Paul Johnson - The Death List

“Spot on, Taff,” she said in a low voice. “There’s a bit underlined in red. ‘Of all deaths, the violent death is best,’” she read. Then she took in the preceding passage. “Our friend Wells has his investigator Sir Tertius talking to an actor, who quotes that line from a Webster play.” She looked up at her subordinate. “Guess which one. The White Devil.”

Turner had his mobile phone in his hand. “I’ll have him picked up.”

Oaten shook her head. “You’re forgetting something.” She turned to the pathologist. “What were your parameters for the time of death again, Doctor?”

“Between 10:00 and 12:00, I’d hazard.”

The chief inspector turned back to the Welshman. “Remember where we were between half ten and half eleven?”

“Shit,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket. “He could have an accomplice.”

“You mean two.” Oaten nodded. “Yes, he could. But hauling him in and questioning him is hardly likely to get him to own up-not if he’s the kind of calculating bastard behind murders like this one and the others.”

“But we can keep an eye on him,” Turner said.

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “We can certainly do that. In fact, some of Hardy’s people can take that job off our hands. The teams are amalgamating.” She saw the dismay on his face. “Don’t worry, I’m still in charge. For the time being, at least.” She moved away. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “Our lot here know what they’re doing. We’ve got the people who knew the previous victims to check out.”

“We’ll soon have a list of people who knew this guy, too.”

Oaten nodded. “The problem is, I have a feeling that Alexander Drys doesn’t have anything to do with the others.”

Turner gave her a long-suffering look. “Which leaves us where?”

“Stuffed, if we don’t get a shift on.”

They stripped off their coveralls in the hall. Before they left, a female detective sergeant told them that the Portuguese maid had given a statement via an interpreter. She hadn’t seen who’d grabbed her from behind and tied her up in the cloakroom. If she hadn’t happened to keep a penknife in her pocket on her mother’s strict instructions-you could never trust British men-she’d probably still have been in there and the alarm wouldn’t have been raised. As it was, it had taken her more than an hour to saw through the ropes with the blunt blade.

Oaten and Turner left the house with their eyes down. Four murders and still they hadn’t had a single decent break. They’d been doing everything by the book. Surely something had to give soon.

I went round to Sara’s after I’d finished supervising Lucy. Caroline gave me the usual cold stare when I said goodbye. Part of me wanted to say that it would be better for our daughter if we could be friends, but another, more damaged part told me that would have been a complete waste of time. Caroline had no time for me, especially now that I wasn’t earning from my writing. She’d always taken a dim view of people who didn’t contribute to the wealth of nations. If she’d known the danger I’d put Lucy and her in, she’d have taken the carving knife to me.

Sara wasn’t there when I got to her flat. I called her on her mobile and she said she was on the train. She sounded lively. When she came in, there was a strange smile on her lips. I went to greet her, putting my arm round her shoulders and trying to kiss her. She moved her face and I hit cheek.

“What happened, babe?” I asked, going to the fridge to get a bottle of wine. “Did you get promoted or something?”

She didn’t reply, heading into the bedroom to change out of her work clothes.

She returned a few minutes later in tracksuit bottoms and a red T-shirt with Che Guevara’s head on it.

“No, Matt,” she said, giving me a curious look. “Nothing like that.”

“Want to tell me about it?” I asked, sitting down on the sofa beside her and handing her a glass.

“It’s no big deal. The excitements of a national newspaper. Not.” She ran her hand across her hair and laughed. “I’m seriously considering a change of career.”

I was surprised by that. Ever since I’d known her-it was about a year since we’d literally bumped into each other at a publisher’s party, her glass of red drenching my shirt-Sara had seemed as committed to her job as anyone I’d known. She lived for news stories, happily inhaling the high-octane fuel that drove newspapers and thriving on it. Which reminded me.

“You’re not on the Drys murder, are you?”

The glass stopped on its way to her lips. I saw her eyelashes quiver for a couple of moments. “The Drys murder?” she repeated. “Oh, the literary critic. No, Jeremy’s doing that.” She turned to me, her expression suddenly serious. “Did you know him?”

“Not in person. Don’t you remember? I moaned about him once or twice. As an example of the kind of journalist who hides away from the real world-he never went to any crime-fiction events-and writes hurtful things about people at long range.”

Sara looked at me thoughtfully. “Oh, yes, now I remember. You said he gave you some stinking reviews.”

“Me and plenty of other crime novelists.”

“Just as well,” she said, emptying her glass. “At least you won’t be the police’s number-one suspect.”

“No,” I said. Then I remembered that I’d given the detectives her contact numbers. For some reason I held back from asking her if they’d been in touch. I reckoned she’d tell me if they had and I didn’t want to ruin her evening if they hadn’t yet.

As it turned out, the evening was a nonevent, anyway. Sara said her stomach was giving her grief and retired to bed early. It wasn’t the first time she’d been distant with me recently. No doubt I hadn’t been paying her enough attention since the Devil appeared.

After watching the news, which told me less than I already knew about Drys’s murder, I checked on her. She was asleep, but she clearly wasn’t at rest. Her lips were twitching and her legs moving. Maybe journalist’s burnout was getting to her earlier than it did with most hacks. I left quietly and drove home.

It was while I was between Clapham and Herne Hill that I came to the decision. To hell with the White Devil and all his works. I wasn’t going to take any more of his shit. It was time I stood up to him like a man, not like a crime writer.

I spent the next two hours thinking, refining the plan I’d come up with the previous night and covering as many bases as I could. Then I fell into a sleep haunted by the ghosts of mutilated victims and the screams of abused children. They gradually faded and I found myself dreaming about revenge. There was a lot of blood.

When I woke the next morning, I knew I’d made the right choice. I would fight the Devil with his own weapons, and my revenge would be greater than his. It was the only way.

Otherwise he would take me down to the underworld with him.

The White Devil stood in front of the bank of screens in his penthouse by the Thames. The water was leaden-gray with a hint of fecal brown, seagulls scavenging over it like white-feathered demons. It was a river of the underworld, the dark walled buildings on the other side the houses of the living dead; a scene Hieronymus Bosch could have conjured up, a triumph of death as good as Pieter Bruegel’s. He let out a sigh. Life couldn’t get any better.

The Devil looked down at the leather-bound volume that lay on the Georgian table he’d bought for the dining area. Earlier, he’d pasted in the pages Matt had written. But he was looking at the page at the front. The Death List was the book’s title and a register of names prefaced the narrative, in two columns. On the left were people’s names, among them Billy Dunn, Richard Brady, Father Patrick O’Connell, Evelyn Merton, Gilbert Merton, Bernard Keane, Alexander Drys-these, the ones he’d already killed, had a red cross against them. There were others as yet untouched by the human blood he’d used as ink-Christian Fels, Jeanie Young-Burke, Lucy Emilia Wells, Caroline Zerb, Fran Wells, and more. Including, of course, Matt Wells.