Besides, everything I’ve found out about Gavin Burdett suggests that he’s a major-league scumbag. He has a reputation in his company for treating subordinates like dirt; his wife divorced him after she caught him with his dick in the Filipino maid; and one of his former business partners put his head under a train rather than face the charges Burdett had set him up for. Tailing a bastard like that will surely reveal something interesting.
Burdett sits down in the only available seat in the Tube carriage, beating a heavily pregnant woman to it and resolutely avoiding her outraged glare. I raise a newspaper and watch him surreptitiously. He takes a magazine from his briefcase. The multimillionaire investment banker gets down to Big Babes on the Bounce, indifferent to the scandalized looks on other passengers’ faces.
“Pillock,” I say under my breath, then get ready to leave the train when my target stands up.
Burdett comes out on street level at Bethnal Green and looks around. The bastard is handsome in a slightly raddled way, his hook nose, sallow skin and the thick black hair brushed back from his forehead giving the impression of a practiced lothario. I wonder if he is on his way to some woman—maybe he likes a bit of rough, something that wouldn’t be hard to find on the Roman Road. But instead, he starts walking north up Cambridge Heath Road. I keep a discreet distance. Then he slows as he approaches a row of shops. He goes into the second one.
I stop about twenty yards away. This is interesting, but not in any way that I’d have guessed. Gavin Burdett has gone into an establishment called Black As Night. According to the door the shop supplies “Candles, Tarot Cards, Caribbean Herbs and Roots, Occult Books—Everything Wild, Wicked and Witchy.”
Burdett comes out half an hour later with two heavily loaded plastic bags. I’d never have put him down as a devotee of black magic. Then again, he’s about as satanic-looking an individual as I’ve ever come across. And that includes the White Devil and the Soul Collector….
“Hey, Pete, you still alive?”
I came round to the sound of Bo’s voice and blinked away the vision of Gavin Burdett. “Where are we?”
“Between Philly and Baltimore. Some dream you were having, man.” A radio presenter was rattling away in the background.
I nodded, my mouth dry. “Haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“Not much sleep to be found down in D.C., neither.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Bo grinned. “You know those occult killings?”
I felt a stab of unease in my gut. “Yeah?”
“Well, there’s been another one.”
Thirty
At MPDC headquarters, Clem Simmons logged off the Internet and leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t happy with what he’d just found. Joe Greenbaum was right about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant—its ravings had been reported on a site run by an occult enthusiast who called himself The Lord of the Underworld. Earlier, Simmons had got a techie to access the e-mail correspondence on Professor Singer’s laptop. There were no threatening messages in the mail program, but the victim had made a folder for them in his documents file. He had named it “Filth.” Dana Maltravers hadn’t caught it—another disappointment. The virulence of the threats had surprised Simmons—the professor was going to have his throat cut with the jagged lid from a can of pork; the same weapon would be used to mutilate his wife and children; their bodies were to be dumped in acid baths.
The problem for Clem was what to do with the material. It was circumstantial in the extreme and, according to the Web site, no member of the Antichurch had been identified. On the other hand, those people were clearly inciting racial and religious hatred. The obvious course of action would be to ask Peter Sebastian to involve the FBI’s experts, but Simmons wasn’t sure how much he trusted him.
Gerard Pinker came up to his partner’s desk, a wide grin on his face.
“What going on?” Simmons asked, looking up.
“Get this. The English guy Matt Wells got away from twenty-five New York staties this morning.”
“What are you so excited about? Sounds like Sebastian was right about him.”
“Give me a break, Clem,” Pinker said. “Dickhead’s been blowing smoke up our asses.”
Simmons heaved himself to his feet. “Come on, we’re going to be late for our very own deep throat.” He grabbed his coat and headed for the elevator. After hitting the street, they walked toward the National Mall.
“You seriously think Gordy Lister’s going to have anything on the murders?” Pinker asked, stopping at a kiosk to buy gum.
Simmons shrugged. “He’s helped us before.”
“Yeah, with a loony tunes dope dealer we already knew about and that vigilante pimp-killer the Star Reporter turned into a celebrity.”
“We aren’t exactly overflowing with leads, Vers.”
Pinker tightened his silk scarf as the wind whistled between Capitol Hill and the Potomac. “All right, let’s see what the slimeball has to say.”
The newspaperman was where they’d asked him to be, in front of the Washington Memorial. He wore a thick wool coat. His hands were in his pockets and his back was toward them.
“Gordy,” Pinker said, from the newspaperman’s left side.
“Lister,” Simmons added, from his right.
He gave them each an angry look. “What the fuck, guys? What’s so important that I have to freeze my ass off out here?”
“If memory serves, you’re the one who prefers meeting out of doors,” Pinker said.
Lister gave a hollow laugh. “Yeah, well, I got my reputation to think about.”
“You’re going to have your nuts in a bag if you don’t mind your mouth,” Pinker said, baring his teeth.
“Cool it, Vers,” Simmons said. “I’ll get straight to the point, Gordy. You guys been running plenty of stories about the murders.”
The newspaperman gave him a neutral glance. “You mean the occult killings?”
“As you call them,” Clem Simmons said, twitching his nose. “So, we were wondering if you maybe had some angle you haven’t come clean about.”
“What do you mean ‘some angle’? We aren’t detectives, my friend.”
“You got that right,” Pinker said, stepping in front of Lister. “Hey, asshole, you forgotten the last time you tried to play cute with me?”
Gordy Lister looked at his cowboy boots. “No,” he mumbled.
“I didn’t think so. If you don’t want me to stomp on your toes again, start talking.”
Gordy’s head stayed bowed for some time, before he raised it slowly and looked at Simmons.
“Call off your attack poodle, will you, Clem?”
Simmons laid a hand on his partner’s arm. “Don’t mind him,” he said, smiling encouragingly. “What have you got?”
“What I heard, a writer from London is the man. Matt Wells, his name.”
Pinker edged closer. “Come on, Gordy, you know that’s bullshit. He could only have done Professor Singer if he used a private jet.” He caught Lister’s eye. “And he didn’t.”
Lister shrugged. “That’s what our sources are giving us.”
“Those sources wouldn’t happen to be in the FBI, would they?” Simmons asked, poker-faced.
Lister looked down again. “You kidding, Clem? You want me to name our sources?”
“Rhetorical question. What else are you hearing?”
“Not much. ’Course, the guys who are working the stories might be looking at things they haven’t told me yet.”
Gerard Pinker shook his head. “You people are so hot for that sexy occult angle, aren’t you?”
Lister raised his bony shoulders. “Sure. It sells papers.”
“I bet it does,” Simmons said, giving him a slack smile. “Speaking of demons, you ever hear of the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant?”
“Jeez, it’s cold out here. The Antichurch of what? No, man, doesn’t ring any bells.” He shuffled his feet.
Clem Simmons hel
d his gaze on him, then glanced at his partner. “He hasn’t heard of the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant, Vers.”
“No. No, he hasn’t.”
The newspaperman took out his cell phone and looked at the screen. “Look, guys, I got to go,” he said, avoiding their eyes. “See you around.”
Pinker waited till Lister was out of earshot. “What do you reckon?”
“Obviously he was lying about the Antichurch. The question is why. Is that the Star Reporter’s next big story?”
They started to walk back to the MPDC building. They hadn’t gone more than twenty paces when both their phones rang.
Peter Sebastian stood on the west bank of the Anacostia River, below the National Arboretum. To his left, a tent had been erected by the CSIs around the body of the middle-aged male Caucasian that had been found in the river. People had gathered at the barrier tape behind him and he could hear their voices. There wasn’t much sense of shock—people in northeast D.C. were used to violent death—but they were still curious.
The FBI man’s curiosity had also been piqued, and not just by the murder. He watched as Dana Maltravers showed ID, ducked under the tape and came toward him, her expression as resolute as ever.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, points of red on her cheeks.
Peter Sebastian gave her an icy look. “I’ve told you before that I need to be able to reach you at all times, Special Agent.”
Maltravers recoiled. “I was over at Hate Crimes, sir.”
“Really? And what took you there?”
“Those threats that were found in Professor Singer’s e-mail program? It turns out Hate Crimes has logged the group that made them.”
Peter Sebastian’s face changed. “The Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant? What do Hate Crimes know?”
“Very little, unfortunately. It was founded over a hundred and fifty years ago, up in Maine. But it only lasted a few years, till it was violently put down by the locals. There was no sign of it until the threats against Professor Singer late last year.”
“So could they be the killers we’re looking for?”
Maltravers raised her shoulders. “Apparently they used to perform human sacrifices.”
“Shit.” Sebastian looked at his subordinate. “Good work, Dana. I presume Hate Crimes is collating information.”
“I asked them to. You may have to make a formal request. You know what they’re like. They guard their data, even from us.”
Sebastian watched as Detectives Simmons and Pinker arrived at the barrier tape. “Here come the soon-to-be-relieved investigating officers,” he said in a low voice.
Dana Maltravers turned toward the tent.
Peter Sebastian put a hand on her arm. “Just a moment, Special Agent. Do not engage in any more flippant conversation with Pinker. He and his partner are about to become the enemy.”
Maltravers nodded uncertainly, then followed her boss to the tent where the latest victim lay.
“Son of a bitch,” Gerard Pinker said, standing by his Crown Victoria outside the barrier tape. “Who does ol’ Dickhead think he is?”
“Someone who has more pull with the commissioner than you and me,” Clem Simmons said.
“Not to mention Chief Owen.”
Simmons shrugged.
Pinker scowled. “Shit, I’ve never been taken off an investigation in my life.”
Simmons smiled softly. “Me, neither. Then again, we haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory here, have we, Vers?”
“You really think this is one of them?”
“I’m not sure.”
Simmons thought about the male corpse in the tent. He’d been naked when he was found, so the pair of knives in his chest had looked like the obvious cause of death. It hadn’t been until Dr. Gilbert had examined the skull beneath the dead man’s hair that other wounds had been found. The M.E. reckoned that the larger of the two skull fractures would have been lethal. Although it was hard to tell because of the body’s waterlogged condition, she thought that the knives had been inserted postmortem. The time of death was hard to calculate, but Marion Gilbert reckoned the victim had been in the water for at least twenty-four hours, and he had certainly been dead before he went into the river. Her initial evaluation was that the man was in his early forties, in good physical condition and in a profession that demanded substantial exposure to the elements—his hands and face had weathered, probably over the course of many years. The only distinguishing feature on the body was a tattoo on the upper right arm. It showed the Marine Corps insignia and the words Semper Fi.
“Let’s get out of here,” Pinker said, opening the car door. “I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Oh, yeah?” Simmons said, getting in the passenger side.
“Oh, yeah,” his partner mimicked, reversing out onto the road. “That guy wasn’t killed by the occult killer.”
“And your reasoning is?”
“For a start, knives were used instead of skewers. Plus, he hasn’t got a drawing pinned to him.”
Clem Simmons nodded. “True enough. Even if it had been pulled off by the flow of water, there would have been puncture marks.”
“Right. And we kept those collections of shapes out of the public eye. So whoever killed the floater didn’t know about them.”
“Mmm. You could be right. Or maybe the killer just ran out of time.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pinker said, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you something else, Clem. The murderer of the first three is a class act. He didn’t just toss his victims in the river. Why take the risk of being spotted when you’re smart enough to leave no traces?”
The daylight had almost gone. Simmons eyed the lights of central Washington ahead. “You’re forgetting the fingerprints at Monsieur Hexie’s place.”
“Matt Wells’s? They’re a ruse and you know it, man. The Brit isn’t even in the city.”
The big man closed his eyes. “Maybe,” he said, rolling his head on the rest. “But who gives a shit, Vers? We’re off the cases, remember?”
“Screw that,” his partner said, spittle flying from his lips. “Those Bureau assholes will come begging for our help in a day or two.”
Clem Simmons laughed. “Assholes? There was me thinking that you had a soft spot for Princess Maltravers.”
“Kiss my ass, big man. You know brunettes don’t do it for me.”
“I saw the way you’ve been scoping her.”
“Unfortunately it takes two to do the horizontal tango, Clem. She wouldn’t even look me in the eye back there.”
Simmons swallowed a laugh. He reckoned Dana Maltravers might have been warned off by her boss. Not that it mattered anymore. He didn’t trust either agent one little bit.
“Shame about Dr. Gilbert, though,” Pinker said, starting the engine.
“How’s that?”
“We won’t be seeing so much of her. Now, there’s a woman I could go for in a big way.”
This time Simmons didn’t hold back on laughing. “Jesus, Vers. You think you stand any chance with the M.E.? She’s way out of your league, man.”
Pinker shook his head. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, Clem. I’ve always had a good feeling about her.” He looked to the left. Marion Gilbert was heading toward a black SUV, her head down. “You notice a change in her recently?”
“How do you mean?”
Pinker raised a hand at the M.E., but she didn’t respond to the gesture. “I don’t know. She’s looks kinda stressed. Maybe these murders have been getting to her.”
Simmons shook his head emphatically. “You lovesick fool. Dr. Gilbert lives and breathes homicide victims. She’s got formaldehyde in her veins.”
Gerard Pinker pursed his lips as he drove away from the crime scene. Sometimes, he thought, his partner was surprisingly unperceptive.
The blonde woman was lying on the bed and looking out of the window. Her eyes were wide as she took in the trees beyond the high fence and the mist rolling down them. It made her think o
f a wispy summer dress, but she couldn’t remember ever wearing such a thing. She couldn’t remember much about herself at all. All she knew was that she was in hospital, the doctor had told her so this morning. After he’d gone, the friendly nurse had said she was doing very well and that her treatment was almost finished. But when she had asked what she was being treated for, the nurse had just smiled and said the doctor would explain everything soon.
The next person who came into the room wasn’t a doctor, though. She was dressed in a gray uniform with shiny black boots, and she wasn’t like the nurse—she was stern. Her brown hair pulled back from her face in a tight grip, and she didn’t smile once. She handed the blonde woman a file and told her to study everything in it. After she’d gone, the woman looked at the photograph and read about the man depicted in it. There was a lot of detail—where he lived, what he did when he wasn’t working, his family. Then there was a separate section about his work. The blonde woman read the words and committed them to her memory, but she didn’t understand all of them. They were written in her native language, but the writing was hard to follow in parts.
When the doctor finally came back, his questions made her even sleepier. He asked her for her name, her date and place of birth, her parents’ names and what she did. Her mind was completely blank and she couldn’t answer any of the questions. For some reason, she didn’t find that in the least upsetting.
Thirty-One
Trucker Bo dropped me on the outskirts of Baltimore. The only money I had was a few dollars I’d got in change when Mary and I had stopped at a gas station—she had given me cash for gas when she went to the washroom. I had to assume the rail and bus stations in Washington would be being watched.
So I stuck my thumb out again. This time it took me longer to get a ride, but eventually a young man in a cargo van stopped. He was going to D.C. with a load of bathroom tiles for a house in Kalorama Heights. I played the Canadian tourist again and got him to explain where that was. My memory was playing games with me again—I had no recollection of where in D.C. my friend Joe Greenbaum lived.
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