The Soul Collector

Eight

Josh Hinkley, wearing a thousand-pound leather jacket and shoes with real silver buckles, was slouched in an armchair in a coffee shop on Charlotte Street, discarded newspapers all around him. He looked up when another double espresso was placed in front of him.

“Oh, there you are, mate.” He looked at his gold Rolex. “Just twenty-seven minutes late.”

“Hello, Josh, good to see you, too.” Jeremy Andrewes shoved a heap of books off the armchair next to him and sat down.

“Oy, those are review copies.”

The other man shrugged. “Which you cast an idle eye over and then flog to the shops on Charing Cross Road, even though you don’t need the money.”

“Bloody journalists,” Hinkley said. “Think you know it all.”

Andrewes ignored that and ate a piece of chocolate cake.

Josh Hinkley threw the espresso back in one. “Ah-ha! That hit the spot.” He winked. “But not like the marching powder I just snorted in the bog.”

Andrewes concentrated on his cake. Josh Hinkley liked to play at being “the bad boy of British crime writing,” a moniker many reckoned he’d come up with himself. He certainly cultivated the image assiduously. He’d been arrested a couple of times for possession of cannabis, before the Met’s user-friendly policy came in. That didn’t impress Jeremy Andrewes, the crime correspondent of the Daily Independent. He had little time for crime novelists-apart from now.

“So what’s this meet in aid of?” Hinkley said, running a hand through his gray hair. His face was pocked by old acne scars and his belly hung over his designer jeans. Strangely, his appearance didn’t put off the surprisingly young female fans of his books. Then again, he was rolling in money.

“Another double es, darling!” the novelist shouted to the dark-skinned girl at the counter. “Slag,” he muttered, when she gave him a haughty look. “Not long out of the jungle.”

“Steady on, Josh,” the journalist said, catching the other man’s eye. “Civilized people don’t talk like that anymore.” Andrewes was an old Etonian, whose great-grandfather had made a fortune exploiting workers all over the world. That should have made the journo uncomfortable, particularly as he worked for a left-wing paper, but it didn’t.

“Excuse me for breathing,” Hinkley said defiantly.

Andrewes finished his cake. It was a good one, almost as good as the cook produced at the family house in Hampshire. He wasn’t looking forward to asking a favor of Hinkley, but he knew it would be worth it. The novelist was a serious gossip-hound. What the man didn’t know about his fellow crime writers could be written on the back of one of his lurid novels.

“I have a problem.” Andrewes took a sip of his latte and tried to formulate a request that didn’t make him sound too much like a supplicant before an oracle. “Well, as a matter of fact, two.” He smiled, hoping the insincerity wasn’t too obvious. “I need some background on a couple of crime writers. And you’re the man in the know.”

Hinkley didn’t look impressed. He may have written novels with minimal literary merit, but he was smart. Most bestselling authors were, in the journalist’s limited experience.

“I get it,” the novelist said. “I fill the column you’re paid to write. I don’t think so.” He stood up and waved a twenty-pound note at the barista. “Over ’ere, beautiful! I’ll make it worth your while.”

Jeremy Andrewes tried to hide his face behind his hand. People all around were staring at Hinkley. To her credit, the girl stayed at the bar, forcing him to go and pick up his coffee.

“Bloody cow,” he said, on his return. “There goes her tip.”

“Oh, you were going to leave one?” the journalist said snidely. Josh Hinkley was a notorious skinflint.

“Now, now,” Josh said, raising a finger. “I might be prepared to reconsider, if you make it worth my while.” He grinned, displaying expensive bridgework. “Then again, your paper doesn’t like backhanders, does it?”

Jeremy Andrewes nodded. He had a small group of people he paid for information, but he wasn’t going to add the millionaire novelist to that list.

“How about your name appearing a few times in the paper?”

“Fuck you, Jerry,” Josh said loudly, provoking an outraged gasp from the elderly woman at the next table. He stood up and bowed extravagantly. “I do beg your pardon, madam.”

“Bugger off,” the woman responded, in a cut-glass accent. The journalist almost choked on his coffee.

Josh Hinkley collapsed into his armchair like he’d been shot, his cheeks on fire.

Andrewes saw his opportunity. “All right, I’ll share the byline with you.” He watched as Josh nodded his agreement. It was amazing how badly a bestselling author still wanted to see his name in print. Maybe that emotional need was how he still got into the top ten, year in, year out.

“Who are you so interested in, then?” Hinkley asked, leaning closer.

“The first one is Mary Malone.”

“There’s a surprise. What are you hearing from the Peelers?”

“I get the distinct impression they haven’t got much to go on.”

The novelist grunted. “I heard some talk of Satanism.”

Andrewes nodded. “They’ve asked us to keep quiet about that, but it won’t be long before the tabloids go public. I don’t suppose Mary Malone was into devil worship?”

Josh Hinkley laughed. “Dunno, mate. I never met the woman. She was secretive with a capital S-no publicity photos, no public appearances. There were rumors that she was as ugly as sin.” He beckoned the journalist closer. “I reckon she fancied herself and her smart-arse historical novels-thought the rest of us were talentless hacks.” He laughed. “Oops, sorry.”

Jeremy Andrewes generally found laughing difficult, so he didn’t respond in kind. The White Devil case, when Sara Robbins, one of his colleagues on the paper, had turned out to be the killer’s sister and partner, had put paid to his never well-developed sense of humor. Besides, he came from aristocratic stock. “Those who rule have to maintain their dignity,” his grandfather repeatedly told him when he was a boy.

“What’s the feeling in the Crime Writers’ Society about Mary Malone’s murder?”

Hinkley laughed. “They’re all crapping themselves, aren’t they? Wondering who’s going to be next.”

The journalist looked up from his notebook. “Why? The police aren’t treating this as the first in a series. The VCCT hasn’t even taken over the case.”

“Maybe someone objects to writers who use the same investigator over and over again.”

Andrewes gave a tight smile. “You do, too, Josh. Aren’t you scared?”

“Give me a break,” Hinkley scoffed. “Mary Malone must have wound someone up. Maybe she got in over her head playing poker on the Internet and the heavies were sent around.”

The journalist didn’t bother noting down that farfetched idea. Anyway, the police would be looking at her computer. “Had anyone you know actually met her?”

“She didn’t hang out with anyone from the Society, as far as I’m aware. She just sat at home and wrote her books.”

“Well, that was enlightening.” Andrewes turned a page. “Right, what can you tell me about Matt Wells, aka Matt Stone?”

That got the crime writer’s attention. “I know what his pen name is, Jerry. Why are you interested in him?”

The journalist leaned forward. “You remember that book he wrote about the White Devil?”

“’Course I do. It sold well in over fifty countries, I seem to remember the bastard boasting on the radio.”

“The killer’s partner, Wells’s ex-lover, got away at the end,” the journalist said.

Hinkley nodded. “So?”

“One of Matt Wells’s friends was murdered this morning.” He flicked back in his notebook. “David Cummings. Apparently he used to be in the Parachute Regiment and the SAS.”

“Christ, yeah, I met him at the launch of Matt’s book. He told me to fuck off when I asked him how many Irishmen he’d topped.”

“Very diplomatic of you.” Andrewes knew he’d hooked his man and was less inclined to brown-nose. “They’re not saying it publicly, but I heard a whisper that the killer may have been Sara Robbins.”

“Your ex-colleague and Matt’s ex-other half?” Josh Hinkley grinned. “Juicy, Jerry, I’ll give you that. You should have clocked her, shouldn’t you? And now Matt’s shagging the head of the VCCT. You do know that, don’t you?”

The journalist nodded. “DCI Oaten must be close to having a conflict of interest. I know that her people hauled Wells in. Apparently he found the body at the victim’s home.”

“Is that right?” Hinkley scratched his stubble. “What do you want from me?”

“Wells won’t ever talk to me. He has his column in the paper and he keeps all his material for that.”

“Oh, Jerry,” the novelist said, laughing and slapping him on the knee. “Do I detect the smell of overripe jealousy? You don’t approve of a mere crime writer being given the chance to air his views about your area of expertise every week, do you?”

Jeremy Andrewes looked away. “Yes, well, the question is, can you give me any stuff I could use about him?”

Hinkley tapped his nose. “I can, my friend. Matt and I have been mates since we were both on the short list for best first novel. The bastard won. We’ve been pissed together at plenty of events and conventions. I can dig you some dirt on him. In fact, I can do better than that. I’ll go around and offer him a shoulder to cry on.” His lips formed into a twisted smile. “You never know, he might just confide in me.”

The journalist felt a wave of relief that he wasn’t one of Josh Hinkley’s friends. He listened carefully as the author ran through a series of drunken antics and misbehavior in hotels, most of which seemed to have been inspired by Hinkley. But he got some insight into Wells’s character, admittedly before the White Devil case, and it was worth keeping Josh sweet in case he actually managed to get close to the other crime writer.

If Sara Robbins really was back on the scene, it would be a hell of a story.

It was raining heavily when I left New Scotland Yard in the Saab. My cell phone had been returned but not my clothes, so I was still wearing a white plastic coverall and overshoes. While I was stopped at a red light, I turned the phone on. There was an envelope on the display. The message consisted of only one word-Manassas. It wasn’t only the name of a fine Stephen Stills album. Andy was the sender and it meant that he was waiting at the Mansfield Arms in Pimlico. He’d have stashed his bike. I replied with “SS” a couple of minutes before I got there. He was standing on the pavement with his bag.

“Head down,” I said as he got in and threw his bag onto the backseat. “Karen might have someone watching my place.”

“Sara or some sidekick might be doing the same,” he said, peering at what I was wearing. “Did they give you a hard time?”

“No major sweat.”

“Why are we going to your place, anyway? I thought we’d be heading for a hotel or a safe house.”

“We’ve just compromised the plan by hooking up, Slash. Anyway, I’m buggered if I’m going to run from Sara after what she did to Dave. Someone has to make a stand.”

“Way to go, Matt!”

I grunted. “Say that when you find me in a pool of-” I broke off and bit my lip.

“Hey, man, remember what Dave used to say at half-time. Deep breaths or I’ll have your nuts.”

I couldn’t do anything but laugh. Christ, we were going to miss Psycho.

I looked in the mirror and pulled away. Because of Andy’s height, his head was only just below the bottom of the side window. I handed him my phone. “Delete your message and the one I sent you,” I said. “Karen might check if I’ve received anything. Manassas would definitely make her suspicious.”

“Doesn’t she like Stills?” he asked, squinting up and giving me a grin that faded fast. “What was it like with Ginny and the kids?”

“Desperate.”

“But you handled it okay, yeah?”

“I don’t think so. Ginny…Ginny told me I was responsible for what happened to Dave.”

“Aw, shit, man.”

“But at least she understood the danger. Dave had got her to memorize the number of the solicitor who has the package with false passports for them all and a credit card for her. By now she should have dumped her car, hired a different model and got out of London.”

I stopped at the barrier at the side of my apartment block and tapped in my access code, then parked in my space in the underground car park and turned off the engine. “Look, Slash, it’ll be better if you disappear as per the plan. I never expected Dave to be hit first. Sara’s even more dangerous than we thought. I don’t want to put you in her sights, too.”

“Kiss my ass,” the American said. “You need protection and you know it. Besides, what else am I going to do? I can’t track the bitch down on a computer. All I can do is watch your back. And I prefer to be obvious when I do that, not tagging along behind like some half-assed spy.”

I knew he’d react like that, but it was still good to hear the words. Andy was the best man to watch over me. Apart from Dave. I bowed my head as the blood-drenched and disfigured body flashed before me again.

Andy sat up slowly and looked around the well-lit concrete chamber. “This place’s like a car dealer’s for rich people with no taste.”

Despite how I was feeling, I laughed. My fellow residents did have some seriously shitty cars-there was a pink MG, a Bentley with leopard-skin seat covers and a Range Rover sporting the logo of a porn film production company. These were people who had no shame about how they made their money or how environmentally damaging their cars were. Then again, they didn’t write books that led to their friends’ deaths.

“We’ll take the stairs,” Andy said, hoisting his bag from the backseat. He took out a Glock and handed it to me with a magazine. “Forget the silencer. If Sara tries anything, I don’t care who hears what we do to her.” He slapped in a mag, racked the slide and held the weapon beneath his jacket. I did the same. “I’ll go first,” he said.

I locked the car and followed him. Fortunately there was no one around. I didn’t want Andy’s presence to be registered. There were security cameras at the top of the car park ramp, in the block’s entrance hall and in the elevators, so we were all right. Presumably the company that installed them assumed burglars would be too lazy to use the stairs.

I looked through the round window in the fire door on the ground floor. There was no one in the hall. If Karen had someone watching me, it wasn’t from there. Maybe there would be a cop in the hall on my floor. I tapped Andy’s back as we reached the fire door there. I saw no one.

I turned the keys and opened my door. The alarm immediately started beeping. I punched in the code number to stop it. By the time I’d done that, Andy was already checking the spare room. He knew there were no sensors in the bedrooms. I watched as he ran across the expanse of the living area and went into the master bedroom at the far side. Theoretically, a skilled intruder could have worked the locks and overridden the alarm electronically, then hidden in a bedroom after turning it on again.

“Clear,” he said, appearing at the door and lowering his automatic.

I headed to my desk. I needed to find out if Lucy and Fran were all right. I booted up my second computer. Rog had protected it with a series of firewalls that would puzzle the world’s best hacker. Then I logged on to a mail provider where I kept an account that I only used once every quarter, just enough to keep it in operation.

There should have been a message from Caroline saying that they had made it to the safe house.

There wasn’t.

The young men were hanging around outside the Kurdish youth club on Green Lanes in northeast London, happy that the rain had finally let off. Dressed in the latest sports gear and trainers, the three looked good and they knew it. They weren’t welcome inside because the organizers knew they worked for the King. That didn’t stop them talking to the boys who went in to play table tennis and pool, or selling them small quantities of grass and hashish when they came out. Nedim Zinar’s murder had put them on their toes, but business went on as usual.

“Hey, Faik, look,” said one of them, in Kurdish. He pointed to a white BMW 6 series coupe across the road. “Is that who I think it is?”

His friend peered over. “I think so.”

They watched as the front window came down and an arm was waved at them.

“Yes, it’s Aro Izady,” Faik said. He watched as the driver waved, and then pointed only at him. “Looks like he’s got a job for me. See you around.”

Faik Jabar ran across the road, provoking a loud blast from a lorry that almost clipped his heels.

“What’s up?” he asked the mustachioed man in the driver’s seat. The passenger was a bearded man he hadn’t seen before.

“Get in,” Izady said in English. His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been shouting.

Faik paused momentarily before obeying. You did what the King’s family said, without question, but he had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. After he had closed the rear door, the man with the mustache pulled out and drove toward Manor House Station.

“Where are we going?” Faik asked.

“Speak English,” Izady ordered.

Faik repeated the question in the language he’d learned at school, from which he’d been expelled for dope-dealing when he was fourteen. It wasn’t the first time a King’s lieutenant had brought a stranger along. The guy was probably a buyer who wanted to see how reliable the Kurdish operation was.

“It isn’t far,” the passenger said. “You know where it is, don’t you, Aro?”

The driver nodded.

Faik looked at the stranger’s thick brown hair that reached his shoulders. There was definitely something going on. Aro Izady wasn’t one of the King’s street commanders. He was a money counter, who gave the impression that he despised the young men who did the dirty jobs. But the story went that he’d killed one of the Turkish competition, a Shadow, with a snooker cue when doubts were cast on his sister’s virginity.

Izady made a left turn and pulled up outside a dark house. It looked derelict, the windows boarded up and a steel bar padlocked across the front door.

“Out,” Izady said over his shoulder.

The young man obeyed. When they were on the pavement, Faik felt for the cutthroat razor he always carried in his back pocket. He didn’t like this. Maybe it was a dope pickup, but he’d never been to the place before. He kept his eyes on the passenger. His upper body was bulky beneath a black leather jacket. Faik couldn’t tell what age he was, what with the beard covering the lower half of his face.

Izady pointed down a flight of rubbish-strewn steps. “Basement,” he said.

Faik went first, stepping over old pizza boxes and newspapers, with the stranger close behind. Izady followed, his head tilted slightly backward, as if he was trying to hear what the bearded man was saying. But no words were spoken.

Izady pushed Faik aside and put a key in the door-this one was not barred.

“After you,” the stranger said, his arms extended wide.

The two Kurds paused, and then complied. The basement hallway was rank with damp and decay, as well as something more pungent. When the four of them were inside, the stranger pulled the door shut and turned on a light.

Faik gasped. The front room was piled high with boxes containing plasma TVs, computers and stereo systems. There was also a green metal trunk on the floor.

“I take it the drugs are in there,” the bearded man said, his hands in his pockets.

Izady looked at him and nodded slowly.

“Let’s have a look then,” the stranger said with a tight smile.

Faik was watching the man carefully. There was something wrong about him, all the Kurd’s instincts told him that, but he couldn’t identify what it was. Could he be an undercover cop? If so, he was taking a hell of a risk coming down here with them. Something else bothered Faik. Why hadn’t he been told the man’s name and crew? He seemed to be native English. Was the local mob playing games with the King’s operation?

“Tell him where we are,” the bearded man said to Izady.

The King’s cousin ran his hand across his damp forehead. “This is a Shadow store.”

Faik stared at Izady. Their lives were forfeit if the Turks discovered their presence.

“What?” Faik said. “Where are the guards?”

“They were told to take the evening off,” Izady said, his head down.

“Yes,” the bearded man said. “You see, Aro Izady doesn’t only work for the King. He’s also a Shadow.”

“No!” Faik said. “That’s impossible!”

The stranger was now standing behind Izady. “Tell him,” he said.

“It’s…it’s true,” Izady said, his eyes not meeting those of his fellow Kurd.

“But the Shadows hate us,” said Faik. “They’d never have a Kurd in their organization.”

“Aro is the exception,” the bearded man said. “And, in case you’re wondering, he isn’t playing them off against each other. He’s loyal only to the Turks.”

Faik stepped forward and forced Izady’s chin up so he couldn’t avoid the young man’s gaze. “Is he speaking the truth?”

“Ye…yes,” he said.

Faik had the cutthroat out and open before the man with the mustache could move, but he failed to slash the traitor’s throat. There was a spitting sound and the blade spun away. Faik watched as blood welled from the palm of his right hand.

“Impressive,” the bearded man said. “But this is my show.”

Izady froze as the muzzle of the silenced pistol touched the side of his head. His eyes bulged, then he started to babble in English. There was a cracking sound, then a spray of blood and brain launched from the other side of his head. He dropped to the floor like an unstrung puppet.

“Wh…why?” Faik said, clutching his wounded hand.

The bearded man smiled. “I like you. You’ve got a pretty face. Pity.” He turned his weapon on the young Kurd.

“No!” Faik screamed.

The man stood in front of Faik, then raised the hand that wasn’t holding the gun and tugged his beard and hair.

Faik’s eyes opened wide. “No,” he said in horror. “No!”

Then the shooter smashed the butt of his weapon against the side of the Kurd’s head and darkness overtook his world.