The Death List (16 page)

“I…oh fuckin’ hell, it hurts. All right, all right, I’ll tell you. Just let me down.”

The team leader gave him another thirty seconds in the air, then nodded to his colleagues. The chain was loosened and the captive dumped unceremoniously on the rough floor.

“We’re listening, Terry,” Wolfe said. “Talk and we’ll let you go.”

Smail looked at him disbelievingly, and then sobbed as he took in the bloody mess of his ankles. The chain had almost cut through to the bones.

“Jimmy Tanner drank with…?”

“Oh, Christ, I can’t. They’ll kill me.”

“And we won’t?”

“All right, all right. Jimmy, he didn’t much drink with anyone. He got vicious when he’d had a skin-full and we’d seen what he could do. He broke Big Mikey’s arm like it was a stick.” Terry Smail glanced at the three men around him. “Oh, I get it. You’re like him. You’re SAS like he said he used to be, ain’t you?”

“Keep talking,” said the leader, raising the scraper.

The captive gulped. “It must’ve been about six months ago. These two blokes turned up at the Hereward. We all reckoned they was dodgy, but they got talking to Knives, the landlord. I reckon money changed hands. Anyway, Knives introduces them to Jimmy and soon they’re getting on like a house on fire. I heard…I heard they wanted Jimmy to show them things.” He looked at his captors again. “The kind of things you people do.”

“What were their names?”

“I dunno. Aah-ee!” Smail tried to swing away from the rusty blade that was being dragged down his chest. “Corky. That’s all I know. One of them was called Corky. I dunno nothing about the other one.”

“And they used to drink with Jimmy till when?”

“Till about six weeks ago. When he…when he stopped coming. What’s this all about? What’s happened to Jimmy?”

Wolfe shook his head. “That’s what you’re going to tell us, Terry.”

“I…I dunno.” Smail’s eyes moved around frantically. “Honest I don’t.”

Wolfe pulled the scraper back. “Describe the men.”

Terry let out a long sigh of relief. “Um, the one called Corky was nothing special. Not too tall. He had a crappy beard that had bits of food in it and he always wore a woolly hat.” He broke off and looked up at the men. “Like you guys. His nose looked like it’d been flattened by a brick and his eyes were all bloodshot. He was a pisshead, I reckon, even though he only ever drank mineral water.”

“And the man with no name?”

“He was smaller than me. He always wore a baseball cap, red, with some cartoon character on it. He had this shitty long hair, black, in kinda rat’s tails. Oh, yeah, and he had these weird teeth. Pointed. Looked like he was a fuckin’ vampire. That’s what we used to call him. Count Dracula.” He let out a string of feeble, cracked laughs, and then stopped when he saw the three men’s faces. “That’s all I know. Honest. Can I go now?”

Wolfe stood up and looked at his companions. “Oh, you can go all right.” He leaned over the naked man. “You can go on the express elevator to hell. But first you’re going to tell us what you’re holding back. Who is the man with the pointed teeth? We want to meet him very badly.” He tossed the scraper to Geronimo.

Terence Smail’s screams echoed round the empty building. The seagulls outside took up a keening chant that obscured his travails from every passerby.

13

I went back to the Volvo and drove home, having placed the leather bag unopened on the front passenger seat. I felt even more intensely the mixture of rage and impotence that had weighed me down since the Devil first got his claws into me. But there was another emotion now. I tried to resist it because I knew he had planted it in me and was assiduously cultivating it—the desire for revenge. He had spoken to Lucy, he’d touched her. I was going to make him pay. He’d been studying me; he knew how my mind worked even though he’d never met me. But why did he want me to go after him? Did he have some weird kind of death wish, or was he sure that he could keep me at a distance?

I parked outside my place and went inside, the bag under my jacket. For some reason I didn’t want anyone to see me carrying it. As I was climbing the stairs, I understood why not. It was blood money, tainted by the deaths of the Devil’s victims. What was I going to do with it? Hide it in the loft? The money was another part of my tormentor’s plan that I didn’t understand. He’d made me his slave by threatening Lucy and everyone else I loved. He didn’t need to pay me. Did that betray a psychological weakness, that he had to pay for attention? Or was there something more subtle in his thinking?

I checked my e-mails. There was one from Sara, saying that she was tied up with the story and would ring me when she could. There was also one from my mother, and it made my heart pound again.

Dearest,

I hope this finds you well. I know we spoke on the phone the other day, but I wanted to get in touch and I feel more comfortable writing—you understand how writers are, defter by pen and keyboard than by tongue (that could be taken as rude!). You sounded troubled when I called you. I know that your problems with publishers and agents have been getting to you. Don’t let the bastards grind you down! You just have to get on with the next book and prove them wrong. I know you can do it!

Now, something else. Have you been following the news recently? I’m sure you will have been. Those two murders in the headlines. Have you noticed how similar they are to two of the killings in your books? I looked up the particular passages. The priest in Kilburn seems to have been done as per chapter 21 of The Devil Murder. And the poor woman in Chelmsford had her arm severed, just like the vile Blakeston in The Revenger’s Comedy, chapter 26. Isn’t that extraordinary? Obviously a coincidence, but rather a chilling one. Have you had any of your fans pointing it out?

Anyway, don’t worry. I won’t bring it to the attention of the police!

Must get on with Elvira and Tiffany Go to the Beach. Give my love to Lucy (and the opposite to Caroline—sorry, only joking!).

With fondest love,

Fran

“Jesus,” I said under my breath. “Thanks a lot for that, Mother.”

Then my mobile rang. There was no number on the screen.

“Hello, Matt. What—”

“You fucking piece of shit!” I shouted. “What were you doing talking to Lucy? How dare you touch her? I’m going to—”

“You’re going to what?” the Devil answered, his voice steely. “Find me? Catch me? Kill me? Oh, yes, please, Matt. That would be so much fun. You see, I have this enormous death wish.” His laugh was as far from humorous as I could imagine. “Just calm down. What makes you so sure that I was Mr. White? I might have dozens of helpers, hundreds for all you know. Do you really think I would take a risk like that myself?”

I kept silent. I had the feeling that he was quite capable of getting a kick from a stunt like that, but I had no way of knowing how many people were working for him.

“Anyway, be a good little writer and open the bag now, will you?”

I held the phone between my shoulder and ear, and reached across for it. I could see the bundles of twenty-pounds notes before the zip was fully open.

“All right?” the Devil asked.

“There seems to be another five thousand,” I said, emptying the bag.

He laughed, this time more warmly. “I don’t think you’ve got everything I put in for you. Look in the side pocket.”

I felt a stab of concern. What else had the calculating son of a bitch sent me? I pulled the button on the small pocket open. Christ. What was it? I put my fingers in carefully and felt a wiry substance. Taking it out, I saw a mass of brown and white hairs.

“Good man,” said the Devil. “Do you know what they are?”

I swallowed the bitter liquid that had rushed up my throat. “Hair,” I said faintly.

“That’s right, Matt. Pubic hair.”

My fingers sprang apart before I could control myself and the hairs tumbled to the floor.

“A mixture of Bugger O’Connell’s and the cow Merton’s. Dear me, Matt. What are they doing in your flat? How suspicious. You’d better get rid of them. Of course, there’s plenty more where they came from. I can sprinkle them outside your place, I can hide them anywhere I like inside. What do you think of that?”

“Screw you,” I said in a defeated voice.

“I look forward to it. Oh, by the way, I thought it was pretty funny that your mother was the first to connect the killings to your books. Wow, you really are getting yourself exposed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and visit an old enemy.” He grunted—a revolting, degenerate sound. “It’s time to bury the hatchet, or something along those lines. No rest for the wicked. You’ll be getting my notes tomorrow morning. Sorry if they mess up your day with Lucy, but I’m sure Caroline will be happy to have extra time with her. Hey, Matt, she really has got a temper on her, hasn’t she?” He laughed one last time and hung up.

I let the phone drop to the floor. Jesus Christ Almighty. The Devil was all over me like the Black Death. He must have hacked into my e-mail program to have read my mother’s message. I looked around my sitting room suspiciously. Had he installed a camera? If so, what were the chances of me finding it? Even assuming I did, if I put it out of action that might provoke him to even worse horrors. He probably had my landline tapped and a scanner on my mobile, too. Why not go the whole hog? Had he put a transmitter on the Volvo? In my shoes?

Then I remembered what he’d said about Caroline. Did that prove he’d been Mr. White after all, or had he just been observing? Maybe an accomplice had told him about Caroline’s screaming fit.

I put my head between my knees. None of that was important now. The bastard was on his way to kill someone else, that much was obvious. What I had no way of knowing was who that person was. Even if I’d taken Lucy, Caroline, Fran and Sara to the police for protection and admitted everything I knew, there would be no way they could stop the murder of someone else.

For too long I’d luxuriated in the power of life and death over the characters in my novels. I’d never thought how it would feel to have such power over real people. But the White Devil had. If I was to stand any chance of playing his game, I needed to understand his callousness.

I didn’t know if my imagination could reach such depths of depravity.

“Thanks for being so flexible,” Karen Oaten said to the auburn-haired woman sitting opposite her—although she was of average height, her thinness made her seem taller than she was. They were in the café in the basement of a large bookshop on Gower Street. “I didn’t expect you’d be able to see me on a Saturday.”

“That’s all right. I work seven days a week. My partner, Shaz, is forever pestering me to take more breaks.” Lizzie Everhead smiled. “She’ll be pleased to know I’ve given in at last, Chief Inspector.”

That was a direct-enough statement of the academic’s sexuality to someone she’d only just met, Oaten thought. She’d been going to ask her to call her by her first name, but now she decided against it. Too much informality was never a good idea in a murder case, even if this angle was unlikely to pay off. What did she really imagine she was going to find out from this literally blue-stockinged lecturer?

“It’s pretty much a working break, isn’t it, Doctor?” she said, stirring sugar into her coffee. The literature expert was drinking hot water with a slice of lemon.

“Please, call me Lizzie.” The woman laughed. “I love what I do. This isn’t what I call work. Sitting on exam boards and the like is torture, but not this.” She tied her legs in knots, contriving to wrap her foot around her calf as well as crossing her knees. “So, how can I help…” She looked at Oaten’s card. “Karen?”

Oaten felt spots of red on her cheeks. She’d never felt completely at ease with lesbians, even though her own sex life had never been better than deeply average. There had been no shortage of opportunities for same-sex relationships at college, but she’d thrown herself into a series of hopeless affairs with married men and gormless students. For some years, her vibrator had been her only source of release. If only she had the time to find herself a decent man—even a half-decent one would do.

“Er, yes,” she said, coming back to herself. “I gather you’re an expert in Jacobean tragedy.”

“That’s right,” Lizzie Everhead said, inclining her head. She had unusually large eyes, the irises a deep blue shade. “Among other things. What do you need to know?”

Karen straightened her back. “I must warn you that the information I’m about to impart is highly confidential.”

“Ooh, how exciting!” said the doctor, rubbing her hands. She took in the look on the chief inspector’s face. “Sorry. Of course. I understand. I won’t tell anyone.” She smiled. “Not even Shaz.”

“I’ll be the one in trouble if the press gets wind of this, not you,” Oaten said. “As long as you understand that.”

The academic nodded and leaned closer. “Fire away.”

“Right.” The chief inspector lowered her voice. “I imagine you’ll have heard about the murders of the priest in Kilburn and the old lady in Chelmsford.”

Lizzie Everhead looked blank. “No, I don’t read the papers or listen to the news. Radio 3 is my cup of…” She glanced down at the table. “…hot water.” She saw how serious Oaten’s expression was. “Sorry. Tell me.”

So the D.C.I. did, leaving out only one detail. There was a strange kind of gratification in seeing the face of the distinguished scholar of violent tragedy go paler than a sheet when confronted with real-life violence.

“How utterly awful,” Lizzie said, taking an ironed handkerchief from her bag and dabbing her lips. “Unbelievable.”

“There’s more,” Karen said, and told her about the quotations that had been found in the bodies.

The academic sat back and fanned her face with the tissue. “I’m…I’m speechless. A very…a very unusual condition for me, I can tell you.” She drank from her cup and dabbed her lips again. “Lines from Webster’s
White Devil?
Hidden in the mouth and the…” She left the sentence unfinished. “I’m…I’m at a loss.”

Karen Oaten leaned even closer, her face more composed than it had been when she’d described the bodies. “Lizzie, you have to think. Is there any reason why the murderer would have left those particular lines from that particular play?”