“I’m fine,” she said, but she looked traumatized. “He…he shot at you.”
Andy nodded, his mind in overdrive as he constructed a plan that would win her trust. “I’ve been following that motorbike.” He looked down at the road. There was nothing there except four cartridge cases. He took out a paper tissue and picked them up. Whatever it was that had originally been in the rider’s hand was no longer there. “The name’s Andrew Ja…Jansen. I’m with the police.” He told himself to get a grip. Giving his real name would have been seriously dumb.
Doris Carlton-Jones had put up an umbrella. She beckoned him under it. “You’re with the police?”
He nodded. “Undercover major crime unit. We’ve been carrying out surveillance on a gang of diamond thieves.”
She stared at him. “But what…Why was he here?”
Andy looked at her. “I was hoping you could tell me that. First of all, you say the rider was a ‘he.’ Are you sure of that?”
“I need to go inside,” the elderly woman said, moving to the front door. “No,” she said as they got there. “No, I’m not sure about that. He, I mean the rider, raised the visor, but all I saw was the eyes. Now I’m thinking about it, I couldn’t say if it was a man or a woman.” She stared at him. “You say you’ve been following the motorbike. Don’t you know who was on it?”
Andy realized that he had to be careful-Mrs. Carlton-Jones was obviously not senile. “I’m afraid not,” he said, in his best South London accent. “I saw the rider make a pickup from another suspect, helmet on the whole time.”
Doris Carlton-Jones put her key in the lock. She opened the door and then stopped. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you in,” she said, then moved swiftly forward and closed the door after her. There was a rattle as the chain came on.
Andy swore under his breath. “Please, madam, I need to ask you some questions.”
“And I need to see your warrant card,” came the surprisingly level voice behind the door.
“I’m working undercover,” he said. “We don’t carry identification, for obvious reasons.” He’d taken out his cell phone and was texting Matt at speed-the other guys laughed at how quickly he could work the keys, saying he was a teenager in disguise. After he’d sent the message, he put the phone back in his pocket. “If you like, I can give you the number of the officer in charge of the investigation.”
The door opened a few inches, the chain visible.
“Very well,” the elderly woman said, her tone businesslike.
Andy gave her Matt’s cell phone number, hoping he’d had time to read the message. The woman left the door open on the chain and went to the telephone in the hall.
“Oh, hello,” Andy heard her say. “My name’s Doris Carlton-Jones. One of your officers has just been shot at outside my house.” She paused and listened. “Yes, his name is Andrew Jansen. Oh, he is.” She looked at Andy, her gaze still unwavering. “I see. Very well, hold on.” She brought the cordless phone over to the door and passed it through the gap. “He wants to talk to you.”
Andy took the phone. “Yes, guv,” he said. He’d seen enough British cop shows to have picked up the jargon.
“Jesus Christ, Slash!” Matt said. “What the fuck are you up to?”
“I know, guv,” Andy replied, his eyes on Doris Carlton-Jones. She was watching intently. “I tailed the motorbike from Beckenham. The rider seemed to be following the lady’s car. When I approached, four shots were fired from a silenced pistol. I’m afraid I couldn’t pursue. I wanted to make sure the lady was unharmed.”
“Was it Sara?” Matt asked breathlessly.
“Unclear, guv. The witness isn’t sure about gender, let alone identity. Em, please advise course of action.”
“Shit, I don’t know. I can’t come down there. She knows what I look like. I doorstepped her when I was researching The Death List, not that she would speak to me. Is the van mobile?”
“Yes, guv.”
“All right, get out of there. Tell her that because it’s an undercover operation, we won’t be making it a scene of crime. Did anyone else hear the shots?”
“Doubt it. No one’s come out.”
“You are a tosser, calling me DCI Oates.”
“Right, guv. See you later.” Andy handed the phone back.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Doris Carlton-Jones said. Then she closed the door, took off the chain and opened up again. “Why don’t you come inside now? You’re getting soaked.”
Andy looked back at the van. Its rear was sticking out into the road, but not too excessively. He decided it was worth cultivating Sara’s birth mother.
“Thank you, madam, just for a minute.”
“I’ll make some tea,” the woman said. “Go into the sitting room.”
Andy did as he was told. The house was spotlessly clean. The long sitting room was filled with what seemed to him to be good-quality antique furniture, and the sofas had tasteful burgundy covers. He looked around for family photographs, wondering if there might be any sign of Sara and her brother as babies. But there was only a series of shots of Mrs. Carlton-Jones with a man who had less and less hair as he got older.
“Your husband?” he asked as she bustled in with a tray.
“Yes, that’s Neville. He passed on four years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Carlton-Jones seemed momentarily to have lost the tight grip she kept on herself. “It was cancer,” she said, shaking her head. “He only lasted three months after the diagnosis.”
Andy sensed that nothing he could say would comfort her.
“Anyway, how do you take your tea?” the elderly woman said, twitching her head.
“Em, two sugars, please.” Andy never drank tea, but he didn’t want to spoil the mood. Who had ever heard of an English policeman who didn’t like tea?
After they were both settled with cups and saucers, Mrs. Carlton-Jones turned to him. “So, Sergeant Jansen, what happens now?”
“Well,” he said, gathering his thoughts, “because this is an undercover investigation, there won’t be the usual fuss with the street being closed off and everyone in the vicinity being questioned.”
Doris Carlton-Jones raised an eyebrow. “Won’t you even be taking a statement from me?”
“Later,” Andy said. “When the investigation has run its course. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
She shook her head. “No. The first thing I was aware of was your van careering toward us, after I asked the rider what he wanted.”
“And he-or she-didn’t speak to you at all?”
“No. At least not that I could hear above the sound of your engine.”
“I thought you were in danger. What was it that the rider was holding out?”
“I don’t know. A small package. I think it was wrapped, like a birthday present.”
Andy scratched his head. “And is it your birthday?”
“No, it isn’t.” She looked at him calmly, waiting for the next question.
The American took a surreptitious deep breath. “What about children?” he asked.
Mrs. Carlton-Jones’s eyes opened wide. “Children? What do they have to do with what happened outside?”
Good question, Andy thought. “No, I mean, is there anyone you’d like to come over? Do you have children?”
“Oh, I see.” She looked him straight in the eye. “No, I don’t.”
Andy held her gaze. Now he knew she was a liar.
The man in the mask and cowl walked away from the smoking altar. He heard the footsteps of the naked supplicant behind, as well as the cackling of Beelzebub.
“Where is Faustus tonight?” the supplicant asked.
“Busy,” Mephistopheles said, his tone brooking no further questions.
He slid open the door to the outer chamber. “Your offerings are always welcome, Asmodeus. But this one was somewhat lightweight.”
The supplicant started to dress, and then looked around at the leader of the or
der. “I am sowing the seeds of destruction, my lord. Soon, great riches will fall into my hands.”
“Into our hands,” Mephistopheles corrected. “We are all depending on you.” He took off his mask. “I am depending on you.”
Asmodeus took in the flawed face. “I will not let you down.”
“Good,” the leader said, shrugging off his cowl and robes. “I wouldn’t like to think that you were only killing for pleasure.”
The supplicant remained silent.
“All that we do is toward the greater glory of our master Satan,” Mephistopheles said. “Do not forget that.” He took the head of a cockerel from his pocket and tossed it to the mandrill.
The two humans watched as the creature’s jaws crunched together, then they smiled.
Fourteen
Andy’s performance in Sydenham put me right off my stride with the clue. At least, that was what I told myself. The truth was, I hadn’t got any further with it. Slash’s suggestion in the message he texted that Doris Carlton-Jones might be the victim was smart, but I found it hard to believe. Sara might have had issues with her birth mother, but I didn’t think she’d murder her. Then again, what did I know? I’d spent over a year sharing a bed with her, and it had never occurred to me until the end that she was working with the White Devil.
Looking at the puzzle again, I couldn’t see any direct link to Doris Carlton-Jones, but I didn’t have enough information to be sure about that. Maybe the sun setting, the westernmost dunes and Alexander’s womankind would mean something to her. I considered getting Andy to ask her, but decided against it. I texted him, saying that he should stay in the vicinity till further notice, just in case she was the target.
I looked at my watch. Under two hours to go. The floor of the hotel room was covered in crumpled paper. I was still trying out ideas, but as the deadline approached, they were getting more and more abstruse. I logged on to the Internet and went to the site Rog had set up. Neither he nor Pete had come up with anything coherent regarding the clue. Rog had managed to run it through all sorts of encryption software and got nothing but gobbledygook. I was sure it was the kind of puzzle that needed a human rather than a digital brain.
I found myself tantalized by some of the words. “Set”-there was something lurking in the back of my mind about that. What else could it mean? As a noun, a number or group of people or things; a complete series; a team of horses; a receiving apparatus, like a wireless set; the movements in a dance. Where did that get me? As a verb, to cause to sit; to place; to sink, like the sun-as in the clue; to prescribe; to adjust; to come into a rigid state. Great-that was also going nowhere. I had the feeling this was a puzzle that didn’t abide by the unwritten rules of crossword clues. Maybe there wasn’t even a logical answer.
It was nearly eleven o’clock. I thought seriously about calling Karen. But what good would that do now? The police were unlikely to come up with a convincing answer when Rog, Pete and I, plus numerous computer programs, hadn’t. If I’d given it to Karen in the morning, she could have got a warrant to find who had set up the who’s next e-mail address-but that would have been pointless, too, because the writer wouldn’t have given a real name and address. Then I remembered the message. Flaminio or Doctor Faustus, whether Sara or not, had told me not to involve the cops, but that I was expected to show the clue to my mother. How did the writer know that Fran was a cryptic crossword addict? Sara did, because she’d seen my mother doing the Guardian crossword and had asked why she didn’t do the one in the Daily Independent, where Sara used to work. Fran had told her that the setter there had an infantile sense of humor. Shit! “Setter”-that derived from “set.” Was that what was going on? Sara had set the clue and hinted in the message that Fran would spot the answer?
There was under three quarters of an hour to go. Was this a deliberate move on Sara’s part to get me to contact my mother? Could she have some sort of surveillance on me or my mother that would be activated by an e-mail or telephone call? I didn’t see how. I’d changed phone and laptop, and Fran would have put a new SIM card in by now. But I was still reluctant. I’d managed to get my mother and Lucy, plus Caroline, out of the killer’s sights. I didn’t want to do anything to put them back in them.
In the end, the steady ticking of the second hand on my watch got to me. I sent an e-mail to Caroline. Nearly half-past eleven. Would they still be awake? My heart started pounding and I paced around the room until the person in the room beneath thumped on his ceiling.
There was a chime from my computer. Caroline had answered.
I’ve woken your mother. She’s looking at the clue. We’ll reply by 11:55. C.
I breathed a sigh of relief. One of the good things about Caroline was her crisis management. She’d got used to panics at the bank and reacted well to pressure. Unless it was from me-somehow she’d never managed to reproduce her cool office manner at home.
Then another thought struck me. Katya. I didn’t know her surname. If she really was the target, Sara might easily disqualify my answer if I didn’t give the full name-the White Devil had done that kind of thing. I called Safet Shkrelli.
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.
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