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 thundering 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.”
Karen Oaten grunted. The tabloid papers would love that.
Fifteen
I couldn’t stay in my hotel room any longer. The thought that someone was being killed because of my failure to crack the clue drove me onto the streets of Bloomsbury. I brushed past a kid who asked for money, provoking justified abuse. I walked around the quiet streets and lost track of time. Eventually, in front of the British Museum, I looked up at the neo-classical facade and tried to get a grip. The shouts of some pissed students brought me back to reality. There were people laughing and enjoying themselves, but I had put myself beyond the boundaries of ordinary humanity. I had tried to take on a killer and someone else had paid for my arrogance.
I found a public phone and called Karen’s cell phone.
“Matt,” she said in a low voice, “where are you?”
“Never mind. There’s been a murder, hasn’t there?”
“How did you know that?” she demanded. “Where are you? I need you to come in.” Her tone was icy.
“Who was it?” I asked, desperate to know whose name had been concealed in the clue.
“When I see you, I’ll tell you,” she replied. “One thing you might like to know now, though-there was a message on the body. The Devil did it, in Latin, as in Mary Malone’s garden.”
“Shit,” I said. Had Sara struck again so quickly?
“That’s not all it said.”
Something about her tone made me instantly apprehensive. The White Devil had tried to frame me several times.
“Suddenly you’ve gone all quiet,” she said ironically. “The killer also wrote ‘Ask Matt Wells about this.’ So, I’m asking.”
“You know I didn’t kill anyone.”
“So why should I tell you who the victim was?” She had obviously had it with me.
“Tell me who it was, Karen. Please.”
“Screw you, Matt,” she hissed. “Who do you think you are? Why should I share information with you when all you do is disappear so you can run your personal campaign?”
I took a deep breath. “Because I’m the only person who can catch Sara. When it comes to the crisis point, I’ll be the bait she can’t resist.”
“And how many people have to die before you eventually play that heroic part?”
My stomach somersaulted as I realized she would have seen the number I was calling from on her screen. If she’d got someone to find the phone booth’s location, a car full of cops could be on its way as we spoke.
“I’m hanging up, Karen. Last chance to tell me the name. You know I can make good use of it.”
“Do I?” she said, the anger in her voice replaced by what sounded like regret. “Maybe I did once. But you’re flailing about now, Matt. Come in, for God’s sake.”
�
�The name, Karen.”
There was a pause before she spoke again. “It’ll be on the news soon enough. Sandra Devonish.”
I broke the connection and ran for my hotel. I stopped a couple of times to check that there was no one on my tail. Either I’d got away in time or Karen hadn’t traced the number. I wasn’t taking any chances about where I spent the rest of the night. I went up to my room, packed up the laptop and the rest of my gear and went out past the dozing night porter.
Back on the street, I saw a cab and hailed it.
“Where to, squire?” the driver asked.
I told him to drive toward Victoria and thought about it. Getting out of London was tempting, but I needed to be close to the scenes of the crimes. Maybe I’d be able to prevent another. Christ, who was I kidding? I hadn’t been able to help Sandra Devonish. I’d met her a couple of times at crime-writing conferences in the States. She played the Southern belle, with the full set of long vowels and perfect manners, then would turn into a wisecracking, in-your-face lesbian. She could drink most men under the bar. I shook my head to dispel the vision of the stunning American. I needed to think about what to do now. I couldn’t handle this on my own any longer. It could be risky meeting up with Rog and Pete, but it had to be done. If we were going to catch Sara, we needed to go on the offensive and to do that effectively, we had to be together.
I took out my laptop, booted up and asked the driver to pull in. My wireless card picked up a signal and I logged on to the Internet. I sent a message to Rog’s ghost site. I told him and Pete to meet me on the Embankment, under Hungerford Bridge. I sent Andy a text saying the same thing. Then I walked from Victoria to Embankment, checking there was no one on my tail. As I was going under the railway bridge, a low whistle came from my left.
“Over here, Matt,” Pete said in a low voice.
I joined him in a dim alcove. “God, it’s good to see a friendly face,” I said, grabbing his hand.
“Steady on,” he said, trying to look at my face. “What’s up?”
I told him about Sandra Devonish. I could see he was trying to make sense of the clue now that we knew the answer, but that wasn’t the priority right now.
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