The Death List (5 page)

Les felt his fists clench. He knew they were Catholics, all right. Father O’Connell made sure he knew what was right and what was wrong. Father O’Connell was an expert in that department. He was another one he’d pay back. But his father, who he now knew wasn’t even his real father, was number one on his list.

“All right, Mum,” he said, giving her a smile. He’d realized he was better off after hearing the news that he had been adopted. The piece-of-shit Billy wasn’t related to him and that was a big relief.

He eyed his mother. And Cath wasn’t a blood relation, either. That changed everything.

Les moved closer, his hand touching his astonished mother’s breast. By the time she’d started to protest, he’d clamped his mouth over hers.

No, the watcher at the window said to himself. Not that. The writer wasn’t going to get that. His loving mother’s memory was sacred. Nothing could be allowed to cast a shadow on it.

He looked around the penthouse. If he’d wanted to, he could have invited a hundred people and still have had room for dancing. But he didn’t know a hundred people. He didn’t want anyone in his home, not even cleaners. It was his safe place, his hideaway—the opposite end of the scale from the dump in Bethnal Green where he’d grown up. His mother would have loved it. She would even have laughed if she’d seen the tanks—dozens of models, hundreds of soldiers, British and German, in the diorama he’d built of the Battle of El Alamein. Beyond that was the sand-covered layout he’d constructed of Lawrence of Arabia’s assault on Aqaba, camels and horsemen charging across the Turks’ lines. He might spend most of his time in the underworld, but he liked to live on the surface of the earth, too—the surface he made himself, not the one outside his safe house.

No, he thought. Matt Wells wasn’t going to get anything about his mother. But his father’s—his adoptive father’s—story was another matter.

Billy Dunn had deserved everything he got.

It was a late December afternoon, three weeks after Billy had last hit him and his mother. He had been planning it ever since. He’d bunked off school several mornings to follow his father to work. He was carrying bricks at an office development in King’s Cross. When he wasn’t drunk, Billy Dunn was quiet, accepting the foreman’s orders without complaint. But Les had seen the anger burning in his father’s eyes and knew that it wouldn’t be long before he started taking it out on Cath again. That wasn’t going to happen.

He waited for the perfect day. There was heavy drizzle, mist, and people were walking the streets with their heads bowed, concentrating on avoiding the puddles and paying no attention to anyone else. He positioned himself behind a lamppost across the street from the site entrance. Late in the afternoon when the brickies were getting ready to pack up for the day, he slipped inside. He knew exactly where Billy was—on the recently started third floor. Only a few walls had been erected there so far.

He’d been watching his father and he’d learned how to sneak around. Being small, he’d already picked up a lot of skills like that at school. Avoiding bullies was better than standing up to them, unless there was no other option. He went up to the third floor, making sure no one had spotted him. Most of the men were on their way out, anyway. Billy was over in the corner, hunkered down and lighting a fag.

“You coming, Bill?” one of his mates called.

“I’ll see you in the Crown,” his father said, blowing out smoke.

The boy waited until the others had all left. Then he moved forward on all fours, keeping beneath a low wall.

“Who’s there?” Billy said, mild alarm in his voice.

“The devil,” his adopted son said in the most frightening voice he could manage. He knew that Billy, a lifelong Catholic who hadn’t been to confession since he was a boy, had the weight of his many sins on him.

“What?” Billy said, dropping his cigarette and getting to his feet.

“The devil, and he’s come to take you!” Les said with a wild yell, running forward with his head down.

He heard Billy’s breath as it was expelled in the impact, then watched as he fell headfirst to the concrete surface at ground level. His body lay limp down there, the head shattered, but Les knew that Billy Dunn’s soul was plummeting far deeper, into the very pit of hell.

The watcher saw the lights come on at St. Katharine’s Dock across the river. To his left, Tower Bridge stood out in all its ridiculous grandeur. Vanity, he thought, all is vanity.

He glanced at his watch.

It was time to tighten his grip on the writer.

4

“Hello, Matt.”

The voice made me start. I looked round and saw my good friend Dave Cummings’s wife. She was a stooping, thin-faced woman who had never approved of our involvement with the rugby league club.

“Oh, hi, Ginny.” I had to force myself to make conversation. “How are things?”

She gave a weak smile. “You know, same old same old. Kids, cooking, cleaning, ironing.”

I didn’t show any sympathy. This was Ginny’s way of complaining that her husband didn’t pay her enough attention. My loyalties, tested hundreds of times on the pitch and in the pub, lay with Dave.

We watched as Lucy approached with Ginny’s kids, Tom and Annie. Tom was in my daughter’s class and they got on well. As soon as I could, I drew Lucy away.

“Daddy, can I have an ice cream?” she asked, trying it on. I wouldn’t usually have given in to her, but I needed to keep her sweet. This wasn’t going to be a normal afternoon.

“All right, darling,” I said, leading her across the road to the Italian deli in Dulwich Village. “Did you have a good day?”

“Yes, thank you.” She gave me a blinding smile that made my heart skip several beats. My little girl’s hair—raven like her mother’s—was in a plait and her face was covered in freckles.

God, I loved her. I couldn’t let anything happen to her. For all I knew, the bastard was watching us right now. I looked around as casually as I could. There only seemed to be the usual crowd of mothers and grandparents, even the odd father, but no one suspicious. Then again, this guy was smart. He wouldn’t be standing in full view with a pair of binoculars.

As we walked up the hill, I went over the course of action I’d worked out. I was going to take Lucy back to Caroline’s place first. I had no choice. If I took her straight to mine, her mother would be instantly suspicious. Lucy was only supposed to be taken there at weekends. I didn’t want to raise any suspicions that, by changing the routine, I might have had something to do with Happy’s disappearance.

The difficult part of the plan was if Lucy noticed Happy’s absence. She often went to the garden fence and called the dog.

When we got to the house, I tried to shoo her straight upstairs.

“No, Daddy.” She headed for the back door. “I want to say hello to Happy.”

I bit my tongue. The less I said the better.

Outside, after calling the dog numerous times, Lucy gave me a puzzled look. “Where is she, Daddy? Do you think something’s happened to her?”

“No, of course not, darling. The Rooneys probably just kept her inside today. Maybe they thought it was going to rain.”

Lucy peered up at the blue sky and frowned. “No, she was outside this morning. I remember.”

I was beginning to regret the plan I’d chosen. “Well, maybe she’s just having a sleep. Come on, do you want some juice?”

Lucy followed me in reluctantly. I managed to get her to the piano to do her practice, and later to sit her in front of kids’ TV. She didn’t have any homework. But she kept going to the window and looking out, trying to see over the fence.

“Come on, Luce,” I said, “let’s go to my house.”

Her eyes widened. “But Mummy says it’s dirty.”

Thanks a lot, Caroline, I thought. “No, it isn’t. And I’ve got a new DVD you can watch.”

“Which one?” she asked excitedly.

“Surprise, surprise,” I said. I’d picked up a Disney she hadn’t seen on the way to the school. The trick was to get her out of the house before either of the Rooneys got back. Fortunately she was now sufficiently distracted. I also mentioned that I had alphabet spaghetti for her tea, a foodstuff banned by Caroline.

At last we were out on the street. As we walked away, my heart was pounding like a drum.

Did I have the nerve to keep up this kind of pretense?

The phone rang at half past six.

“Matt, where’s Lucy?” Caroline sounded anxious.

“Hello,” I said, trying to lower the tension. “Nice to talk to you, too. Did you have a good day? She’s here, of course.”

My ex-wife wasn’t to be pacified. “You know she’s not meant to be round there during the week. Has she done her homework?”

“She didn’t have any. She’s done her piano.” I tried to keep my voice as neutral as I could. “You sound uptight. What’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you what the matter is. Happy’s gone missing.”

“What?”

“Did you see her when you were round here? Shami’s going spare.”

“No,” I said, feigning sudden enlightenment. “Now you mention it, we didn’t.” I glanced at Lucy. She was engrossed in
Hercules.
“I thought she was inside.”

“No, they left her in the garden this morning.”

“Oh, right. I didn’t notice.”

“Look, it’s probably better if you keep Lucy round there for another half hour. I don’t want her to be upset by this.”

“Okay.”

“Have you got something she can eat?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Something that isn’t full of artificial preservatives and
E
numbers?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Caroline said doubtfully. “I’ll see you later.”

“Look,” I said, suddenly realizing I couldn’t face the Rooneys, “you can come and get her, can’t you? I’m actually trying to write something this evening.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Cow.

I had the computer on when Caroline arrived, the screen showing a couple of lines of an unsolicited album review.

“Hello, sweetest little girl in the world,” Caroline said, kissing Lucy. She was wearing a black skirt and a matching woolen cardigan that set off her bobbed dark hair. Black was apparently color of the day in the City.

“It’s the God of the Underworld,” our daughter said, pointing to the TV. “He’s funny.”

James Woods’s voicing was indeed a cracker, but I had other things on my mind. Seeing the two of them together brought home how fragile they were; how easy it would be for the maniac who’d sliced up the dog to move on to them. At the same time, I felt a burning desire to share my burden with someone, to lighten the load that the bastard had saddled me with. But I restrained myself. Maybe if Caroline had been on her own I’d have summoned up the courage, but with Lucy there it was impossible.

“What’s the matter with you?” my ex-wife said in the blunt manner she’d got used to taking with me over the years.

I shrugged. “Work. You know…”

“Lack of work, more like.” Her eyes flared. “God, you’re so indecisive, Matt. Why can’t you just write a different book and sell it to a different publisher? Why do you have to take everything so personally? It’s not their fault you wrote stuff they couldn’t sell.”

“Spoken like the caring soul you are,” I said, unable to hold back. “Since when did you know anything about the publishing business?”

I realized too late that I’d given her an open goal.

“I’m an economist, stupid,” she said, touching her temple. “It’s what I do.”

Lucy looked round from the sofa. “Mummy, Daddy, stop arguing,” she said plaintively.

I felt something break inside me. It seemed that Caroline had a similar experience. We nodded to each other and declared a silent truce.

There was an uneasy silence while Lucy watched Hades get his comeuppance and I pretended to write about the new Laura Veirs album. Then they got their things together and headed downstairs.

I followed them, fear welling up inside me. “Do you want me to walk round with you?”

Caroline stared at me. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“All right,” I said, bending down to kiss Lucy. “See you in the morning, sweetie.”

“Good night, Daddy,” she said, glancing at each of us in turn. “It would be so nice if we could all sleep in the same house sometimes.”

Both Caroline and I failed to come up with a response to that.

I watched them down the street as far as I could see them, and then went after them, skulking in the dark areas between the streetlights. They got home without incident. As I turned to go home, I saw an elderly man in Ruskin Park with his dog.

He glared at me as if I were a stalker.

The irony of that did not make me feel any better at all.

When I got back, I opened my e-mail program. I’d managed to put off doing that while Lucy was there, but now I had no excuse. I felt my stomach constrict as the receiving mail icon flashed. The process went on for some time.

When the chime went, I saw that I had a message with an attachment from 1612WD via another mail provider. The bastard. I now understood what he was calling himself, but I had no idea why. What was in the attachment? I downloaded a digital image. It showed me carrying the wrapped remains of Happy to the Volvo. Shit. He’d been there, judging by the angle and trees at the far side of the park. He must have had a camera with a seriously good zoom. I couldn’t remember anyone taking pictures in the vicinity when I was loading the car.

I went back to the message.

It’s me again, Matt. Thought you’d like to see one of my snaps from today. There are plenty more, some from inside Lucy’s bedroom before you got there and others from Farnborough. I don’t think your ex-wife or her neighbors would be too happy if they saw them, let alone your daughter. She was very fond of the dog, wasn’t she?

How the hell did he know all this? He must have been staking us out for weeks.

I’ve also got some e-mail addresses that I won’t hesitate to forward the photos to if you start being uncooperative, Matt. I read on. He’d somehow managed to get hold of Caroline’s company e-mail, as well as Jack’s and Shami’s at their places of employment. I don’t imagine your ex-wife would be impressed if she found out that you’d disposed of the neighbors’ dog. She’d take it as an indirect threat to Lucy and get her lawyers on to you straightaway. No visiting rights, no nothing. You get the picture? Sorry, that wasn’t funny.