Paul Johnson - The Soul collector

Now she was inside-more men with Kalashnikovs and American weapons, the smell of fear and destitution more noisome. The man in front of her launched into a lengthy tribute to his master. After five minutes, Camargo, a tall, bearded man who had run to fat, nodded and the talkative man was hustled away by two GLF men. It was her turn.

She kept her head low as she stepped up to the metal chair that had been placed on the platform. She didn't know much Spanish, but she understood that El Loco was asking what she wanted to say. It was then that she looked up and gave him a smile that suggested everything she might give him. El Loco beckoned to her and she stepped on to the platform, leaned close and, in the split second it took to pull the inch-long blade from the wooden cross around her neck, realized that her heart rate hadn't increased at all. If anything, it had slowed. The training routines had become second nature.

Camargo was grinning at her, his lips wet. Then his eyelids jerked wide apart as she buried the razor-sharp blade into his neck two centimeters above and to the left of his Adam's apple. As she moved quickly behind the chair, she grabbed the greasy hair beneath the wide- peaked officer's cap, pulled his head back and ripped the blade to the right. As she ducked down, she saw a fine spray of crimson fill the air above the next man in the line.

Immediately there was an explosion of automatic weapon fire and a welter of screaming. She stayed down, her arms over her head, but she had no fear. After a time, the firing moved outside and there was less noise from the people in the building. As she looked out from beneath Camargo's chair, she saw why. The place was full of bodies, both of GLF men and of the innocent.

The woman heard Esteban's voice. He was telling her that it was over. She snaked an arm around El Loco's body and removed a silver-plated semiautomatic pistol from his belt. She racked the slide and held the weapon in a two- handed grip as she slowly stood up. Esteban lowered his own pistol when he saw the way she was looking at him.

"Okay," he said with a slack smile. "It is okay, devil- woman."

She gave him a tight smile and then fired two shots into Pedro Camargo's groin.

The few remaining villagers in the school cheered. As she walked out, they clapped their hands. The woman ignored them. The only approbation she needed was from the soul that had merged with her own. .she blinked and was back in London, the damp in the streets much colder than those of Colombia. But she had never forgotten that big killing, when she had first felt the attraction of silver-colored weapons. She owned several now. It was also then that she had turned herself into the Soul Collector, on behalf of the precious soul inside her very being.

There were several to be gathered in England, and soon Matt Wells's time on the earth would be over. But there was a world of pain for him to endure first.

I woke up to the sound of the telephone. The display told me it was nine-thirty.

"Yeah?" I mumbled.

"Hello, dear. Late night?"

"Hello, Fran. What's up?" Fran was my adoptive mother and had encouraged me to call her by her first name since I went to senior school. The White Devil and his sister had also been adopted, and that was one reason that he had chosen me as his fall guy. But he had forced his mother into a sexual relationship, while I had only the standard feelings of a dutiful son for Fran.

"Why does anything have to be up for me to call my son and heir?"

"Um, right. Full of the joys of spring, are we?" I swung my legs out of bed and reached for my robe. I had a flash of my ex-wife's face and remembered her visit from the night before. That made me groan.

"What is it, dear?"

"Nothing," I said quickly. I could have told her about the fright Caroline had given me, but she would just have started on a rant about how she'd never been right for me and that I'd got married far too young. I usually pointed out that she wouldn't have had a granddaughter if I'd stayed single, which invariably tested her saintlike patience.

"You aren't very talkative this morning," my mother observed.

"No," I said, turning on the laptop and logging on to the e-mail program. I had a burning need to see if I'd received any messages from the woman who had threatened vengeance upon me after the White Devil's death.

"I wanted to talk to you about Mary Malone."

Having seen that there were no messages from unknown senders, I was checking my family's and friends' confirmations.

"Did you hear me, Matt?"

"Mm." Everyone was okay. "Sorry, you were saying about Mary Malone."

"Yes, dear," Fran said with a long-suffering sigh. "You really can be infuriating sometimes. I suppose you're checking that everyone's all right."

"Yup," I said, irritated that she could read me so easily. "I presume they are," she continued. "So, Mary Ma- lone." "I never met her, Mother. None of us in the crime fiction world did. She was a loner. What's your interest?" "You've forgotten that I'm a member of the Crime Writers' Society, too." "What's that got to do with anything?" I asked testily. "Well, if there's going to be a rash of crime novelists being killed, I'd like to know in advance." I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "Who said anything about a rash?" "Oh, you know how the papers like to gossip. Has Karen taken the case on?" "Speaking of gossip," I said. "Don't take that tone, Matt. I'm serious." "Mother, you wrote three thrillers for teenagers back in the seventies. I hardly think you'll be on the top of the hit list. There may not even be a hit list. It's gossip. And only one person has died. How's that a rash?" "Come on," she scoffed. "That Rolling Stones song playing and the killer parading in a cape and top hat- don't tell me that isn't suggestive of an organized individual with an agenda." "Well, I bow to your superior knowledge," I said, heading for the kitchen and a liter of orange juice to re- hydrate my failing system. "Has it even occurred to you that I might be frightened?" she asked with a partially suppressed sob. That stopped me in my tracks. "Christ, I'm sorry, Mother. Do you want me to come over?" "No, it's all right, dear. I know you have Lucy today." Shit. I'd forgotten about my daughter. I changed direction and went toward the shower.

"Surely it must have crossed your mind that…that Sara was behind the murder?"

"Em, yes, it did, Mother. But there hasn't been any message or other form of contact, and everybody on my list has reported in on the last two mornings."

"You still haven't told me if Karen's working the case."

"Sorry. No, she isn't. She was called in to take a look, but the local detectives are still in charge, as far as I know."

"All right, dear. Let me know if you hear anything I should know."

"Okay, will do. I've got to dash now. 'Bye."

"'Bye," she repeated, her voice weak.

I twitched my head and chucked the phone onto one of the sofas. Fran lived on her own and was a successful children's author. I hadn't heard her so concerned since the White Devil case. The bastard kidnapped her and kept her tied up for days. Mary Malone's death must have stirred up bad memories for her. She wasn't the only one.

Remembering that Lucy, let alone her mother, expected me at ten, I rushed my shave, leaving cuts that stung like hell when I had a shower. As I came out, I heard the phone ring. This time it was the special line that I used only for my mates. I dripped water over the carpet as I ran to my desk.

"Hello," I said, panting.

"Morning, lad." It was Dave Cummings. I registered immediately that there was something odd about his voice. "Nice weather if you're a penguin." The hairs rose on the back of my neck. We'd set up a series of code words in the event that Sara, or anyone else, put the squeeze on us. Between Dave and me, anything to do with nice weather meant that the speaker was in immediate physical danger.