The Soul Collector Read online

  I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Who said anything about a rash?”

  “Oh, you know how the papers like to gossip. Has Karen taken the case on?”

  “Speaking of gossip,” I said.

  “Don’t take that tone, Matt. I’m serious.”

  “Mother, you wrote three thrillers for teenagers back in the seventies. I hardly think you’ll be on the top of the hit list. There may not even be a hit list. It’s gossip. And only one person has died. How’s that a rash?”

  “Come on,” she scoffed. “That Rolling Stones song playing and the killer parading in a cape and top hat—don’t tell me that isn’t suggestive of an organized individual with an agenda.”

  “Well, I bow to your superior knowledge,” I said, heading for the kitchen and a liter of orange juice to re-hydrate my failing system.

  “Has it even occurred to you that I might be frightened?” she asked with a partially suppressed sob.

  That stopped me in my tracks. “Christ, I’m sorry, Mother. Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, it’s all right, dear. I know you have Lucy today.”

  Shit. I’d forgotten about my daughter. I changed direction and went toward the shower.

  “Surely it must have crossed your mind that…that Sara was behind the murder?”

  “Em, yes, it did, Mother. But there hasn’t been any message or other form of contact, and everybody on my list has reported in on the last two mornings.”

  “You still haven’t told me if Karen’s working the case.”

  “Sorry. No, she isn’t. She was called in to take a look, but the local detectives are still in charge, as far as I know.”

  “All right, dear. Let me know if you hear anything I should know.”

  “Okay, will do. I’ve got to dash now. ’Bye.”

  “’Bye,” she repeated, her voice weak.

  I twitched my head and chucked the phone onto one of the sofas. Fran lived on her own and was a successful children’s author. I hadn’t heard her so concerned since the White Devil case. The bastard kidnapped her and kept her tied up for days. Mary Malone’s death must have stirred up bad memories for her. She wasn’t the only one.

  Remembering that Lucy, let alone her mother, expected me at ten, I rushed my shave, leaving cuts that stung like hell when I had a shower. As I came out, I heard the phone ring. This time it was the special line that I used only for my mates. I dripped water over the carpet as I ran to my desk.

  “Hello,” I said, panting.

  “Morning, lad.” It was Dave Cummings. I registered immediately that there was something odd about his voice. “Nice weather if you’re a penguin.” The hairs rose on the back of my neck. We’d set up a series of code words in the event that Sara, or anyone else, put the squeeze on us. Between Dave and me, anything to do with nice weather meant that the speaker was in immediate physical danger.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “What’s—”

  The call was terminated.

  “Shit!” I yelled. After all this time, was the nightmare really starting again? I called Andy, Rog and Pete and told them what had happened. They knew what to do. Then I ran to the bedroom and changed clothes—black cargo pants with numerous pockets, a black denim jacket and boots. I called Caroline and told her something had come up. She understood from my tone that it was serious. I told her to follow plan C, which meant that she should take Lucy, drive up to my mother’s house in Muswell Hill, collect her and head for the M25; she was then to drive around the motorway in a clockwise direction until she heard from me again. Caroline knew the drill and she also knew that the line might be tapped. She still managed to make it sound like it was all my fault—which, in a way, of course, it was, but I didn’t have time to think about that now. I should have called Karen, too, but my friends and I needed a free hand at this stage. The police would only get in the way and maybe put Dave in worse jeopardy.

  I parted the hanging clothes in the walk-in wardrobe and pulled up the carpet. The floorboards looked normal, but by pressing the top right corner I released a catch that opened a foot-square panel. From the hole beneath, I removed a 9 mm Glock 19 and silencer, two nine-round clips, a set of knuckle-dusters and a sheathed Glock 78 field knife. I also removed my walkie-talkie and headset from the charger in the hole. Karen would have had a fit if she’d found my gear.

  Dave Cummings had spent the last two years teaching me and the others how to behave like soldiers. Now I had to prove that I’d been a good pupil.

  “Hello, Karen.”

  “Guv.” Oaten shook the hand extended by Detective Superintendent Ron Paskin of Homicide Division East. He was her ex-boss. They were both in white coveralls and overshoes. “I’m surprised to see you down here.”

  “Mm.” Paskin was a grizzled bull of a man, who had a reputation for being hard but fair, both with criminals and his subordinates. “I’ll get merry hell from the wife. Normally we spend Saturday mornings at the supermarket.” He lifted the barrier tape and led her down the lane from the black minivan. A tent had been erected over it and the surrounding area. CSIs were coming and going, two of their vans on the pavement to the rear.

  “As you know, there’s been some shit going down among the various Turkish gangs, particularly the Shadows,” the superintendent said, his voice low. “But this fellow is a Kurd, a pretty small-time member of the King’s family.”

  Oaten chewed her lip, then remembered Inspector Neville’s habit of doing that and stopped. “Do you think the Turks and Kurds are building toward an all-out war?”

  Paskin took a deep breath. “If they are, it’ll be the first we’ve heard of it,” he said, expelling the air from his barrel chest. “You know how it is on the streets. The small guys play tough, but the bosses are happy enough with the status quo. They all know that they can’t have everything and they prefer to get what they can with a reasonable degree of security.”

  “How about the Albanians?” Oaten suggested. “They’ve been growing their operations recently.”

  “Possible,” the superintendent admitted. “They’re the kind to gut a man, too. But we haven’t had a whisper from our snouts. You?”

  She shook her head. “Not about this area. They’ve really got a grip on Soho now, much to the disgust of the Chinese, and they’ve been making inroads into Bayswater and the knocking-shops around Paddington. But out here, no.”

  “Still,” Paskin said, “it could be a splinter group from any number of nationalities. If anyone can wrest the heroin trade from the Turks and Kurds, they’ll own the city—the whole of southeast England, in fact.”

  Oaten nodded. “So what happened here?” She saw John Turner, in a white coverall, come out of the tent. He didn’t look a well man.

  “As I said, the victim was gutted with a long-bladed knife, which was taken from the scene, probably by the killer—though you never know what kids will pick up around here. His name’s Nedim Zinar. He was a big man, over six feet, and the doc thinks a smaller guy did for him. The wound suggests that the initial thrust was between the groin and the navel.”

  “Delightful. Did you know him?”

  The superintendent nodded. “He was a friendly type for an enforcer—had a gang of kids. Mind you, though he’d been in the game for at least fifteen years, he wasn’t much more than standard muscle. If you wanted to make an example, he wouldn’t be your man. Then again, he was an easy target. From what I’ve heard, he parked his car here every night and supervised the locking up of a shop down Lower Clapton Road.”

  “Did he have a record?”

  “Only minor stuff when he was younger—a bit of thieving. I seem to remember he broke a guy’s jaw outside one of the King’s clubs, but he got off on self-defense.”

  Oaten glanced at the tent. “I suppose I’d better have a look,” she said, without much enthusiasm.

  “Suit yourself,” said Paskin. “Oh, there’s one thing that you won’t find.”

  “What’s that?”
r />   “Tough guys like him carry a weapon. The CSIs found three full clips of 9 mm Parabellum rounds in a stash box under one of the rear seats.”

  “Shit. That means one more handgun on the streets of London. Unlike in the U.S.A., where weapons grow on trees, that’s seriously bad news.”

  “Correct, Karen.” Ron Paskin smiled at her. “Still, you highfliers in the VCCT must be used to that kind of thing.”

  Karen Oaten knew her former boss was only teasing, unlike most of the other divisional officers she came across. “Oh, we get all sorts of weapons. Including knives.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to take over this case?”

  “It almost sounds like you want me to.”

  “Well, we’re as snowed under as ever.”

  “Ditto. I don’t see any reason for us to come in yet, but we’ll keep an eye on your reports. What about that Turk who was killed the other day? Could this be a revenge hit?”

  The superintendent’s brow furrowed. “Maybe. Again, I doubt they’d have gone for someone as minor as Zinar.”

  The chief inspector nodded. “You know that if I can conclusively tie this murder to another one inside or outside your division, I’ll have to take it.”

  Paskin nodded. “No problem.” He inclined his head toward John Turner. “How’s Taff doing?”

  “Good. He’s been my right-hand man ever since we were transferred.”

  “His face looks like a three-day-old piece of cod. He obviously still has that aversion to dead people.”

  Oaten watched her subordinate as he spoke to one of the local detectives, taking notes studiously. “I sometimes wish I hadn’t got so inured to the results of violence. I think Taff’s more of a normal human being than I am.”

  Paskin nudged her. “Steady on, girl. You’ve got as far as you have because you can shut off your emotions. I don’t see Taff ever running things like you do.” He took another deep breath, and then expelled it forcefully. “Christ, this lane stinks. Hell of a place to die.”

  “Hell of a way to die, too,” Oaten added.

  “Could have been worse,” the superintendent said, lighting a cheroot. “He could have had his head chopped off, like that victim in your first big case with the VCCT. The White Devil was really something, wasn’t he?”

  Karen Oaten nodded. “He certainly was. East End boy, as well.”

  Paskin grinned, showing teeth stained by countless cigars. “We have a long tradition of master criminals here. What was the name of that writer-fellow the killer targeted?”

  “Matt Wells.” Karen wasn’t sure if Paskin knew of their relationship. He might have heard on the grapevine, but it wasn’t in his nature to pay attention to innuendo.

  “There was a sister too, wasn’t there?”

  She nodded.

  “If she’s anything like that callous bastard, let’s hope she doesn’t resurface.”

  “Here’s hoping, indeed.” The chief inspector stuck out her hand. “Good to see you again, guv. Take care. You mustn’t have long to go till retirement.”

  “Three months,” he said with a smile.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “We’ve got a cottage in Brittany. I can’t understand a word the locals say, but the food’s a sight better than what the wife comes up with these days. Nothing but bloody salad…”

  Karen waved her arm as she headed for Taff. She wasn’t looking forward to examining the body. She’d been on edge all morning and her stomach was still upset. Chewing antacid tablets had only made her feel more queasy.

  If she was lucky, the villains of London would give her the weekend off. But she wasn’t counting on that.

  The acrid smoke that rose from the altar made the supplicant’s eyes sting and his throat burn, before it was carried away on the air current above the subterranean river. The walls were covered with frescoes depicting demons and the landscape of hell.

  “Does the offering please you, Mephistopheles?”

  “It is not I who must be satisfied, Faustus,” the cowled figure with the white mask said, watching the flames die down. “There is another who receives the hair and nails of our victims with relish.”

  “And…and the ear?”

  Mephistopheles laughed. “I have added it to our collection, fear not.”

  The supplicant stood up slowly, licking his lips nervously. The masked figure seemed to be alone, so Faustus allowed himself to relax.

  Then, with a high-pitched snarl, the beast came bounding across the cave floor, his jaws wide apart and the yellowed incisors bared.

  Faustus forced himself to stand firm. At least the mandrill called Beelzebub did what his master told him. There was a human animal, thankfully not present tonight, who had begun to find their activities insufficiently visceral. Faustus swallowed hard and steeled himself. He could kill as well as anyone else and the Lord Beneath the Earth knew that.

  Five

  I parked my black Saab 9-3 sport sedan at the designated rendezvous two streets away from Dave’s house in North Dulwich. Roger van Zandt and Peter Satterthwaite were waiting for me in the latter’s Grand Cherokee. A minute later, Andy Jackson arrived on his new 600 cc Hornet. We all got into the Cherokee to prepare.

  “Any idea where Ginny and the kids are?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “Dave said they were going to visit her aunt today. He was going to spend the morning cooking lobster.”

  “So he was on his own in the house,” Rog said. “The place is like a fortress. How could anyone get in?”

  Pete glanced in the rearview mirror. “Maybe the entry we’re going to use isn’t as hidden as Dave thought.”

  As I was the one who was going to be using that entry first, Bonehead’s comment didn’t make me feel great.

  Rog turned around. “Did you call him back, Wellsy?”

  “Several times, and on his cell. The messaging service cut in both times. I wasn’t going to identify myself.”

  “What do you mean?” Andy demanded. “Whoever’s got him will know he called you.”

  I shook my head. “Cool it, guys. We talked about this when we set the reporting system up. He called me, which suggests he was free at that time. Maybe he saw trouble coming.”

  “What, up the garden path?” Pete said. “If he was on his own, he wouldn’t have used the code.”

  “He might have,” I replied. “If he suspected his line was being tapped or his cell phone frequency scanned. Anyway, that’s what we’re here to find out. Let’s get geared up.”

  We each made sure our phones were switched to vibrate and checked our weapons—we all had the same pistols, knives and knuckle-dusters. In the quiet time after the White Devil’s death, Dave had encountered some piss-taking because of his insistence that we carry such heavy-duty weapons when the alert codes were used. Now I could see he’d been right. There could have been a squad of hard men hired by Sara in his spacious house.

  “What about silencers?” Pete asked.

  “The book says put ’em on,” Andy replied. He was referring to the operations manual Dave had given each of us.

  “The problem is, the Glock doesn’t fit in a pocket when it’s that long,” Rog said. He shrugged and screwed his silencer on when he saw the way Andy was looking at him. Slash had spent a couple of deeply unhappy years in the marine corps, but at least he’d learned to accept orders—when he agreed with them.

  “You’re taking the rifle, aren’t you, Boney?” I said.

  He nodded. Dave had obtained a Walther WA2000 sniper’s rifle with Schmidt and Bender telescopic sights from the same dodgy East London arms dealer who had supplied our pistols and silencers. Pete was the best shot apart from Dave, so he got the big gun, which was actually shorter than an ordinary rifle and fitted into a tennis player’s bag.

  “Okay,” I said, “we’ll play this by the book, as Slash said.” I opened the copy that Pete handed me; I’d forgotten my own in the rush to leave home. “Rog, you’re on the front, behind the
inner hedge and by the garages.”

  Dave’s house was detached and surrounded by tall trees and thick bushes. I once asked him how he could afford it on an army pension, even one augmented by First Gulf War and SAS service. He laughed and told me that his wife had inherited a shedload of money from a spinster aunt.

  “Pete, you cut down the path that runs along the far end of his garden.” I pointed on the map Dave had drawn.

  “I remember,” Bonehead said. “Dave showed me. The neighbors can’t see me and I can cover all the rear windows.”

  “Right,” I said. “If there’s a lot of people inside and we get desperate, we’ll try to get to the back of the house.”

  “Yeah,” said Andy. “Just make sure you don’t drill us.” He pointed to his blond hair. “This is me.”

  Rog finished with his Glock, and turned to Andy and me. “Are you both going in? The book leaves that optional.”

  I looked at the American. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll hoist you in and we’ll take it from there. You all got your walkie-talkies?”

  Dave had insisted that we each buy an identical good-quality walkie-talkie. We were each responsible for ensuring the batteries were permanently charged, and I was glad to see that they’d all fulfilled that requirement. The units fitted to our belts and we each had a mini headset with an earpiece and a microphone that lay across one cheek like a dueling scar.

  “We’ll test ’em after we’ve split up,” Andy said.

  “Uh, what do we do if someone spots us?” Rog asked. He would be in the most obvious position.

  “Say you’re a telecom engineer checking radiation levels,” I said. “That should get them moving on.”

  “You’re joking,” he said, his brow lined. “Aren’t you?”

  Pete raised a finger. “Remember what Dave always says. When the book doesn’t tell you what to do…”

  “Improvise,” we all chorused. The number of times Dave had been mocked about that was huge.

  “What if you two both go in and we don’t hear from you?” Boney asked.