The Soul Collector Read online

  The earl looked past me to the mandrill he’d called Beelzebub. “Lauren was a great help to me. We knew her as Asmodeus.” He touched his split upper lip with his tongue. “But there was no question of anyone corrupting her. She took to murder with pleasure and ease.”

  “You needed the money from the drugs she stole.” Bing sneered. “You even got me to extort money from Josh Hinkley.”

  I stared at the earl. “The killings were all about money?”

  “Not exactly,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “Lauren and Faustus here chose their victims. But she was happy to donate the funds she acquired to the Order of the Lord Beneath the Earth.” He glared at me. “Until you killed her today. The sheep was sacrificed to speed her soul on its journey to our master.”

  Pete and Rog exchanged glances that showed exactly what they thought of the cult and its worshippers.

  I looked at Sternwood and Bing. “Did you know that Lauren Cuthbertson was Sara Robbins’s and the White Devil’s half sister?”

  They both looked taken aback in a big way. Apparently not.

  “I assume Lauren was Helen in the last message,” I said to Alistair Bing, then turned to the earl. “You sent her after Jeremy Andrewes because he’d found out about your drug deal with the Albanians.”

  “You can’t prove any of this,” His Lordship replied dully.

  Alistair laughed. “Yes, he can. I hereby swear that I had nothing to do with the Andrewes murder. I only wrote the clue.”

  “Which I cracked, asshole.” I looked at Sternwood. “That means you’ll be spending the rest of your life in jail.”

  “What did you do with the nail clippings and hair from the bodies?” Pete asked.

  The earl gave him a solemn look. “We burned them, to the greater glory of Satan.”

  I stared at him, but he didn’t turn away. It seemed that the paragon of the aristocracy meant it.

  “You killed Beelzebub, Faustus!” Sternwood screamed. He made a grab for Pete’s pistol and managed, after a brief struggle, to loose off a shot.

  Alistair Bing, known to his mother as Adrian Brooks, international bestselling crime writer, collapsed backward, a crimson flower blossoming on his chest.

  Pete pulled hard on the rope around the earl’s neck, while I tried to get his hand from the Glock. His eyes bulged and his face reddened. Then there was another shot and the struggle ceased immediately.

  Earl Sternwood, last of his line, lay dead by his own hand, blood welling from his doubly disfigured mouth.

  I looked around the painted cavern with its clawed demons and gaping maws. The sound of the underground river could be heard now, running away yet farther beneath the earth.

  The killer of the crime writers and his spiritual adviser had departed this life, but still we had found no sign of Sara.

  Or Andy.

  Twenty-Nine

  Caroline came around to find herself tied by the hands and ankles to the double bed in the safe house. She tried to clear her mouth, but realized she’d been gagged. As her mind cleared, she tried to remember what had happened. Someone at the door…someone had knocked, said they were with the police. A woman’s voice. Why had she opened the door? A reflex action, you didn’t expect the police to attack you…to spray something in your face that makes you crash to the floor and lose consciousness almost immediately.

  Oh, Christ, she thought. Lucy! Where was she? Turning her head, Caroline managed to see down the hall. The door to the room her daughter had been using was open, the bedclothes strewn across the floor. Lucy had been studying in there. Where was she?

  Moaning through the gag, Caroline had another thought. What about Fran? Matt’s mother had been in the sitting room. She’d said “Don’t—” as Caroline had opened the door. Had she been sprayed, too?

  The woman. There was something about her. Caroline hadn’t seen the face before, but…she seemed familiar. This wasn’t her first experience of knockout gas. Two years ago, when the White Devil had been killing people across London, the woman who’d been Matt’s lover had leaned out of a car window near Caroline’s bank in the City and asked her something, then suddenly she had fallen into darkness. She had woken up in hospital, to find Lucy in the bed beside her and Matt revelling in having put a stop to the White Devil. The idiot. Sara had got away…and now she was back…Oh, Lucy…

  Then Caroline looked down. A belt had been strapped around her abdomen, and a red light was flashing on top of a square box that had been attached by black tape.

  She knew instantly that it was a bomb. What she didn’t know, and the tension was almost unbearable, was when it would go off.

  Amelia Browning was standing at the entrance to the foot passengers’ waiting area at Dover Eastern Docks ferry terminal. She had already checked three groups that had boarded ships, comparing faces with the images that Chief Inspector Oaten had sent to her cell phone. Three times she had returned empty-handed to the waiting room. It was beginning to look like she’d drawn the short straw. Other VCCT officers were checking vehicles for Sara Robbins or her mother, since this was the nearest port to the house the woman had bought in rural Kent—where DCI Oaten had organized surveillance with the local force. But there had been no sign of the suspects anywhere. Maybe they were lying low or had decided to risk air travel. Amelia was tired and hungry, but the terminal’s idea of catering was even more criminal than the Met’s.

  People started coming through passport control. A young couple in blue denim from head to toe, including caps and trainers in the material, were arguing in a language that Detective Sergeant Browning couldn’t identify. She took out her copy of the Daily Indie and pretended to read it, all the time casting surreptitious glances at the people who had just arrived. None of them was over fifty, never mind as old as Doris Carlton-Jones, and none of them bore any resemblance to Sara Robbins—though, if she’d had major plastic surgery, Amelia wasn’t sure she’d recognize her.

  The departure of the next ferry to Calais was announced. People started gathering up their luggage and heading for the ramps that led up to the passenger bridge. Amelia folded her paper. She was about to follow the others when an elderly Indian woman in a sari came out of the toilets. Her hair was an unnatural shade of black and she was carrying a large cuddly toy. There was something about the way she walked that caught the detective’s eye. She didn’t glide, like most Indian women in the full-length garment; her gait made the fabric bulge at the knees.

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.
r />   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.