Paul Johnston - The Soul Collector

Turner glared at him, then shook his head.

Neville looked around the table. “DCI Oaten said at the beginning that she wanted to establish a common thread in these killings. At the very least, she needs to find Matt Wells. His friend was shot, two fellow crime writers have been killed, one wearing leathers like the biker seen near Dave Cummings’s place. And…” His voice trailed away.

“And what?” Turner demanded. “He dressed up in a burqa to kill a Turkish hard man?”

Neville looked down. “He could have,” he said, though even he didn’t sound convinced.

“What about ballistics?” Oaten asked.

“We’ve got a match between a bullet found in the wall of the Shadow basement and the three in the Wolfman’s body,” Ron Paskin said.

“But no match with the bullets taken from Dave Cummings,” added John Turner.

“So,” Oaten said, looking around the table. “Two different shooters, or just the one using different weapons?”

There was no reply.

“And what about the person who’s murdering crime writers? He or she isn’t using firearms at all. Does that mean we’ve got three different killers loose in London?”

Again, there was silence. The meeting broke up shortly afterward.

The earl was in his London club. He didn’t like to be away from his country estate-there had been so much going on there recently-but he couldn’t avoid this trip. And the business had been concluded satisfactorily. Not that he’d had much to do with that. He had no knowledge of the illicit drugs trade, despite having had a healthy appetite for cocaine in his student days. Fortunately his companion had been able to extract a reasonable price. Then it had been straight to his bank to make the deposit that would have calmed his account manager down substantially. If they went on like this, the family would soon regain much of its lost standing; because money was all that counted, for aristocrats even more than for the common hordes. Inheriting property was the norm for his class. Keeping the banks happy was much less common.

He sipped the distinctly average tawny port and nodded at the old idiot across the table. Inbreeding had done the aristocracy no favors. At least the earl didn’t have to worry on that score. He had inherited his family’s devotion to the black arts, as well as the considerable talents required to treat with the order’s acolytes.

He got up and went to the room he always took. It was on the top floor, in what would originally have been the servants’ quarters, but he liked it because it reminded him of his house at school. When he had been a student, the head prefect had demanded the use of his mouth and backside. He had prayed for salvation-not to the feeble god the school worshipped in chapel every morning, but to the Lord Beneath the Earth. His father had given him the order’s archives to study before he went to senior school. His prayers, or rather the replies to them, had worked. The prefect slipped outside his room and fell down the stairs, breaking his neck. The fact that the earl had rubbed soap on the floorboards was not noticed, the police being admitted to the school only on sufferance.

That had been his first death dedicated to the Lord Beneath. There had been countless others since, and it wouldn’t be long until the next one.

The earl picked up his cell phone and made a call to one of the order’s most devoted supplicants.

“Bugger,” Rog said, his fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard.

I went over. “What is it?”

“Hang on.” His eyes were locked on the screen, as he scrolled down rows of numbers and letters. “That was close. You almost lost everything in your new account.”

“What?”

“Sara’s hired someone red-hot. I got there in time, but only because I’d programed an alert code. All the money I transferred from Sara’s accounts was about to go out again.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. “Well done, Dodger. Sara knows we’re on to her.”

He nodded. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? But are Pete and Andy safe at her place in Oxford?”

“I’ll send a text warning them to be even more careful.” After I’d done that, I looked back at Rog. “So is that account secure now?”

“I’ve built a massive firewall and I’ve also alerted the bank’s security department-anonymously, of course. I don’t think Sara’s hacker will get in again.”

“She’s not going to be happy that I’ve got her money,” I said, wondering what that might drive her to.

“Matt?” Rog said. “Why did you warn that Alistair Bing guy? You solved the clue. When you send the answer at midnight, he should be off the hook.”

“You’re right,” I replied. “He should be-if you’re prepared to trust a murderer who sends puzzles.”

“Got you,” he said, looking around at me. “That tosser Hinkley’s got to you, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. Jeremy Andrewes, too. When this is finished, I’m going to have a serious conversation with that pair.”

“What about Karen?”

I stepped away, unwilling to discuss that-not because I wanted to keep Rog out of the loop, but because I wasn’t sure how to handle her. If I contacted her by phone or e-mail, she’d have to respond officially, which would get me nowhere. But trying to see her would be risky, as well as putting her in a difficult position. She’d probably try to arrest me for my own protection.

“All right, don’t tell me,” Rog said. “I only thought you might want my help since I’m such a stellar performer with women.”

I laughed. Rog wasn’t unattractive, but he’d never been able to hold a woman’s attention, never mind affections, for more than a few weeks-that was, if he managed to pull in the first place. He and Andy were at opposite ends of that spectrum.

“How are we going to nail Sara, Matt?” he asked, his tone serious. “Pete and Andy aren’t going to find her in Oxford. If she’s there, who’s doing the murders in London?”

“It’s only an hour by car or train.”

“Or motorbike,” he said.

“What?”

“Remember the biker that Andy saw outside her mother’s place?”

“Shit,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. How could I have forgotten Doris Carlton-Jones?

“He said the biker was trying to give the old woman something.”

“That’s right. I wonder what it was.”

“Do you think she’s been in contact with Sara? Or vice versa?”

I considered that. Sara could have found out who her birth mother was. She had that right, though she’d have had to find a way into the adoption agency’s database rather than present herself in person-that would have been dangerous, given her status as a wanted woman. If she’d hired a geek who could empty bank accounts, the same specimen could easily have traced her birth mother. The question was, had Doris Carlton-Jones met her daughter? I’d mentioned that Sara and the White Devil had been adopted in The Death List, and found out the identity of her mother by the judicious application of sweet talk and bribery. But I hadn’t told the woman who her daughter was.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said, looking at my watch. It was coming up to ten. “But it’s too late for a visit tonight. The deadline’s coming up.”

“It’s probably a long shot, anyway. Do you think the cops know about her?”

He had me there. I hadn’t told Karen the woman’s name, but she might have followed the trail from the newspapers without telling me. Given that the motorbike rider had shot out Andy’s windscreen, I didn’t think there were any police personnel watching the house in Sydenham-they’d have shown themselves. Maybe Mrs. Carlton-Jones had been in touch with the real police about the shooting. It was possible that Andy and I had made her suspicious.