Paul Johnson - The Death List

“Where are they?” Oaten asked.

“Good question. They appear to have been taken as trophies, though you’ll have to wait for the autopsy for confirmation. They might have been rammed down the throat.”

“I see what you mean about it being a first,” the chief inspector said. “I’ve seen bodies in churches before and I’ve seen mutilations, but not both together.”

The pathologist stood up and gave them a triumphant grin. “I haven’t finished.” He lifted up the head again and pointed to the mouth.

“What is it?” Turner asked. “I can’t see anything.”

Karen Oaten leaned closer. “There’s something projecting from the teeth.” She raised a latex-covered finger. “See, Taff? It looks like a piece of paper in a clear plastic bag.”

“Precisely,” confirmed the medic.

“Can you get it out?” Oaten asked.

“You’ll have to wait for the-”

“Let me rephrase that.” She gave him a stony glare. “This is a particularly vicious murder. Time is of the essence if we’re going to catch the killer. Please remove that piece of evidence.”

“Very well, Chief Inspector. On your head be it.” Redrose took a retractor from his bag and used it to open the dead man’s jaws. A neatly folded square of paper about three centimeters across in the small bag fell onto the palm of Karen Oaten’s hand. “Well caught, madam.”

She ignored him, going over to the SOCO leader. “I need this opened and bagged,” she said.

A few minutes later she and Turner were looking at an unfolded piece of white copy paper in a clear evidence bag. A line of words had been laser-printed on it.

“‘What a mockery hath death made of thee,’” Oaten read aloud. She glanced at her sergeant. “What is that? The Bible?”

“Don’t ask me,” Turner replied, raising his shoulders. “I skipped chapel every time I could.”

“We’ll run it through the computer,” the chief inspector said. “All that stuff’s in digital form now.”

“Sounds like someone really had it in for this Father Prendegast,” Turner said.

Karen Oaten looked back at the mutilated body on the altar. “I think we already knew that, Taff,” she said, shaking her head at him slowly.

“Yeah,” he said, feeling his face begin to glow, “I suppose we did.”

The two heavily built men came over the ridge in the gloom, five meters between them. The last of the sun had disappeared into the clouds over the Atlantic and it was chilly on the moor-chilly enough for the hardiest walker to have headed back to the warmth of civilization hours ago. A damp wind was coming off the sea. Upland Devon was as unforgiving as ever.

“Anything, Rommel?” the man on the left said in a low voice.

“Fuck all, Geronimo,” his companion grunted, checking the luminous compass on his right wrist. “According to the coordinates you worked out, we should have found him by now.”

The first man looked around stealthily. He was wearing muddy camouflage fatigues. “To hell with this,” he said, drawing his combat knife from the sheath on his belt. “I’m not having him do us again.” The honed blade glinted in the light of the full moon that was rising in the east.

“Wolfe’s never been caught, Geronimo.” Rommel wiped moisture from his crew-cut hair. “Not by anyone.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“And it’s not tonight,” came a voice from behind them.

The two men spun on their heels. Rommel’s arm was grabbed and the knife chopped from it in a practiced karate move. He was jerked round to face Geronimo, a blade at his throat.

“Game over,” said the assailant with a dry laugh. He released his captive and pushed him forward. “Christ, guys, I could hear you coming a mile off.”

“Bollocks,” Geronimo said, twisting his lips beneath a drooping mustache. “We took all the necessary precautions.” He shone a torch on the ground between them.

Wolfe shrugged. “Okay, from five hundred meters, then.” He glanced down at his victim. “You all right?”

Rommel nodded. “Take more than that to break any of my bones,” he said, glaring at the taller man.

“Good. The Special Air Service is proud of you.” Wolfe slipped his knife back into its sheath. “Well, slightly.”

“Can we get back to the Land Rover now?” Geronimo asked.

Wolfe’s expression grew more serious. “You must be joking. We’re staying on the moor for another night. Don’t worry. It’s only a six-mile hike to the bivouac.”

The other two exchanged glances and then grinned.

“Better get going, then,” Rommel said, picking up his blade.

Wolfe nodded. “Good. I reckon you two are just about ready for our little jaunt to the big city.”

They took a bearing and started walking northeast.

“How did you do it?” Geronimo asked after several minutes of rapid movement over the sparsely covered plateau. “How did you creep up on us?”

There was a long silence as their leader sniffed the wind. “I used all my experience and fieldcraft.” He looked down a long valley, apparently sensing something in the dark. “And I had a purpose. You know that training ops like this are useless without a purpose.”

“And the purpose is to track down the bastard who you reckon did for one of us,” Rommel said.

“Correct. No one, repeat no one, fucks with an SAS sergeant, even if he’s retired like Wellington was. Whoever it was is going to die in agony.” Wolfe cocked an ear and raised his right arm. “They’re down by the stream. Two of them. They must have got separated from their little friends.”

Rommel and Geronimo drew closer.

“Exmoor pony for dinner again?” the latter asked, his voice level.

“Unless you’ve got a better idea,” Wolfe replied.

The three men whose combat names had been chosen from warriors of old moved silently down the track in search of prey, their eyes reflecting the moon’s cold light.

I looked at Sara, my lower jaw dropping. The five grand. What the hell was I going to tell her?

“I’m waiting, Matt,” she said, her eyes locked on me. Sara had a disconcerting way of going from very loving to dead serious in a split second.

“Ah, right.” I went over to the bed. “It’s…it’s money.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Very funny. Is it yours?” She glanced down. “There must be thousands here.”

“Um, five,” I said, racking my brains for a credible explanation. “Five thousand.”

“Five thousand pounds in cash?” Sara picked up one of the bundles and sniffed it. “What did you do? Rob a bank?”

“No, of course not. It’s…it’s a down payment.”

“On what?”

I had it. “Actually,” I said, sitting down beside her, “it’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh. “I love embarrassment.”

“Bloody journalists,” I said, receiving an elbow in my ribs. “Ow. Bastard journalists.” I gave her a playful push.

“I’m waiting,” she said, her expression serious again.

I looked her in the eye. I’d read how FBI agents were trained to do that, how it put them in a position of strength. “Well, I’ve been asked to ghostwrite the autobiography of a gangland enforcer.” I’d also read somewhere that, if you’re going to lie, you should keep as close to the truth as you can.

Sara seemed to have bought it. “Who?”

“I can’t tell you that. I’ve been sworn to secrecy until the book’s finished.” I clenched my fists and raised them. “And you don’t want to mess with this guy, know ‘wot’ I mean?”

A smile spread across her lips. “I might be prepared to pay for the information,” she said, sliding a hand across my thigh. “Up front, know ‘wot’ I mean?”