The Death List (36 page)

“Shit,” Bonehead said, reading over my shoulder. “What’s the bastard up to?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’ve got to work that out fast. I’ll have to risk using someone’s mobile from here.” He gave me his, a small silver device. I rang my ex-wife’s number. To my relief, she picked up immediately.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Matt!” she said, as if the word was a deadly insult. Obviously the Devil hadn’t got to Caroline. “Where’s Lucy, you…you criminal?”

“She’s safe. Are the police still watching you?”

“Yes. What do you mean, she’s safe? Don’t you understand? I can’t trust you. Your face is all over the news bulletins, you’re a wanted man. I have to see Lucy, I have to—”

“You’ll see her soon,” I said gently, then rang off. I wished I could have done more to comfort her, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. I’d been the enemy for years and now she had official confirmation of that.

The guys looked at me awkwardly.

“All right, say something!” I shouted.

Before they could, my new mobile rang. Very few people had that number.

“Hello.”

“Oh, Matt, it’s Sara.” She was breathless. “You’ve got to help me, there’s a man…he’s been following me…oh, God, I’m frightened…I think it might be—”

“Where are you?”

“Um…near the office, at the meat market, oh shit, he’s right behind—”

“Sara?” I tried to make out what was going on. I heard her shout and then scream. Not long after that, the line went dead.

“Jesus,” I said, staring at the others. “He’s got Sara.” I told them what I’d heard.

“I can drive up there,” Bonehead suggested.

“What the point?” I replied. “They’ll be long gone. This is what the Devil meant about making me pay. Christ, Sara…” I buried my head in my hands.

“What about telling the police now?” Rog said.

“How will they find Sara without putting her life in danger?” I said, looking up. “We’ve got the list of the Devil’s properties. It’s down to us.” All three of them nodded. “We’ll divide up the areas and each check out some properties. I’ll get Dave to come up, as well. That makes five of us. Four or five places each. All we’re doing at this stage is seeing if anyone’s there. If there are lights on, check for movement. Ring the bell and ask for directions. See who answers. Keep in touch by mobile. Andy, you and I will have to use our disguises again.”

“Oh, great,” the American said. “I really like having a slug on my upper lip.”

I called Dave from Peter’s landline.

“Sorry, Psycho,” I said. “I need you up here after all. How’s Luce?”

“Bit down in the dumps. You’d better talk to her. Ginny’s made sure she hasn’t seen your ugly mug on the news.”

I waited as he called her.

“Is that you, Daddy?” she said, her voice making me tremble.

“Hello, darling.” I tried to make my voice sound normal. “Are you having a good time?”

“Ye-es,” she said doubtfully. “Why aren’t we at school?”

“Extra holidays. Isn’t that good?”

“Ye-es. When am I going to see you and Mummy?”

“Very soon, sweet pie. In the meantime, have fun with the kids. Are they being good to you?”

She went into a lengthy description of the games they’d been playing. I finally managed to get her off the line. At least she was happy in her own little world. The idea of her finding out that I was a wanted man was repellent. I asked Dave if he was anywhere near Hythe. He said he wasn’t far off, so I gave him the address of the cottage to check out. After that, he’d be given his next destinations by Bonehead, who was going to act as coordinator.

“Right, let’s plot the properties on a map and work out who goes where,” I said, turning to find the other three already doing that. It didn’t take long. There were five places in the area of Camden. Andy took those because he could do them by Tube and bus. Rog took five to the north and west of that. Pete was going to do four south of the river. That left five to the north and south of the City for me, and three more for Dave to the southeast of the center.

“Listen, guys,” I said, when we all had maps and annotated copies of the list. “What you’re doing is way beyond the call of friendship. If you want to—”

“Forget it, man,” Andy said. “We’re all in this because we want to help you out.”

The others nodded firmly.

“All right, all right,” I said, raising my arms in surrender. “Pete, you’re in charge of stores.”

“Lucky I have such a well-stocked toolbox, eh?” he said, grinning lewdly as he handed screwdrivers, torches and chisels to everyone.

We headed for the door. I was going to take the BMW and drop Andy and Rog on their way north. Pete was going south in the Jeep. The three of us waved him away.

Then we drove into the pounding heart of the city, each of us sunk in his thoughts. Mine were full of a burning desire for vengeance on the Devil, who looked to have taken my mother and my lover.

I remembered another line from Webster’s play—“To fashion my revenge more seriously.”

That was what I had to if I was going to save Sara.

Karen Oaten was standing next to the array of human and animal corpses in Flat 12 of the Vestine Building in Bermondsey.

“It’s them,” John Turner said, coming into the room. “Wells and Jackson. They’re wearing disguises, but the CCTV shots are clear enough. I’m sure of it.”

His superior nodded. “The question is, what were they doing here?”

“Maybe they had some other dead body to get rid of.”

Oaten frowned. “And how did they do that, Taff? They didn’t carry it out, did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “But they took a letter from the post box.”

“Has it occurred to you that they’re doing exactly the same as we are?” she said, giving him a piercing look. “Trying to find the Devil.”

Turner looked perplexed. “How did they know to come here?”

“Christ knows. Maybe they’ve got a friend who’s a computer expert.”

The Welshman turned pages in his notebook. “Bloody hell, you’re right. This Roger van Zandt guy, one of the pair we can’t locate. He runs his own computing consultancy.”

“There you are, then. They’re several steps ahead of us.” She pressed buttons on her phone. “Paul, any news on Matt Wells’s mother?” She listened. “Nothing yet? All right, get them to keep checking.”

Turner moved closer. “What’s that going to tell us?”

“Whether the Devil’s got his next victim.” She walked out of the stinking room where the murderer had honed his skills. Dr. Redrose had confirmed that the human remains were months, even years old.

“And what if it was Wells all along, taking the piss out of us?”

“Then I’ll buy you a very large drink, Taff.” She turned back to him. “And you’ll buy me one if I’m right.”

He shrugged and followed her out. The fact was, they were playing catch-up and they knew it. Until the Devil—whether he was Wells or not—struck again, the Met’s finest were nowhere. Civilian staff were trying to find out who owned the flat, but he had the feeling they wouldn’t get on the killer’s trail that way.

Christ, he wished his boss hadn’t mentioned drink. He could have done with numerous pints of Brains, his favorite Welsh beer.

I got out of the BMW in Evelyn Street in Deptford, having dropped the others off at the station. The first property on my list was in Benbow Lane, a few minutes’ walk away. As I turned into the street, I realized it was classic criminal territory—a derelict factory on one side and a row of extremely suspicious-looking lockup garages on the other. Almost all had reinforced doors and heavy padlocks. Number 35 was even better protected than most, with a steel roll-down door over the original wooden one. Not even Andy at his most creative could have found his way through that. I stepped back and saw that there was a small window in the roof. No light shone through it.

I was about to mark the place off with a cross on my list when I saw a ladder lying on the ground a few doors down. A length of guttering was next to it, obviously in the process of being reattached. Both were chained to the garage door. I took the chisel from my pocket, found a loose cobblestone and started hammering. Fortunately the padlock wasn’t a strong one and it soon gave way. I put the ladder against the wall and scrambled up it, then inched my way up the slate-covered incline.

There was a layer of heavy-duty wire over the window, but I could see inside by shining my torch down. I almost dropped it. Jesus. There was an old chair in the middle of an open space. The leather straps on the arms and legs made it obvious that someone had been held captive there. The chair also had dark stains on it. I had the feeling that something very bad had happened here.

But there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. As far as I could see, there was no one living or dead in the lockup. I would send the police to it later, but in the meantime I had to move on.

The next property on my list was a flat in what I reckoned was an exclusive block near Tower Bridge.

What would I find in Number 6, The Royal Brewery?

The White Devil was driving a nondescript blue van through the sparse traffic on North End Way. Hampstead Heath was in the darkness to his right. He turned to his accomplice, whom he’d met half an hour after Corky gave the men in the Orion the slip.

“Not long now. Tonight we’ll get them all.”

“Then what?” answered the bearded figure in the padded black anorak.

“You know that,” he said, smiling broadly. “The Caribbean, and then the world is ours.”

“How can I trust you?”

The Devil laughed. “After all we’ve been through? Come on, Corky. We’ve known each other since we were in primary school.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. You never did tell me if you had anything to do with what happened to Richard Brady.”

“What, the bully? He was found dead in a wood outside Watford, wasn’t he?”

The other man gave a sharp laugh. “Yes, and I remember how pleased you were with yourself after the summer holidays. Come on, you can tell me. Did you do him?”

The driver looked over his shoulder. “She’s moving around a lot. Make sure her gag’s okay. And the ropes round her wrists.”

His accomplice sighed as he climbed between the seats, then inched past the motorbike he’d loaded earlier. He’d had a gutful of being ordered around. Still, the payoff would make that all worthwhile—as long as he never turned his back on the man who used to be Leslie Dunn.

29

I was driving through Bermondsey in the BMW when my mobile rang.

“Matt? It’s Dave. I’ve been to that cottage outside Hythe. There were no lights on. I had a snoop around. No sign of life.”

“Okay. Call Bonehead. He’ll tell you where to go next.”

“Yes, I know, lad. I just want to tell you that I’m behind you one hundred percent. We’ll get this lunatic. See you soon.” He cut the connection.

I was glad I had him on my side. Dave Cummings wasn’t known as “Psycho” just because he liked taking out opposition players for the Bison. He’d told us some seriously nasty stories about his time in Northern Ireland with the Paras, and later with the SAS. To be fair to him, he wasn’t proud of what he and his brothers-in-arms had done. But if there was one of us capable of taking on the Devil, it was Dave.

I looked out at the lights in the buildings as I went through the southern Docklands. The place was full of people even at ten in the evening. Pissed-up commuters, young people out for a night on the town even though it was the middle of the week. There were so many of them. The city was packed to the rafters with millions of human beings. How were we going to find the Devil among them? Christ, what had happened to Sara? And to my mother?

I parked near Tower Bridge, paying no attention to its fairy-tale appearance. In the backstreets beyond, I passed through a chic area full of trendy wine bars and cafés. They were busy, the inhabitants of the recently developed former warehouse district out in force. It didn’t take me long to find the Royal Brewery. It was a free-standing Victorian block next to the river, its brick facade lit up by well-positioned spotlights. There were lights on in a couple of the flats, but not in the penthouse. I was about to go in the gate when my phone rang again.

“It’s Rog, Matt.” He sounded anxious. “Where are you?”

I told him.

“Well, if there’s nothing going on there you’d better get up here sharpish.”

I felt a twinge of alarm. “What is it?”

“I’m in East Finchley, opposite the house in Howard Avenue that the bastard owns. There’s something funny going on. A van just pulled up and a couple of guys got out. They checked to make sure no one was watching and then carried something inside.” He paused. “Matt, it was tied up in a blanket. I reckon it was a body.”

The twinge was replaced by an adrenaline rush. “Shit.” I turned and ran away from the former brewery toward Jamaica Road. “Did you…did you see any movement?”

“Yeah. There were some wriggles. The person was probably conscious.”

I started to run back toward the BMW, the phone to my ear. “What’s going on now?”

“Nothing that I can see. The curtains are all drawn and they’re obviously pretty thick. I can only see a dull glow at the edges of the upstairs windows.”

“Jesus.” Thoughts were flashing through my mind. Was it Sara? Fran? Should I contact the police? I decided that would be too risky. If it was the Devil, maybe I’d be able to reason with him. “Stay there. I’ll park on the main road. Put your phone on vibrate mode. I’ll contact you when I’m in walking distance.”

“Right. I’m behind a hedge. Do you think we should get Andy and the others up?”

“Let’s see how it looks when I get there.” I was loath to pull the guys off the other properties until I was sure we had the Devil in our sights.

“Okay.” He rang off.

The drive through Islington and up Holloway Road seemed to take an eternity. I was trying to work out what to do, how to approach the Devil, but I couldn’t come up with any coherent plan. If he had one of my loved ones in his possession, I didn’t have many options. Could I persuade him to take me instead?

At last I got to East End Road in East Finchley. My mother lived about half a mile away. Was it possible she’d never left home? Had the bastard got to her that early? And what about Sara? Her mobile was still switched off.