Stolen Souls

62

THE MAN WHO was now, as he was sure he always had been, Edwin Paynter applied upward pressure to the screwdriver’s handle, forcing its blade to dig its way through the foreigner’s innards. The foreigner screamed.

Paynter eased the pressure on the handle and waited for the foreigner to stop writhing.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“Taxi company,” the foreigner said, forcing the words between his teeth.

“What taxi company?”

“Maxie’s Taxis,” the foreigner said. “Rasa made a picture. I show it to the taxi boss. He find you for me.”

“What picture?”

“Rasa made it,” the foreigner said.

“Who’s Rasa? Who made it?”

“Rasa works for my boss. Looks after girls. She sees you with the whore, she makes a picture.”

Paynter’s mind spun, searching for possibilities, answers, ways out. But all was lost. A picture of him had been circulated. There was nothing left now but to run.

No, there was one more thing, and she lay beside him, choking on the towel he’d shoved in her mouth.

Anger, white hot and glorious, burst in his chest.

She had caused this. She had brought this intruder here, her girl scent drawing him like a bitch brings dogs from miles around.

“Bitch,” he said. “Fucking bitch.”

He clamped one wet hand to his mouth. Had he said that? Had he ever uttered such words before?

She made him do it. She made him spew these hateful consonants and vowels. She was a devil, and before he could flee, he would have to cast her down with the rest of her kind beneath the cellar floor.

He reached for the screwdriver’s handle, ready to pierce her temple with it, but the foreigner moaned as he withdrew it from his belly.

Edwin Paynter took a breath, cooling himself from the heat of revelation. Calm, he thought. He knew what he had to do.

“First things first,” he said.

Paynter pushed the foreigner’s head back, felt for his exposed throat. He switched his grip on the screwdriver to overhand and raised it above his head.

“There’s a cop,” the foreigner said.