Paul Johnson - The Death List

“The devil,” his adopted son said in the most frightening voice he could manage. He knew that Billy, a lifelong Catholic who hadn’t been to confession since he was a boy, had the weight of his many sins on him.

“What?” Billy said, dropping his cigarette and getting to his feet.

“The devil, and he’s come to take you!” Les said with a wild yell, running forward with his head down.

He heard Billy’s breath as it was expelled in the impact, then watched as he fell headfirst to the concrete surface at ground level. His body lay limp down there, the head shattered, but Les knew that Billy Dunn’s soul was plummeting far deeper, into the very pit of hell.

The watcher saw the lights come on at St. Katharine’s Dock across the river. To his left, Tower Bridge stood out in all its ridiculous grandeur. Vanity, he thought, all is vanity.

He glanced at his watch.

It was time to tighten his grip on the writer.

“Hello, Matt.”

The voice made me start. I looked round and saw my good friend Dave Cummings’s wife. She was a stooping, thin-faced woman who had never approved of our involvement with the rugby league club.

“Oh, hi, Ginny.” I had to force myself to make conversation. “How are things?”

She gave a weak smile. “You know, same old same old. Kids, cooking, cleaning, ironing.”

I didn’t show any sympathy. This was Ginny’s way of complaining that her husband didn’t pay her enough attention. My loyalties, tested hundreds of times on the pitch and in the pub, lay with Dave.

We watched as Lucy approached with Ginny’s kids, Tom and Annie. Tom was in my daughter’s class and they got on well. As soon as I could, I drew Lucy away.

“Daddy, can I have an ice cream?” she asked, trying it on. I wouldn’t usually have given in to her, but I needed to keep her sweet. This wasn’t going to be a normal afternoon.

“All right, darling,” I said, leading her across the road to the Italian deli in Dulwich Village. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yes, thank you.” She gave me a blinding smile that made my heart skip several beats. My little girl’s hair-raven like her mother’s-was in a plait and her face was covered in freckles.

God, I loved her. I couldn’t let anything happen to her. For all I knew, the bastard was watching us right now. I looked around as casually as I could. There only seemed to be the usual crowd of mothers and grandparents, even the odd father, but no one suspicious. Then again, this guy was smart. He wouldn’t be standing in full view with a pair of binoculars.

As we walked up the hill, I went over the course of action I’d worked out. I was going to take Lucy back to Caroline’s place first. I had no choice. If I took her straight to mine, her mother would be instantly suspicious. Lucy was only supposed to be taken there at weekends. I didn’t want to raise any suspicions that, by changing the routine, I might have had something to do with Happy’s disappearance.

The difficult part of the plan was if Lucy noticed Happy’s absence. She often went to the garden fence and called the dog.

When we got to the house, I tried to shoo her straight upstairs.

“No, Daddy.” She headed for the back door. “I want to say hello to Happy.”

I bit my tongue. The less I said the better.

Outside, after calling the dog numerous times, Lucy gave me a puzzled look. “Where is she, Daddy? Do you think something’s happened to her?”

“No, of course not, darling. The Rooneys probably just kept her inside today. Maybe they thought it was going to rain.”

Lucy peered up at the blue sky and frowned. “No, she was outside this morning. I remember.”

I was beginning to regret the plan I’d chosen. “Well, maybe she’s just having a sleep. Come on, do you want some juice?”

Lucy followed me in reluctantly. I managed to get her to the piano to do her practice, and later to sit her in front of kids’ TV. She didn’t have any homework. But she kept going to the window and looking out, trying to see over the fence.

“Come on, Luce,” I said, “let’s go to my house.”

Her eyes widened. “But Mummy says it’s dirty.”

Thanks a lot, Caroline, I thought. “No, it isn’t. And I’ve got a new DVD you can watch.”

“Which one?” she asked excitedly.

“Surprise, surprise,” I said. I’d picked up a Disney she hadn’t seen on the way to the school. The trick was to get her out of the house before either of the Rooneys got back. Fortunately she was now sufficiently distracted. I also mentioned that I had alphabet spaghetti for her tea, a foodstuff banned by Caroline.

At last we were out on the street. As we walked away, my heart was pounding like a drum.

Did I have the nerve to keep up this kind of pretense?

The phone rang at half past six.

“Matt, where’s Lucy?” Caroline sounded anxious.

“Hello,” I said, trying to lower the tension. “Nice to talk to you, too. Did you have a good day? She’s here, of course.”

My ex-wife wasn’t to be pacified. “You know she’s not meant to be round there during the week. Has she done her homework?”

“She didn’t have any. She’s done her piano.” I tried to keep my voice as neutral as I could. “You sound uptight. What’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you what the matter is. Happy’s gone missing.”

“What?”

“Did you see her when you were round here? Shami’s going spare.”

“No,” I said, feigning sudden enlightenment. “Now you mention it, we didn’t.” I glanced at Lucy. She was engrossed in Hercules. “I thought she was inside.”

“No, they left her in the garden this morning.”

“Oh, right. I didn’t notice.”

“Look, it’s probably better if you keep Lucy round there for another half hour. I don’t want her to be upset by this.”

“Okay.”

“Have you got something she can eat?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Something that isn’t full of artificial preservatives and E numbers?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Caroline said doubtfully. “I’ll see you later.”

“Look,” I said, suddenly realizing I couldn’t face the Rooneys, “you can come and get her, can’t you? I’m actually trying to write something this evening.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Cow.

I had the computer on when Caroline arrived, the screen showing a couple of lines of an unsolicited album review.

“Hello, sweetest little girl in the world,” Caroline said, kissing Lucy. She was wearing a black skirt and a matching woolen cardigan that set off her bobbed dark hair. Black was apparently color of the day in the City.

“It’s the God of the Underworld,” our daughter said, pointing to the TV. “He’s funny.”

James Woods’s voicing was indeed a cracker, but I had other things on my mind. Seeing the two of them together brought home how fragile they were; how easy it would be for the maniac who’d sliced up the dog to move on to them. At the same time, I felt a burning desire to share my burden with someone, to lighten the load that the bastard had saddled me with. But I restrained myself. Maybe if Caroline had been on her own I’d have summoned up the courage, but with Lucy there it was impossible.

“What’s the matter with you?” my ex-wife said in the blunt manner she’d got used to taking with me over the years.

I shrugged. “Work. You know…”

“Lack of work, more like.” Her eyes flared. “God, you’re so indecisive, Matt. Why can’t you just write a different book and sell it to a different publisher? Why do you have to take everything so personally? It’s not their fault you wrote stuff they couldn’t sell.”