The Death List mw-1

by Paul Johnson

  I needed to sweeten her. “All right.” I gave her the names of my Internet provider and my Web site operator. “I’m sure you can get a warrant to access my incoming and outgoing e-mails.” I took a deep breath. “They prove that the killer has been in contact with me and that I’ve been replying to him.”

  “What? You really are in an ocean of trouble. I strongly advise you to surrender yourself.”

  “No chance. Come on, Karen,” I said, deciding that familiarity couldn’t make the situation worse. “Cut the crap. I need to protect my family and friends, can’t you understand that? You know I’m not the murderer. I was sitting in the same room as you were when Drys was killed.”

  There was a long pause. “I repeat, I’m making no deals with you, Matt.” At least she was responding to my informality. “Christian Fels was attacked in his house by two masked men. Andrew Jackson interrupted them as they were stuffing pages from your novels into Mr. Fels’s mouth. He has a knife wound to his upper chest that the paramedics say is not life-threatening. He’s been taken to the Whittington Hospital. Mr. Fels has a head wound, but it isn’t too serious. He’s…how can I put it? Screaming blue murder?”

  I laughed, the relief that Andy and Christian were okay breaking the tension that had been building up all day. “I’ll bet he is.” My ex-agent’s fuse was notoriously short.

  “He hasn’t been very complimentary about you,” Oaten added. “No doubt because he thinks you were behind the attack.”

  “Tell him I sent Andy Jackson to keep an eye on him.”

  “Not good enough,” she said, her voice hardening again. “This is a multiple-murder inquiry. Members of the public are not entitled to take the law into their own hands. Why didn’t you tell us that Fels was going to be attacked?”

  “Because I didn’t know. You’ll understand when you see the e-mails. This guy has got a hold on me. He’s stringing me along. I can’t risk antagonizing him.”

  “I think your friend Mr. Jackson just did,” she said dryly. “Matt, if you’re in as much danger as I think you are, you have to come in. We can protect you and anyone else he’s threatening.”

  I wished I could believe that, but there wasn’t time. The Devil was on the loose and he was angry. I had to move my plans ahead. “Got to go, Karen. Don’t bother calling my mobile. I know you can locate me by it.”

  “Wait,” she said hurriedly. “There’s a cost to what you’re doing. Mr. Fels’s gardener had his neck broken when the assailants left. Think about it, Matt. Innocent victims?”

  My stomach constricted. I couldn’t come up with anything to say, so I hung up and dialed Dave Cummings’s mobile.

  “Hallo!” he shouted above a lot of machine noise.

  “It’s Matt.”

  “Hang on,” he said. The noise reduced in volume. “Just disposing of a derelict factory. What’s up, mate?”

  “Forget demolition,” I said. “The shit’s hit the fan. You need to get out to the cottage as soon as you can. I’ll meet you at the school in an hour.” I hung up.

  Before I left Oxford Street, I went into a phone shop and bought a pay-as-you-go mobile, insisting that they give me one with a fully charged battery. I saw a cab stop and pushed a tourist out of the way. He yelled at me in some Romance language, which made the cabbie laugh. I scowled at him, told him where to go and got my new phone into commission. The first person I called was Roger van Zandt.

  “Where are you, Rog?”

  “Baker Street,” he said. “I’ve got the gear you wanted.”

  It was no good to me now. The police would definitely be watching my flat so I couldn’t go back there.

  “All right,” I said. “You know that Internet cafe we met at about a month ago? Don’t say the name.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ll explain later. You know the one I mean?”

  “’Course. Are you all right, Matt?”

  “I’ll meet you there at the number you used to wear on your back. Get it?” Rog used to be a center on the rugby team and his number was four.

  “Bloody hell, you’re being mysterious. Okay.”

  I rang off and watched the boats on the gray-brown river as we crossed Waterloo Bridge. The Devil was somewhere in the city. He knew it as well as I did, as well as John Webster had done back in the seventeenth century. But where was he? Could he already be on his way to Lucy’s school?

  I told the cabbie to hurry up and was greeted with more laughter. For a moment I wished I was in a foreign capital where taxi drivers didn’t care about the speed limit. That made me think of my mother and Jeanie. They should both have been abroad by now. I would call them later from a public phone to make sure.

  I rang Dave again. “Where are you?”

  “Denmark Hill. Should be there in under ten minutes.”

  “Okay. Same here.” I rang off and had a thought. If the Devil had a legion of helpers, maybe Dave’s cottage wasn’t safe.

  As I paid off the cabbie, I saw Dave’s large four-by-four pull up outside the school.

  Looking around and seeing no sign of anyone suspicious, I went over to him. “Thanks for dropping everything.”

  “No worries. It’s only a two-hundred-grand contract.” He grinned. “I can always use that ten grand you gave me as partial restitution.”

  I glared at him. “Don’t even think about it.”

  He slapped me on the back. “Joke, you pillock. Right, what are we doing?”

  “Pulling Lucy and your pair out of their classes. We’ll tell the teachers that there’s been a family emergency.”

  “What, in both our families?”

  I shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Get home and pick up Ginny.” I grabbed his arm. “Listen, Dave, it’s not safe for you to go to your cottage. The bastard may have been watching you.”

  There was a flash of anger in his eyes. “Is that right? Fucker.”

  A cleaner who was passing us in the playground tutted her disapproval.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, with a grin. “I’ll think of something. Better if you don’t know, eh?”

  I nodded. He was way ahead of me. In the same spirit, I decided it was better if he didn’t know what had happened to Andy. I gave him my new mobile number.

  “Just one thing, Matt,” he said, his tone more serious. “Does Caroline know about this?”

  “Not yet,” I replied, avoiding his eyes. He was aiding and abetting the abduction of a child without her mother’s permission. I couldn’t tell my ex-wife till Dave was well clear of his home.

  “It’s okay,” he said, giving me a thump on the shoulder. “I trust you.”

  As we headed into the school to interrupt classes, I heard him mutter, “Christ knows why.”

  Karen Oaten watched as the mortuary attendants removed the body of the gardener. Christian Fels had identified him as Vlado Petrovic, a Bosnian national whose papers were in order. Judging by the way Fels’s eyes had dampened when he saw the body, he’d had more than employer-employee relations with the unfortunate immigrant.

  Fels had been treated by a paramedic, having refused to go to hospital. There was a bandage round his head, thin strands of hair hanging over it like those on a cheap Halloween mask.

  “Have you arrested that lunatic Wells yet, Inspector?” he said, glaring at her.

  “Chief Inspector,” Oaten corrected. She’d always had a problem with bullies like Fels. “We’re working on it. Although, by your own admission, Mr. Wells is taller than either of your attackers.” She gave him a tight smile. “And he provided a bodyguard for you.”

  “Is that what he’s saying?” Fels scoffed. “I always knew that man was a waste of my time. If he wasn’t behind the attack, why did those masked maniacs try to make me eat his books?”

  “Good question.”

  The literary agent stared at her. “Well?” he demanded.

  “I ask the questions,” she said. “You answer them.”

 
; Fels took a step back, and then retreated farther into his sumptuously furnished drawing room. “Have a seat, Chief Inspector,” he said, flapping his hand at the leather armchairs.

  “No, thanks,” Oaten said. “Taff!” she called through the open door.

  The inspector appeared. “Yes, guv?”

  “Have you got any more questions for Mr. Fels?”

  “No, he’s given us a provisional statement.”

  “All right.” Karen Oaten turned from examining a row of plastic-covered first editions. “Tell me, Mr. Fels, why did you part company with Matt Wells?”

  The agent gave her an exasperated glare. “What has that to do with what happened here today?”

  “Allow me to be the judge of that, please.”

  Fels found her gaze too piercing for comfort. “Oh, very well. The simple answer is that I wasn’t making enough money from him.”

  “And the more complicated one?”

  The agent hesitated. “Well, to tell you the truth, I rather liked the fellow at first. He was smart and engaging when I took him on. Then he became obsessed by the ludicrous idea of setting a crime series in Albania. I told him it wouldn’t sell, but he didn’t listen. I don’t think he’s the man he was. I heard that his ex-wife rode roughshod over him in the divorce. Since then he’s been full of self-pity and resentment.” He gave Oaten a crooked smile. “Neither of which qualities is exactly marketable.”

  For some reason the chief inspector found herself wanting to stick up for Matt Wells. She restrained herself. “Very well,” she said, moving to the door. “We’ll be in touch to take your formal statement, Mr. Fels. Uniformed officers will patrol the area until further notice.”

  “You mean my assailants might come back?” Fels said, his face suddenly even paler than it had been.

  Oaten struggled not to smile. The vain old snob seemed to care only about his own skin. “Oh, probably not,” she said, deliberately refusing to give him any more substantial comfort. Maybe that would teach him some humility.

  When she and Turner got to the Volvo, she extended her hand for the keys. “I’ll drive. You can bring me up to speed on what the rest of the team’s been up to.” The plan for the day had been a concerted effort to track down Leslie Dunn and Nicholas Cork, the two most suspicious missing men from the lists that had been compiled. The attack on Fels had distracted her from that.

  “The last I heard,” Turner said, “Pavlou was on his way to the bank in Hackney. D.C.I. Hardy’s people are following up on Drys’s circle of friends and family, though there isn’t much of the latter. They’re mostly dead or in Greece.”

  “They’re a dead end, as well,” the chief inspector said morosely, accelerating down Highgate Road. “He was killed because of his connection with Matt Wells-the bad reviews.”

  Turner looked at her, his face a picture of confusion. “Excuse me, guv, but what’s going on with Wells? Since he’s refusing to come in, we have to treat him as a suspect, don’t we?”

  Oaten bit her lip. “In theory, yes. I think I believe him when he says his family and other contacts are in danger. He did send his friend to protect Fels, after all. And he put me on to his Internet people. When we’ve read his e-mails, we should have a clearer idea of what’s going on.”

  The inspector was peering at his notes. “What are you going to do about Hardy’s people who managed to lose him today?”

  “Same as I did with Morry Simmons,” she said, overtaking a bus.

  “We need them, guv,” Turner protested.

  “So does Traffic,” she said, inclining her head toward a van that was parked illegally. Her phone rang. She tossed it across to her colleague. “Answer that, will you?”

  “Turner.” He glanced at her. “She’s got her hands full. Tell me, Paul.” He listened, his lips forming into a smile as he scribbled notes. “Okay, nice one. We’ll see you back at the Yard.” He dropped the phone onto his lap.

  “What’s Pavlou got?” Oaten asked impatiently.

  “Leslie Dunn,” the inspector answered, the smile turning into a grin. “He worked at the Savings Trust Bank in Hackney for a year, then was fired by the manager-our murder victim Steven Newton-for persistent disobedience and for, quote, ‘an unsatisfactory attitude toward customers.’”

  “So we’ve got a motive for that murder.”

  “Yep.” Turner gave her a triumphant look. “That’s not all. One of the tellers heard a rumor that Pavlou has just checked out. The bastard won the lottery in September 2001. Nine and a half million quid.”

  The chief inspector glanced at him. “Meaning he could hire killers or get himself trained up and equipped.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Why aren’t you smiling anymore?”

  The Welshman closed his notebook. “Because the trail stops there. Dunn requested the privacy-protection option.” He looked out at the pedestrians on the streets of Camden Town. “Since then he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  Karen Oaten gripped the wheel hard. “With all that money, he wouldn’t have had any problem getting a new identity.” She braked hard as the lights changed. “Shit.”

  The chief inspector’s phone rang again. Turner listened, and then cut the connection.

  “That was D.C.I. Hardy. One, he’s extremely pissed off that you got the A.C. to transfer his guys out.”

  “Tough.”

  “And two, there’s been a report about Nicholas Cork.”

  Oaten slipped dexterously past a people-carrier laden with kids. “Spit it out, Taff.”

  “A badly smashed-up and partially decomposed body was found on the rocks in northern Cornwall last September. There was a video-club card bearing the name N. Cork in a pocket.”

  The chief inspector thought for a couple of seconds. “Have we got dental records for him?”

  Turner flicked through the pages of his notebook. “Sorry, don’t know, guv,” he said finally.

  “Bloody well find out, then!” Oaten shouted. “Until we’re sure the body’s his, Cork is still a suspect for Dunn’s accomplice.”

  “Guv?” the inspector asked as they crossed Euston Road. “I can see why Dunn killed the people that he knew, but why would he be after Matt Wells’s circle? What’s in it for him?”

  “Good question, Taff,” Oaten said, her face less tense. “Maybe the e-mails will answer that.”

  “I’ve got another question,” the Welshman said. “That murder down in Greenwich last night?”

  The D.C.I. nodded. “Petty criminal with form, cut up into several pieces, boxed up and left outside his local?”

  “That’s the one. Are we sure it isn’t connected with our killer?”

  Karen Oaten turned her head to him briefly. “Sure? We aren’t sure about anything in this case, Taff. But there was no plastic bag with a quotation from John Webster and no apparent links to Bethnal Green or Matt Wells, so I’m leaving it to the team down there. For the time being, at least.”

  Turner looked doubtful. “I don’t know, guv. Another mutilation job just after Drys and the others? I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I. That’s why we’ll be getting regular updates from the Southern Homicide Division. But we’ve got enough on our plates as it is.”

  The inspector nodded, his expression pained. He’d had difficulty eating for days.

  22

  The look that Lucy gave me as Dave drove away almost broke my heart. She had been very surprised when I took her out of class. Fortunately her teacher, Mrs. Maggs, was a fan of my books and let us go without asking any awkward questions. Lucy seemed to accept that Dave and his family were taking her on a mystery tour, only asking about her mummy at the last moment. I told her that Caroline knew all about it and would see her later. I was getting good at lying-too good.

  I caught the bus to Brixton after walking around the back streets of Dulwich Village for a while. If anyone was on my tail, they were doing a very good job of concealing themselves. The cafe I’d arranged to meet
Rog at was called the Vital Spark. It was off Coldharbour Lane and, despite its name, wasn’t well lit. That was just what I wanted. We took our coffees to a deserted back corner.

  Rog held up a large plastic bag. “Here’s your stuff,” he said, searching in the pockets of his brown corduroy jacket. “And here’s the receipt.”

  I swallowed hard when I saw the amount. Maybe I would have to use the Devil’s money after all. “Look, Dodger,” I said, booting up a computer, “the situation’s changed.” I took in his bewildered expression. I was going to have to come clean, but I wanted him to have the chance to opt out. Rog wasn’t as much of a hard man as Dave and Andy. On the team, he used to weave and sidestep his way round opposition players rather than trample over them. He could put in the hard tackles when it counted, even though, off the pitch, he spent almost as much time on his own as I did-gluing and painting models of tanks and aircraft in his case, rather than pretending to write. “Listen, here’s where I am.”

  I filled him in about the White Devil’s activities. His face went from confusion to amazement to horror, and finally to what was unmistakably anger. Then I told him what had happened to Andy. This was the crunch moment. There hadn’t been any point in telling Dave-he was in whatever happened and knowing Andy had been hurt wouldn’t have changed anything for him. With Rog, I wasn’t sure.

  “Bastards,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll fucking have them.”

  I put my hand on his arm. “This isn’t a run in the park. The Devil’s killed at least eight people and I reckon it could be more.”

  He stuck his chest out. “Let him and his sidekick have a go, then. They owe us for what they did to Andy. You sure he’s going to be all right?”

  “As sure as I can be without speaking to him. Maybe we’ll manage to do that later.” I nodded at the screen. “Now we’ve got work to do. Set me up with a new e-mail account, will you?” I watched as his fingers sped across the keys. In a few minutes I had another identity, SirZog 1. Then I logged on to my own account, wondering if the police had obtained access to it yet, and printed out the latest e-mail from the Devil.