The Soul Collector mw-2 Read online

  “Good,” the American said, slamming the gas pedal to the floor and overtaking the car ahead. “Maybe she’ll make a mistake.”

  There was no sign of that. The motorbike had clear space in front of it and we struggled to stay in touch. The lights ahead were green, but by the time we approached, they were changing.

  “Brace, brace!” Andy yelled, following the bike to the right and narrowly missing a pair of boys who had started to cross the road.

  “Will you slow down, Slash?”

  The bike had sped away again, toward Dulwich.

  “Where do you think they’re heading? Maybe they’re going to murder someone else,” he said, running another light, just as it was clear the motorbike was gone for good.

  “Fuck!” Andy roared, slamming his hands on the wheel.

  “Did you see which way it went?”

  “No. That supermarket rig got in the way.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “Pull in over there. I need to see if Doctor Faustus has sent another message.”

  I pulled out my laptop. It took a few minutes for the wi-fi card to latch on to a signal. I opened my e-mail program and watched the new messages stack up. Most were from family and friends, reporting in. Caroline said Fran and Lucy were fine, but I could tell she was going spare in the safe house. I assumed the last message was porn spam-the sender was mynameishelen-but I checked before deleting and saw I’d nearly screwed up in a big way. It was from the killer. I read it aloud:

  Well, Matt, here I am again. I bet the sender name’s got you wondering. Call yourself an English graduate? Who did Faustus lust after? That’s right, Helen of Troy. Why am I using her name? That’s for you to work out. Hey, guess what. It’s deadline time again. Since you identified Adrian Brooks correctly-even though I couldn’t resist dealing with your treacherous friend Hinkley instead-I’m giving you even less time. Answer this by twelve midday, and I mean today, clever boy:

  I have enslaved Scotsmen

  As well as bestial Ozzies.

  Tiny Goethe polishes us sadly,

  Building cheaply for blind Cain.

  (Not to mention Abel.)

  See you in hell!

  Helen.

  (And Doctor Faustus, of course)

  “What’s that all about?” Andy said with a groan.

  I was writing the clue down in my notebook. When I’d finished, I sent it to Caroline and my mother, then logged off and closed the laptop.

  “What does it mean?” I repeated. “We’ve got just over three hours to work that out.” I looked at the title again. “Helen. Is that Sara finally hinting that she’s been sending the messages and doing the murders?”

  “What, because she’s used a woman’s name?”

  I nodded, still examining the words. “Goethe wrote a version of Faust, so Helen fits with that, as well as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.”

  “Who’s Goethe?”

  “Eighteenth-century German writer,” I replied. “Bestial Ozzies? Is that a reference to the ex-Black Sabbath singer?”

  “What? Ozzie Osbourne?” The American grinned. “I saw him live when I was a kid. Sick, but a gas.”

  “Yeah, bestial would go with him,” I said, trying to concentrate. “Bestial means ‘beastly’ or ‘brutish.’”

  “There was that story about Ozzie biting the head off a bat on stage. That was pretty brutish.” Andy looked around. “Are we staying here?”

  “What? No.”

  “Shall I take this heap back to the Carlton-Jones pad?”

  I stared at him. “No chance. I don’t want her to have a set of wheels.”

  “We could stake the place out.”

  I shook my head. “She probably won’t be going back there in a hurry.”

  “You don’t reckon she’ll report her car stolen?”

  I thought about that. “She might, I suppose. Give me a few minutes with this bloody clue.”

  Andy grunted. “Shit, we’d better cover that thing up, man.”

  I looked around. The skull was sitting on the backseat, its teeth set in an uneven smile. Whose body had it come from? Andy got out and took off his jacket. He put it over the skull and got back into the driver’s seat.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Okay. Park near my old flat in Herne Hill. We can get the train to the center from there.”

  As Andy drove, I ran my eyes back and forward over the lines, scribbling down ideas. “I have enslaved”-I have captured, I have taken prisoner, I have sold into slavery? Why Scotsmen? I didn’t know many, though that probably wasn’t significant. Scotsmen could be Celts. Therefore, Celtic Football Club supporters? Meaning Glaswegians? There were a couple of Glasgow crime writers who got completely pissed at festivals. Could one of them be the target? Scotsmen: Highlanders, Lowlanders, islanders, Gaelic-speakers, Picts?

  I moved on to the second line. “As well as bestial Ozzies.” I didn’t buy the Ozzie Osbourne connection. Who else were Ozzies? Was it a reference to Aussies, Australians? Or something to do with the Wizard of Oz? There were beasts in that. Flying monkeys, as far as I could remember. “Tiny Goethe polishes us.” Goethe as the author of Faust, who made use of Helen as a character? I racked my brain. What else did Goethe write? He was a polymath, but my knowledge of German literature didn’t go much further. I had a vague idea about a work called The Sorrows of Young Werther. Could that link up with the word “sadly”? But I definitely didn’t know anyone called Werther. I’d have to do a search on the Internet for Goethe’s life and works. Was he a “tiny” man? And why was he polishing? Was he into buffing things up? Buffing people up, as in “us”?

  I shook my head. I was getting nowhere with that line, so I moved on. “Building cheaply for blind Cain.” As far as I could remember from the Old Testament, Cain wasn’t blind. He was a murderer, though, which was suggestive. The first of that kind, and his victim was his own brother, the Abel of the fifth line. But Sara didn’t kill her brother, the White Devil. She worshipped him. Someone else’s brother, then, but whose? And why was the German poet “building cheaply”? Was he a cowboy builder in his spare time? Could the target be one of those? No, that didn’t work. There were thousands of such shoddy handymen in London alone. How could I find the right one? As for the last line, why was Abel not to be mentioned, even though his name was the clue’s last word? Was that significant, mentioning something even though it was said not to be? Hell’s teeth, my mind was about to experience meltdown.

  We left Doris Carlton-Jones’s car, taking the skull wrapped in Andy’s jacket. She wouldn’t find her wheels-unless Sara had put a bug on the hatchback.

  Of course, as the latest impenetrable riddle showed, anything was possible.

  Jeremy Andrewes had eaten a stodgy breakfast at an old-fashioned gentleman’s club, but the indigestion he now felt was worth it. He had got his hands on a seriously juicy story. A gangland informer he sometimes used had rung him and told him that one of the journalist’s lot-i.e. the aristocracy, or “nobs,” as the snout called them-had moved into cocaine dealing. A photo of the said nob arrived on his phone. The man in question was standing behind a table. On it were clear bags filled with a white powder and piles of banknotes. Even better, Jeremy recognized the man’s unmistakable face immediately-he was a longstanding friend of his father’s. It was easy to arrange a supposedly social breakfast.

  After they had exchanged gossip about who was marrying whom, who was two-timing whom and with whom, and who had the best chance of getting fox-hunting made legal again, the journalist cut to the chase.

  “Tell me,” he said with a sly smile, “how’s the Colombian marching powder trade?”

  The earl blanched. “What?” he said in a faint voice, his unprepossessing features twitching.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to write a story about you,” Andrewes lied. “I’m only interested in the people you do business with. I know you wouldn’t be foolish enough to set yourself up against them.” He was pretty sure he’d been provided wi
th the information to ensure the earl’s good behavior-whether Jeremy exposed him or just hinted that he might do so in the future, the effect would be the same.

  “What were you doing?” the journalist continued. “Buying or selling?”

  “Selling, of course,” the earl said, glancing around the wood-paneled room. “I…I happened to, em…come across a quantity of the drug and I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.”

  “For what would appear to be a substantial amount of money.” Andrewes grinned. “That should help with the maintenance of the castle. As well as with your other pursuits.”

  The older man’s expression was grim, but he didn’t speak.

  “All right, tell me who you sold to,” the journalist said.

  There was a long pause. “You promise you won’t refer to me? These people were pretty…unpleasant.”

  You must have felt right at home, Andrewes thought. “My word is my bond. I’m working on a big expose of the drugs trade in London. This will only be a small piece in the jigsaw.”

  The earl dabbed a napkin to his damp lips. “Very well. It would be a good thing if the people I sold to were cleared out of this country.”

  The journalist made no comment, even though that was hardly the Daily Independent’s line on immigration. “Let me guess,” he said, trying to make things easier for the other man. “Kurds? Turks? There’s been some messy stuff between them recently in East London.”

  “Has there?” the earl said indifferently. “No, no, these people were Albanians.”

  “Really?” Jeremy Andrewes was impressed by the older man’s nerve. The Albanians were the up-and-coming force and they were even more ruthless than the Turkish Shadows. “I don’t suppose you got any names?”

  “Nobody introduced themselves, if that’s what you mean.”

  The journalist tried to disguise his disappointment.

  The earl gave a twisted smile. “But I’m not a complete idiot. I did do my homework. They’re a family called Shkrelli.” He struggled to pronounce the name and spittle flew from his mouth.

  Andrewes felt like a runner who’d just broken the hundred meters world record. A member of the peerage selling coke to the most violent gang in the country-his editor would kiss his feet. He managed to end the conversation and get out of the club, without, he hoped, making the earl suspicious. He thought about going back to his flat to write the piece, but he wanted to be in the office when he submitted it.

  He hailed a taxi, took out his BlackBerry and started on a first draft. He was so engrossed that he didn’t notice the figure in black leathers to the rear, weaving through the traffic on a powerful motorbike. It was still there, fifty meters behind, when he got out and went into the Daily Indie building.

  Pete was squinting at the computer screen as he scrolled down the plastic surgery clinic’s records. Rog had got into them, but he needed a break from his laptop so Pete had taken over. There were drops of sweat on his bald head. The only problem with Rog’s cousin’s flat was that the central heating control was jammed at twenty-five degrees Celsius. Even though the window was open, the room was like an oven.

  “Gotcha!” Pete said. “Get a load of this, Dodger.” He pointed to the screen.

  “Are you sure?” Rog said. “You’ve only been looking for a few minutes.”

  “Oh, I never take long,” Bonehead said archly.

  Rog went over and leaned toward the screen. “Lauren May Cuthbertson, date of birth 23/5/1972, address Flat 15, Gannett House, Ambledon Street, Stoke Newington.” He turned to Pete. “What’s the big deal?”

  Bonehead clicked on the link titled Pretreatment Photo. “What do you reckon?”

  “Jesus.” Rog stared in horror at the face that appeared before him. The nose was bent and flattened. There were also large and pendulous tumors on both sides of the mouth. “It’s the Elephant Woman.”

  “Near enough.” Pete clicked on the Post-Treatment Photo.

  They watched intently as the image recomposed itself.

  “What happened to her?” Rog said.

  The tumors had gone, but the skin around and below the mouth was swollen, heavily bruised and scarred. But that wasn’t the worst feature. Although the patient’s nose had been straightened and reconstructed, something terrible had happened to her upper lip. It was split open, the pink gum and front teeth visible. Lauren Cuthbertson was staring straight at the camera, her expression dull-eyed.

  “Scary woman,” Pete said. He clicked off the photo and on to her patient file. He moved through it slowly so they could both get the gist. It seemed that the tumors, though not malignant, had grown substantially in the year before the operation. The nose had been damaged in a fight when Lauren Cuthbertson was a teenager. The surgeon, James Maclehose, the man whose body had been found by Pete and Andy in the house in Oxford, had been successful in removing the tumors and in fixing the nose. However, the upper lip had been damaged during surgery. Furthermore, skin grafts placed over the wounds left by the removal of the tumors had not been successful. The patient had been advised to undergo further surgery, but she had refused, claiming that Maclehose was incompetent. The surgeon’s notes stated that she had been abusive, and had threatened him and his staff. The last time she was in the clinic, the police had been called after she smashed an antique vase over Mr. Maclehose’s computer.

  “What do you think?” Pete asked.

  “What was the date of the operation?”

  “January 21st. And she was last in the clinic on February 29th.”

  “Under a month ago.” Rog ran his hands through his hair. “You think she killed Maclehose?”

  Pete nodded. “She’s five foot ten and twelve stone three. If she works out-and the notes say that her level of physical fitness was high-she could have overpowered him easily. You saw the most recent photo. She didn’t exactly look friendly.”

  “Mm.” Rog moved closer and hit the keys until he found the payment records. “I tell you what puzzles me. She lives in Stoke Newington, in what doesn’t sound like high-end housing. How did she afford a Harley Street surgeon?”

  “Good point.”

  Rog brought up a statement of account. “Look,” he said, pointing. “She paid by cheque. Twelve thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven pounds.”

  “And seventy-three pence,” Pete added. He shrugged. “Maybe she inherited the dosh.”

  “Or she’s protected.”

  Pete looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “All those murders in East London-she lives in the vicinity.”

  “You mean she’s in one of the gangs?”

  Rog nodded. “Could be. They’re not all from abroad, you know. And, as far as I can remember, no one in the home-grown gangs has been murdered.”

  “Bloody hell, Dodger, you’re using your imagination a lot there. Anyway, why was the body of the surgeon left in a house owned by Sara Robbins?”

  “That I don’t know.” Rog smiled. “Yet. I’m going to get into this Lauren’s bank account and find out where the money came from.”

  “If she’s in a gang, it could have all been cash deposits,” Pete pointed out. “We should tell Matt.”

  “Tell him what? Wait till I’ve checked the source of her funds. My money’s on it being dirty.”

  Pete shook his head. “I’m not taking that bet. What I don’t like is the idea that the cow’s running around scot-free. If she really did kill the surgeon, you’d better hope she doesn’t realize you’ve been snooping on her bank account. Otherwise you might be her next victim.”

  “We, Boney,” Rog corrected.

  Pete looked nervously at the door and drummed his fingers on the butt of his pistol.

  After Andy and I had got back to Victoria, we exited the station and headed for a cyber-cafe. I needed to see if Caroline and Fran had come up with anything on the clue. My own thoughts were still random and chaotic, and there were only two hours left till the next deadline. Even though Doctor Faustus had killed Josh Hinkle
y instead of Adrian Brooks, I had to believe that I could save the target.

  While Andy went to the counter to buy coffee and a Danish, I logged on to my e-mail program. My heart skipped a beat. There was nothing from Caroline or Fran. Jesus, could Sara have got to them via the signals? Surely that was impossible. I’d been moving around and the likelihood of her picking up my wi-fi signal in the huge city was minimal. So why hadn’t they replied? Maybe the message hadn’t got through. I sent it again, then looked at my watch. I couldn’t afford to wait. Someone’s life was hanging by a thread. I had to find the solution.

  Andy came back with a mound of pastries and two mugs of coffee.

  “On a diet?” I asked, taking out my notebook.

  “Yeah, boss,” he said, grinning. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  I looked at the clue. “Bestial Ozzies.” Could that mean animals from Australia? Possums? Crocodiles? Wallabies? Tasmanian devils? Koalas? None of them seemed to get me any further. I reread the last two lines. There was some game being played with Cain and Abel. Why was “Cain” “blind”? I tried to remember the conventions of cryptic crosswords-this may not have been a crossword, but it was definitely full of hidden secrets. Repunctuate. I did that, removing all the full stops, commas and brackets. Zilch. I removed all the capitals. Ditto. What else? Anagrams. Bugger that-too time-consuming. Word order. I fiddled with that for a couple of minutes, but, again, decided it would take hours. Homophones. The only one that struck me was “Abel”-it sounded like “able.” Words with two or more meanings. I’d already played around with “bestial,” meaning “animal,” and got nowhere. It also meant “brutish”-brutish Australians? The only Aussie crime writer I knew was clever, witty and remarkably well-behaved. How about part for whole? Could “Ozzies” mean a specific Australian rather than Australians, plural? And the same for “Scotsmen”?

  Andy put a sticky finger on the first line of the clue. “The English enslaved the Scots, didn’t they?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him. And then I got it. “Shit!” I said, making the pretty girl at the till laugh. “You’re in this, Andy. Or should I say Andrew?”