The Soul Collector

Twenty-Three

The Soul Collector was in position near the rendezvous point. She had been in the hide for four hours. She assumed the former SAS men had returned to their homes from Aberdeen as soon as they had been told about their missing family members. The details did not concern her. She had watched the television news the night before and in the morning. There had been no mention of the story. She knew that was because the men were intending to act themselves. She kept them on tenterhooks till midday.

At that time, the woman had called the man known as Wolfe-the lawyer she’d used to employ the trio had given her the number. She’d disguised herself on the only occasion she met the solicitor and the only address he had for her was in Madagascar, so the targets had no means of tracking her. But now there was no longer any need for self-effacement.

“This is Sara Robbins,” she said, when he answered breathlessly. “The White Devil’s sister.”

“You have the three of them?” Wolfe said after a pause.

“I do.”

“Where are they?”

“This is not going to be a conversation. Don’t speak until I tell you to. Listen and do exactly what I say or Amanda Mary and the others will experience agonizing deaths.” She stopped to test him. The former Special Forces man knew the meaning of discipline; he did not speak. “Good. Amanda Mary, Josh and Alison are perfectly well. I have no interest in harming them. That does not apply to you and your men. I’m going to give you a map reference. The three of you will go there together at exactly six o’clock this evening. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a chance to defend yourselves. Bring all the weapons you want, but the three of you must stay close together and you must be unaccompanied. If anyone else comes, you can be sure you’ll never find your loved ones. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m now terminating this call. I’ll text you the map reference and send you some photographs to keep you honest, as the saying goes.”

The Soul Collector broke the connection, then sent the location and three photographs. There was one of each of the hostages, bound and gagged, in their coffins. She was sure they’d get the message about how serious she was.

The woman looked around the clearing in the New Forest, near the south coast. It was half an hour’s fast walk from the nearest road and even during daylight hours, there had been few people around. Certainly none had seen her setting up her equipment and constructing her hide. She was equipped with night-vision gear, as well as black combat fatigues and helmet. By her side on the groundsheet were her laptop and auxiliary weapons-silenced Ruger Standard pistol, sheathed combat knife and six fragmentation grenades. A modified Walther WA2000 sniper’s rifle, the short stock against her right shoulder, was her main weapon, and her H amp;K pistol was in her belt.

The fact that she didn’t hear or see them coming didn’t surprise her. She knew they would come well-equipped, and not just with weapons. They didn’t have night-vision gear, but they made it to the center of the clearing by crawling from three different points. When it was exactly six o’clock, one of the men stood up.

The Soul Collector had rigged up a speaker on the opposite side of the clearing. She spoke into the microphone on her cheek.

“Stand up, all three of you,” she ordered. “If you want to see your loved ones alive.”

The other two men slowly rose from the grass.

Now she needed all the marksmanship skills she had learned. She had to take the three of them out in rapid succession. She could see their shapes clearly enough, she had practiced the shots hundreds of time. She aimed at the back of the man on the left’s thigh-she was sure they would be wearing upper-body armor.

She fired once; twice; and thrice. The men grabbed their legs, their gasps audible, then they crashed to the ground. The specially made compound in the darts was both fast-acting tranquilizer and muscle relaxant. The beauty of it-a very expensive beauty-was that the victims would remain conscious and able to feel pain, but unable to speak or move.

The woman collected her auxiliary weapons and walked slowly to the three men. She removed the men’s Uzi machine-pistols, semiautomatics and knives. Then she turned them all on their backs and looked into their glazed eyes.

“It’s time for you to pay for what you did to my brother,” she said. Bending forward, she spat in each of their faces. “Yes, I know I said you’d get a chance to defend yourselves and to save your people.” She laughed. “I lied. They’ll take days to die.” She squatted next to one of them and stripped off his balaclava. “Wolfe. Also known as Sergeant Norman Lashton. You were the man in charge. I’m going to execute your men in the same way you killed my brother.”

The Soul Collector stood up quickly and fired three shots into the heads of Rommel and Geronimo from point-blank range. Then she lowered her face over Wolfe’s.

“But you aren’t getting anything as quick and easy, you murdering scum. I’m going to cut everything I can off you and leave you to bleed out. You’ll still be alive when the crows are eating you for breakfast.”

It took her half an hour to finish with him. Then she went back to the hide, stripped off the mask, coverall and shoe protectors she’d put on before starting the knife work, and packed up. She was still smiling when she got back to the hedge where she’d stashed her motorbike.

Roger van Zandt finished the pot of coffee he’d made and went back to his laptop. Matt had sent a text a few minutes earlier, asking him to hack into the Web site of the Harley Street clinic where the dead man in Oxford had worked. The idea was to access patient records. That could have been a motive for murder.

Rog hammered away at the keys and was soon working on the site’s firewall. He had spent the night transferring as much as he could from Sara’s various accounts. He’d come up against two banks that had security systems he’d need more time to crack, but they were in the Virgin Islands and Manila, and he didn’t think Sara would be able to withdraw cash from them in the U.K. Unless she was traveling with a suitcase full of cash-which couldn’t be ruled out-she was about to become as poor as a church rat.

There was a triple knock on the door. He got up, heart accelerating despite the prearranged signal, taking the silenced pistol from the desk.

“Are you decent, ducky?” came a familiar voice.

Rog exhaled in relief and opened the door to Pete.

“Jesus, Boney, what do you smell like?” He closed the door and undid the chain, then opened it again.

“Sorry, I got too up close and personal with the deceased.” Pete Satterthwaite headed for the bathroom.

“Where’s Slash?”

“He’s meeting Matt. They’re off to check on Sara’s mother. What have you been up to?”

“Draining the deadly Sara’s deposits. I’m going to hack into the database of the Harley Street clinic where your Oxford corpse worked. You can help me go through the files when I’m in.”

“If you get in,” Pete corrected.

Rog gave him a long-suffering look. “Have you ever known me to fail?”

“I remember you missing a couple of tackles against the Essex Elephants once.”

Pete had stripped to his boxers, his discarded clothes in a garbage bag at his feet. “What do you reckon, Rog? Has Matt got the nerve to pull this off? Without Dave and Karen to help, he’s got a lot on his shoulders.”

Rog stopped typing. “Yeah.” He looked around again. “He’d better. Otherwise we’re up to our necks in dung.”

“Delicately put, Dodger. I’ve never been keen on co-prophagy.”

“What?”

“The eating of ordure,” explained Pete. “Shit-gobbling. Crap-chewing. Excret-”

“I get the picture!” Rog yelled. “Now go and clean yourself up.”

Pete looked at himself in the mirror, a smile on his lips. Then he thought of the ruthless Sara Robbins and got serious at speed.

I’d texted Andy after I left Karen’s place. We were both in baseball caps, with me wearing a false mustache, as well.

“Where are we going, boss?” Andy asked in a low voice.

I looked at him, but he wasn’t being ironic. When I told him our destination, he nodded. It seemed that he had no problem with me running the operation. I was the one who had doubts, but there was no time for them now. I got us each a ticket to Sydenham Hill from a machine. The early train wasn’t full.

“Where did you and Pete go after you got back from Oxford?” I asked as we pulled out.

“Needed a drink. Problem was, we stank. Eventually we found a twenty-four-hour pub next to the meat market at Smithfield. Everyone stinks there.”

I took a sniff. “But you don’t anymore.”

“Good nose, Sherlock. I went back to my place to clean up and change.”

“You what?” I said, raising glances from other travelers. I lowered my voice. “Are you out of your mind? Sara or Karen might have the place under surveillance.”

“Well, they didn’t. Anyway, I took precautions on the way up here. Trust me, nobody was on my tail.”

So much for me being in charge of things.

“Let me see that note you found on the body in Oxford,” I said, my mouth close to his ear.

He opened his bag and handed me an old newspaper. Inside was a plastic bag. I examined the writing, making sure no one else could see what I was looking at. Sorry was the only clearly legible word. The script looked like it could have been Sara’s. But why would she have left a note, never mind a body, in the house she herself had bought? Was she so confident that no one could touch her?

“We’re going to see Mrs. Carlton-Jones, I guess,” Andy said.

“Correct, Watson.”

“Ha. How do you want to handle it?” He was asking me to play general, after all. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that anymore. The idea that my decisions could lead to my friends being injured, or worse, was getting hard to handle.

He nudged me gently in the ribs. “I trust you, Wellsy. Dave once told me that he was certain you’d nail Sara, even if something happened to him.”

I felt my eyes dampen. Dave had said something similar to me, but I’d laughed it off. I never imagined anything would happen to him. He was our strong man, he’d been through SAS service in Northern Ireland and the first Gulf War, he’d won medals. He was our own local hero and now he was gone. I blinked and looked out into the drizzle that was blurring the shapes of the houses and car breakers’ yards.

I managed to order my thoughts. Leaning close to the American, I told him what I wanted him to do. He showed no surprise and nodded his assent.

When we came out of the station, we separated. I took a detour to Northumberland Crescent to allow Andy to get into position. Then I walked up the quiet road to number 47. There was a small Toyota in the driveway. As I’d expected, Sara’s birth mother was still at home at this early hour. I put my hand under my jacket and grasped the butt of my silenced Glock. There was no sign of a motorbike, though. I was still puzzled about what the rider-presumably my former lover-had been trying to hand Mrs. Carlton-Jones.

Taking off my cap and putting it in a pocket, I looked at the upstairs windows. All the curtains were open. Unless her bedroom was at the back, the occupier was up and about. I went up the paved path, looking into the front room as I approached the door.

I took a deep breath, one hand still on my weapon and the other holding my Crime Writers’ Society ID card. It had been designed in the form of a warrant card. I wondered if any of my fellow novelists had used the card for nefarious purposes. Josh Hinkley, the poor sod, would have been a likely candidate, perhaps to get complimentary services from the knocking-shops near his flat.

I rang the bell. After about a minute, a gray-haired woman appeared behind the small diamond-shaped window in the door. She didn’t seem to have changed much since I’d tried to interview her for my book. I hoped the mustache would prevent her from recognizing me.

“Who is it?” she said, keeping the door closed.

“Detective Chief Inspector Mark Oates,” I replied, holding up my card. “We spoke on the phone a few days ago.”

There was a pause. “I remember, Chief Inspector.” The chain rattled and the door opened.

With my thumb obscuring the Crime Writers’ Society logo, most of the photo, and my name, I kept my card visible long enough for her to register that it was official, but not long enough for her to see the details. She didn’t complain when I put it back in my pocket. People had a worrying tendency to believe that strangers were who they said they were. Then again, Doris Carlton-Jones might know exactly who I was and was luring me into a trap. What if the motorbike rider had been trying to hand her a weapon, and had been back since I pulled Andy off the surveillance? Then again, I could just be getting paranoid after everything that’s happened.

The woman was dressed in a dark blue trouser suit. She led me into the sitting room. “Sit down, Chief Inspector,” she said. “How is Inspector Jansen?”

“He’s well,” I said with a smile. “Hard at work.”

“Undercover,” she said, looking at me seriously. “Which you, presumably, are not, since you carry identification.”

“Just plain clothes,” I said. Mrs. Carlton-Jones didn’t miss much. “I won’t beat about the bush,” I said. “It’s come to our attention that your daughter has returned to London.”

“My daughter?” she said, her eyes wide. “I…My husband and I didn’t have children.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said. “But you did, before you met Mr. Carlton-Jones.”

Now she looked upset. There were beads of sweat on her brow and she started rubbing her hands together. “I…Yes, I did,” she said, looking down.

“Contrary to what you told Inspector Jansen,” I said harshly. “Let’s stop these games, Mrs. Carlton-Jones. It’s in the public domain. We’ve made the connection to Leslie Dunn, the White Devil. His twin sister, your daughter Sara Robbins, is wanted for murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and malicious wounding, as well as fleeing a crime scene. I have a simple question for you.”

“I know what it is,” the elderly woman said, her voice querulous, “and the answer is no, I haven’t seen her.”

I was watching her carefully. She was pretty convincing, but I needed more, and needed to seem authoritative. “Then you’ll have no objection if I search the house.”

She met my gaze. “Shouldn’t you have a warrant for that?”

“I should, and I will get one if necessary, though failure to cooperate won’t do you any favors. If you allow me to check the house, I can be out of here in a matter of minutes and it’ll be the last you hear of it.” I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging smile.

“Oh, very well,” she said. “Go where you like.”

I stood up. “Thank you, Mrs. Carlton-Jones,” I said, raising a hand. “Please don’t get up. I’d prefer to do this on my own.” I looked around the room, then moved to the rear, where a door led into the kitchen. I opened cupboard doors and ran my eye over the fridge door for any sign of messages from Sara. There was nothing. I checked the drawers, too, in case there was a concealed weapon. There were kitchen knives, but that was all.

I went out of the door that opened on to the hall. There was a cupboard under the stairs-it was full of boxes and a vacuum cleaner. Moving upstairs, I glanced out of the window on the side of the house. I couldn’t see Andy. There were four doors on the first floor, two of them open. The front room must have been the main bedroom, a double bed with an embroidered cover neatly spread over it. There was a photo of Doris Carlton-Jones with a smiling bald man, presumably her dead husband. She looked reserved. I wondered if there had ever been a time when she wasn’t troubled by the children she gave away in the first days of their lives. The woman looked at least ten years younger in the shot, so it had been taken long before the White Devil and Sara became the focus of frenzied tabloid attention. I tried to imagine what it must have felt like to know that your children were vicious killers. I shivered as Lucy’s face flashed before me. My beautiful daughter was in hiding because of the woman downstairs’s child. Strangely, I didn’t feel anger, but sorrow. I told myself to get a grip. Sara might be waiting for me down the hall.

I took out my pistol and walked to the first door. I touched the handle, then opened the door quickly. Inside, both hands gripping my weapon, I pointed it at the corners, one by one, as Dave had taught us. Nobody. The room was a study, a computer on a desk and rows of books on the shelves. It didn’t take me long to find The Death List. The spine showed it had been opened frequently. My photo was on the back cover. That put me on my toes. I went toward the next door, glancing into the bathroom to be sure it was empty. I breathed in and followed the procedure again when I flung the door open. This room too was unoccupied. The duvet on the single bed was plumped and perfectly aligned. I slid a hand underneath. It was stone cold. Back on the landing, I looked up at the ceiling. There was a panel in a wooden frame. I took the chair from the study and stood on it. I was in an awkward position, because I couldn’t cover more than one angle with my pistol. There was nothing for it. I pushed the panel up and aside, then looked around. Apart from the water tank and a lot of insulating material, the space was empty.

I put the panel and chair back, and went downstairs, pistol back in my jacket. Mrs. Carlton-Jones was waiting for me.

“Satisfied?” she asked brusquely. Clearly she was no longer shaken. “Chief Inspector, I can assure you that if I saw Sara Robbins, I would tell the police immediately. I know what she looks like, thanks to the photographs that were all over the newspapers and TV channels.” She shook her head. “And that awful book her lover wrote.”

I tried not to look embarrassed and was glad she hadn’t recognized me. It was suddenly obvious how much pain The Death List had caused. I remembered what Karen had said, about the book being a Faustian pact. I’d arrogantly signed up to write it, oblivious to the feelings of others-not just of Sara’s birth mother, but of the families whose members the White Devil had slaughtered. Maybe some stories were better left untold.

I thanked Mrs. Carlton-Jones.

As she closed the door, she said, “I hope we won’t meet again.”

I walked away, feeling like a leper. Then I saw Andy appear from behind the garage. His expression was grim and he was carrying what looked very much like a human skull.

Faik Jabar had found a heap of old clothes outside a charity shop in Stoke Newington. They didn’t smell too good, but neither did he. In a dank alleyway, he stripped off his trousers, gasping as the fabric came away from the wounds on his legs. The trousers were an old man’s, the bottoms flapping above his trainers, and the ancient tan duffel coat was tight across his shoulders. At least the pistol he’d taken from his tormentor fitted into one of the inside pockets. Head down, Faik walked out on to the pavement and headed west. He had no money, so he couldn’t use public transport. Walking was the only option. It took him three hours to get to Soho.

The strip joints and massage parlors were open, but there wasn’t much activity. At the first one he tried, a thick-set muscle-man told him to go fuck himself, there were no Albanians there. But he struck lucky at the next one. He went upstairs, following the signs to! Sexy Susie’s Sauna EtSEXera! When he asked for Safet Shkrelli, the bottle blonde, who must have been older than his mother, told him to wait.

A thin man with a pencil mustache, wearing a grubby suit, came out to meet him. “What does a piece of crap like you want with Mr. Shkrelli?” he demanded, eyeing the young man and wrinkling his nose. “What are you? A Turk?”

“Kurd,” replied Faik. “Tell him I know where his missing numbers man is.”

The man raised an eyebrow, then took out his cell phone. He spoke rapidly in a language like no other Faik had ever heard. When he’d finished, he smiled insincerely. “Mr. Shkrelli would like to see you. Come downstairs when I call.” He headed for the street.

A few minutes later, Faik heard his voice again. When he reached the main door, he saw a black Mercedes at the curb, its engine idling and the nearside rear door open. His weapon was taken by a gorilla. Faik thought of what had happened the last time he’d got into a gang member’s car, but he didn’t hesitate. Someone had to stop the bitch with the devil’s face who had set the gangs at each others’ throats, and Safet Shkrelli was the best bet, probably the only bet.

Neither the man from the sauna nor the heavily-built driver spoke to him. They went north, but after King’s Cross he was told to put his head between his knees. He felt the point of a knife in his side, so he obeyed. He preferred not to know where Shkrelli lived.

After what Faik thought was about twenty minutes, the car drove over gravel and stopped. He was told to stay as he was, then a door opened and a black hood was pulled over his head. He was led inside, tripping on steps. It seemed they walked for a long time before he was pushed into a seat and the hood tugged off.

Faik blinked and took in a large, young-looking man with close-cropped black hair. He was sitting behind an enormous desk.

“I’m Safet Shkrelli,” the man said, picking up a silver revolver with pearl handles. “Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you right now.”

“You know why,” Faik replied. His voice was steady; he had nothing to lose. “I can take you to your numbers man.”

“Where is he?”

Faik shook his head slowly. “I take you there,” he repeated. “Then you protect me.”

Shkrelli thought about that. “Is he alive?” he asked.

“He was when I last saw him-just.”

“What happened to him?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

The muzzle of the weapon was suddenly pointing at Faik’s face. “Are you setting me up, boy?” the Albanian asked. “Are your people planning on ambushing me? I use dum-dum bullets. Do you know how much damage one of them can do? Your own mother won’t recognize you.”

Faik held his gaze. “This is no setup, Mr. Shkrelli. There is no ambush. All I want is for you to protect me until you find the…the person who took your man.”

Safet Shkrelli drank from a bottle of water. “So take me, boy. Tell me the district.”

“Stoke Newington.”

The hood came back down over Faik’s head. He was taken through the process in reverse and heard someone else join the driver in the front of the car. After they had driven for about a quarter of an hour, the hood was removed. Faik looked around, recognizing the streets around Finsbury Park station. Ahead, he could see two more black Mercedes and behind was a black Land Cruiser. All the vehicles were full.

“Tell us the address,” the driver said.

Faik did so and the driver relayed it via his hands-free device. The column drove down Green Lanes. People stared and some of them raised cell phones to their ears. The local gangs-the Shadows, the King’s men-wouldn’t be slow to gather. Faik’s armpits were drenched in sweat, but his breathing was regular. The lead car turned into the street and stopped, blocking the road. Men got out, their hands in their jackets. The man with the thin mustache got out and beckoned to Faik to follow. He did so, then headed for the door he had come out of that morning-it seemed like days had passed.

When he pushed the door open, not particularly surprised that it hadn’t been shut by the last person to leave, he turned his head and saw Safet Shkrelli get out of the second Mercedes. Bodyguards quickly gathered around him and walked him to the house. Suddenly it struck Faik that if his captor had managed to remove the body, Shkrelli would dispose of him in seconds. He went up the stair quickly, nervous for the first time.

He needn’t have been. The Albanian numbers man was still in the second-floor flat. His body was on the living room floor, as it was when Faik had escaped. But his head was on top of the television, his hands in the bathroom and his feet in the bedroom.

After looking around, the man with the mustache threw up on Safet Shkrelli’s shoes.