Paul Johnson - The Soul collector

The buzzer went. Hinkley went to the door and pressed the entry button. Suzy and her honey-pot would be on their way up in the lift. He spat on his fingers and smoothed them over his hair.

"All right, darling," he said, pulling open the door, "let's be having you!"

Before Josh Hinkley's lights went out, he registered that something very bizarre had happened to his visitor's face. Twenty-Two The half hour before midnight had passed more slowly than a penguin marathon. I looked at my watch so often that Rog asked if I'd discovered a new way of jerking off. I couldn't make sense of what Pete and Andy had found in Sara's Oxford house. The apologetic note on the dead man suggested that someone else may have dumped the body. I'd be thinking about that later, though there was no chance of checking the house again-Pete's call to the cops would have turned the street into CSI Oxford. London cops would soon be swarming all over the clinic in Harley Street, too.

At last the deadline was close. I logged on to my e-mail server. There was a message from a different address, answerplease3. I wrote, Your target is Adrian Brooks, the crime writer Alistair Bing. I expect you to keep your word about not killing him.

At exactly midnight, I hit Send. The message moved to the Sent Items folder without any problems. I felt like a footballer who'd just won the Cup final. I'd taken on Sara, or whoever she'd hired to kill the crime writers, and I'd won. How would she like that? There was a chime as an instant reply came through. My heart dropped like a stone. Well done, Matt. Though I did say it was an easy one. The thing is, I made the rules and I can break them. You know where Josh Hinkley lives, don't you? Maybe you should get around there. Then again, given how nasty he's been about you in print recently, maybe you shouldn't. The delightful Karen might put you in the frame as the killer. Doctor Faustus "Fuck!" I yelled. Rog pushed me aside and keyed out a string of abuse. I managed to stop him before he sent the reply. "Forget it," I said. "There's nothing we can do." I turned away. "Maybe it's just a bluff," Rog said. "Why don't you ring this Hinkley guy from a public phone?" It wasn't a bad idea. There was a phone across the road. I pressed out the number, my heart thundering. It rang ten times before it was picked up. "Hello," came a neutral male voice. "Is that Josh?" I asked, in a Cockney accent. "Who's calling, please?" This time I recognized the voice. It was DI John Turner, his Welsh vowels not completely obscured. I broke the connection. If Taff Turner was there, something terminal had happened to Josh Hinkley. It would be on the TV and radio stations soon enough. "What now?" Rog asked. "I've got a visit to make. You should get some sleep."

"I won't be sleeping much tonight. I want to get Sara even more now."

"Get back to nailing her funds," I said, squeezing his arm. "I don't care where you put them, but I want her running on empty. Then we'll see how clever she is."

"She probably has accounts we don't know about."

"Find them, Dodger. I'm depending on you."

"Right," he said. "Don't worry, Matt. We'll get her."

I got my gear together and left the flat. I had to do this on my own and I couldn't tell the others where I was going. The chips were down now and anything might happen. I had to be sure I didn't land my friends in even more danger. The death of Dave still haunted me like a witch's curse.

I looked at my watch, all traces of the naive optimism I'd felt before I sent the answer vanished. I resisted the temptation to make a surreptitious visit to the crime scene at Josh Hinkley's house, and started walking southwest.

"Who was that?" Karen Oaten asked.

"Some wide boy," John Turner replied. "He hung up rather than give a name."

The chief inspector glanced at him. They were wearing white coveralls, the hoods up. They had arrived at eleven- thirty, called to the scene by DCI Younger. The narrow street in Soho had been blocked at both ends by patrol cars, their roof lights flashing. Uniformed personnel, some of them armed, were present and a striped barrier tape had already been set up around the street door to keep curious local residents, passersby and journalists at bay. The CSI vans were parked haphazardly and personnel in blue coveralls were already heading into the building. The ground and first two floors were used as offices. Josh Hinkley occupied the top two.

Younger brought them up to speed. "One of the neighbors called about the noise at ten forty-three," he said. "Uniformed officers got here at ten fifty-seven. There was no answer to their buzzing and knocking. They got the phone number and tried it. Nothing. The music was seriously loud and-"

"Loud music's a matter for the council, Colin," Oaten said. "We wouldn't usually intervene, never mind kick the door down."

"No, but that wasn't all. There was blood on the outside of the street door. And the uniforms found that-" Younger pointed to a clear plastic evidence bag on the hall table "-in the lift."

Oaten picked it up. Inside was a long-bladed combat knife with a serrated edge. There was a streak of blood down the center of the blade.

"The body's upstairs," Younger said.

"All right," said Oaten. "We should get up there. Was anything else reported?"

Colin Younger nodded. "The officers said there was a strong smell of perfume."

Oaten looked at him. "It couldn't have been aftershave?"

"I asked. They were pretty sure. So there had recently been a woman in the flat."

"Did they see any women on the street?" Turner asked.

Younger shook his head. "People only started to gather when the sirens started."

There was a bustle at the door.

"Here we all are again," said Redrose, the pathologist. "When did you last eat, Inspector Turner?"

Taff muttered something that no one else caught. It could have been Welsh for "Delighted to see you, Doctor," but Oaten thought it unlikely.

"Come along, then," said the potbellied doctor. "Let's see what our killer's left us this time."

Younger led the way. Three CSIs were examining different parts of the spacious flat. There was a long living area filled with high-quality furniture, including an Eames chair. An expensive-looking stereo system was on a mahogany table. There was a CD in a plastic evidence bag next to it.

"Do we know what music was playing?" Oaten asked the nearest technician.

"Not yet," replied the woman. "I've checked the disk. The same song's repeated all the way through."

"I presume there's a timer on that machine," the chief inspector said. "Was it activated?"

The CSI nodded. "It was set for 10:30 p.m. And the volume was at maximum."

"I've finished with the stairs," another white-suited technician said. "Just keep clear of the areas I've flagged up."

Oaten stepped ahead and started up the wooden staircase. It looked like it had been newly built.

"This would originally have been attic space," the medic said. "A friend of mine lives in a similar place around the corner. He hasn't been able to get planning permission for a conversion."

"I wonder how the dead man managed that," Turner said.

His boss rubbed her thumb and forefinger together.

"Surely not," Redrose said, feigning shock. "Corruption in the City of Westminster? Never."

Oaten reached the top step and found herself in a wide hallway. There were five doors, all of them open. Flashes from the police photographer suggested which room was occupied by the body. "Look at this, Taff," Oaten said over her shoulder. "Jesus." The Welshman's eyes were fixed on the far wall. "Is that blood?" Redrose pushed past them. "I think the odds are very high." He went over to the bed, on which the naked body of a middle-aged man was sprawled. Oaten and Turner moved into the thickly carpeted bedroom. On the wall above the king-size bed, there was a pentagram. The circle enclosing the five-pointed star was about a meter across. The red liquid that had been used had dripped in places, but the words within the lines were legible. "'FECIT DIABOLUS,'" Turner read. "The Devil's done it yet again." Oaten took in the scene and moved forward. When they got to the bed, the Welshman's hand went to his mouth. This time even Oaten had to blink hard. The victim's abdomen looked like a grenade had gone off over it. Shortly afterward the female CSI advised them about the music that had been playing. One of the uniformed policemen had identified it as "Devil Woman" by Cliff Richard. "No wonder the neighbors called us," Colin Younger quipped. Oaten looked at him thoughtfully. "The reference to 'woman' is interesting, isn't it?" "Oh, you mean Sara Robbins." "Maybe." Karen Oaten saw Dr. Redrose wave. "Look what I've found," he said, brandishing a bloodstained object in a pair of forceps. "It's paper," Turner said. "Where was it?"