The Soul Collector

Twenty-Five

Karen Oaten and Amelia Browning were standing outside the house in Stoke Newington with Ron Paskin. CSIs in dark blue coveralls were going up the steps to the front door. There was a crowd of rubberneckers behind the barrier tape. Inspector Ozal and other Homicide East detectives were moving through it, asking people if they had seen anything suspicious.

John Turner brought a painfully thin, elderly woman forward. She was dressed in a faded blue coat and tattered slippers. “This is Mrs. Maisie Jones,” the inspector said. “She lives across the street.”

“I saw them,” the woman said, gripping Karen Oaten’s arm with a clawlike hand. “There were a lot of them. In big, black cars.” She leaned closer. “They looked foreign.” She spoke the last word with a grimace.

“When was this, Mrs. Jones?” Paskin asked, with an encouraging smile.

“Only about an hour ago,” she replied. “Some of them went inside. They were all dressed in suits-looked expensive-except for one man. He was young, but he was wearing the sort of clothes that old men who live on the streets have. Dirty. I bet he smelled. He looked frightened an’ all.”

“And then what happened?” the superintendent asked patiently.

“The men at the cars got spoken to by the locals.” Maisie Jones looked up at Paskin. “They’re mostly Turkish, you know. Criminals, the lot of them. They were telling the others to sling their ’ook, weren’t they? Well, they didn’t like that one little bit. I saw them take out their guns and the shooting started.”

When Oaten and her subordinates had arrived, an ambulance was taking away the third and last body. Even though uniformed personnel had arrived very quickly, the shooters had dispersed and none of the “big, black cars” had been found.

“Did you see the men come back out of the house, Mrs. Jones?” Amelia Browning asked.

“Ooh, call me Maisie, love,” the old woman said, with a loose smile that revealed ill-fitting dentures. “Yes, I did. The young bloke was marched to the second car and another man got in the back with him. I think he was the boss, because three or four others were standing around him to make sure he didn’t get hit. Quite a few of the men in suits were hit, but only the one got left behind. They tried to grab his body, but they were outnumbered by then, so they had to drive off.”

They waited for more, but Mrs. Jones seemed to have said her piece.

“Would you like Sergeant Browning here to help you home?” Oaten asked. “See if she saw anything else,” she added, in a low voice to Amelia.

“Wonderful,” Paskin said. “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. When we got here, the kids were picking up the cartridge cases and throwing them at each other. Thank Christ no actual weapons were left behind.”

“The local gang members would have grabbed them,” Turner said. “This is Shadow territory, isn’t it?”

The superintendent nodded.

“What about the intruders?” Oaten asked.

“Albanians, we think,” said Paskin. “The dead guy had a letter in his pocket. One of my team has been learning the language.”

“Do you think this was an attempt to move into the area, guv?” the Welshman asked.

“No, Taff. They don’t work that way, do they? At least, not in broad daylight.”

Karen Oaten nodded. “You’re right. The Albanian families tend to buy their way in using middlemen. When they’ve got a foothold, they either kill or kidnap the local leaders and their families. They don’t go for all-out war in the streets.”

“So what were they doing here?” Turner asked.

Paskin looked up at the second-floor windows. A uniformed officer had seen the open door and gone to investigate. He was in shock and the pathologist was still trying, literally, to piece together what had happened upstairs.

“I’d say the young guy led them to the flat. The guy whose body was dismembered was probably an Albanian.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Oaten said. “They’d have been hoping to find him alive. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come in such numbers.”

Turner looked at his boss thoughtfully. “Do you reckon the young man’s still alive?”

“Not if he had anything to do with what happened to the victim, Taff,” Ron Paskin said, his expression grim.

“The Albanians are usually all related,” Oaten said. “Like the original Sicilian mafia.” She turned to the superintendent. “I’d like to attach one of my people to your team till the situation out here is resolved.”

Her former boss nodded. “No problem, Karen. I could do with an extra pair of hands.” He looked down the street ruefully. “An extra hundred pairs of hands.”

Oaten and Turner glanced at each other. They both knew that feeling. They walked to the chief inspector’s car, the Welshman asking bystanders to move aside.

“What do you think, guv?” he asked.

“That the killer’s losing his grip. Dismembering a body is a big step from the earlier killings.” She got in and started the engine.

“We don’t know that the person who chopped up the Albanian also killed the Kurds and the Turks,” Turner said.

Oaten looked over her shoulder and reversed down the street. “Not for certain, no. The CSIs have got plenty of fingerprints in the flat here, but nothing to compare them with from the other scenes. But you know the murders are connected, even if the same person didn’t actually carry them out. Personally, I think it is the same killer.”

“Could it be Sara Robbins?”

“If it is, Matt had better keep his head down because she’s really lost it now.”

Turner pushed himself back in his seat as she accelerated. “Steady, guv. It’s a busy road.”

Karen Oaten braked hard behind a bus. “Remember something else,” she said. “The body in the house in Oxford. It looks like she owns that property-the name on the deeds is a composite of her mother’s maiden name and the names given to Sara and her twin before they were adopted. What kind of person keeps a rotting corpse in their hall?”

John Turner didn’t answer. He remembered all too well the last person he knew who had done something similar.

Oaten’s phone rang. She fitted the earpiece and answered.

“Yes, Dr. Redrose,” she said, shaking her head at the Welshman. “How can I help you?” She listened, her jaw dropping. “Are you sure?” She listened again, and then thanked him and signed off.

“Jesus,” she said. “The old ghoul has his uses.”

“What’s happened?”

“After the case conference, his curiosity was piqued. He didn’t do the autopsies on the gang victims. He went to the morgue and checked the finger and toenails of the two Kurds. Guess what he found?”

“Don’t tell me they’d been clipped.”

“Yup. But only one toe in each case, as if the killer was being careful not to draw attention.” She gave a hollow laugh. “That’s how Redrose spotted it, of course. Nobody cuts only one nail themselves, at least not usually. He’s pretty sure that a small number of hairs have been taken from the head and groin of each dead man, too. Not enough to make a conclusive link.”

“But the toenails do that,” Turner said. “The likelihood of both victims having cut one nail recently must be minimal.”

Karen Oaten nodded. “So there’s a good chance that the same killer is behind the crime writer and the gangland murders. Or the same killers.”

The inspector swallowed hard. “And that devil worship played a part in them all.”

Neither of them needed to say it aloud, but the White Devil was even more in the frame-and, apparently, even more dangerous than ever.

I found out from a friend at the Daily Indie that Jeremy Andrewes was in the office. Andy and I were outside in Clerkenwell Road-he was twenty meters left of the entrance to the paper’s building, and I was about the same distance to the right, both of us on the opposite side of the road. If the journalist stayed inside, I didn’t see how Sara could get to him, unless she was already in the office. I didn’t think that was too likely. You needed an electronic pass to get past the security door in reception. I could have got in using mine, but it would take me a long time to check the whole place. Besides, I was in the news. As soon as anyone recognized me, I’d have difficulty getting out again and that would screw up my plan completely. I’d removed the fake mustache. I didn’t think it would fool people who knew me well.

Ten minutes before twelve, I nodded to Andy and then retired to a cafe down the road that supported wi-fi access. I booted up my laptop. On the ghost site I found a message from my mother. That was a major relief. She’d cracked the “Andrews” part of the clue, but hadn’t got Jeremy. Then again, she didn’t know the journalist, so she hadn’t been able to make the leap that I had.

I clicked on the message that appeared at exactly eleven fifty-nine. It was from wotacarveup. I wrote my reply-Karen Oaten-and sent it. Two minutes later, an answer arrived.

Karen Oaten? You really have lost your grip, Matt. And to think that I’d have kept my word if you’d got the right answer…

Soon it’ll be your turn.

Doom and disaster!

Helen

I smiled and logged off. Then I picked up my cell phone and speed-dialed Jeremy Andrewes’s number.

“Crime,” he answered.

“A very good description of your articles, recently.”

“Hello, Matt.” He didn’t sound even slightly embarrassed. “All’s fair in etc., etc. Where are you?”

“Never mind that. I’ve got an exclusive for you.”

“Really?” As I’d expected, he was suspicious. “Why don’t you write it yourself?”

“Because I’m too busy trying to stay alive.”

He thought about that for a while. “All right,” he said, at last. “What are you going to do? Dictate your story to me over the phone?”

“No chance. My cell phone frequency might be being scanned. I need you to meet me.”

“Fair enough. Where?”

“In front of the British Museum. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” I cut the connection, put the laptop in my bag and went out on the street. Andy had moved nearer the paper’s entrance. He was looking out for me and watched carefully as I hailed a cab. I made sure I raised my right arm. If I’d have used the left, he’d have known something was wrong.

I was at the museum in five minutes. That gave me a bit of time to check out the courtyard in front of the wide steps that led to the entrance. It was filled with the usual crowds of tourists and school groups. That was why I’d chosen it. It was busy enough not only to tempt Sara or her sidekicks into thinking that they could have a go at Andrewes, but also to give me cover. There were also security personnel all around. They might come in handy when it came to preventing Sara’s getaway, as well as protecting innocent bystanders. I felt queasy about inciting her to violence in such a public place, but I had no option. If I’d invited the journalist to my flat, she’d have smelled a rat, and I’d also have run the risk of the cops finding out where I was, assuming they had the building under surveillance.

I went up the steps and looked at my watch. I reckoned we had five minutes or less. Andy would follow Jeremy Andrewes-he knew what he looked like from the photo above the article he’d written in today’s paper. But if he couldn’t find a taxi immediately, the journalist would get away from him. If Sara arrived on her motorbike, which I was almost certain she would do even though the only bikers we’d seen in Clerkenwell had been couriers, I needed to position myself as far from the gate as possible. I walked along inside the row of columns and sat halfway down the steps at the far left facing the courtyard. There was a snack vendor in a trailer about ten yards away. Japanese visitors were queuing in an orderly line to sample his wares.

A minute to go. I looked around as casually as I could. I saw a taxi stop on Great Russell Street. Jeremy Andrewes got out and walked toward the gate. Other taxis passed in both directions, but none stopped. Andy had been delayed. My heart was beating faster than normal. When I saw the helmeted head of a motorbike rider through the railings, it started to pound. The biker, clad in black leathers, entered the courtyard about five yards behind Andrewes. I stood up, trying to see any sign of a weapon, particularly a silenced pistol. Sara might get a shot off before the journalist reached me. But there was a crowd of screaming primary school kids between the pair and me, and Jeremy Andrewes had to weave through them. Those movements made him less of a target, though Sara would probably have no qualms about hitting the children. Then he saw me and waved.

I was watching the biker. The leathers disguised the shape of the body beneath, but it definitely could have been a woman’s. The helmet was still on, the visor down. That was enough to make me positive that the biker was up to no good. The bike was red and looked like the one we’d been chasing earlier.

Kids were swarming around as I went down the steps.

“Matt,” Jeremy Andrewes said with a smile on his lips that I knew was untrustworthy. He was wearing the tweed jacket and corduroy trousers that had resulted in people on the Daily Indie calling him “Squire.”

I maneuvered myself so that I was between him and the motorbike rider. “Hello, Jeremy.” I turned toward the courtyard. The biker had stopped by the snack trailer. The tinted visor gave the impression of a robot. I immediately thought of the Terminator, a relentless machine in human form. The only difference was that Sara was much more dangerous than Arnold Schwarzenegger ever was.

“What is it?” Andrewes said, turning in the same direction as I had.

“Nothing,” I said. “Bloody kids. You can never visit a museum nowadays without thousands of them getting in the way.”

“We can’t talk here,” he said, frowning.

“Why not? It isn’t raining, for a change.”

He peered at me through thick lenses. “Oh, I get it. You’ve got people watching us.”

I shook my head, wondering where Andy had got to. My stomach tightened. Could Sara have caught up with him?

Andrewes took out a gadget and fiddled with the buttons. “All right if I record you?”

“Sure.” I sat down on the steps. After he’d inspected the surface, he joined me.

“Jeremy Andrewes, interviewing Matt Wells, date-”

“Never mind that,” I said, keeping an eye on the figure in leathers. “Here’s the story. I know the identity of the person responsible for the murders of Mary Malone, Sandra Devonish-” I broke off as the biker began to walk across the courtyard in front of us.

“Yes?” prompted the journalist.

“Em, Sandra Devonish, Josh Hinkley, Dave Cummings and several gang members in East London.”

“What?” Andrewes said, his eyes wide. “One person is responsible?”

I watched the helmeted figure out of the corner of my eye as it moved up the steps toward the museum entrance. The biker could now approach us behind the columns without me seeing. But it was imperative that I didn’t turn my head to avoid putting her off, assuming it was Sara. I took a deep breath and tried to get my heart rate under control.

“Are you all right?” Andrewes asked. I was pretty sure he was worried he might not get his exclusive rather than genuinely concerned.

“Sure,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“You’re saying the same person killed all those people?”

I nodded. The temptation to look around was enormous, but I fixed my eyes on the short Japanese woman who was buying several cans of lemonade.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me that’s Sara Robbins,” Andrewes said, determined to steal my thunder.

Somehow I resisted the urge to tell him that she was creeping up on us with murder in her heart. Where the hell was Andy? I’d been hung out to dry. Unless-

“Sara Robbins?” said a female voice behind us.

We both turned our heads. The motorbike rider had sat down two steps above us. She had raised her visor only a few centimeters, so I couldn’t make out her face. She pulled off one glove and unzipped her jacket, then slipped her hand inside. When it came back out, she was holding an object that I couldn’t immediately identify. She leaned forward and gripped Jeremy Andrewes’s shoulder with her other hand and pulled him back, so that the hand holding the object was near his neck.

“This is a spring-loaded stiletto,” the woman said. “I can have it in his jugular before you move, Matt.”

“What?” Andrewes said, his voice rising several tones. “Who are you?”

It was a good question. The voice had a similar timbre to Sara’s, but there was a lot of East London in it. Then again, Sara was quite capable of picking up accents. She used to do a very convincing Margaret Thatcher.

“I’m your death,” the figure in leathers said. Then she gave a laugh that was as depraved as the White Devil’s. “Don’t move, Jeremy, and don’t even think about calling out.”

Thinking about it, I realized there was a lot of similarity between the two voices. Sara had obviously been turning herself into a female version of her brother.

“Let him go,” I said, looking into my own eyes, reflected in the visor. “It’s me you really want, Sara.”

The laugh was repeated and I felt revulsion, but something else, as well-a strange mixture of fear and fascination. I didn’t know where Andy was and I was looking my nemesis in the face. But there was something more….

“I don’t want you, Matt,” the figure in leathers said. “At least, not yet. Andrewes is the one I’m after today.” She leaned closer, the knife with its invisible blade only centimeters from the journalist’s jugular. In the courtyard below, people were chattering and children yelling. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to the three of us.

My mind was in freefall, thoughts and ideas flying around like bullets on the ricochet. Why was Andrewes the one she was after? What had he done to deserve death?

“Sara?” I said. “Why do you want to kill an innocent man?”

The laugh that came from the helmeted figure in leather was grotesque. “Innocent?” she said. “How many journalists are innocent?” I’d been about to shove Andrewes aside, but suddenly there was a blur of movement behind the motorbike rider and she was driven into the journalist, who toppled forward. The woman sprawled over him, and then slid rapidly down the steps before her helmet made contact with a paving-stone. The person who had piled into her went down the steps on hands and knees and sat on her back, then twisted her arm behind her.

I got up and joined them. “Jesus, Rog, you took your time. I didn’t see you when I got here.”

“I was just inside the main doors. That way no one saw me, including this specimen.” He bounced on the woman’s back to stop her struggling. “Sara Robbins, I presume?”

Two security guards were pushing their way through the crowd of kids and tourists.

“Yes, I think…” Before I finished the sentence, the biker managed to throw Rog off her back with a heave to the side. She launched herself at Jeremy Andrewes, who was sitting rubbing his head. I raced up the steps and hit her in the belly with a tackle that Dave would have been proud of. But I wasn’t quick enough. The stiletto had already caught the journalist in the throat. He started to gasp, blood pumping out between his fingers. The woman had got back on her feet and was now moving quickly toward me, clutching the knife. There was no time to think. I dropped the upper half of my body, let her torso crash onto my back, and then powered my shoulders up as fast as I could. I felt the weight fly off me and looked around to see her hit the bottom step headfirst. A loud crack rang out.

…images flashing…columns turning, blurred faces, stone steps. Then darkness. I can’t see, I can’t move, can’t speak. I’m going…NO! No, I can’t die. I’ve got everything…money, the power of the Lord Beneath the Earth, Mephistopheles…why aren’t they helping me? I can’t die. I’m a predator, not prey. The flat in Hackney…the enemy was inside, and the grenade I tossed should have taught them a lesson. They never caught me, they never caught on I was a woman. The beard was a good one, though I let the beautiful Kurdish boy see past it. I was never in love before…sex meant my so-called father sticking it in me when his bitch wife was drunk. I never wanted that again. Until I saw Faik. Instead of submitting to the urge to kill, I just shot him in the hand. And rescued him. I’m sure they thought it was a man disguised as a woman. No one could imagine it was a woman disguised as a man disguised as a woman…not even Sara would have thought of that. They never caught on I was a woman. She must have been impressed, she must have…

Followed my gorgeous Faik but…but I couldn’t express my desires…only my violence. I thought Faik would respond to that, but he was a strange kind of gang member, he didn’t want to hurt the Albanian, he looked at me with horror…My face, my ruined face…and Sara so beautiful, with her good surgeon…and me far too ugly to fix. Though I was sorry as soon as I’d done him, I wrote her that. Violence. She knew that I need it as she does. She encouraged me to start killing…the animals, making sure I threw what was left of the cats and dogs into the canal. But Sara was impatient…she said I couldn’t just kill anyone, the victims had to be strong, dangerous, otherwise there was no point. Hard men, beasts of the street, I decided. Stabbing the fat Kurd was my first. Nervous before, but in the end it was easy. Power exploded inside me like Sara said. Killing for myself, killing for Sara, killing for Mephistopheles and the Lord Beneath the Earth. Where did one begin and the other end? It was all the same to me. Mephistopheles wanted funds for the order so I took drugs from the Shadows and set up the sale to the Albanians. I would have ransomed their man if Faik hadn’t run away in disgust.

Oh, Faik, where are you now?

If only you could see how beautiful I am inside, so perfect…my ability to destroy…dedicating that to the Lord Beneath the Earth seemed to make sense. But now I think…Sara, Sara, my…NO! I can’t be dying, I can’t, oh, Faik, why did you reject me?

Jeremy Andrewes was sprawled on his back across the steps, his legs jerking out of control. His clothes were soaked in blood and his eyelids were fluttering. I kneeled down beside him and put pressure on the wound. I knew it was far too little, far too late.

“Matt,” he croaked.

I leaned closer.

He was panting for breath, his windpipe partially severed.

“Coke…deal,” he said, tongue loose over gray lips. “Sh…Shkrelli family and Earl…Earl Sternwood. That…bastard did…this…”

The journalist’s body tensed, then his eyes rolled and he slumped back on the stone steps.

Before I could take in what he’d said, a security guard got me in a neck-lock. “VCCT,” I gasped. The pressure was relaxed. He must have thought I was a member of the elite squad. I gave him Karen’s cell phone number.

“This will get you Detective Chief Inspector Karen Oaten,” I said, rubbing my throat. “Tell her Matt Wells has made a citizen’s arrest and that there’s been a murder here.” The guard looked at me dubiously and then did as he was told.

“Good tackle, Matt,” Pete Satterthwaite said, coming down the steps and grinning. “You all right?”

“All the better for seeing you, Boney. I wasn’t sure you guys had made it.”

“I was covering the far side of the yard.”

Rog looked up at us and shook his head. Jesus, had I killed Sara? I ran down the steps and looked at the figure in leather. She wasn’t moving.

Her left hand was flung out in front of her, but the right was hidden beneath her body.

I dropped to my knees beside the motionless figure. I wasn’t going to wait for Karen before I confirmed who the woman was. Rog and I rolled her over gently. I could hear sirens approaching. I put my hand under the bottom of the helmet and eased it off, pushing my hand under the head of the woman I’d once loved to stop it banging on to the paving-stone. It was as loose as a flower with a broken stalk. I took a deep breath and looked at the face that was revealed.

It made me wince. Disfigured and split, the skin was discolored and with an unnatural sheen, crisscrossed by scars. As for the upper lip, its halves had parted like the stumps of an octopus’s tentacles.

“She’s Lauren May Cuthbertson,” Pete said. “Rog and I reckon she killed the guy in Oxford. He was her surgeon.”

I rocked back on my heels, as uniformed police shouldered their way through the crowd. The fact that the dead woman wasn’t Sara had been a shock, but Pete and Rog seemed to have made sense of who she was. The problem was, my adversary was still at liberty. I’d just killed one of her sidekicks, admittedly by accident, and I wondered what the cost of that would be. I doubted that Sara would see any mitigating circumstances.

Then, as I stood up and looked around the crowd, the blood tingling in my legs, I had another unpleasant thought. I still didn’t have the faintest idea where Andy was.