Paul Johnston - The Soul Collector

When Oaten and her subordinates had arrived, an ambulance was taking away the third and last body. Even though uniformed personnel had arrived very quickly, the shooters had dispersed and none of the “big, black cars” had been found.

“Did you see the men come back out of the house, Mrs. Jones?” Amelia Browning asked.

“Ooh, call me Maisie, love,” the old woman said, with a loose smile that revealed ill-fitting dentures. “Yes, I did. The young bloke was marched to the second car and another man got in the back with him. I think he was the boss, because three or four others were standing around him to make sure he didn’t get hit. Quite a few of the men in suits were hit, but only the one got left behind. They tried to grab his body, but they were outnumbered by then, so they had to drive off.”

They waited for more, but Mrs. Jones seemed to have said her piece.

“Would you like Sergeant Browning here to help you home?” Oaten asked. “See if she saw anything else,” she added, in a low voice to Amelia.

“Wonderful,” Paskin said. “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. When we got here, the kids were picking up the cartridge cases and throwing them at each other. Thank Christ no actual weapons were left behind.”

“The local gang members would have grabbed them,” Turner said. “This is Shadow territory, isn’t it?”

The superintendent nodded.

“What about the intruders?” Oaten asked.

“Albanians, we think,” said Paskin. “The dead guy had a letter in his pocket. One of my team has been learning the language.”

“Do you think this was an attempt to move into the area, guv?” the Welshman asked.

“No, Taff. They don’t work that way, do they? At least, not in broad daylight.”

Karen Oaten nodded. “You’re right. The Albanian families tend to buy their way in using middlemen. When they’ve got a foothold, they either kill or kidnap the local leaders and their families. They don’t go for all-out war in the streets.”

“So what were they doing here?” Turner asked.

Paskin looked up at the second-floor windows. A uniformed officer had seen the open door and gone to investigate. He was in shock and the pathologist was still trying, literally, to piece together what had happened upstairs.

“I’d say the young guy led them to the flat. The guy whose body was dismembered was probably an Albanian.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Oaten said. “They’d have been hoping to find him alive. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come in such numbers.”

Turner looked at his boss thoughtfully. “Do you reckon the young man’s still alive?”

“Not if he had anything to do with what happened to the victim, Taff,” Ron Paskin said, his expression grim.

“The Albanians are usually all related,” Oaten said. “Like the original Sicilian mafia.” She turned to the superintendent. “I’d like to attach one of my people to your team till the situation out here is resolved.”

Her former boss nodded. “No problem, Karen. I could do with an extra pair of hands.” He looked down the street ruefully. “An extra hundred pairs of hands.”

Oaten and Turner glanced at each other. They both knew that feeling. They walked to the chief inspector’s car, the Welshman asking bystanders to move aside.

“What do you think, guv?” he asked.

“That the killer’s losing his grip. Dismembering a body is a big step from the earlier killings.” She got in and started the engine.

“We don’t know that the person who chopped up the Albanian also killed the Kurds and the Turks,” Turner said.

Oaten looked over her shoulder and reversed down the street. “Not for certain, no. The CSIs have got plenty of fingerprints in the flat here, but nothing to compare them with from the other scenes. But you know the murders are connected, even if the same person didn’t actually carry them out. Personally, I think it is the same killer.”

“Could it be Sara Robbins?”

“If it is, Matt had better keep his head down because she’s really lost it now.”

Turner pushed himself back in his seat as she accelerated. “Steady, guv. It’s a busy road.”

Karen Oaten braked hard behind a bus. “Remember something else,” she said. “The body in the house in Oxford. It looks like she owns that property-the name on the deeds is a composite of her mother’s maiden name and the names given to Sara and her twin before they were adopted. What kind of person keeps a rotting corpse in their hall?”

John Turner didn’t answer. He remembered all too well the last person he knew who had done something similar.

Oaten’s phone rang. She fitted the earpiece and answered.

“Yes, Dr. Redrose,” she said, shaking her head at the Welshman. “How can I help you?” She listened, her jaw dropping. “Are you sure?” She listened again, and then thanked him and signed off.

“Jesus,” she said. “The old ghoul has his uses.”

“What’s happened?”

“After the case conference, his curiosity was piqued. He didn’t do the autopsies on the gang victims. He went to the morgue and checked the finger and toenails of the two Kurds. Guess what he found?”

“Don’t tell me they’d been clipped.”

“Yup. But only one toe in each case, as if the killer was being careful not to draw attention.” She gave a hollow laugh. “That’s how Redrose spotted it, of course. Nobody cuts only one nail themselves, at least not usually. He’s pretty sure that a small number of hairs have been taken from the head and groin of each dead man, too. Not enough to make a conclusive link.”

“But the toenails do that,” Turner said. “The likelihood of both victims having cut one nail recently must be minimal.”

Karen Oaten nodded. “So there’s a good chance that the same killer is behind the crime writer and the gangland murders. Or the same killers.”

The inspector swallowed hard. “And that devil worship played a part in them all.”

Neither of them needed to say it aloud, but the White Devil was even more in the frame-and, apparently, even more dangerous than ever.

I found out from a friend at the Daily Indie that Jeremy Andrewes was in the office. Andy and I were outside in Clerkenwell Road-he was twenty meters left of the entrance to the paper’s building, and I was about the same distance to the right, both of us on the opposite side of the road. If the journalist stayed inside, I didn’t see how Sara could get to him, unless she was already in the office. I didn’t think that was too likely. You needed an electronic pass to get past the security door in reception. I could have got in using mine, but it would take me a long time to check the whole place. Besides, I was in the news. As soon as anyone recognized me, I’d have difficulty getting out again and that would screw up my plan completely. I’d removed the fake mustache. I didn’t think it would fool people who knew me well.

Ten minutes before twelve, I nodded to Andy and then retired to a cafe down the road that supported wi-fi access. I booted up my laptop. On the ghost site I found a message from my mother. That was a major relief. She’d cracked the “Andrews” part of the clue, but hadn’t got Jeremy. Then again, she didn’t know the journalist, so she hadn’t been able to make the leap that I had.

I clicked on the message that appeared at exactly eleven fifty-nine. It was from wotacarveup. I wrote my reply-Karen Oaten-and sent it. Two minutes later, an answer arrived.

Karen Oaten? You really have lost your grip, Matt. And to think that I’d have kept my word if you’d got the right answer…

Soon it’ll be your turn.

Doom and disaster!

Helen

I smiled and logged off. Then I picked up my cell phone and speed-dialed Jeremy Andrewes’s number.