The Soul Collector

by Paul Johnston

  Back in the cottage, having closed the three padlocks on the shed, the Soul Collector assumed the lotus position. As ever, she thought of her brother. He had called himself the White Devil, but to her he would always be Leslie, the name he’d been given by his adoptive mother. Although she’d since discovered that their birth mother had dubbed him Oliver in the days before she handed them over, that name seemed as unreal as Angela, the one she’d been given. Leslie had made her life. Before he had accosted her outside the Daily Independent offices, she had been a typical soulless journalist, with her eyes only on the next story. She didn’t even have a steady boyfriend, just a string of drunken one-night stands that hadn’t even provided good sex. Leslie had given her that. She’d been able to abandon herself to him precisely because he was her brother—breaking the taboo of incest had been incredibly exhilarating. When he’d told her they were twins, she hadn’t believed him. There was little facial resemblance between them, though once they were in contact she was able to commune with him in the strange way many twins experience. That had made working with him in his great revenge plot so much easier.

  Leslie had made only one mistake. His desire for his name to go down in history had driven him to involve the writer Matt Wells. The worm who thought he had turned, the useless fuck who was now crying for his friend Dave. Although he hadn’t brought about her brother’s death—the SAS men who had executed Leslie would soon be paying for that—Matt’s resistance had meant that not all the people her brother had planned to kill became victims. She would harvest their souls soon. Her plan had been two years in the making and Leslie would have applauded its subtlety.

  Vengeance is mine, the woman thought. Was there anything purer and more life-enhancing than revenge? The Jacobean tragedians knew its worth, despite the fact that ultimately they had to kill their revengers to end their works in ways acceptable to the establishment of the time. John Webster, in particular, had more than passing sympathy for his tragic characters, not least the incestuous siblings Vittoria and Flaminio in The White Devil. Although the revengers were punished, their lives and deeds were portrayed as tragic, and therefore noble, while the supposedly virtuous characters were no less corrupt and hypocritical, but much less interesting.

  Her brother had shown her that revenge was meaningless without killing. The deceived wives who put laxatives in their husbands’ coffee or poured sugar into the petrol tanks of their expensive cars weren’t serious revenge-takers. To earn the title of revenger, it was necessary that the people who had injured you died, preferably in as much agony as possible. When Leslie had first given her the opportunity to kill, she had flinched, but only for a few seconds. After that, she’d never had any problem.

  The Soul Collector opened her eyes. It was time to make contact with Wolfe and his men. They were her first targets, even though Matt and his friends were trying to trace her. No doubt the computer expert Roger van Zandt had been responsible for transferring the money out of her accounts. She didn’t care about that. She had her own hacker who would respond, but the money didn’t matter. All she cared about was taking her revenge, slowly and with exquisite pain. She would deal with the fool Matt and his friends when she was ready.

  She laughed. So far Matt had reacted exactly as she had expected. He had gone into hiding, and sent his mother, ex-wife and daughter to a secret location. By doing that, he thought he was minimizing the risk to them. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

  There was no answer from Alistair Bing’s landline, but I got through on his cell phone.

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s Matt Wells.” I’d met Bing at a couple of crime-writing festivals, before he became a bestseller. He’d struck me as a seriously dull person. He wasn’t one of those authors who allowed themselves to be addressed both by their real name and their pseudonym, as I did. He seemed to prefer the latter. Maybe he got a kick out of hiding behind an invented identity.

  There was a pause. “Hello, Matt. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  “Thanks. Listen, this might sound strange, but you’re in a lot of danger.”

  “Am I?” Suddenly there was tension in his voice.

  “I think the person who killed Mary Malone and Sandra Devonish is planning to murder you.”

  “What? Oh my God!”

  “Calm down and listen carefully. It’s essential you don’t give away to the killer that you know. The deadline is midnight.”

  “Deadline?” he asked, his apprehension replaced by curiosity. “What do you mean? I assumed that stuff in the papers about you being in touch with the murderer was speculation.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Can you help me, then?”

  “Cool it, Alistair. Where are you?”

  “In Harley Street, near my house.”

  “All right, I’m sending a couple of my friends around to look after you. Do what they say and you’ll be all right.”

  “Okay.” There was another pause. “Hold on, Matt. Maybe the killer’s watching me. If your friends show up, he might get even more pissed off.”

  He wasn’t stupid. It was possible that Sara or some sidekick had him under surveillance. “What do you propose, Alistair?”

  “Let me think,” he said, sounding strangely confident. He was probably having an adrenaline overdose. Being targeted by a serial killer was what every crime writer secretly wanted. I’d felt more alive than ever before when the White Devil was toying with me. “I’ll go home, stay in for a couple of hours, then casually walk out and disappear into the West End. I’ll go and stay—”

  “Don’t tell me!” I yelled. “Don’t tell anyone.” It struck me that I had no idea whether Alistair Bing was married, or what his sexual orientation was. Josh Hinkley would no doubt have told me if he was either gay or a serial shagger. “Does anyone else live with you?”

  “Only my mother.”

  So the author of the ultra-hard Jim Cooler books, who must have been in his early forties like I was, lived with his mum. His publishers didn’t put that in their press releases. “Is she mobile?”

  “What do you mean?” Bing sounded like I’d insulted his family honor. “She can walk. She’s only seventy.”

  “Calm down, Alistair. It’s important that she doesn’t panic.”

  He laughed humorlessly. “Panic? My mother? She’s hard as nails.”

  I wondered if he’d based Jim Cooler on her. “Fair enough. Get her out of London, if you can. Yourself, as well. But don’t go together. Otherwise you might put her in danger.”

  “Mother can look after herself,” Bing said, almost fatalistically. “I’m not sure if I’m up to all that.”

  “Of course you are, Alistair. Just keep a clear head. Don’t tell anyone about this and drop out of circulation.”

  “How long for?”

  “A few days, I suppose.”

  “Should I call you, then? At this number?”

  Shit. I’d forgotten to block the caller ID function. “No,” I said firmly. “I’ll send a text to your cell phone, okay?”

  “Okay,” he repeated. “What about the police? Why aren’t you talking to that woman in Scotland Yard? The one you’re involved with…What’s her name again?”

  “Karen Oaten.” I sighed, tired of the accusatory tone accompanying the mention of Karen. “Look, Alistair, I know Josh has been stirring things up in the Crime Writers’ Society. I don’t give a fuck about that. I’ve got my reasons for staying out of touch with the police. If you want to talk to Karen, I can’t stop you. But the cops have their ways of doing things and they might antagonize the killer, putting you—and your mother—in even greater danger.”

  He thought about that. “All right, Matt. I’ll do as you say. Make sure you text me, though. I can’t spend too many days out of the link. People from Hollywood call me all the time, you know.”

  Tosser, I thought. “Look, buy a new cell phone, but use it as sparingly as possible. Have you read my book, The Death List?”

  “I can’t s
ay I have. Why?”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him. Every crime writer I knew had read the book out of curiosity. “In it I describe the sophisticated surveillance the White Devil used. Don’t log on to your e-mail provider. Set up a new account with a false name at an Internet café.”

  “All right.” He gave a weak laugh. “You’re not having me on, are you, Matt?”

  Jesus. “You know what happened to Mary Malone and Sandra Devonish, Alistair? They had something in common with you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They were both international bestsellers. It may be that they were killed by a jealous crime novelist.”

  He wasn’t laughing now. “You mean it isn’t her?” he asked. “The White Devil’s sister?”

  So much for him not having read my book. “I don’t know,” I said, then realized how feeble that sounded. “It could be. Now, get yourself organized.”

  “Right. ’Bye, Matt. And thanks.” The connection was broken.

  I told the others that Brooks was going to duck out of sight.

  “So what now?” Andy asked.

  I looked at him and Pete. “If you’re up for it, you two can check the house in Oxford that Sara bought.”

  “Oh, great,” Pete said, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “You want to put us in the firing line again. Besides, that city is full of smart-arse students.”

  “Fifty percent of them being female,” I said to Andy.

  “I rest my case,” Pete said.

  “What’s your problem, Boney?” I asked. “What do you think the other fifty percent are?”

  “Toffee-nosed gits,” he said.

  Half an hour later, Pete and Andy left. I looked at my watch. It was coming up to eight-thirty. Three and a half hours to go before I sent the correct answer. How would the killer react?

  Twenty

  Karen Oaten was sitting at the head of the table in the conference room on the eighth floor of New Scotland Yard. She was flanked by John Turner and Amelia Browning. Also present were Detective Superintendent Ron Paskin and Detective Inspector Ozal from Homicide East, Detective Chief Inspector Colin Younger from Homicide Central and DI Luke Neville from Homicide West. Just as Oaten was reaching for the phone, Dr. Redrose came in. He offered no apology or explanation for his late arrival.

  “Right, let’s get started,” Karen Oaten said. “I’ve asked you all to this meeting because we need to share insights and ideas. For your information, the assistant commissioner was very keen that we assemble. We have a total of seven murders at different locations across the city and we’ve got either to establish or rule out a common thread. Yes, DI Neville?”

  “Excuse me for asking, but what do gangland killings in the east have to do with my crime-writer murder in Fulham?” He gave Oaten a tight smile. “Which you’ve taken over, in any case, so what am I doing here?”

  Karen gave him an icy look. “You can’t have it both ways, Inspector. The VCCT may have taken the case, as is our right, but we want to keep Homicide West involved. Are you in or out?”

  Neville chewed his lip. “In.”

  “Good,” the chief inspector said. “Let’s see if we can find a connection. Your crime-writer murder, as you call it, came first. Give us your thoughts.”

  The pale-faced inspector shrugged. “Not much to say, really. We’ve been up and down the street, looking for witnesses. No one apart from the teenager saw anything. It was a filthy night, so they were all keeping warm with their curtains closed. We’ve checked the CCTV recordings at Fulham Broadway Station and the traffic cameras there. Your man’s also had a look. We didn’t spot any familiar faces, or anyone who looked suspicious. If there hadn’t been the murder of the second crime novelist, I’d have put the Mary Malone killing down to Satanists. The pentagram and the Latin words, the removal of nail-clippings and hairs, and the decapitation of the black cat are all pointers to devil worship, as is the Rolling Stones song.”

  “The Satanist angle is bollocks,” John Turner said, glaring at Neville. “For a start, how many people have devil worshippers killed in London in the last year?” There was silence. “Correct. A big fat zero. Even more to the point, Satanists usually leave fingerprints all over the place. They also like to empty their bowels and bladders at scenes.”

  “Doesn’t mean there can’t be a careful one,” DI Neville said.

  “There were footprints in the garden and in the house, weren’t there?” Amelia Browning asked.

  Neville nodded. “Size nines. We checked the sole. It’s from a workman’s boot that you can buy on any high street.”

  “The CSIs managed to lift some prints from the carpet in Wilde’s,” DCI Younger put in. “They reckon it’s the same pair as were used in Fulham.”

  Oaten nodded. “Okay, let’s move on to the murder of Dave Cummings,” Oaten said. “Taff, you’ve got this one.”

  The Welshman glanced at the file in front of him. “We found a witness two streets away from the scene who saw a motorbike being driven fast at around a quarter to eleven, which squares with the time of death. Unfortunately, the witness, who’s an elderly lady, couldn’t say anything about the bike or the registration number. All she remembers is a figure dressed in black, crouching low.”

  “Sounds like a professional hit man,” DCI Younger said.

  Turner nodded. “The main issue with this killing, which certainly bears the marks of a professional, is its links with the White Devil case. Dave Cummings was injured in the legs by the devil’s sister, Sara Robbins. Those wounds were replicated, and the shots to the head mirror those which killed her brother. CSIs have found various traces including mud and wool fibers, but Matt Wells, who found the body, and his friends were in the house not long after the murder. The likelihood is most of the traces came from them.”

  Dr. Redrose looked at Karen. “I take it Matt Wells’s friends are also—how shall I put it?—out of circulation?”

  Oaten caught his eye and nodded. “And just to be clear, I have had no contact with Matt Wells since we took him to the Yard after his friend’s death, apart from a phone call when I urged him to come in.” She looked around, challenging them all with her eyes, but no one spoke. “Go on, Taff.”

  “It appears Dave Cummings opened the door to his killer—there’s no sign of a break-in. It’s impossible to be sure, but the likelihood is that the killer was in some sort of disguise, maybe as a postman.”

  DI Neville swallowed a laugh. “What? He—or rather, she—was wearing a postie’s uniform under the leathers?”

  “Have you got a better idea?” Turner demanded.

  DCI Younger raised a hand. “It strikes me that there’s no evidence to connect the killer of Mary Malone—and Sandra Devonish, for that matter—with the person who shot Dave Cummings. The modus operandi is different, there was none of the devil-worship paraphernalia, no music playing and no message, in Latin or any other language.” He ran a hand over his gray hair. “Just a thought.”

  “Thanks, Colin,” Karen Oaten said. “You’re quite right. Despite the absence of evidence, I’m sure that Sara Robbins was behind the shooting of Dave Cummings, even if she contracted it out. Apart from the Latin reference to the devil, there is indeed no direct evidence that Sara Robbins murdered the two crime writers.”

  DI Ozal looked at her. “But you think she did.”

  Oaten remained impassive. “She’s definitely a suspect, Inspector. I don’t think Matt would…Matt Wells would have gone underground with his friends if there hadn’t been a direct threat of some kind.”

  Superintendent Paskin nodded. “I know what the newspapers are saying, stirred up by another crime writer as far as I can see. But do you really think Wells has been in touch with Sara Robbins?”

  All eyes were on Karen Oaten. “Vice versa, I’d say.”

  “Why would she do that?” Paskin asked.

  “Because she’s emulating her brother—you’ll remember he sent Matt texts to work on. I think Sara Robbins is doing something
similar, her aim ultimately being to kill Matt in revenge for what happened to her brother.”

  “As far as I recall,” Paskin said, “three unknown men killed the White Devil. Wasn’t there a hint they were Special Forces?”

  Oaten nodded. “Matt had to be careful about that in his book.”

  “What if Sara Robbins is after them, too?” Amelia Browning asked.

  Neville laughed. “I’d like to see a woman try to take out three SAS types.”

  Oaten ignored that and continued to look thoughtfully at Amelia. She twitched her head. “Superintendent Paskin,” she said. “Maybe you could tell us how you’re getting on with the four murders in your area.”

  The superintendent gave her an avuncular smile. “We’ve arrested another Turk for the murder of Mehmet Saka, the first victim. There was a family feud and the killing doesn’t appear to have any connection with the subsequent ones. The second, the Kurd Nedim Zinar, was an enforcer of sorts for the King.”

  “Of sorts?” asked Dr. Redrose.

  “Well, he was a big softy really, wasn’t he, Mustafa?”

  DI Ozal gave a solemn nod. “Even some of the ethnic Turks liked him. He used to help people out.” He glanced at his boss. “We used him as an informer occasionally.”

  “Could that have been a motive for his murder?” Turner asked.

  “I doubt it, Taff,” Ron Paskin said. “I’d say he was chosen because he was an easy target.”

  “Easy?” Amelia Browning said, screwing her eyes up. “He was over six feet and sixteen stone. Whoever stabbed him must have had some nerve, let alone strength.”