The Soul Collector

by Paul Johnston

  “Shit,” Turner said, in a low voice.

  His boss stared at him. “What’s the matter, Taff? Don’t tell me you think it was Old Nick himself?”

  The inspector shook his head. “No, guv. It’s a human being dressing up as the devil, and that makes it even worse.”

  Karen Oaten tossed the reports onto her desk. “What about the Latin devil reference then, Taff?”

  “Did you mention it to Matt Wells?” the inspector countered.

  “He was somewhat concerned.”

  “I’m not surprised. But anyone who read his book could have been inspired to do that kind of thing.”

  Oaten gave a tight smile. “I did point that out to him.”

  “So you don’t think it’s her? The White Devil’s sister.”

  “Sara Robbins? It could be, but we haven’t got sufficient data to suppose so. Matt hadn’t received any message from her by last night.”

  “How about today?” John Turner’s face hardened. “Anyway, would he tell you if he had?”

  Karen Oaten met his eyes and then looked away. She wasn’t at all sure that Matt would come clean. That and the nature of Mary Malone/Shirley Higginbottom’s murder gave her a very ominous feeling.

  Three

  I spent the rest of the day trying to occupy myself with my column. When that did nothing but make me wonder if my archenemy, Sara, was responsible for Mary Malone’s death, I tried writing an album review. Unfortunately, the CD I was to listen to was by the Willard Grant Conspiracy—good stuff, but mainly murder ballads sung by a deep, lugubrious voice that could have emanated from Hades itself. I didn’t manage to write more than the first line. It was obvious that I needed help, so I called my mates. Five minutes later, I’d arranged to meet them later on in a pub near London Bridge. We called it the Zoo, because the clientele was a weird mixture of City whiz kids wearing expensive suits, stallholders from the Borough Market in grubby white coats and bewildered tourists. I didn’t need to twist the others’ arms too much, but the short notice made them curious. Two years back, the White Devil had set up an intricate surveillance system, so we were always succinct when speaking on the phone. Despite the fact that no one apart from us knew what or where the Zoo was, I still couldn’t finish the album review.

  A chill wind was blasting up the Thames from the North Sea when I came out of London Bridge Station. The lights of the City blazed out across the river. Apparently the people who ran the financial sector were unaware of global warming—or maybe they just didn’t give a toss. I’d kept an eye out when I was traveling and had stepped off a couple of trains before they left, like the Fernando Rey character in The French Connection. I didn’t think anyone was tailing me. To make sure, I took a roundabout way to the pub, before slipping in as a double-decker bus passed and obscured me from the other side of the road.

  Andy Jackson had already occupied the table we always took at the rear. The Zoo’s lights were as low as ever, which was another reason we liked it.

  “Yo, writer man,” the blond-haired American said, draining his glass and extending it toward me.

  “Yo, chef person,” I replied, heading for the bar. I returned with a pint of Australian lager for him and one of Directors for me. “I don’t know how you can drink that wallaby urine, Slash.” His nickname came from the way he used to cut through the opposition defensive line on the rugby pitch—nothing to do with the big-haired Guns N’ Roses guitarist.

  “Yeah, like that bitter wasn’t sprayed out by a hog.” He grinned at me. Andy was tall and muscle-bound, the kind of guy everyone wanted on their team. He’d grown up in a town he called the asshole of New Jersey and had almost made it to the NFL, but his knee was suspect and he was let go. That turned him against his native country, so he crossed the Atlantic, trained as a chef, and now held down a job in a Mexican restaurant near the British Museum.

  I took a long drink. “No one on your tail?” I asked in a low voice.

  He shook his head. “You gonna come clean about what’s going on, Matt?”

  “When the others show.” I caught his eye. “So what’s new on the female front?” Andy was a serious skirt-chaser.

  “Same two things there always were,” he said, with a grin. “Judy. Brunette, long legs, big…things on the front, and sent straight from paradise.”

  “Bragging again, Slash?” I looked around and saw the stocky figure of Dave Cummings, a pint in his hand. He always got his own—it was some strange ritual he’d learned in the Parachute Regiment or the SAS. He was the hard man of the group, but he was putty in the hands of his kids. “Hello, lad.” He put an arm around my waist. Dave had always treated me like a kid brother, even though he was only three years older. Compared with what he’d seen of the world and its wars, my life was pretty sheltered.

  “Hello, Psycho,” I said, pulling a stool out for him. His hair was cut close to his scalp. “How’s the demolition business?”

  “Falling,” he said with a laugh. It was a long-running gag. “Hey, Slash, what’s the best way to cook lobster?”

  “Are they talking about food again?” Roger van Zandt had appeared at my side. The other two nodded at him and continued talking. Curly-haired and slight, Roger had been famous for the tackles he put in on much beefier men.

  “Hi, Rog,” I said, getting up and going over to the bar. “How’s it going?”

  “Quiet,” he said, picking up the pint I’d bought him. “I’ve been reduced to writing programs for an advertising company, would you believe?” Rog ran his own computer consultancy.

  “That bad, eh? Before you know it, you’ll be giving hacking lessons to teenagers.”

  “Shh,” he said, raising his hand. “I’m already doing that.”

  “The hell you are,” came Pete Satterthwaite’s voice.

  “Bonehead!” I said, signaling for another pint. “What kept you?”

  “A very naughty young man,” he said, with a lascivious grin. Pete was gay and proud of it. He was also a self-made millionaire, who now spent his time moving his investments around and watching them grow. “Sorry. Did I miss something juicy?” His Lancashire accent was still audible beneath the layers of boardroom English he’d acquired.

  “They’re talking about cooking,” Rog said, inclining his head toward Andy and Dave.

  “Ooh, lovely,” Pete said, running his hand over his naturally bald scalp. “I should have brought my apron.”

  We all sat down.

  “What’s the verdict then, Slash?” I asked.

  “Thermidor, got to be,” the American said. “The dwarf here wants to make bisque. What a waste!”

  I leaned forward. “Okay, guys, huddle,” I said, my voice low. The sounds of “Woman” by Free came from the front of the bar—the Zoo had one of the best juke-boxes in London, which was another reason we liked it.

  “What’s up, Wellsy?” Dave said. “You sounded a bit…I dunno…jumpy on the phone.”

  The others agreed. So much for me trying to play it cool.

  “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that.”

  “It’s her, isn’t it?” Pete said. “The ex-girlfriend from hell, literally.” I could have lived without that characterization of Sara, but it was true. What she’d done with the White Devil and the way she’d deceived me had turned the love I’d once felt for her into dread, something far more disabling than hate.

  “Has she shown up?” Andy asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “At least, not definitely.” I told them about the murder of Mary Malone.

  “I heard about that on the radio this morning,” Rog said. “They didn’t mention anything about a pentagram or words in Latin.”

  “The cops are keeping some things back from the press,” I said.

  “Is Karen working it?” Pete asked.

  “No,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. But she was called over to check it out last night.”

  Dave drained his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So that’s why yo
u got us all over here.”

  I shrugged. “I thought you should know about it.”

  “Aye, you were right.” Dave got up and collected the glasses—he bought rounds, but he never allowed anyone else to buy him a drink. “Back in a moment.” He went to the bar, limping slightly. He’d been wounded in the legs at the climax of the White Devil case and had never got full movement back, despite wearing two physiotherapists out.

  “‘The devil did it,’” Andy said. “Could that mean the White Devil?”

  Bonehead raised a finger. “There you have it, my learned friend. Is it her pretending to be her dead brother, or just a common and garden murderer?” He turned to me. “Wouldn’t your ex have written ‘White Devil’ in Latin? What’s ‘white’ in that language anyway?”

  I racked my memory. “‘Albus,’ I think.”

  “As in Dumbledore?” Rog said. He had a touching attachment to the works of J. K. Rowling.

  When Dave came back, we talked a bit about counter-surveillance—Rog had supplied us each with an electronic bug detector—and about checking if we were being followed. We’d spent time with Dave, as a group and individually, learning how to operate firearms and how to fight with a knife. The other three had done the same courses in boxing, judo and karate as I had—Andy was by far the most proficient, as well as being a heavyweight. But Dave was our main man. He’d learned dozens of ways to kill, maim and render unconscious when he was in the army. We weren’t going to be taken by surprise this time.

  “You’re sure there was no message for you?” Rog asked. “If Sara comes back for revenge, the likelihood is that she’ll copy what her brother did, isn’t it?”

  I looked at him. “Maybe. But Sara’s smart and she had a much better education than the devil. It’s quite possible she’ll come up with her own ways to make my life a misery.”

  Dave kicked my shin lightly under the table. “Don’t worry, lad. I’ll look after you.”

  “Aw, sweet,” Andy said, and they all laughed.

  “Sod off,” I said, and the evening reverted to type—men’s talk, plenty of guffawing and more beer than was a good idea.

  It was fun. I even managed to forget about Sara for a couple of minutes.

  It was after ten-thirty when Nedim Zinar closed up the general store in Dalston, East London. He didn’t work there, but his cousin Muhammed had asked him to check the security a year back and it turned into a regular thing. Nedim found that the man who worked evenings had been taking a percentage from the till in addition to his salary. At least he wasn’t a relation, which meant that Nedim could beat the crap out of him and throw him into one of the nearby Clapton Ponds to bring him around.

  It wasn’t Nedim’s fault that the asshole had drowned. Nothing came of it. Everyone in the Kurdish community knew that Nedim was an enforcer for the King. Although the man himself had been in prison for the last three years, he still controlled his interests, both legal and illicit, by phone and coded message. Everyone in important positions was a family member. There were legitimate businesses—a freight and haulage company, travel agencies, a car dealership, estate agents and a food importing company that supplied delicatessens all over Britain. But the King also bought and distributed drugs, mainly heroin and ecstasy, trafficked people and porn, ran brothels, financed robberies and ran protection rackets. His operations were all over East and North London. The police knew about them, but were content with a few token arrests each month. They knew that the streets would be much more dangerous if the King and the other gangs didn’t keep their people in line.

  Nedim checked the last lock and stood looking at the shop for a few moments. It wasn’t his, but as he could walk in and pick up anything he wanted free of charge, it felt like it was. Occasionally he got a call from Muhammed—some kids who had run off without paying, or alcoholics who had stuffed bottles of cider in their stinking coats; even young mothers who had slipped tins of food under their babies. Muhammed caught them himself most of the time and if he didn’t, he had a good idea who they were. All Nedim had to do was go around and talk, or knock, some sense into them. Even the junkies didn’t try it again after that.

  The big man—Nedim was six foot one and over sixteen stone—checked his watch. He would have time for a quick beer before he went to work the door at the nightclub the King’s brother ran in Islington. He crossed Lower Clapton Road, holding his hand up to stop the traffic—he wasn’t one to waste his energy walking to the lights fifty meters away. A couple of black guys in a four-by-four yelled at him, but they shut up when he made the sign of the letter K in the air. Only the hardest members of the Turkish gang known as the Shadows would take objection to that, and Nedim wasn’t scared of them. He had a Beretta 92 in his breast pocket and people knew he would use it.

  It took Nedim five minutes to reach his minivan. That was the only problem with Muhammed’s shop—there was no parking in the immediate vicinity, and even the King’s lawyers couldn’t do much about the police cameras that registered infringements. The other boys in the operation had laughed when they heard he was getting a “mummy’s car,” but they shut up when they saw it—the black paint and custom-built stereo system almost made it cool. It wasn’t as if Nedim had any choice. He was often told to move people around in groups—tarts, illegal immigrants, men tooled up for action. Besides, he had four kids.

  At least there was a narrow lane that most people never noticed a few minutes’ walk away. Nedim parked the wagon there every evening and it had never even been touched—he would have known. As he walked around the corner, he pressed the button on the key. There was a chirp and lights flashed on the vehicle.

  Nedim was trying to decide whether to play traditional Kurdish music or his recent discovery, Bruce Springsteen, and he didn’t notice the figure crouching behind the car. He went to the rear door and walked into a long blade that went into his belly to the hilt. The breath went out of him and he looked down at the hand holding the instrument of his death. It was sheathed in black leather. He tried to scream as the blade was wrenched upward, but he no longer had control over his voice. He dropped to his knees, dimly aware of the crack they made on the cobblestones. By then, the pain from his abdomen had made his eyes blur with tears. He felt shame, but not for long. The blade was biting, tearing into his very being. He toppled sideways, his shoulder hitting the car. Then the knife was pulled out in a rapid movement.

  Nedim Zinar clutched the gaping wound, feeling the slick coils of his gut spill through his fingers. Then the horror came to a climax when he saw his killer’s face.

  It was that of a scarred and deformed devil.

  I went home without making too many detours. People stared at me when I did my on-off performance with three trains, but I made like I was drunker than I really was. No one paid much attention—behavior like that is pretty standard in London after the pubs shut. I took more care when I came out of Fulham Broadway Station, stopping in doorways and doubling back down a couple of alleyways. There was no sign of anyone following me.

  As I headed toward the river, my cell phone rang.

  “Where are you, Matt?” Karen asked. She sounded wiped out.

  “Homeward bound. You?”

  “My place. Sorry. I’ve got early meetings tomorrow.”

  “Fair enough. Any news?” A stretch limo full of screaming young women passed and I had to shout over them. “I mean, on the Mary Malone case.”

  “Homicide West isn’t much further on. I don’t suppose you’ve had any messages from you-know-who?”

  “I might have had on the landline. I’ll ring after I’ve checked.”

  “Okay.” She paused, as if there was something she wanted to say. “Good night” was all she managed.

  “’Night,” I replied. I should have told her I loved her, and that I was going to jump in a cab and come to her house in Shepherd’s Bush. I wanted to nestle up to her so we could both drop into a deep, uninterrupted sleep, rather than go back to an empty flat where a ghost from the
past might be waiting to haunt me all over again. But I’d missed my chance and I was sure that she knew it as well as I did.

  I shook my head and tried to get a grip. Given the security system in my so-called “ultra-exclusive” block, Sara would have done well even to have got past the armored glass main door. It was over twenty-four hours since Mary Malone’s killing and there had been no sign of her. Some scumbag Satanists had got their kicks out of murdering a defenseless woman. Then I asked myself if I really believed that. The answer wasn’t encouraging. She was coming for me—even if not now, it would happen at some point in the future.

  I found myself walking more quickly, eager to get home to see if Sara was hiding in the wardrobe or even lying on my bed, bold as love. Then it occurred to me that she might not be alone. She was rich enough to hire a small army of mercenaries and hit men. I considered calling Dave. He’d have come without hesitating and he wouldn’t have blamed me if the flat was clean.

  “Come off it,” I told myself. “It’s been two years. Why would she come back now?”

  I slowed my pace as the glass building rose up ahead of me. It wasn’t completely bathed in light, but it was close. I realized that my block and its inhabitants were just as wasteful as the pinstriped specimens in the City. In some cases, they were one and the same, although a lot of the owners were self-employed. I was probably the poorest of those. Still, I’d have to raise the issue at the next building meeting. There were far too many lights in the common areas.

  Then I saw something that made me stop walking. My stomach somersaulted and my heart started to hammer. My flat was on the front and the left sides of the block, on the fourth floor. From where I was, I could see up to the left-hand rooms of my place—the kitchen and guest room. Lights had just come on in both. Jesus.

  I stepped into the shadows, my eyes locked on the glass running the full height of the rooms. There were venetian blinds and curtains in both. The former had been closed when I left. Someone had opened them before turning on the lights, which suggested it wasn’t a burglar, even if one had got past the doors and alarms. It was hardly likely to be Sara or anyone else who had an interest in my demise. They’d made their presence pretty obvious. I thought of ringing Dave again. As I did, I saw a shape move across the kitchen.