The Soul Collector mw-2 Read online

  Amelia Browning stopped at the bottom of the ramp and turned away from the woman, her face toward the ship’s high stern. When she heard the soft sound of the sari passing, she looked around.

  “Mrs. Carlton-Jones?” she said, her voice as natural as she could make it.

  The woman turned her head, then realized her mistake. The handcuffs were on her before she could take another step.

  I called Karen when we got back to the car.

  “Are they all right?” I asked, meaning the woman and the two kids we’d disinterred.

  “They’re in hospital. The paramedics were more concerned about their psychological than their physical state, particularly the woman’s. They thought the kids would get over it quicker.”

  “Not when they find out they’re fatherless.”

  “I didn’t tell them that. Anyway, where the hell are you?”

  “Sternwood Castle. At least, I was.”

  “Don’t you bloody run away again, Matt.”

  “Andy’s still missing. Sara must have him. We’re going to check her other properties.”

  “If you mean the ones in Hackney, Oxford, Kent and Scotland, don’t bother. I’ve arranged search-there was nobody there-and surveillance. We’ve also just picked up Doris Carlton-Jones in Dover.”

  “No sign of Sara?”

  “No. Maybe her disguise was more convincing.”

  “And her face more changed.”

  “What were you doing at Sternwood Castle?”

  I gave her a quick run-through.

  She let out a long sigh when I’d finished. “Jesus, Matt. When will the killing stop?”

  “We didn’t kill anyone tonight.”

  “So you say.”

  “Don’t worry, I taped the whole thing. And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  She laughed bitterly. “You’re a long way from getting one of those.”

  “End of conversation then,” I said, and broke the connection.

  Rog and Pete were pretending not to have overheard.

  My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Matt, it’s me.”

  “Andy! Thank Christ! Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “Yes to the first question. Where are we?” I heard someone else speak. “Blidbean in Kent. But, listen, you’re not going to…”

  “Blidbean?” I said. “Never heard of it. What’s the nearest-”

  “Shut the fuck up, Matt!” he yelled. “I’ve got Lucy with me. Sara and her mother grabbed her.”

  My veins had filled with ice. “Lucy? Is she all right?” I asked hoarsely.

  “Yes, in a minute you can speak to her, but there’s something you have to sort first. Tell Karen that your mother and Caroline need help.” I listened, then told Pete to call Karen, repeating the address of the safe house in East Grinstead that Lucy had remembered. Then I spoke to my daughter.

  “What happened, darling?”

  “I don’t know who it was,” she said, the words spilling out in a babble. I caught “motorbike helmet,” “sprayed in the face” and “woke up with Andy staring at me.”

  I didn’t scare her by asking anything about Sara. How had she found them? Lucy actually sounded over the worst. I knew Andy would have helped on that count, and she told me that the farmer’s wife had given her clean clothes and something nice to eat. Apparently there were some very sweet kittens, too, could she have one? I said that her mother would have to rule on that.

  As I was talking, Rog was driving toward the motorway at full pelt. Boney had briefed Karen and not long after we’d reached the M4, she called me back.

  “We were lucky,” she said. “There was a bomb squad unit only a few minutes away from East Grinstead.”

  I felt my stomach cartwheel. “A bomb squad unit?”

  “Someone-you can guess who-had fitted bomb-belts to them both. The timers had been set for midnight.”

  I looked at my watch. It was half-past eleven. “Shit,” I said. “Close one. Are Fran and Caroline all right?”

  “They’ve been taken to hospital, but I gather they were conscious, just drowsy. They’d been sprayed with some kind of knockout gas. Rings a bell, eh?”

  “Yup. Thanks, Karen.”

  “I take it you’ve turned back and are waiting for me at the castle.”

  “Em, no. We’re going to pick up Lucy and Andy.”

  There was silence for a while.

  “All right, Matt. But I’ll be expecting you and your friends in my office at nine tomorrow.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “I’d have thought you’d already have instructed one.” She hung up.

  I’d completely forgotten about my impending manslaughter charge.

  Thirty

  The night continued to be a busy one. We picked up Andy and Lucy in a deserted part of Kent and drove to the hospital in East Grinstead. Caroline was out of bed. She wasn’t talking to me, though she did behave in an appropriately maternal way to Lucy.

  I sat next to my mother, who was still lying down, her face pale. “I’m sorry about all this,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m all right, dear. It’s the gas. I still feel a bit dizzy.” She looked at me. “It was her, wasn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  “And she hasn’t been caught?”

  I shook my head. “They may still get her.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you, Matt?”

  I shrugged. “Sara isn’t omnipotent. Andy could have caught her tonight, but he concentrated on getting Lucy out of her clutches.”

  “Good for him,” she murmured, her eyelids fluttering as she dropped off again. I hadn’t managed to tell her that Slash rescued Lucy without knowing who she was. That made him even more of a hero in my eyes.

  Lucy appeared on the other side of the bed, having been passed fit by the doctors. She bent over and gave her grandmother a kiss.

  “Are you okay, then?” I asked.

  “They want me to stay the night in case I have a reaction to the gas.” She looked at me apologetically. “Mum wants to talk to you now.”

  On the way to the private room that my ex-wife had got for herself, I prepared for my hearing to be assaulted. Instead, Caroline was calm and collected.

  “If you ever allow anything like that to happen to Lucy or me again,” she said, “I will personally detach your scrotum and its contents from your supposedly he-man body.”

  There was more but, when Caroline showed no sign of stopping, I went to make sure that Andy was okay. He’d been given several stitches to his forehead, but his skull hadn’t been fractured.

  “Bloody hell, Slash,” I said. “How did you manage to stay conscious, never mind open that miniknife and cut through the rope?”

  “No sweat,” he said. “They breed us tough in New Jersey.”

  Karen chose that moment to step through the cubicle curtains.

  “Hi, doll,” Andy said with a grin. “How’s it hanging?”

  I managed to swallow my laughter. The American really was a hero for talking to her like that. We left him and went outside.

  “Any sign of Sara?” I asked.

  Karen shook her head. “We’re still checking, but…” Her words trailed away and she ran her eyes over me. “Where are your weapons?”

  I feigned innocence.

  “And where are Rog and Pete?”

  “I’m not sure.” That was partly true. Pete had gone off in a taxi to pick up his Cherokee, taking all our gear with him. He was somewhere between East Grinstead and Bromley. Rog, however, was out in the car park. I didn’t mention that.

  She laughed. “Honestly, Matt, what do you take me for? Someone blasted their way into Sternwood Castle and several shots were fired in that awful cave. I suppose you’re going to tell me the earl and Alistair Bing did all that.”

  I remembered the tape. “Em, no. But I promise we had no choice.”

  “The AC will be the judge of that, and you’ll
need to convince the local force, too.”

  I raised my shoulders. “Piece of cake. Are you okay?”

  She shook her head at me. “I’m at the end of my tether.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said, putting my arm around her.

  “Isn’t that a song by Meat Loaf?” she asked, shaking free of me but managing to smile wanly.

  “It is,” I said. “You always did have a worrying taste in music.”

  She stopped and faced me.

  “Don’t think you’re in the clear, Matt. There are things ordinary citizens can’t do.”

  “Like murder and mutilate innocent crime writers, spray knockout gas into people’s faces, attach bombs to them and bury people alive?” I asked.

  “And you believe that’s a valid justification for taking the law into your hands?”

  “No,” I said, taking hold of both her hands. “But this is.” I kissed her on the lips, and eventually she responded. By raising her leg to my groin.

  “Don’t take advantage of me when I’m on duty,” she said, her voice softer than her knee.

  I stepped back and watched her walk away. It hadn’t been necessary that she came to meet me. The fact that she had suggested that we weren’t completely washed up.

  I said good-night to Lucy before Rog and I went back to London.

  For the rest of the night, Meat Loaf had no chance. There was only one song playing repeatedly in my head. It was by Bob Dylan and it bore the name of my former lover and perhaps future nemesis, Sara.

  Thirty-One

  Andy, Pete and Rog showed up at New Scotland Yard the next morning to give statements, as did I. The VCCT threw the kitchen sink at us. We were questioned on our own by Taff Turner and a young sergeant called Amelia Browning. She was smart and almost got me to contradict myself several times. Then the assistant commissioner stepped in and interrogated me himself, but I still didn’t change my story. I was charged with the manslaughter of Lauren Cuthbertson, but my lawyer didn’t think it would go to trial. There were plenty of people who had seen the dead woman murder Jeremy Andrewes and attack me.

  Doris Carlton-Jones refused to say a word, presumably forewarned by Sara. That left her at the mercy of the detectives and prosecutors, but I wasn’t complaining-she could have made life difficult for me and Andy if she’d accused us of impersonating police officers. Then again, she had a lot of explaining to do herself, not least about her husband’s skull. Then came the funerals. Karen warned me not to attend, but I felt it was my duty. She felt it was hers, too, so we went to four of them together. Two of the dead passed without ceremony. Lauren Cuthbertson had no family willing or able to arrange a service-so much for Sara and her birth mother’s feelings for her. Sandra Devonish’s mother and father collected her body from the morgue. Her funeral would take place in Texas. Karen said they seemed bewildered rather than grief-stricken. Not for long, I suspected. I decided to steer clear of Earl Sternwood’s service; according to one of the newspapers, it was “pagan in the extreme,” whatever that meant. And I left Alistair Bing/Adrian Brooks to his mother to bury-I hoped without any memorial stone.

  The first funeral we attended was Mary Malone’s. It took place in a churchyard in Wiltshire, where her parents were buried. It was a cold, wet day and the rooks were screaming at each other from the tops of the bare trees. There was only a handful of people. In death, as in life, Alistair Bing’s first victim passed almost unnoticed. An elderly woman wept continuously throughout the service. I found out from the vicar that she was a devoted fan, who had traveled from the south of France. That made my eyes damp.

  The second service was for Josh Hinkley. To my surprise, he’d asked for a humanist service before cremation. The readings were from his own books (which was less of a surprise), interspersed with songs by Ian Dury, The Kinks and The Jam. There was a booze-up in a pub in Soho afterward. I only stayed for one drink, but that was long enough for me to be cut dead by the chairman of the Crime Writers’ Society and by a tiny Chinese woman with a large chest. Apparently she was Chop Suzy, the tart the dead man had been expecting the night he was murdered. Karen told me that a woman with a posh voice had told Suzy to stay away from “her husband.” Female impersonation was obviously another of Alistair Bing’s skills, unless he’d got his mother to do it.

  Then there was Jeremy Andrewes’s funeral. It took place in a pretty churchyard in Hampshire, near the family seat. No one spoke to Karen and me until we were leaving.

  “You’re Wells, aren’t you?” said an elderly, red-faced man. “How dare you show your face here? You’re responsible for Jeremy’s death. If you make money from it, I shall surely seek you out.”

  Keeping quiet seemed the best option, even though I’d already decided not to write about the case in my column or make a book out of it. I’d learned my lesson after The Death List.

  Then came the worst of all-Dave’s funeral. This time it was a beautiful day. The church in Dulwich was packed. There was an honor guard of soldiers from the Parachute Regiment and the SAS, in full dress uniform but without weapons, and the service was traditional, on the wishes of his wife, Ginny, and his parents. I stood with Karen, Pete, Rog and Andy, who’d been released from hospital with a warning, already disregarded, not to drink for a month. We sang hymns that I knew meant nothing to Dave. Unlike many soldiers, he was completely without faith and I was sure he would have laughed at the idea of “Onward, Christian Soldiers” and “Jerusalem” being heard at his funeral. I hoped it made the family feel better, but they certainly didn’t look comforted. On the way out of the church Ginny hugged Andy, Rog and Pete, but kept her hands by her sides when it was my turn. She didn’t let me finish the first word of my condolences.

  “Bastard,” she said, her eyes wide. “You killed him, not that bitch you used to fuck.”

  Her kids started crying and an elderly man tried ineffectually to lead her away.

  “You killed him,” she wailed, trying to pull her hand away to hit me. “You killed my Dave…”

  As Karen took my arm and walked me to the gate, I caught sight of Lucy and Caroline. My daughter looked horrified, while my ex-wife’s expression was inscrutable. She certainly wasn’t displaying anything akin to sympathy, but there was no reason she should have.

  Karen drove my car toward Brixton, and then pulled in to the side of the road. She turned to me and took my hands.

  “Look at me, Matt,” she said, waiting for me to do so. “It’s not true. You didn’t kill Dave. You did everything you could to save him, with your alert codes and reporting systems. It isn’t your fault that he opened the door to Sara. Do you hear me? It isn’t your fault.”

  My breathing was rapid and the blood was rushing through my veins and arteries in a hot flood.

  “I love you,” Karen said. “Do you hear me, Matt? I-love-you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. No one could have done more to find Dave’s killer. You should be proud of that.”

  But I wasn’t. I knew I never would be. After a time, the weight of what Karen had said finally hit me.

  “You…you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” I repeated, turning to her.

  She nodded and smiled.

  And suddenly it struck me that I wanted that, too. More than anything, even catching Sara.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s spend our lives together.”

  Karen laughed. “That’s another bloody song, isn’t it?”

  “Sort of. The Stones.”

  “Ha!” she said, and started the engine. “Jagger and Richards. Old rockers never die.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring, isn’t it?” I said, rummaging in the glove compartment and coming out with a CD.

  It was only as the first tom-tom beats of “Sympathy for the Devil” came from the speakers that I remembered it had played at full volume, over and over, in Mary Malone’s house after her murder.

  Alistair Bing and his demented Faustian pact had successfully ruined one of my f
avorite pieces of music.

  Gradually, things got back to normal. I changed the alarm codes in my apartment and had a new security system installed in the Saab. Lucy went back to school, though the teachers said she was hard to reach for some weeks. Caroline told me our daughter needed to see a psychiatrist because of what I’d got them into, which made me call her a fool for failing to check her car for bugs-one was found by the police, obviously put there by Sara. Strangely, that seemed to clear the air and we managed to spend a day with Lucy and talk her through what she’d been through. She started to feel better almost immediately.

  My mother was more shaken than any of us, and I had to go over her house changing the security locks and upgrading the alarm. She had difficulty getting back to writing stories. I’d been struggling with exactly that since the White Devil had first got his claws into me, but at least I had plenty of years to get back into things. Fran seemed to have aged enormously in the course of a few days.

  As for my friends, they seemed to have taken most of what had happened in their stride. Andy, Rog, Pete and I met for dinner every week, but we didn’t go to the pub. It wouldn’t have been the same without Dave.

  I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, even on the few occasions when I wasn’t plagued by violent dreams. For a few seconds I would feel all was well with the world, then I’d remember that Dave wasn’t in it any longer-and that Sara was, even though she’d lost a large part of her funds and her five properties in the U.K. had been sequestered. When the CSIs were going over the cottage, the flat and the houses, in each one they found the words “The Soul Collector” carved in a hidden place. Sara had collected Dave’s soul, as well as those of the three SAS men who had killed her brother. It was only a question of time before she made another attempt to take mine. In the meantime, I planned to make the most of life with Karen.