The Soul Collector

Six

The Soul Collector took off all her clothes-what an inspiration the disguise had been-and stood naked in the cheap hotel room. There was a mirror near the bathroom door and she studied herself in it. Some mornings she still didn’t recognize what she saw, but this wasn’t one of them. She glanced at the watch she had removed from her coat pocket. It was coming up to eleven o’clock. Matt and his idiot friends would be at the house in Dulwich. She wondered how he would take the work of art she had left him. Badly, she was sure of that. He had always been weak, for all his claims to understand the criminal mind. That book-he would regret what he’d written about her brother and her, as would all the people he loved. Not that the ex-SAS man had shown her the pain he was undoubtedly feeling. Eventually, after he’d finally agreed to make the call to alert Matt and even managed not to sound like a man in terrible agony, she put an end to it. She admired him for that, if nothing else.

Eyes still fixed on her perfect body, the unsupported breasts firm and the lines of her face even more striking than they had been, she took off the black leather outer gloves and put them in an opaque rubbish bag. Her hands were still covered with latex, the pale gray flecked with blood that hadn’t washed away in the target’s sink. She stripped them off and put them in a different bag. Then she stepped gracefully onto the uneven bathroom tiles and into the battered shower cabinet. The hot water cleansed her, but the cold she stood under for much longer was what she really enjoyed. It made her skin tingle and her nipples harden. She always felt like this after “a mission”-that was what the men who’d trained her had called killings. She knew they used the euphemism to distance themselves from what they did to their fellow human beings. She had no such scruples. She killed because she was good at it and because it brought her closer to her dead brother-the brother who had also been her lover. She put her fingers between her legs, then took them away. There would be time for that later. Now she wanted to glory in what she had achieved, doused in the cold that was her natural medium.

She was thinking about other SAS men. The ex-soldier she’d just worked on had known the three who’d dispatched her brother. Two years ago, she had stopped as she was fleeing from the wood yard in East London, long enough to hear one of them ask her victim of today what he was doing there. That had been all she’d needed. Matt Wells hadn’t said much about the three killers in his book, but he mentioned they had Special Forces experience and that they had pursued the White Devil because he’d killed a former comrade: Jimmy Tanner. She had heard that name before-Tanner was the drunk who’d trained her brother how to kill along with numerous other skills. He had also been one of the White Devil’s earlier victims. She had salted away those pieces of information, but after she’d moved her brother’s deposits into new accounts, finished her training and dispatched her early targets in Latin America and the U.S., she was ready to act.

The woman had slipped into Britain by ferry from Belgium a month ago. She had a new look, identity and passport, but she’d waited for a busy and rainy day to ensure she didn’t stick out from the crowd. Although every immigration officer in the country would have a photo and description of Sara Robbins in their laptops, she hadn’t been recognized under her new name and guise. That gave her confidence for the murders ahead; no point in wasting time calling them missions.

She’d passed a hundred pounds to a publican in Brighton and was given contact numbers. A homely woman with two squealing kids had provided her with a driving license that would stand computer scrutiny. A man with rat’s-tail hair had sold her a brand-new Heckler and Koch U.S.P., a silencer and a hundred 9 mm cartridges; he even threw in a Spyderco C36 military knife with a black blade for free. Then she’d paid cash for a common-as-dirt white van she’d seen in a dealer’s yard in Southampton. Her adoptive father had been a farmer and he had taught her about the workings of cars and tractors-she could tell in five minutes that the van was adequate. She’d taped over the rear windows and put a mattress and sleeping bag in the back with her bike, a red metallic XL650V Transalp.

Dave Cummings had been easy. She’d been sure Matt and his friends would have alarms on their houses. They would also have set up alert codes to be used if any of them were under threat. From the van, she had studied the movements of the burly demolition expert and his family. She’d considered murdering them all and leaving pieces of the children about the house, but decided against that-not from any qualms of conscience, but because she didn’t want to risk the neighbors hearing the screams. Instead, when the wife and kids left, she’d struck.

All she needed to do now was snare the three men who had executed her brother. Her plan was already under way.

I felt Andy’s hand on my shoulder.

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” he said, then his grip tightened. “I’m going to check the rest of the house. The bastard who did this might still be here.”

I knew he was right. I wanted to go with him-maybe, when we came back, the atrocity wouldn’t be here any longer, maybe I’d imagined it, I’d always had a vivid imagination….

I dug my fingernails into my palms and forced myself to look up. Dave was wearing only jeans and shoes. They were soaked in blood, as was the sofa he lay sprawled across. His arms were outstretched and his legs wide apart. Something terrible had happened to his legs. There were bullet wounds across both thighs and in the kneecaps. But worst of all was his head. It had been broken open, his features unrecognizable beneath a carpet of blood and soft tissue. Dave was no longer there. What he had been-his spirit, his bighearted soul-had disappeared. I fell forward like a worshipper before the shrine of some ancient, blood-addicted god, my chest racked by sobs and my face soaked with tears.

“Matt?” I heard Pete say, in my earpiece. “Are you in? There’s someone moving around on the first floor.”

“This is Andy. Get in here, both of you. The house is clear.”

The American came thundering down the stairs, then unlocked the front and back doors. I felt his hand on my shoulder again.

“Come on, Wellsy,” he said, “let’s get you out of here.”

“No!” I screamed. “I can’t leave him! I’m not leaving him on his own.”

“Fucking hell,” Rog said, retching. He ran out, a hand to his mouth.

“What the…” Pete was standing next to us, his mouth slack. “What animal did this?”

“You…you know who did it,” I said, staring up at them through the blur of tears. “It was…It must have been Sa…Sa…” I couldn’t complete the name of the woman I had once loved. But even if she had been the one who’d pulled the trigger, I knew I was the true author of Dave’s death. If I had refused to get involved with the White Devil, this would never have happened. I felt the weight of that knowledge bear down on me. The sight of my friend’s ruined body added years to my life in a few seconds.

Pete and Andy pulled me to my feet and walked me out of the room. I wiped my eyes with the back of my arm and saw Rog leaning over the kitchen sink, a string of vomit hanging from his lower lip.

“Call…call Karen,” I said as they sat me at the breakfast table.

Andy dug in his pocket for his phone.

“No,” I said, batting his arm away. “Me. You have to go, all of you. I’m…I’m responsible.”

“Screw that,” Pete said. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

Andy lifted up his automatic and pointed at the case that held the sniper’s rifle. “Um, I think you’re wrong there, Boney.” He stuck his empty hand out at me. “Come on, Matt. Hand ’em over. Glock, knife, walkie-talkie, everything you’ve got.”

I complied, too numb to protest. He was right. There was no point in me putting Karen in a difficult position by being in possession of an illegal firearm.

“Car key, as well,” Andy said. “I’ll drive the Saab around here for you, okay?”

Pete gripped my wrist. “You don’t have to stay here on your own, Matt,” he said. “You can come with us. Karen will understand.”

I shook my head. “No, Boney. I have to do this.” I swallowed a sob. “For Dave.”

“You two go,” Pete said, tossing keys to the Cherokee to Rog. “I’ll meet you at the end of the road.”

Andy nodded at me, and then pushed Rog gently to the back door. “Lock this after us,” he said to Pete.

I pushed my chair back and stood up.

“What are you doing?” Boney asked. “Don’t-”

I swerved past him, my breathing ragged. There were two things I had to do before Dave was taken beyond my reach. I forced myself to look at the remains of the bravest man I’d ever known. I was looking for a message-the White Devil had inserted messages inside many of his victims’ bodies. His mouth was partially open. I kneeled down and mumbled an apology to him, though I knew he would have understood. I was still wearing a glove. Trying to ignore the torn tissue and splintered bone, I moved his jaws farther apart and peered inside, blinking away my tears. There was nothing. I couldn’t find any pieces of paper inside his blood-drenched trousers. I had to move him to each side to get to the back pockets. His blood transferred to my jacket, and I swore to myself that I’d never wash it again. I took off his shoes, but again didn’t find a thing. It was beyond me to put them back on the feet that had carried him past despairing opposition players so often on the rugby pitch.

Rocking back on my heels, I took in the mutilated face and legs. The White Devil had been dispatched by pistol shots to the head, and I was certain Dave’s wounds were a deliberate imitation of that. She had also shot him in the legs back then-those wounds had been repeated. Perhaps those were the only messages I was going to get this time. They were enough.

I stood up and bent over the body. Then I took off my glove and closed Dave’s eyes beneath the partially congealed slick of blood. I didn’t care that my fingerprints would be on the eyelids. There were some duties that friends had to discharge, whatever the circumstances. I leaned close and spoke to my friend for the last time.

“We’ll get her, Dave, I promise you that. And we’ll look after Ginny and the…and Tom and Annie.” His son was the same age as Lucy, his daughter two years older. The horror that they would have to face made me blink hard. Then I opened my eyes again and inhaled the coppery smell of fresh blood.

“No matter how far she goes, I’ll be on her tail,” I said, standing up straight.

There was only one more thing to say-the catch-phrase that everyone who played for South London Bisons used when a game seemed to be lost.

“No mercy, no surrender.”

Pete arrived at my side. He repeated the words, and then turned me around, gently but insistently. In the hall, I took out my phone and called Karen.

“Dave’s been murdered,” I said, the words singeing my mouth. I gave her the address. After I’d hung up, I turned to Pete. “You’d better get moving.”

He pushed me back toward the kitchen. “Let him be now,” he said. “Don’t go back in there.”

I nodded my agreement. I had no appetite to see Sara’s handiwork again. Besides, I wanted to check the rest of the house. It was possible she’d left a message somewhere else and I didn’t want the police to find it first. After about ten minutes I heard sirens. But by that time I’d only managed to ascertain one thing: there was no sign of a break-in.

Had Dave willingly admitted his killer?

“Where are we going, Mummy?” Lucy asked from the backseat.

Caroline Zerb looked in the rearview mirror. “Never mind,” she said, her voice sharp. She had been watching for cars on her tail ever since they’d left the house in Wimbledon.

“It’s a magical mystery tour,” Fran said, turning her head and smiling at her granddaughter. She had been a primary schoolteacher before her children’s books had taken off, and her skills with children were far superior to Caroline’s.

Lucy raised an eyebrow skeptically. “How long are we going to go round and round the motorway?”

“Until I decide otherwise,” her mother said, accelerating up the fast lane, then cutting inside and slowing down in front of a lorry. Matt had given her a book about surveillance techniques and she had practiced how to make life difficult for a tail. The initial shock she’d felt when her ex-husband sounded the alarm had worn off and now she was anxious about the meetings she’d been forced to cancel.

Her phone rang and she pressed the button on her hands-free kit. “It’s me,” Matt said. “Listen carefully, I haven’t much time. This is a full alert.”

“What’s happened?”

“Just listen! Are you on the M25?”

“Yes.”

“Get off at the next exit and find a pay phone. Your cell phone frequency may be being scanned. Follow instruction two, repeat, two. I’ll be in touch. Give…give my love to Lucy and Fran.”

“Matt?” Caroline swallowed an expletive when the connection was broken.

“Is he all right?” Fran asked, her face drawn.

“I think so. He was in a hurry. He sent his love to you both.”

The two women exchanged glances. They both knew that something bad had happened. There had been a number of false alarms, but they’d never yet had to use the suitcases they had permanently ready.

Caroline indicated left and drove up the Sevenoaks exit. Matt would explode when he discovered they were in her car. The standing instruction if she picked up Fran was for them to take the older woman’s considerably less noticeable Renault Clio. Caroline couldn’t do without her Mazda RX-8, though. It was fast, it could outpace almost any tail. Because Matt’s emergency plans were so compartmentalized, it was quite possible that he’d never find out about the car. Everything worked on a need-to-know basis-and he didn’t need to know about the black Mazda.

Eighteen months ago, she’d memorized the five instructions on the list that had then been destroyed. The second required her to call a number and ask if there were any messages for Zeppelin Delta. She’d be given the address of the safe house. Matt had told her that further instructions were taped beneath the top drawer of the chest in the largest bedroom. Although he’d bought the safe house with a small part of his ill-gotten gains from The Death List, he’d done so via a solicitor who’d been instructed never to give the owner details of the property or its address-the story was that the terms of the divorce settlement required that confidentiality. Caroline sometimes thought it was a ridiculous overreaction to the White Devil case; then she would remember her abduction at the hands of the madman and his sister, who was still on the loose and had threatened revenge on Matt and his circle. And she would remember that Fran and Lucy had also been taken by the bastards. She glanced in the mirror. Any inconvenience was immaterial as long as her daughter was kept safe.

Fran turned to her granddaughter when Caroline got out at the service station. “This is exciting, isn’t it, dear?”

Lucy shrugged. She was on the cusp of adolescence and nothing her elders said was satisfactory. “I don’t see why Mummy had to take my phone away.”

“You have to trust her,” her grandmother said. She had turned her own cell phone off. That didn’t bother her, as she despised the things. She was more concerned at the disruption to her latest book. The Flight of the Bumbling Bee was at the crucial second draft stage. At least she’d remembered to bring a disk with the text on it. Presumably there would be a computer in the safe house. The standing instruction was that laptops were not to be brought, in case bugs had been fitted. Fran didn’t see how that could happen as she never took her laptop away from home, and Matt had made sure that her home was equipped with armored windows and doors, enough locks and chains to keep a prison governor happy and an alarm system that must have cost him a fortune. She hadn’t been happy when he told her that an expert could still get in and out, and leave no trace.

“Gran?” Lucy said, her eyes fixed on the door of the service station. “Who’s Mummy talking to?”

Fran’s stomach clenched when she saw that Caroline was deep in conversation with a woman whose back was turned to the car.

Ignoring Matt’s strict instructions, Fran opened the door and swung her feet out. Lucy wasn’t staying on her own. She wrestled with the rear-opening door and clambered out after her grandmother.