Paul Johnson - The Soul collector

I bit my lip. Being caught up in police procedure was the last thing I needed right now. The fact that I had an illegal and silenced handgun in my jacket made things even more critical.

The potbellied pathologist arrived and cast a cold eye over the corpse, and an even colder one over me. "I wondered if you'd turn up again," he said as he put down a foam pad and kneeled on it.

"Ditto, Doctor," I said.

He started examining the dead woman. I heard him say the words "severely damaged upper lip" and "recent surgery" to his assistant.

Taff Turner came up to Karen, led her away and spoke to her at length. Their eyes were on me most of the time. Then Karen came back over.

"It seems that your story is broadly corroborated by witnesses," she said, pursing her lips. "I'm still livid with you, Matt. Why didn't you call me before you came here?"

I shrugged. "There wasn't time."

Her eyes flared. "That's pathetic. You thought it was Sara, didn't you? You wanted all the glory of catching her for yourself."

I felt my cheeks redden. Maybe she was right. I wasn't too clear about my motives anymore. I'd never killed anyone before. Even though Lauren May Cuthbertson was a murderess and even though it was an accident, I felt guilty and tainted. Finally I understood the difference between writing about death and causing it. The only good thing was that I obviously had nothing in common with Sara and her brother. They enjoyed dispensing death; I just felt sick. Then again, I'd lured Jeremy Andrewes to what seemed to be his predestined end.

"Get me out of here, Karen," I said. "I need to catch up with the guys. I don't know where Andy is. He should have got here a few seconds after her." I inclined my head toward the body.

"You're staying with me," she said, stepping toward the pathologist.

I looked over my shoulder as casually as I could. There were armed police on the museum steps, and more in the courtyard. Running for it wasn't an option.

Karen was holding up an evidence bag and examining the contents, a cell phone. I walked over to her quickly.

"Maybe Sara's number is in the memory," I said.

She moved it out of my reach. "Maybe it is. We'll check that."

"Give it to me," I said, dropping my voice. "I'll keep you in the loop."

"Like hell you will," she said, shaking her head. "It's over, Matt. Be thankful that I haven't cuffed you."

"Why?" I demanded. "Because I nailed a murderer? Maybe she's the one who was running rings around you, not Sara."

"That's really going to help your situation," she said, her eyes on my chest. "You'd better not have a weapon on your person, Matt."

"Then I guess you'd better not look." I flapped my hands in the evidence bags. "Come on, Karen. Let me go."

"No chance." She went over to John Turner and spoke to him, then came back to me. "I'm taking you to the Yard. You owe me an extremely detailed statement." She took my wrist and led me away, telling a young uniformed policeman to come with us.

After we'd ducked under the barrier tape, the constable led us through the crowd. Karen's BMW was on the pavement outside the museum gates. She opened the front passenger door, signaling to me and the PC to get in the back. Karen started the engine, did a three-point turn and drove west.

She looked at me in the mirror. "You're saying that the dead woman's face was messed up by the surgeon James Maclehose, whose body was found in Oxford."

I nodded. "The likelihood is that she killed him, as well as the crime writers."

"She may have been behind the gangland killings, too," Karen said.

"You found a connection?"

She nodded. "Nail clippings were taken from all but one of the victims."

"Satanism?" I asked. "Were there pentagrams and so on?"

She shook her head. "Do you even realize how much shit you're in, Matt?" she asked, turning southward.

I tried to ignore that.

"Maybe Sara isn't even in the country anymore," Karen said. "Have you thought of that, Mr. Smart-arse? Maybe she hightailed it after she murdered Dave. There were no hair or nail clippings taken from him, by the way."

"I don't think it's very likely. I still think Sara set this whole thing up to hurt me and to see me pilloried. She'll want to finish me off now, especially when she finds out what I did to her sidekick."

"She's probably got others," Karen said.

"Quite possibly." I wasn't going to give her the name of the earl that I'd got from Jeremy Andrewes. "But the heat's on now. It won't be long before she strikes again." I needed to check my phone. "Sorry about this," I said, ripping the bags from my hands before the constable could intervene. Karen couldn't do anything except look unimpressed. She managed that very well.

I looked for text messages. There weren't any. Where the hell was Andy?

"Nothing from your darling Sara?" Karen asked scathingly.

I shook my head. I needed to check my e-mails. Maybe Sara had sent another one.

"Karen, you have to let me go. I've already lost Dave. If I'm responsible for another of my friends' deaths, I won't be able to live with myself."

She snorted. "No chance."

I wanted to tell her how much I needed her, but I was deterred by her tone more than the presence of the constable.

As Karen stopped at the traffic lights by Leicester Square Tube Station, her cell phone rang. She spoke into the hands-free mike and then listened.

"In the name of God!" she said, breaking the connection.

"What is it?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this, but you do have a valid interest. A hiker found three male bodies in the New Forest this morning. Two of them had been shot in the head and the other cut to pieces. The local Serious Crime Squad has just identified them."

"The SAS guys who killed the White Devil," I said, my stomach contracting like an oyster drenched in lemon juice.

Karen pulled in to the curb. "How did you know that?"

"It's obvious. Three men, two shot in the head. Sara went for her brother's killers after she got their ex-brother in arms, Dave."

"Yes, well, that's only the half of it. A family member of each is missing. An eleven-year-old girl, a six-year-old boy and one of the wives."

I put my hand to my forehead. This was it. Sara had upped her game. I had no choice but to do the same.

"Let me go," I said, pleading one last time. "You have to trust me, Karen."

She shook her head slowly. "You have to be charged and processed, even if it was manslaughter. You also witnessed the Andrewes murder."

That did it. Before the constable next to me could move, I pulled out my Glock and jammed the muzzle of the silencer into his side. His loud gasp made Karen turn around.

"Are you out of your mind?" she demanded. "Threatening a police officer with an illegal firearm?"

"At least no one can say you let me go voluntarily," I said, giving her a slack smile. "You can do whatever you like to me when this is over, but for now I need my freedom."

Looking around, I opened the door and stepped into the crowd on the pavement. I held the pistol under my jacket and kept my head low. I was lucky. There was a taxi at the next corner. I told the driver to head north and got out near King's Cross. Then I took another cab toward Highgate. The man I wanted to see lived somewhere in the northern suburbs: that man being the most dangerous gangster in southeast England.

When Andy Jackson came around, he blinked and then gasped in pain. He could only see out of one eye. He could also only breathe through his nose, as there was something around his mouth. He tried to stand up, but discovered that his arms were tied behind his back and that he couldn't move his legs. Looking around, he saw he was in a van that seemed to be stationary. There was some light from the rear windows, though makeshift curtains covered them. There was thick gauze between him and the driver's compartment. He tried to jerk his body toward it, but there was only a slight movement. He lowered his gaze and realized then that he was in a wheelchair.