Paul Johnson - The Soul collector

I closed the door behind him. At least one person had come through the cycle of violence to the good. Then I thought of Andy. Was saving him going to be simply a matter of giving back Sara's money? Every relevant synapse in my brain was pulsing, "No!"

The Soul Collector was driving the van skillfully, gripped by cold fury. Her motorbike was now in the back, beside the bound American. The woman next to her was silent. They had talked about the death of Lauren May Cuthbertson after her death was confirmed on the radio and decided who would pay for it. As they approached the London orbital motorway, Doris Carlton-Jones looked at her daughter. "Will he go there?" she asked. "Will he understand?" Sara Robbins shook her head. "Matt Wells isn't smart enough." "Is he smart enough to find Lauren's people?" "Probably." "That may be good for us." The Soul Collector glanced at her passenger. "What do you care? Your part in this is almost over." The older woman looked away. "You're right," she said casually. "I don't care what happens to any of them. What about your money?" "Do you seriously imagine that's important to me? Even if I didn't have plenty in places no one can find, I'm only interested in one thing-the complete destruction of Matt Wells and everyone he cares for. You're the one who wants the money back." Doris Carlton-Jones pursed her lips, but didn't reply. Her surviving child drove on to the M25 and headed eastward as fast as the van's engine would tolerate. Woe betide the police officer who stopped her for speeding. The more I thought about it, the less I was convinced by Doris Carlton-Jones's message. It started off sounding reasonable and then talked about Sara as if she was a normal, if rich, person, rather than a calculating killer. And as for the bit about her husband's skull-how many widows hit the undertakers with a request to remove the deceased's head? The woman was demented. The question was, how much of her children's propensity for murder had been inherited? I had an idea why the skull was so shiny. She would have boiled it for days. Bottom line-how much could I trust the woman? Answer-not at all. But that didn't change the situation with Andy. Even though Sara was getting her money back, he was obviously in serious danger. You wouldn't want someone like Doris Carlton-Jones to decide whether a friend lived or died.

Rog confirmed that two of the transfers had been reversed. I looked at my watch. Eleven o'clock. At least we hadn't been given a deadline this time. I wondered about that. The implication was that Lauren Cuthbertson had written the puzzles containing the crime writers' names before she killed them. Was she capable or educated enough to come up with such complex riddles? Since I had nothing better to do while Rog was at work, I noted down the details of the dead woman from the ghost site. I might as well see what else I could find out about her.

When I'd been researching The Death List, Rog had shown me how to access the databases of several government agencies. By good fortune, they covered East London, the area where the White Devil had grown up. I started snooping. I fully expected the security on the Web sites to have been improved over the past couple of years, but it seemed that the agencies hadn't bothered. In less than five minutes, I was reading Lauren Cuthbertson's school reports. She'd been to primary and secondary school in Stoke Newington. She had four O-Levels, all in maths and science, but she'd failed English and French. Her teachers said she was an average pupil, whose homework was often poor. There was no mention of her having been disruptive-perhaps she'd stored it all up. She left school at sixteen and was on benefits for two years. When she signed off, it was to work in a supermarket in Hackney. Not exactly master-criminal material.

I hacked into the G.P. surgery where she was registered. The computerized records only went back five years. She had been prescribed drugs for the swellings on her face, but there was no referral to the Harley Street clinic. Who had arranged and paid for that?

I sat back in my chair and looked out into the night. The streetlights were dulled by rain that was hitting the windows. I checked my e-mails. Nothing; and no texts from Andy. I went back to the dead woman's past. The magistrates' courts: maybe she had a criminal record. I followed the instructions and found myself in a well- maintained archive. Unlike the surgery, the paper records dating back twenty-five years had been scanned and classified. I typed Lauren Cuthbertson's name in and found a single entry, referring to a shoplifting charge in 1986, her last year at school. I opened the case file. It seemed she had been caught leaving a Woolworths with three music cassettes, a book and a chocolate bar. Because she'd been stopped numerous times before, the store decided to make an example of her. I scrolled down the record. Lauren had been warned as to her future conduct by the magistrates and ordered to do a week's community service during her next holidays. A fine was not considered appropriate because of her "troubled family situation." That made me sit up. What family situation? I got into the local Social Services database and searched for her name. She'd been through six different sets of foster parents since she was six, as well as being in care several times. The root of the problem was that her father had murdered her mother when Lauren was in her first year in primary school. I scrolled down farther. Wrong. Her adoptive father had murdered her adoptive-Jesus, she'd been adopted.

I felt the blood rush through my veins. The White Devil and his twin, Sara, had also been given up for adoption. That Lauren had, too, was a hell of a coincidence. I got into the Adoption Register. That was tricky because there was a better firewall, but Rog had left me a program to get past it. I typed in Lauren's full name and waited for the details of her birth parents to come up. It took nearly a minute, but I'd already guessed who her mother was. The archive showed her to be Doris Merilee, now known by her married name, Doris Carlton-Jones. Christ, Sara and the White Devil had a half sister. The records were incomplete, the mother having declared that she'd given birth in France and had lost the certificate. She'd also given a different man's name as father. That had been enough for me to miss the fact that Sara's mother had given birth to three rather than two children when I researched my book. All three children had turned out to be murderers. What did that make their mother?

I told Pete and Rog what I'd discovered.

"But where does that leave us, Matt?" Boney asked. "Lauren Cuthbertson's dead. How do we find Sara?"

"How we find Andy is more urgent," I said. "Though he and Sara might well be in the same place."

"Where are you thinking?" Rog asked.

"Where's that cottage you found again?"

"Oldbury, Berkshire."

"Right, we'll hit it first. If it's no good, we'll move on to Earl Sternwood's castle."

We started gathering up our weapons.

Andy Jackson couldn't be sure how long the van had been moving, but he guessed it was about two hours when it stopped and the engine turned off. He'd spent the time persevering with the blade, but the movement of the vehicle and the fact that all the nails on his right hand were now broken meant that he hadn't succeeded. He listened as the front doors were opened. The wind was blowing through trees and he could hear cars in the distance. The curtains didn't permit any helpful visuals. After stopping and starting frequently in the first half hour of the journey-standard city driving he figured-the van had stopped and a helmeted figure in black leathers had maneuvered the motorbike up a plank into the cargo space. He tried to see where they were out the rear doors and was rewarded with a heavy punch to his jaw.