The Death List

24

Rog finally cracked the British Airways entry codes. I watched in mounting panic as he went through the day’s flights. My mother’s name wasn’t on any of them. I’d called her mobile number earlier, but it had been turned off. That was very unlike her. She’d taken a while to get used to modern technology, but now she was a great fan. As far as I knew, she never shut down her phone. As soon as Rog confirmed that she hadn’t left Heathrow from BA in Terminal One, I ran outside and called Karen Oaten.

“I’m busy, Matt,” she said wearily.

“My mother,” I said, the words tumbling out. “I think the Devil may have got her.”

“What? Why?”

I explained the situation.

“I don’t know,” she said, moving away from other people who were talking loudly. “I think he’s been otherwise engaged.”

“What?”

“Matt, do you know someone at your publishers called Reginald Hampton?”

I had a brief flash of the tall apprentice editor who’d taken me to Jeanie that morning and felt my stomach somersault. “Yes. What’s happened to him?”

There was a pause. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. It looks like the White Devil has killed him.”

My knees went weak and I leaned against the side of the phone booth. “Oh, my God. But that’s ridiculous. I only met Reggie for a couple of minutes this morning.” I gulped down the bitter liquid that had risen up my throat. “How…how do you know it was the Devil?”

She was almost whispering. “He left one of his messages. Something about it being far from his thoughts to seek revenge.”

I took a deep breath. “It’s him, all right. Was Reggie…what was done to him?”

“Horrific things. I’ve told you enough, Matt. You really need to come in. I can’t cover for you much longer.” She paused. “What do you want me to do about your mother?”

I felt a wave of hopelessness crash over me. No doubt the modus operandi was tied to one of my books, making me even more of a hot suspect. Anyway, what could the police do? They hadn’t been able to protect the innocent editorial assistant. “Nothing,” I said. “This is all down to me and I have to sort it myself.”

“Matt, at least give me your number!”

I prepared to hang up. “No.”

“Hold on,” she said urgently. “Your wife finally got in touch. Apparently she’d been kept late by some Japanese bankers. She was very upset, wanted to know where your daughter was…”

“I’ll call her. Bye, Karen.”

“Wait,” she said, lowering her voice. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, either, but maybe it’ll help you find the animal before he gets to you and your daughter.”

“What is it?”

“He won the lottery in 2001. Nine and a half million pounds. The thing is, he took the privacy option and hasn’t been seen since. Presumably he’s changed his name.”

“What was his original name?”

She hesitated. “Leslie Dunn,” she said, and then the line went dead.

The name made me shiver. Was this really the fiend who’d been tormenting me? Suddenly he felt closer, even though he obviously called himself something else now. I struggled to get a grip on myself.

I stayed at the phone and made a call to Caroline’s mobile.

“Matt!” she screamed when I identified myself. “Where’s Lucy? What the hell’s going on? There’s a policeman outside the front door and another one outside yours.”

“Calm down,” I said, realizing how inadequate that must have sounded. “What did the police tell you?”

“Some woman detective-Oates?”

“Oaten.”

“Whatever. She said you were caught up in a murder investigation. You fucking idiot! What have you done? Where’s Lucy?”

“She’s safe. She’s with…friends. Caroline, you’ll have to trust me on this. It’s for the best. She’s in danger. We all are.”

“Because of some lunacy of yours? What have you done? Got yourself involved with some stupid gangsters? Jesus, you really are pathetic.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her. “Caro, do what the police tell you and sit tight. Lucy’s fine. I’ll be in touch.” I replaced the receiver, aware of the level of abuse that would be being cast in my direction.

Back inside the cafe, I called my mother’s number again. I felt an explosion of relief when she answered.

“Fran, what happened? Why was your phone off?”

“Oh, I was tired, Matt. Had a sleep.” She sounded a bit bewildered.

“Everything all right?”

“Yes, it is. Let me sleep again now, darling.”

To my surprise, she hung up. And she’d called me “darling” again. Maybe she’d been overindulging in the local firewater, wherever she was.

I went back inside and pulled Rog off the BA system. “What do you know about the National Lottery?”

“Not a lot.” He gave me a crooked grin. “I’ve heard that it’s got one of the toughest antihacking systems of them all.”

“Fancy trying to break in?”

The grin widened. “Do squirrels eat their nuts in winter?”

I gave him the name. Was the man who’d been called Leslie Dunn really the Devil? Suddenly I felt closer to him, even though I knew I probably wasn’t. But if there was one person who could track him down in cyberspace, it was my friend the Dodger.

I watched him as his fingers danced across the keys and began to feel useless. I was allowing the situation to get away from me. What was needed was action. I decided to turn my old mobile on for a minute to see if I had any messages. That turned out to be a good move. There was a text from Andy Jackson. Can’t stay in this shit-hole any longer. Getting out tonight. Call me, I read.

I shared the news with Rog as I turned off the phone.

“That means he can’t be too badly hurt,” he said, his eyes on the screen.

“Maybe. But you know Slash. He played most of one game with a broken arm, remember?”

“Nutter.” He glanced at me. “Look, I won’t be able to get far on this machine. I need something with more memory. Back home I’ve got-”

“-the White Devil potentially watching you.”

“Oh, yeah. Where are we going to spend the night, then?”

It didn’t take me long to come up with the answer. “At Peter Satterthwaite’s.”

Rog stopped typing and turned to me, his eyes wide. “Bonehead? You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, yes I can. Anyway, what are you complaining about? He’ll have all the computers you need. Come on.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he said, clearing the screen.

“Have you got a better one? He’s one person the Devil is unlikely to be watching.”

Rog grinned. “Plus he’s got a security system that Houdini couldn’t get past.”

“Exactly.” I sent Andy a message telling him to meet us there and to turn off his phone. “Let’s go.”

I paid the guy at the till, giving him a tenner tip and asking him to forget we’d ever been there. He nodded and smiled knowingly. Out on the street, I hailed a cab and told him the destination I wanted.

On the way to Blackheath, I thought about what I was doing. Was I out of my mind taking on the Devil? Reggie Hampton had already paid for the few words he’d exchanged with me. I told myself that Christian Fels would have died if I hadn’t sent Andy up to Highgate, but that didn’t make me feel much better. I’d taken all the steps I could to protect my people, but now the lunatic was selecting innocent victims.

The cabbie dropped us at the end of a gated street on the north side of the Heath. “Ponces,” he muttered as he drove off. I didn’t blame him. This was rich man’s alley in spades.

The uniformed guy in the sentry-box eyed us up. “Can I help you?” he asked, his tone unwelcoming in the extreme.

“Yes,” I said. “We’re visiting Peter Satterthwaite.”

“Wait a moment.” He picked up his phone.

I’d decided against calling Bonehead in advance. He’d probably have told me where to stick my head. I was relying on his well-known curiosity to get us inside.

“Your names?” the guard asked.

“Matt Wells and Roger van Zandt.”

He spoke them into the phone with painstaking care and no little distaste. No doubt most visitors to the place looked classier than we did. I was relieved to see disappointment in his expression.

“All right,” the gorilla said, pressing a button. “It’s the house at the end.”

“We know that, pillock,” Rog said under his breath. He might have spent his spare time making models like a geeky kid, but he had a hard streak. Now he wasn’t playing league anymore, I wondered how he was using that up.

We walked down the wide street. The houses on either side were large and detached, a range of this year’s BMWs and Mercedes in the driveways. The curtains were open in most rooms, the residents showing off their antique furniture and modern art works to one another. They didn’t just rely on the goon at the gate for protection. There were alarm boxes on every front wall. Except Bonehead’s. His system was on another level, in every sense.

The heavy black door opened as we walked up the drive.

“Well, blow my dick and send me to heaven,” said the tall, thin figure silhouetted in the light. “I never expected you guys would have the nerve to show up here again.”

“Hello, Boney,” Rog said, keeping his distance.

“Dodger, Wellsy.” Peter Satterthwaite was in his mid-forties. He’d made a fortune when he was young, selling cheap but reliable computers. He moved in exalted circles in the City, but he’d never lost his native Lancastrian accent. “What do you wankers want?”

I laughed. Bonehead had never been one for civility. He’d grown up on an estate in Skelmersdale, which had made him as tough as nails. He was also a homosexual at total ease with his sexuality. He’d shaved his head long before it became the fashion for every man embarrassed about losing his hair.

“I’ve managed to screw up massively,” I said. “I really need your help.”

He stared at me belligerently. “After what you guys did to me? You’ve got a bloody nerve.” One of the few things that had kept him going as a kid had been his love for rugby league. He’d spent most of the cash he nicked or made from stolen goods on attending games at Wigan. After he made his millions, he invested in the South London Bison. Unfortunately some of our teammates didn’t have it in them to take money from someone they referred to behind his back as “a nancy poof,” so he was voted off the board after a year.

I shrugged. “You know that wasn’t down to Rog and me.”

“Is that right?” he said, doubt written all over his face. Then he looked at me inquisitively. “What is this trouble you’ve got yourself into?” I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist asking.

“Can we come in?” I asked. “It’s a bit chilly out here.”

Bonehead thought about it and then led us inside. We’d been to the place before for a club dinner, but since then he’d added even more outrageous furniture and over-the-top paintings. In the spacious hall, there was a yellow velvet-covered chair with a back high enough to accommodate a giraffe. On the wall above was what I took to be a Lucien Freud original. No one else could have done the drooping breasts and floppy genitalia with such gusto.

“You on your own?” I said, as we followed him into a room furnished only with multicolored leather poufs.

“What’s it to you?”

“Just asking.”

“As a matter of fact, I am,” he said, throwing us bottles of lager from a fridge concealed in a wooden cabinet. “So, dickheads, tell me why you’re here.”

I did that, not giving him all the details about the Devil, but enough to get him interested.

“Jesus, Wellsy,” he said when I’d finished. “Are you sure this isn’t the plot of your latest novel?”

“I’m sure, all right. Dave Cummings has taken my kid and his family into hiding. The police are doing their best to protect everyone else I know, but the bastard’s way ahead of them.”

“I hope you didn’t tell them about me,” Bonehead said, suddenly anxious.

I shook my head. Actually, I’d forgotten him-he’d never been a particularly close friend and, since the rupture at the Bison, we hadn’t seen much of each other. Now I remembered that he kept a large stock of illegal substances in the house.

“Good,” he said, emptying his beer and opening another. “What do you need?”

I glanced at Rog. “A high-powered computer?”

“No problem.”

“A couple of beds for the night?”

Bonehead laughed. “I could put you both in a double.”

“Piss off,” said Rog, glaring at him.

“Oh, you’d rather share with me, would you, Dodger?”

“Thanks, Pete,” I said, draining my beer. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to eat?”

There was a buzz from a box on the wall by the door.

“That’ll probably be Andy Jackson,” I said as he walked over to it.

“Looks like you’ll be three in the bed, then,” Bonehead said with a wicked smile. “Let him in,” he said to the gorilla at the gate.

“The computer?” Rog asked.

“Upstairs, second door on the right. The password’s Arse69.”

Rog departed, shaking his head.

“Right, Wellsy,” Bonehead said, grinning wickedly as he tossed me another beer. “How are we going to catch this Devil of yours?”

I wasn’t sure whether Peter Satterthwaite was up to nailing a multiple murderer, but he scared the hell out of me.

The White Devil was sitting in front of the bank of screens. There had been no sign of Matt Wells since the morning. He’d checked the tapes. The camera he’d planted above the street door showed a couple of men-obviously police-slumped in a Rover outside. What had the writer been saying to the authorities? Was he hatching some scheme with that hard-faced blond bitch?

The Devil laughed. They could try their worst. He wasn’t frightened of them.

After all, he and his partner had managed to dump a naked body in a rubbish bin in full view of people during the evening rush hour. It was all down to observation. Corky had watched the Borough Market at the end of many days’ trading and he knew exactly when the cleaners came on duty. The white van looked no different from hundreds that the traders and their customers used every day for deliveries. They’d abandoned it in Streatham, after changing into ordinary casual clothes in the back and taking their overalls with them in holdalls. They’d split up immediately and he’d gone a roundabout route by bus to return home. His partner had done the same.

Picking up the fool from the publishers had been easy enough. He’d discovered who worked for Matt Wells’s ex-editor by watching the building in the early evening. Jeanie Young-Burke often left work late, and in recent weeks she’d usually been accompanied by a tall young man with no chin. Matt Wells had obviously warned Young-Burke off as there had been no sign of her that night-the writer would pay dearly for that-but he hadn’t thought to do the same for her assistant and current sex slave. When young Reginald had gone off for lunch with an author and some women from the publishers, the Devil had got him into the van by calling him, having obtained his mobile number from the helpful young woman on the switchboard, and telling him that Jeanie had a surprise for him in the street behind the restaurant. He fell for that immediately.

How he’d begged when they went to work on him. He offered money-apparently his daddy was a merchant banker-he offered his mother’s jewelry, he even offered a cottage in Wales. The Devil had laughed then bitten off his nose. His partner joined in, tearing the nipples off with relish. The Devil finished the upper-class fool off by sinking his teeth into his neck. The dentist who’d been paid handsomely to sharpen his canines had done a good job; he’d also agreed to delete the relevant records from his filing system-for an additional fee, of course. Not that it mattered. He’d used a false name.

The Devil got up and went to the extensive drinks cabinet. He poured himself a glass of neat Bombay gin and carefully tipped a single drop of Martini into it. It was time to celebrate. This was turning into even more fun than he’d thought it would be. Matt Wells was fighting back. He’d deactivated his mobile phone, thus rendering himself untraceable. He wasn’t using his car with the bug the Devil had placed under the chassis. And he’d done what he thought was enough to protect his nearest and dearest. It would be fascinating to see what he did next. Would the writer have the nerve to come after him? If he did, it would bring things to an explosive climax.

One of his mobile phones rang.

“It’s me.” Corky was out of breath and sounded rattled, his motorbike engine also audible.

“What is it?”

“Trouble. Three guys in an Orion waiting in my street. They’re about fifty yards behind me, stuck in traffic.”

“Police?”

“Not sure. They looked harder than that.”

“Villains?”

“Could be. But they remind me more of Jimmy Tanner.” The engine revs rose. “Got to go.” The connection was cut.

The Devil got his breathing under control. The Hereward had turned out to be a bad choice. Someone had passed on information, no doubt the fool Smail who had been cut apart. Could Corky have let something slip to him? No, he wasn’t that stupid, even though he sometimes looked as if he’d been drinking again.

He dismissed the thought and laughed. Ever since he’d won the lottery he had felt invincible. That had been proof that the world was his-if someone like him could win nine and a half million quid of ordinary people’s money, anything was possible. No, whoever was on Corky’s tail wouldn’t get to the Devil in time.

His next victim had only a few hours to live.