? Wait for Armed and Dangerous to come back?”

Pete looked at his watch. “Let’s give it an hour,” he said, squatting on the floor behind the sofa, his back against the wall.

Andy dropped down behind the breakfast bar. “Hey, Boney,” he said after a few minutes.

“What is it, Slash?”

“This could be the piece of shit who killed Dave.”

“Yeah, but we have to be sure of that before it’s payback time.”

Andy gave a grim laugh. “I think I can get a confession.”

“I believe you. But Matt will have to be in on that.”

After about twenty minutes, the sound of the street door closing was just audible above the television. There were footsteps on the stairs.

Pete stood up slowly, gripping his pistol in both hands. Andy was also covering the door.

They heard the footsteps stop on the landing outside. There was a pause, then came an almost inaudible sniff. A key was slotted into the lock and the door was opened quickly. Something flew into the flat, landing with a thud on the floor and rolling toward the sofa. Before Pete or Andy could react, the door was slammed shut.

There was a bright flash as the grenade went off.

I checked the ghost site about half an hour later and opened the new folder that had arrived from my mother and Caroline. They were being very businesslike about the deadline-then I realized that Caroline must have written the text, with Fran dictating parts. They used to call my ex-wife “Ice-for-Blood” at the first bank she worked for. I was so naive that I didn’t get why they thought of her in that way, but later I went in that direction myself: Caroline referred to me as “glacier-heart” during the divorce. I’d been proud of that for about one minute, and then Lucy walked in.

There was no instant good news, but they had come up with plenty of interesting angles. “The river shrinks bears” was hard to fathom, but they wondered if there was a diminutive at play-small bears are cubs, though they didn’t know what to make of that. Neither did I. Was the next victim a cub reporter? A debut novelist? As for “The ice crows for a wife,” Fran and Caroline thought that was a series of metaphors. “For a wife” was the easy one. Who would call for a wife? A man-so that was confirmation that the victim was male. Maybe the person who set the clue really had made this one more straightforward. But what about “the ice crows”? My mother and ex-wife had been playing with partial anagrams-they came up with “swore” (could that be a reference to Josh Hinkley, the most foul-mouthed person I knew? He was also a crime writer, but it seemed very tenuous); “worse”; “screw” (that was probably Caroline’s); “score”; “wise” (Did I know anyone of that name? No. Anyone who was wise? Not many); and “woes.” They thought that was a dead end, and I agreed.

Moving on to “the lean man’s imperial heiress,” Fran and Caroline pointed out the male reference. Including the mention in the body of the e-mail text and in the sender’s name (thethirdisaman), that made four times that masculinity had been stressed. Could it be deliberate overkill? Maybe the target was actually a woman, a married one, as suggested by the use of “wife” in the previous line. Very helpful. As for “lean,” did I know anyone who was unusually skinny? Not really. Apart from junkies, most people were overweight these days, myself included, thanks to the additional muscles I’d acquired. My mother and ex-wife picked up on the colonial aspect of “imperial”-did I know anyone from a former colony? A few, and there were millions more I’d never heard of. Again, not much help. As for “heiress,” that suggested “daughter”-they had immediately thought of Lucy, though they accepted she was safe where they were. But was the intended victim female? The White Devil had told plenty of lies during his persecution of me-and, more to the point, he’d covered up or failed to tell me about even more things. Sara might be following his example.

In the fourth line, “Is the thirsty draw of nothing,” Fran and Caroline spotted the opposition with the first line-“thirsty,” in the sense of “dry,” as against the liquid of “river.” But “draw of nothing” had them stumped. What kind of draw was meant? One where stalemate ensues, or an attraction? Perhaps there was even a hint of artistic technique-but how could you draw nothing? As for the last word, it could simply mean the letter O; or it could be hinting at a person, as in “no thing”; or it could just be there to show that the answer of the clue was without substance-i.e. that we were wasting our time trying to find it. Three seriously unhelpful alternatives. I thanked Fran and Caroline, sent my love to Lucy and logged off.