The Soul Collector

by Paul Johnston

  The phone was answered with a grunted monosyllable that presumably meant something in Albanian. I explained what I wanted.

  “Ask her yourself,” Shkrelli said. There was a rustling noise, then Katya came on the line.

  “Are you in a safe place?” I asked.

  “Yes, I think so. We are at—”

  “Don’t tell me!” I said, the words coming out in a rush. “There may be surveillance. What’s your full name?”

  She paused, as if reluctant to give up the last remnant of her self. I was pretty sure that Safet Shkrelli had never bothered to ask her name.

  “Katerina Petrova Georgieva.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Take care. And remember, I can get you out of there.”

  There was a bitter male laugh. “You, Matt Wells? You’re the one who has put her life in danger. Fuck you.” The connection was cut.

  I sat down on the lumpy bed and dropped the phone. Was that really what I had done? Had Sara—or whoever Flaminio/Doctor Faustus was—chosen Katya because of the one meeting I’d had with her? Now, as the minute hand neared twelve, it seemed desperately unlikely. I looked again at the clue, but the words blurred into a meaningless jumble of letters. At least the whole sentence wasn’t an anagram—Rog’s digital tools had checked that.

  Five minutes till my mother came back with her thoughts, nine till I had to answer…The full significance of what was happening hit me. Someone’s life hung on what I sent. If Sara had set the clue, she’d found a perfect way to get revenge for the White Devil’s death. In effect, I was being turned into a murderer.

  The woman woke in the late evening, without a clue where she was.

  “Come on, girl,” she said, her Texan accent at odds with the whimsical decor of Wilde’s. It claimed to be the city’s premier hotel for the discerning gay traveler but, as far as she was concerned, lime-green net curtains and pink-and-white-striped wallpaper were several steps too far down the road to Reading Gaol.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” she remembered. “I’m in London—according to the incomparable William Cobbett, the Great fuckin’ Wen.”

  She got up and went into the bathroom. A large, old-fashioned bath took up most of the room. For someone who was over six feet, that didn’t leave much room for other functions, even if she had kept her weight below the 140 pound mark. As she straddled the toilet, she recalled what had happened earlier in the day. Her publishers had taken her out to lunch, during which her editor had made it very clear that they wanted to sign her up for at least another four books.

  “Talk to Lenny,” she’d said. Her agent would know how to squeeze every last drop of money out of them. When her editor, a youngish guy with an earring, went off to the john, she’d spoken to her publicist.

  “Lavinia, honey, you gotta get me outta this hotel. Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be the coolest place in town, but it is definitely not my kind of cool.” She listened as her publicist reminded her about the interview she was scheduled to give at Wilde’s the next morning.

  “Oh, well, all right, but just tonight. I’d rather stay in a motel than this crummy dump.” She held up a hand. “No, honey, I know you don’t have motels in London. No, you don’t have to come along. I can handle the Times journalist. With one hand tied behind my back.” She had three university degrees, in subjects ranging from English literature to computer science, but she liked to play the Southern belle, lesbian version. She knew that people always paid more attention to your jugs than your certificates. In her case, that meant a lot of attention. Even her ever-so-gay editor couldn’t keep his eyes off them.

  Blinking, she gave the bath and its clawed feet a cursory inspection. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d brought herself to climax in one when she was touring books, but she really preferred the shower. What was it with the Brits and their baths? How the hell were you supposed to get clean, sitting in water you’d just made dirty? She turned the regulator up as far as it went, and stepped into the torrent. After ten minutes, the last of her jet lag was well on its way to the departure lounge.

  She decided she’d hit a club. As she got dressed in her standard evening wear—boot-cut, slim-fitting black Levi’s and matching shirt with polished quartz buttons, custom-made for her—she thought about the book she’d read on the plane. She knew she’d met the writer at one of the mystery conventions—was it Madison, Wisconsin?—but she was having trouble recalling what he looked like. Why was it that Brits thought they could write American characters? Then again, there were several American crime writers who imagined they could write Brits. The hero she’d shared her journey with was one hell of an asshole, even by real-life FBI standards—and that was saying something. She got hit on all the time by serving cops and special agents, who thought she should get some firsthand knowledge of their business, even though she made no secret of her sexuality. Anyway, she was at a loss as to how sucking their dicks would provide insight.

  She sat at the dressing table, her thighs crushed against the underside of the drawer. The mirror was in the shape of a large male head with an extravagant quiff that spread halfway up the wall. Anything that covered the pink-and-white stripes was fine by her. She applied her usual light foundation and bright scarlet lipstick, leaving her eyelashes and the surrounding area untouched—if they ain’t looking at your titties, they’ll be looking at your mouth, one of her few male lovers had told her. Eyes were off-limits for most men, and hair was just a distraction. That was why she kept her blond locks short and unshowy.

  The author made sure there were several copies of her novels on the table in the adjoining sitting room. The journalist in the morning wasn’t likely to fall for such blatant product placement, but the photographer would appreciate it. She stood her latest work, Slim Pickings on the Pecos, against a pile of the others. The jacket showed a lowering red sky over the river of the title. It was a good job, better than her publishers back home had done. They preferred a busty blonde with a come-and-fuck-me-boys look, even though her heroine, Detective Dusty Jaxone, was average in looks and size. That was why she was popular as hell, especially with women readers who were sick to the front teeth of smart-ass medical examiners and kickass private eyes.

  It would soon be midnight. Time for a cocktail before she went out. With any luck, she’d be several sheets to the wind by the time she hit the dance floor. One thing to be said for Wilde’s was that it listed the best lesbian and gay clubs in its information pack. She phoned room service and ordered a pair of margaritas. They ought to keep her axles greased.

  A couple of minutes later there was a knock on the door.

  “Is that room service?” she said, overemphasizing the drawl because she knew the Brits loved it.

  “Yes, madam,” came a deep voice.

  The bestselling author went to the door and opened it, thinking as she did that it would have been a good idea to look through the spy-hole first. But, hell, it was only room service, and they’d moved faster than a rattlesnake’s tail.

  When she saw the misshapen face outside, the smile vanished from her lips faster than the Sacramento Mountains sucked down the evening sun.

  The e-mail from my mother duly arrived. I read it and realized that she hadn’t come up with an answer, though she did point out a couple of things I’d missed. Set with a capital s was the ancient Egyptian god of disorder, and in a cryptic crossword, that could suggest that letters or words had been mixed up—fair enough, and that was the reference of “set” that had been at the tip of my tongue, but it didn’t get us much further. More interesting was Fran’s reading of “by the westernmost dunes”—she wondered if the use of “by” could mean “next to,” and that therefore we shouldn’t be looking for the most western beaches such as Cornwall in England, but those in Devon, the only county next to Cornwall. Again, fair enough, but what was I supposed to send Flaminio/Doctor Faustus? I had no choice. It had to be Katya, even though her only connection was the dead critic named Alexander.

  Heart thun
dering like a bass drum, I logged on to my e-mail program. At exactly eleven fifty-nine there was a chime and an e-mail arrived from next is who?—the sender’s new address. I hit Reply and sent the Bulgarian’s full name. Then it struck me—what was going to happen next? Would Sara, or whoever had set up the clue, answer immediately, or was I going to have to spend the night monitoring the news? In the rush toward the deadline, I hadn’t considered the time after it. I stood up and stepped away from the laptop, but kept my eye on the screen. Screw the guy in the room underneath, I needed to walk. I only got halfway toward the discolored wardrobe when I heard the chime. The bell had tolled. Was someone about to die?

  I clicked on the new message, and my heart sank like a stone.

  Who? Never heard of her. Right sex, though.

  “Now hast she but one bare minute to live…”

  Doctor Faustus

  Jesus. If the bastard who sent the message was to be believed—and what had been said about the Mary Malone murder showed insider knowledge—there was a woman in London being murdered as I stood in front of the screen. I replied, asking for more time, but there was no response. I recognized the quotation—it was from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, one of the few set-texts that I’d actually paid attention to at university. It should have read

  Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,

  And then thou must be damn’d perpetually.

  My mind filled with visions of violence and death. Because I’d arrogantly assumed I could solve the clue and hadn’t involved my mother earlier, I had condemned a woman to death. It wasn’t just Faustus who’d been damned for eternity. I had been, too.

  The sound of her cell phone woke Karen Oaten instantly. She had got home from the office at eleven and gone straight to bed. Although she had grabbed the phone automatically—she’d had long years of practice—her brain took a few seconds to function and she had to ask Amelia Browning to repeat what she’d said. The alarm clock showed 00:46.

  “Dead woman at a hotel in Soho,” the detective sergeant said breathlessly. “We need to get over there and take it from Homicide Central.”

  “Hold on, Amelia,” Karen said, blinking in the bright light she had turned on. “What’s so significant about—”

  “Single stab wound to the heart,” Browning interrupted. “And a message on the body.”

  Oaten felt her stomach flip. It sounded very like the White Devil’s modus operandi. “What does it say?” she asked, gripping her phone tightly.

  There was a pause. “It…it says ‘Ask Matt Wells about this,’ guv. There was music playing, as well.”

  “Jesus Christ.” The chief inspector swung her legs out of bed and padded over to the wardrobe. “Where’s Taff?”

  “At home, I suppose. But I can—”

  “You’re on night duty in the office, sergeant, and that’s where you have to stay. How did you find out about the murder?”

  “I was monitoring the emergency frequencies.”

  “Good work.” Most of Oaten’s team spent night duty catching up on their paperwork or playing solitaire on their computers. Amelia would have finished her paperwork long ago. “Have you spoken to anyone in Homicide Central?”

  “Yes, guv. I thought it was best if I declared the VCCT’s interest.”

  “Well done again. But that’s enough. I’ll take over now.” Oaten cut the connection and started to dress. She could imagine how well a call from a lowly sergeant in her team would have gone down with whichever grizzled senior officer was in charge. After she’d put on a pair of sensible black shoes, she called John Turner.

  “Sorry, Taff, but I need you.” She explained the situation, then arranged to meet him at the hotel. It was on Charlotte Street and seemed to be in the color supplements every weekend.

  It wasn’t till she was in her car and heading for Soho that Karen thought about the mention of Matt. Why had the killer left a message referring to him? She called his home numbers, both open and ex-directory, and his cell phone. Each time she got his answering service and had to leave messages. The fact that he wasn’t picking up gave her a bad feeling. He and his mates were up to something, she was sure of that. Surely they hadn’t managed to provoke Sara to murder?

  She left her car outside the police tape in the Soho street. Uniformed officers were struggling to hold journalists and photographers back. As she bent under the cordon, she heard a familiar voice.

  “Is this a case for the VCCT, Chief Inspector?”

  Karen Oaten ignored the tall figure in a dark blue Barber jacket. Jeremy Andrewes, crime correspondent of the Daily Independent, had been a colleague of Sara Robbins. Oaten had little time for the aristocratic news-hound, although he was less of a muckraker than most of his breed. She wondered how the pack had heard about the murder. A hotel employee had probably earned a nice little bonus.

  Inside the hotel’s opulent lobby, she recognized detectives from Homicide Central. They were talking to hotel staff and guests, some of whom looked shell-shocked.

  John Turner came up to her, wearing a white coverall, the hood up. “It’s on the third floor, guv,” he said, leading the way.

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “A room-service waiter. The door of the suite was a couple of centimeters open.”

  “Who’s in charge from Central?” Oaten asked as she pulled on a set of protective clothing and gloves.

  “DCI Younger.”

  “Could be worse.” When she was ready, she followed the Welshman up the stairs. CSIs had run tape down one half and were examining the floor and banisters for prints.

  They came out into the third-floor corridor, black-and-white geometric paintings mounted on the pale pink wallpaper. The victim’s suite—the Windermere—was first on the left, a large Japanese fan spread open and mounted on the gray door. As they went in, they met Dr. Redrose on his way out.

  “Ah, the chief of the elite,” he said, jowls wobbling. “I was wondering when you’d make an appearance.”

  Karen gave him a dispassionate look. “Going somewhere, Doctor?”

  “I’m finished,” Redrose said, one hand on his protruding stomach. “A simple case. One stab wound to the heart, a smooth, two-edged blade. The murderer is right-handed, probably not as tall as the victim, who is fractionally over six feet, and the time of death was after 11:00 p.m. according to the body temperature, though I gather the poor woman placed a room-service order at eleven fifty-three and the waiter found her at ten past twelve, so you already have a tight window.”

  “Hello, Chief Inspector,” said a gray-haired man with a curiously boyish face.

  “Ditto, Colin,” Oaten said, looking around the spacious suite.

  There was a pair of cocktail glasses and a tray on the floor near the door, and some damp patches on the puce carpet. Beyond them, the body of a tall woman with short blond hair, wearing what looked like a black cowboy outfit, lay on the floor. Her arms were at exact right angles to her torso and her legs were straight, the heels of her boots touching. Her shirt was stained with blood. Her eyelids were wide apart and her mouth open, as if in utter astonishment.

  “The shape of the cross,” Younger said, in a faint Scottish accent.

  Karen Oaten nodded. “No sign of a pentagram?”

  “Like the author who was killed in Fulham?” The chief inspector shook his head. “No.”

  “Maybe this was all the bastard had time to do,” John Turner said.

  Oaten nodded. “What about the message?”

  Younger handed her a transparent evidence bag. “It was lying over her face.”

  The words “Ask Matt Wells about this” were written in capitals, in blue ink. Oaten’s expression remained impassive.

  “Turn it over,” Younger said.

  She did so and saw the words “FECIT DIABOLUS” in red ink. Whoever had spoken to Amelia Browning had failed to mention that.

  “It’s the same killer,” Turner
said.

  “Given that we didn’t release the Latin words to the press, I’d say there’s a good chance of that, Taff,” Oaten said. She looked at Younger. “I gather no one saw anything.”

  He shrugged. “Someone must have seen the killer. All the exits are alarmed, so he—or she—must have come in through the main entrance. The problem is, the bar was busy and it would have been easy to slip in unnoticed. We’re talking to everyone who was in the building when we arrived. We’ll narrow it down and get a description.” He frowned. “If you don’t take the case from us.”

  Oaten glanced at Taff. “We’re taking it—it’s clearly linked to the Mary Malone case. We’ll have to take that, too. I’ll talk to your super. I’d like your team to stay on the case. Taff here will act as liaison.”

  Younger’s face flushed. “So we do the hard graft and you get the glory?”

  Oaten shook her head. “You know I don’t work like that, Colin. Give me a break, for Christ’s sake. Apart from these murders, we’ve got the shooting south of the river, plus what looks like the makings of a major gang war in East London. I’m asking for your help. Don’t make me show my teeth.”

  Younger pursed his lips, and then nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “What’s the victim’s name?” Oaten asked.

  “Obviously we haven’t had a formal identification yet, but the books over there have got her photo on them. We also found her passport. She’s Sandra Lee-Anne Devonish, born San Antonio, Texas, on January 15th, 1970. According to the back of the books, she’s one of the world’s highest-selling crime novelists.”

  Karen Oaten felt a chill finger stir in her gut. Another crime writer. She was certain Matt knew something about the case. The message that Sara or whoever killed Sandra Devonish had left on the body suggested there had been some kind of communication. Where the hell was Matt when his fellow crime writer was being stabbed with such frightening precision?

  “What was the music?” she asked, coming back to herself.

  “Sorry?” Younger had also been lost in thought. “Oh, yes. According to my sergeant, who knows about rock—I only listen to the classics—it’s a song called ‘Friend of the Devil’ by the Grateful Dead.”