Paul Johnson - The Death List

Mr. Webster turned the chair toward him, grinning as Keane tried to scream again. The movement had made the knife blade cut laterally through his hand.

“Oh, sorry, how thoughtless of me.” The man laughed harshly. “Then again, thoughtless is a word that could be applied to you, couldn’t it, Dr. Keane?”

He tried to speak. He wanted to explain himself, make excuses, beg for forgiveness, but the gag was still in his mouth, a strip of tape now over his lips.

“You remember her, don’t you?” Mr. Webster said, taking off his gloves.

With a spasm of horror, the doctor saw that his assailant was wearing latex surgical gloves beneath. Oh, God, what did he intend to do? What was going on?

“Catherine Dunn. Date of birth March 21, 1947. Address, 14 Marlin Court, Bethnal Green. Telephone, none.” The man bent over him and he caught the smell of expensive aftershave and aromatic tobacco. “Attended your surgery on March 12, 1983, complaining of stomach pains.” He turned a page. “See, here are your notes. ‘Patient is clearly undernourished. Given advice about diet. No follow-up required.’” Webster grabbed his cheeks and pressed hard. The doctor felt like his eyes were about to pop out. “No follow-up required,” his captor repeated.

Webster stepped back and took off his hat. Then he gripped his hair at the top of his forehead and peeled it back. Beneath the wig was short fair hair, almost certainly peroxide. The mustache was pulled away next. “Now do you recognize me, Doctor?”

Keane had already suspected the worst. Although the hair and build were different, the unwavering brown eyes were the same. It was the youth who had stormed into his surgery, screaming about how his mother had died in agony of stomach cancer, how it was Keane’s fault and how he was going to pay for it. If his partner, a former army medic, hadn’t intervened, he might have been made to pay for it there and then. But the young man had been dragged out, shouting and swearing. He said he’d be back, but he’d never showed up. He’d always been lurking in Keane’s mind, though, even years after he moved from Bethnal Green. The rage in his eyes, the savagery in him-the doctor had never seen anything like it.

He closed his eyes, the pain in his hand worsening.

“Not crying, are you, Doctor?” Webster said, his tone mocking.

Webster. His name wasn’t Webster. It was Dunn. Lance? Leslie? That was it, Leslie Dunn. Keane remembered treating him for measles when he was younger. He had a black eye and his nose had been broken. The father, no doubt. Not that he’d reported it to the police or social services. Families like that were drunken and feckless. There was no point in trying to improve their lives.

His captor leaned close again. “You’re probably wondering why Leslie Dunn didn’t bother you again. Well, I’ll tell you. You took my mother away from me, you destroyed my life back then. But if I’d hurt you, what would have happened? I’d have been caught, sent to a young offenders’ institution, had the shit kicked out of me. I didn’t fancy that at all.” His smile was pitiless, as cold as the heart of an iceberg. “Besides, I reckoned you wouldn’t forget me.” He glanced around the expensively decorated room. “Even in the middle of all this conspicuous wealth.” He looked back at Keane. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

The doctor nodded slowly. The boy had been too ignorant to launch a medical negligence suit, but the guilt had always been there, lurking like a malevolent spider in the most inaccessible part of his mind. If only he’d been brought up a Catholic, like the trembling, dispirited woman who had come to him for help all those years ago. He’d have been able to confess his sin and get on with his life. But it didn’t matter now. He was sure he was at the end of his road.

Keane watched as the man who’d called himself Webster stripped off his suit and shirt. Beneath them he was wearing a white coverall with a hood like the ones used by scenes-of-crime officers on the TV. He dug deeper into his bag and brought out an oilskin bundle. Clearing the desk with a backhand sweep of his arm, he unrolled the oilskin. Gleaming surgical instruments were lodged in pockets. They ranged from needle-thin probes to a large bone-saw.

“Nnngg!” Keane moaned, pulling on his bonds. The pain in his hand didn’t bother him now. He was consumed by fear of what was to come.

“Take your punishment like a man,” Dunn said, laughing emptily. He picked up a scalpel. “Now, where shall I begin? Oh, I know. You failed to diagnose a case of advanced stomach cancer. You didn’t even bother to order the most basic of tests. Have you any idea how much pain my mother was in?” He pulled open the doctor’s striped shirt and caught his eye. “For someone who specializes in dieting, you don’t set a very good example, do you?” He ran the scalpel down the support girdle Keane wore and pulled it apart. “The pain my mother suffered was like this.”

The doctor jerked back in the chair as his stomach was pierced, almost swallowing the gag.

“And like this.”

Another stabbing pain.

“And like this.”

Again and again he tried to scream, breathing desperately through his nose. He was in agony, his eyes blurred by tears. The thrusting and cutting continued. He had no idea how many wounds had been made. The pain was almost unbearable, but he didn’t pass out.

At last Dunn stood up and tossed the bloody scalpel onto the desk. “Take a look,” he said, wrenching the doctor’s head down.

Keane was horrified at the damage that had been done to his abdomen despite the pain he was in.

“Come in,” he heard Dunn say. Turning slightly, he saw a figure approaching. He couldn’t make out the face.

“We’re just getting to the good bit.” Dunn’s face was close to his again. “Take this thought with you to the eternal furnace, you fucking murderer,” he said. “We’re going to rape your wife and daughter before we cut them apart. Then we’re going to slaughter your horses and feed their guts to your dogs, before we finish them off, too.”

The last thing that Bernard Keane saw though his remaining eye was the carving knife in Leslie Dunn’s right hand and the bone-saw in his left.

Before his world dissolved in a welter of crimson, he wondered who his killer’s accomplice might be. He was an only child when his mother had died…

As soon as I saw the TV news after the Saturday sport, I knew it had to be the White Devil. A Harley Street doctor murdered in what was described as “the most gruesome fashion”-it was just his style. I called Sara on her mobile and asked her if she’d heard anything about it. She told me that Jeremy, the crime correspondent, was back from Belfast and that he was covering the killing. She’d been sent to a climate-change conference in Cambridge after the environment correspondent called in sick. She didn’t think she’d be back till late, so we arranged that I’d go round to her place on Sunday evening. I told her I loved her and she repeated the words, though she sounded distracted.

I sat at my desk wondering what to do. If the bastard had killed the doctor in a way copied from one of my books, it wouldn’t be long before someone made the connection my mother had and contacted the police. If they confiscated my computer and examined the hard disk, they’d find the chapters I’d written for the Devil. They’d also find his e-mails to me, but the different addresses he’d used meant that they could easily say I’d written them myself. Then there was the money. If the police found it, I’d have a lot of explaining to do. I had to get rid of it. But how? My tormentor was watching me, he was listening to me. Whatever I did, he’d know. And then what would happen to Lucy and the others?