The Soul Collector

Twenty-Nine

Caroline came around to find herself tied by the hands and ankles to the double bed in the safe house. She tried to clear her mouth, but realized she’d been gagged. As her mind cleared, she tried to remember what had happened. Someone at the door…someone had knocked, said they were with the police. A woman’s voice. Why had she opened the door? A reflex action, you didn’t expect the police to attack you…to spray something in your face that makes you crash to the floor and lose consciousness almost immediately.

Oh, Christ, she thought. Lucy! Where was she? Turning her head, Caroline managed to see down the hall. The door to the room her daughter had been using was open, the bedclothes strewn across the floor. Lucy had been studying in there. Where was she?

Moaning through the gag, Caroline had another thought. What about Fran? Matt’s mother had been in the sitting room. She’d said “Don’t-” as Caroline had opened the door. Had she been sprayed, too?

The woman. There was something about her. Caroline hadn’t seen the face before, but…she seemed familiar. This wasn’t her first experience of knockout gas. Two years ago, when the White Devil had been killing people across London, the woman who’d been Matt’s lover had leaned out of a car window near Caroline’s bank in the City and asked her something, then suddenly she had fallen into darkness. She had woken up in hospital, to find Lucy in the bed beside her and Matt revelling in having put a stop to the White Devil. The idiot. Sara had got away…and now she was back…Oh, Lucy…

Then Caroline looked down. A belt had been strapped around her abdomen, and a red light was flashing on top of a square box that had been attached by black tape.

She knew instantly that it was a bomb. What she didn’t know, and the tension was almost unbearable, was when it would go off.

Amelia Browning was standing at the entrance to the foot passengers’ waiting area at Dover Eastern Docks ferry terminal. She had already checked three groups that had boarded ships, comparing faces with the images that Chief Inspector Oaten had sent to her cell phone. Three times she had returned empty-handed to the waiting room. It was beginning to look like she’d drawn the short straw. Other VCCT officers were checking vehicles for Sara Robbins or her mother, since this was the nearest port to the house the woman had bought in rural Kent-where DCI Oaten had organized surveillance with the local force. But there had been no sign of the suspects anywhere. Maybe they were lying low or had decided to risk air travel. Amelia was tired and hungry, but the terminal’s idea of catering was even more criminal than the Met’s.

People started coming through passport control. A young couple in blue denim from head to toe, including caps and trainers in the material, were arguing in a language that Detective Sergeant Browning couldn’t identify. She took out her copy of the Daily Indie and pretended to read it, all the time casting surreptitious glances at the people who had just arrived. None of them was over fifty, never mind as old as Doris Carlton-Jones, and none of them bore any resemblance to Sara Robbins-though, if she’d had major plastic surgery, Amelia wasn’t sure she’d recognize her.

The departure of the next ferry to Calais was announced. People started gathering up their luggage and heading for the ramps that led up to the passenger bridge. Amelia folded her paper. She was about to follow the others when an elderly Indian woman in a sari came out of the toilets. Her hair was an unnatural shade of black and she was carrying a large cuddly toy. There was something about the way she walked that caught the detective’s eye. She didn’t glide, like most Indian women in the full-length garment; her gait made the fabric bulge at the knees.

Amelia Browning stopped at the bottom of the ramp and turned away from the woman, her face toward the ship’s high stern. When she heard the soft sound of the sari passing, she looked around.

“Mrs. Carlton-Jones?” she said, her voice as natural as she could make it.

The woman turned her head, then realized her mistake. The handcuffs were on her before she could take another step.

I called Karen when we got back to the car.

“Are they all right?” I asked, meaning the woman and the two kids we’d disinterred.

“They’re in hospital. The paramedics were more concerned about their psychological than their physical state, particularly the woman’s. They thought the kids would get over it quicker.”

“Not when they find out they’re fatherless.”

“I didn’t tell them that. Anyway, where the hell are you?”

“Sternwood Castle. At least, I was.”

“Don’t you bloody run away again, Matt.”

“Andy’s still missing. Sara must have him. We’re going to check her other properties.”

“If you mean the ones in Hackney, Oxford, Kent and Scotland, don’t bother. I’ve arranged search-there was nobody there-and surveillance. We’ve also just picked up Doris Carlton-Jones in Dover.”

“No sign of Sara?”

“No. Maybe her disguise was more convincing.”

“And her face more changed.”

“What were you doing at Sternwood Castle?”

I gave her a quick run-through.

She let out a long sigh when I’d finished. “Jesus, Matt. When will the killing stop?”

“We didn’t kill anyone tonight.”

“So you say.”

“Don’t worry, I taped the whole thing. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

She laughed bitterly. “You’re a long way from getting one of those.”

“End of conversation then,” I said, and broke the connection.

Rog and Pete were pretending not to have overheard.

My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Matt, it’s me.”

“Andy! Thank Christ! Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Yes to the first question. Where are we?” I heard someone else speak. “Blidbean in Kent. But, listen, you’re not going to…”

“Blidbean?” I said. “Never heard of it. What’s the nearest-”

“Shut the fuck up, Matt!” he yelled. “I’ve got Lucy with me. Sara and her mother grabbed her.”

My veins had filled with ice. “Lucy? Is she all right?” I asked hoarsely.

“Yes, in a minute you can speak to her, but there’s something you have to sort first. Tell Karen that your mother and Caroline need help.” I listened, then told Pete to call Karen, repeating the address of the safe house in East Grinstead that Lucy had remembered. Then I spoke to my daughter.

“What happened, darling?”

“I don’t know who it was,” she said, the words spilling out in a babble. I caught “motorbike helmet,” “sprayed in the face” and “woke up with Andy staring at me.”

I didn’t scare her by asking anything about Sara. How had she found them? Lucy actually sounded over the worst. I knew Andy would have helped on that count, and she told me that the farmer’s wife had given her clean clothes and something nice to eat. Apparently there were some very sweet kittens, too, could she have one? I said that her mother would have to rule on that.

As I was talking, Rog was driving toward the motorway at full pelt. Boney had briefed Karen and not long after we’d reached the M4, she called me back.

“We were lucky,” she said. “There was a bomb squad unit only a few minutes away from East Grinstead.”

I felt my stomach cartwheel. “A bomb squad unit?”

“Someone-you can guess who-had fitted bomb-belts to them both. The timers had been set for midnight.”

I looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven. “Shit,” I said. “Close one. Are Fran and Caroline all right?”

“They’ve been taken to hospital, but I gather they were conscious, just drowsy. They’d been sprayed with some kind of knockout gas. Rings a bell, eh?”

“Yup. Thanks, Karen.”

“I take it you’ve turned back and are waiting for me at the castle.”

“Em, no. We’re going to pick up Lucy and Andy.”

There was silence for a while.

“All right, Matt. But I’ll be expecting you and your friends in my office at nine tomorrow.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“I’d have thought you’d already have instructed one.” She hung up.

I’d completely forgotten about my impending manslaughter charge.