The Death List

14

Dr. Bernard Keane looked at his gold Cartier watch. It was nearly two-thirty. He seldom allowed his Saturday clinic to overrun, as he liked to spend the afternoon with his horses, but in this patient’s case he’d been prepared to make an exception. The man’s address in Docklands was exclusive. He knew a politician with a flat in the renovated building-the man, a terrible snob if truth be told-had whispered to him that he’d paid more than two million for it. So Mr. John Webster was obviously a major player and a welcome addition to his list. He’d understood fully his prospective patient’s request for complete privacy-in particular, that his address shouldn’t be entered into the practice records.

The doctor got up from his mahogany desk and opened the gauze curtains. Harley Street. When he’d started off as a newly qualified general practitioner in the run-down East End, he’d never imagined that he would achieve his ambition. The increase in demand for slimming therapies-the public’s absurd desire for the perfect body-had enabled him to specialize in that area. He had developed his own treatment, cobbled together from various well-known books, and, to his amazement, it had worked-no doubt because he stressed discipline. The simple fact was that people responded well to discipline, even when they had to apply it themselves.

The bell rang. Dr. Keane went to answer the door himself. He’d let his petite but well-stacked receptionist, Marianne, leave. It wouldn’t be long before he had her over his desk, as he’d done with all her predecessors. There was an underlying coarseness to her that he knew he could manipulate.

“Dr. Keane?” the man on the landing asked. He was of medium height and build, in early middle age and in no apparent need of a slimming regime. That didn’t matter. People often had ludicrously inaccurate ideas about their appearance.

“Mr. Webster, I presume,” the doctor said with a practiced laugh.

The man smiled back at him. He was wearing a well-cut pin-striped suit and a Homburg hat on top of long black hair. He also had a drooping mustache. His hands were sheathed in black kid gloves. Bernard Keane wondered about his profession. He was probably one of those computer whiz kids who had made a mint.

“Do come in,” the doctor said, closing the door behind him. “You can leave your bag out here.”

“No, I’ll keep hold of it,” Mr. Webster replied. The bag was like the large, rectangular ones that pilots carry. “Thank you,” he said, lowering himself into the leather armchair he’d been ushered toward.

Keane sat down across the desk from him. “So, what can I do for you?” he asked, his eyes on the man. There was something about him that made him feel faintly uneasy. He’d once been stalked by a female patient who used all her wiles to trap him in an inappropriate sexual relationship. That had cost him a lot of money. This Mr. Webster was making his antennae twitch.

“You don’t recognize me?” the man said.

“I…no, should I?” The doctor felt that he was being tested and he didn’t like it.

“No.” Mr. Webster smiled again, showing perfect white teeth that Keane saw had been capped at great expense. The canines were curiously pointed. “In fact, I’m pleased you don’t.” He opened his bag and took out a thick gray file. “Would you indulge me by taking a look at this?” he asked politely, stepping round the desk and standing beside the doctor.

As soon as Keane saw the name on the file, he knew he was in trouble. He reached for the phone, and then let out a scream that was quickly cut off as a gag was stuffed into his mouth. Staring in horror at the knife that had pinned his right hand to the desk in a flash, he scarcely felt the rope that was run round his chest, securing him to the revolving chair. Soon there were ropes on his ankles and left forearm, as well.

Mr. Webster turned the chair toward him, grinning as Keane tried to scream again. The movement had made the knife blade cut laterally through his hand.

“Oh, sorry, how thoughtless of me.” The man laughed harshly. “Then again, thoughtless is a word that could be applied to you, couldn’t it, Dr. Keane?”

He tried to speak. He wanted to explain himself, make excuses, beg for forgiveness, but the gag was still in his mouth, a strip of tape now over his lips.

“You remember her, don’t you?” Mr. Webster said, taking off his gloves.

With a spasm of horror, the doctor saw that his assailant was wearing latex surgical gloves beneath. Oh, God, what did he intend to do? What was going on?

“Catherine Dunn. Date of birth March 21, 1947. Address, 14 Marlin Court, Bethnal Green. Telephone, none.” The man bent over him and he caught the smell of expensive aftershave and aromatic tobacco. “Attended your surgery on March 12, 1983, complaining of stomach pains.” He turned a page. “See, here are your notes. ‘Patient is clearly undernourished. Given advice about diet. No follow-up required.’” Webster grabbed his cheeks and pressed hard. The doctor felt like his eyes were about to pop out. “No follow-up required,” his captor repeated.

Webster stepped back and took off his hat. Then he gripped his hair at the top of his forehead and peeled it back. Beneath the wig was short fair hair, almost certainly peroxide. The mustache was pulled away next. “Now do you recognize me, Doctor?”

Keane had already suspected the worst. Although the hair and build were different, the unwavering brown eyes were the same. It was the youth who had stormed into his surgery, screaming about how his mother had died in agony of stomach cancer, how it was Keane’s fault and how he was going to pay for it. If his partner, a former army medic, hadn’t intervened, he might have been made to pay for it there and then. But the young man had been dragged out, shouting and swearing. He said he’d be back, but he’d never showed up. He’d always been lurking in Keane’s mind, though, even years after he moved from Bethnal Green. The rage in his eyes, the savagery in him-the doctor had never seen anything like it.

He closed his eyes, the pain in his hand worsening.

“Not crying, are you, Doctor?” Webster said, his tone mocking.

Webster. His name wasn’t Webster. It was Dunn. Lance? Leslie? That was it, Leslie Dunn. Keane remembered treating him for measles when he was younger. He had a black eye and his nose had been broken. The father, no doubt. Not that he’d reported it to the police or social services. Families like that were drunken and feckless. There was no point in trying to improve their lives.

His captor leaned close again. “You’re probably wondering why Leslie Dunn didn’t bother you again. Well, I’ll tell you. You took my mother away from me, you destroyed my life back then. But if I’d hurt you, what would have happened? I’d have been caught, sent to a young offenders’ institution, had the shit kicked out of me. I didn’t fancy that at all.” His smile was pitiless, as cold as the heart of an iceberg. “Besides, I reckoned you wouldn’t forget me.” He glanced around the expensively decorated room. “Even in the middle of all this conspicuous wealth.” He looked back at Keane. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

The doctor nodded slowly. The boy had been too ignorant to launch a medical negligence suit, but the guilt had always been there, lurking like a malevolent spider in the most inaccessible part of his mind. If only he’d been brought up a Catholic, like the trembling, dispirited woman who had come to him for help all those years ago. He’d have been able to confess his sin and get on with his life. But it didn’t matter now. He was sure he was at the end of his road.

Keane watched as the man who’d called himself Webster stripped off his suit and shirt. Beneath them he was wearing a white coverall with a hood like the ones used by scenes-of-crime officers on the TV. He dug deeper into his bag and brought out an oilskin bundle. Clearing the desk with a backhand sweep of his arm, he unrolled the oilskin. Gleaming surgical instruments were lodged in pockets. They ranged from needle-thin probes to a large bone-saw.

“Nnngg!” Keane moaned, pulling on his bonds. The pain in his hand didn’t bother him now. He was consumed by fear of what was to come.

“Take your punishment like a man,” Dunn said, laughing emptily. He picked up a scalpel. “Now, where shall I begin? Oh, I know. You failed to diagnose a case of advanced stomach cancer. You didn’t even bother to order the most basic of tests. Have you any idea how much pain my mother was in?” He pulled open the doctor’s striped shirt and caught his eye. “For someone who specializes in dieting, you don’t set a very good example, do you?” He ran the scalpel down the support girdle Keane wore and pulled it apart. “The pain my mother suffered was like this.”

The doctor jerked back in the chair as his stomach was pierced, almost swallowing the gag.

“And like this.”

Another stabbing pain.

“And like this.”

Again and again he tried to scream, breathing desperately through his nose. He was in agony, his eyes blurred by tears. The thrusting and cutting continued. He had no idea how many wounds had been made. The pain was almost unbearable, but he didn’t pass out.

At last Dunn stood up and tossed the bloody scalpel onto the desk. “Take a look,” he said, wrenching the doctor’s head down.

Keane was horrified at the damage that had been done to his abdomen despite the pain he was in.

“Come in,” he heard Dunn say. Turning slightly, he saw a figure approaching. He couldn’t make out the face.

“We’re just getting to the good bit.” Dunn’s face was close to his again. “Take this thought with you to the eternal furnace, you fucking murderer,” he said. “We’re going to rape your wife and daughter before we cut them apart. Then we’re going to slaughter your horses and feed their guts to your dogs, before we finish them off, too.”

The last thing that Bernard Keane saw though his remaining eye was the carving knife in Leslie Dunn’s right hand and the bone-saw in his left.

Before his world dissolved in a welter of crimson, he wondered who his killer’s accomplice might be. He was an only child when his mother had died…

As soon as I saw the TV news after the Saturday sport, I knew it had to be the White Devil. A Harley Street doctor murdered in what was described as “the most gruesome fashion”-it was just his style. I called Sara on her mobile and asked her if she’d heard anything about it. She told me that Jeremy, the crime correspondent, was back from Belfast and that he was covering the killing. She’d been sent to a climate-change conference in Cambridge after the environment correspondent called in sick. She didn’t think she’d be back till late, so we arranged that I’d go round to her place on Sunday evening. I told her I loved her and she repeated the words, though she sounded distracted.

I sat at my desk wondering what to do. If the bastard had killed the doctor in a way copied from one of my books, it wouldn’t be long before someone made the connection my mother had and contacted the police. If they confiscated my computer and examined the hard disk, they’d find the chapters I’d written for the Devil. They’d also find his e-mails to me, but the different addresses he’d used meant that they could easily say I’d written them myself. Then there was the money. If the police found it, I’d have a lot of explaining to do. I had to get rid of it. But how? My tormentor was watching me, he was listening to me. Whatever I did, he’d know. And then what would happen to Lucy and the others?

Jesus. I was a writer. I used my imagination every day of my life. I had to be able to come up with a plan. I sat with my head in my hands for a long time, but nothing happened. I needed to kick-start my brain. When inspiration didn’t appear during the writing process, I used to put on my headphones and listen to loud music. It was worth a try. I looked through my CD collection and settled on Richmond Fontaine’s Post to Wire. My mind filled with images of deserted truck stops and dusty motels, but then the plangent vocals and weeping guitar lines brought the clarity I was after. Things began to come together.

I decided that, whatever I did, it had to be in the open. If the Devil really was watching me all the time, I couldn’t do anything that would raise his suspicions. So I got all the bundles of twenties together and put them in a kit bag from my rugby days. Then I put it in the bottom of my wardrobe. While I was bending down there, I hastily transferred the bundles to a hunting jacket my mother had given my for some reason best known to herself-I’d never hunted anything in my life. It had numerous large pockets for the carcasses of dead game. I kept the lights low in the bedroom, hoping that the Devil couldn’t see what I was up to. If he could, I reckoned he’d be on the phone soon enough to ask what I thought I was doing.

I went back into the sitting room and booted up my computer. I transferred all the e-mails to and from the Devil, plus the chapters I’d written, to diskettes. They would be going in my hunting jacket, too. The difficult part was what to do with the computer itself. I had a plan. Going into the kitchen, I made myself a mug of coffee and then went back to my desk. Looking as nonchalant as I could, I put the mug down beside the laptop. Then I started to type. Given that the bastard seemed to be able to hack into any file I opened, I wrote up my thoughts on the Harley Street killing. That would impress him. At least he hadn’t called-so far.

I picked up my mug and drank, pulling my mouth back with a yelp as if I’d scalded my lips and depositing the coffee all over the keyboard.

“Shit!” I yelled.

As I’d hoped, the machine reacted badly. After a few moments the screen went blank, a grinding noise started and the smell of burning filled my nostrils. I pulled out the mains connection and sat there swearing.

After what I thought was long enough, I picked up my mobile and called my rugby league friend Roger van Zandt, who was a computer expert.

“Hi, Rog,” I said. “You okay?”

“Down the Duck. Why aren’t you here, Wellsy? Shagging again?” He laughed. I could hear raucous sounds in the background. “Dave wants to know if your friend from the newspaper is a page three girl.”

Excellent. Two birds with one stone. “Tell Dave I’m coming down there to sort him out. Hey, Dodger, can you have a look at my laptop? I just managed to pour a mug of coffee over it.”

“You jackass. Yeah, all right. Bring it with you. And prepare to get very drunk.”

I cut the connection. So far so good. I put the computer in a heavy-duty plastic bag and then went into my bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. I slipped the diskettes into my hunting jacket and then put it on. I also pulled on a pair of trainers I hadn’t used for months. If I was lucky, there wouldn’t be a bug in them. I took off my watch and threw it onto the bed. Making sure my mobile stayed on the desk, I picked up my keys and left the flat.

I felt like the Michelin Man in my money-inflated jacket, but I was hoping it would be taken for one of those puffer things that skiers wear. Walking at medium pace down the streets to the Village, I kept my eyes and ears open. I couldn’t see anyone on my tail. Then again, the Devil wouldn’t need to bother. He probably knew exactly where I was going.

The Duck was as packed as it always gets on a Saturday. I spotted Rog and Dave in the far corner. They were with Andrew Jackson, an American guy from the rugby club. The next hour passed in the standard way-talk about the state of the league game, whinging about kids, mockery about wives and girlfriends. Sara had made it clear from the start that she didn’t want to meet my male friends. The problem was, that made them think she was a snooty bitch, as Rog so pleasantly put it.

Then Dave turned to me and stroked his boxer’s nose.

“So what about these murders then, Mr. Crime Writer?”

“Oh yeah,” said Andy Jackson. He was tall, heavily built and fair-haired. A chef by profession, he’d come to the U.K. ten years back to get married to a woman from Croydon. They’d got divorced a year later, but he’d never got home again. He found an undemanding restaurant to work in and spent the rest of his time in the pub or playing rugby league. “They must be giving you some ideas, man.”

I shrugged and swallowed lager. “I don’t need ideas.” I tapped my head. “I’ve got a wonderfully healthy imagination, Slash.” We called him that because of the way he took the legs away from opposition players-nothing to do with the Guns N’ Roses guitarist.

“Screw you,” he replied with a grin. “I remember you telling me you read the papers every day for stuff.”

Rog, a curly-haired and deceptively thin former center who used to put in heavy tackles, was giving me a thoughtful look. “Didn’t you have someone killed in a church with something up his arse in one of your books, Matt?”

Shit. I went on the offensive. “So?” I said, glancing around the pub. Everyone else seemed to be involved in their own conversations and there was no one obviously watching me. “You think people read my books and carry out copycat murders?”

The three of them sat back, surprised by my vehemence.

“Of course not,” Andy said. “Take it easy.”

I let my shoulders drop. “Sorry. Bad day at the typeface.” I handed the bag with my computer to Rog. “See what you can do with this.”

“Okay,” he said doubtfully. “But if liquid’s got to the hard disk, I’ll have to replace it.”

That was what I was hoping. I nodded, my expression fake unhappy. “Whatever it takes. No hurry. I’ve got my old one in the loft.”

“He’s got an old one in the loft,” Andy said in an attempt at a Bela Lugosi accent. “In the east wing.”

“Pete Satterthwaite’s the only person I know with a house big enough to have wings,” I said.

Rog laughed. “Bonehead? He’s also got all sorts of skeletons in his cupboards.”

We talked a bit about the team’s former main sponsor, who was balder than the baldest coot. Then we got on to the inadequacies of the current Great Britain Test team, until Dave got up to take a leak. I let him go ahead, then followed him. I’d kept my jacket on despite the heat in the pub. Now came the tricky bit. Dave was my closest friend, in as much as writers have close friends. I trusted him, but would he trust me?

Inside the toilet, I waited until a pisshead fumbled with his buttons and left. Then I beckoned to Dave.

“What’s up, Matt?” he said, one hand on his member. When he’d finished, he followed me into the only crapper. “People will talk,” he said with a grin.

“Listen, Psycho,” I said, my voice low. “I want you to keep something for me.” I pulled a plastic bag out of a pocket and started filling it with the bundles of banknotes.

Dave whistled. “Jesus, have you been robbing banks?”

“Wanker. No, I got paid in cash for a job. I’ll tell you about it later. I don’t want Caroline to find out about it or she’ll be on my back for maintenance, even though she earns a fortune. Can you keep it for me?”

Dave stared down at the bag. “How much is it?”

“Ten grand.”

“Bloody hell! Why can’t you put it in a deposit account?”

“I will. But not yet.” I touched my nose with my forefinger. “I’ve got my reasons.”

Dave shrugged. “All right. I’ll stick it under the floorboards.”

“One more thing,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I don’t want the other guys to see it. Can you stuff it down your shirt?”

“What?” He looked at the bulky bag. “There isn’t room for my belly in this shirt.”

Fortunately he had kept on his loose parka. After a lot of fiddling, we managed to secrete the money and the backup diskettes down his back and front. Then I stuffed my own pockets with all the toilet paper I could find so that my jacket kept its former shape.

“Are you all right?” Dave said, rubbing his chin.

“I’ll explain everything later.”

When we got back to the table, the other two looked up at us.

“I don’t think buggery’s permitted in the head here,” Andy said with a wide grin.

“Sod off,” Dave said, provoking a gale of laughter.

It was only as I was buying the next round that I realized what I’d done. I’d brought my best mates into the Devil’s field of fire.

That betrayal made me feel lower on the evolutionary scale than an earthworm.