Caroline started to eat one of her organic cheddar sandwiches. She watched tourists laughing as they took photos of one another and found herself thinking about her life. How happy was she really? She had a job she loved, a child she adored, and yet, there was something missing. She’d been thinking about it a lot recently. Perhaps the neighbors’ dog disappearing and the effect that was having on Shami and Jack was the reason. She knew the absence of a man wasn’t the problem. She could bed any of the young lions in the company without doing more than winking at them, but the fact was, she didn’t miss sex. It had been good with Matt. Apart from Lucy, that was one of the main reasons she had stuck with him as long as she had. No, what she had realized was missing was adventure, the unexpected, a sudden break from the rhythms of everyday life.
She shook her head and told herself not to be so flighty. She had work to do and her lunch break was almost over. It was when she was crumpling up her sandwich bag that she saw the man on her right lean forward and look intensely at the other guy to her left.
It was almost as if he was giving the hooded man some kind of signal.
The White Devil took a step back from the blindfolded and gagged captive tied to the chair. He smiled at the masked figure behind, who gave him a blank look in return. He would have to be careful with his partner. He hadn’t expected such devotion to violence and the act of killing so suddenly. That could lead to a dangerous lack of caution.
The Devil glanced around the lock-up garage. It was in Deptford, in a lane that was overlooked by the high rear wall of a Victorian factory-that property was listed for demolition and no one except junkies and half-blind drunks had set foot in it for years. It was good for privacy, as was the fact that the people who used the other garages shared his studied lack of concern about what went on in the vicinity.
It had been easy enough to snatch their latest victim. No one had noticed the transfer to the battered white van that now took up half of the space-the garage was a double one, the wall having been knocked through. There was plenty of room for the upcoming fun and games.
The person on the chair let out a high-pitched moan. The Devil moved over quickly and delivered a hard slap to the left cheek.
“Be quiet, you piece of shit,” he said, bending closer. “Noise means pain, you understand?”
The trembling captive nodded slowly.
“That’s all it needs,” the Devil said to his partner. “Now you try.” He watched as the masked figure gave the prisoner a full-blooded punch that almost knocked the chair over. “Good,” he said, smiling. “Looks like you aren’t fond of this one.”
“No, I’m not.”
The Devil stepped back and started laying out his tools on the workbench. Maybe he’d made the right decision in locating his partner after all. Being confronted by the realities of murder had seemed initially to knock the stomach from the figure in the mask. He hoped that the procedure they were about to undertake-his most ambitious yet-would be the making of his Dr. Watson. It had better be. After all, he wasn’t in this purely for himself.
As he fingered the glinting steel instruments, he thought of what he’d achieved so far. The murder of that bastard Newton from the bank in Hackney had been a trial run. At that stage, he wasn’t sure himself that he could carry out what he wanted to. He hadn’t taken his partner on that excursion, nor on those of the priest or the old bitch who used to teach him. But when the Devil saw that all was going to plan, it had been safe to appear as a double act at the doctor’s and the fat critic’s.
He scowled and put the scalpel down carefully on the table. Everything had been fine until this morning, when the writer had started to fight back and the body parts had been found outside the Hereward. Could there be a connection? The Devil originally hadn’t been sure that Matt Wells had it in him, for all the macho posturing he showed at bookshop events and literary festivals. Most writers were nothing more than drunks who propped up the nearest bar they could find and boasted about their sales, always inflating them, and their film deals, which hardly ever made it to any screen. They were liars and hypocrites, every last one of them.
But Matt Wells had actually had the nerve to stand up to him. He’d sent that American muscleman to protect Christian Fels. The Devil had been so enraged about being deflected from his plan for the agent that he had taken it out on the innocent gardener. His partner hadn’t turned away at the sound of the neck cracking. It was the first time the Devil had killed in that way. Jimmy Tanner had trained him well. It was a pity the former SAS guy had become so unreliable from the booze. He lay in the foundations of a bridge outside Bromley, silenced forever after the insertion of a combat knife between his fifth and sixth ribs. That had been as good an end to the Devil’s apprenticeship as he could have thought of, as well as being an appropriate death for a man who had been a state-sponsored assassin. Was it possible that someone-Matt Wells?-had found out about his meetings with Tanner? Even if he had, the Devil and his partner would kill everyone on the expanded death list before he could locate them.
That bastard Wells. He had actually taken steps to protect the people he thought would be targets. The Devil grinned. That wouldn’t do the fool any good. It would be a long time before anyone caught up with them. And even if that happened, there would be a container-load of pain to endure.
“Right,” he said to the hooded figure. “It’s time we got started.” He watched as their captive tensed. Obviously the effect of the punch was wearing off. Good. The Devil wanted his victim to be aware of what was coming.
Pain was what it was all about, pain and horror. After this killing, the writer would understand that no one he’d ever met was safe. Then they would see how he reacted to real pressure.
The Devil selected a couple of instruments, nodded to his partner and walked over to the prisoner. He removed the blindfold and was gratified by the sight of two damp and terrified eyes. They implored him for mercy, but they also seemed to contain the knowledge that none would be forthcoming.
Then he had a thought. Why not up the pressure on Matt Wells right now? He handed the scalpel and probe to his partner and took his mobile from his pocket.
The smile that spread across his face as he started to speak made his victim whimper and moan.
23
I was finishing the chapter about Alexander Drys when my old mobile rang. My heart skipped a couple of beats. I had to hope that D.C.I. Oaten was being true to her word and hadn’t put a trace on the phone.
“I suppose you think you’ve been very clever, Matt.” The Devil’s voice was worryingly confident.
I moved away from Rog, who was still trying to get into the British Airways system. “What do you mean?”
“I know what you’ve been up to, my friend. I have to say I’m very disappointed.” His tone was mocking and I had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. But it was too late to retreat.
“Like I give a fuck what you feel,” I said, provoking a grin from the guy in a beanie hat at the till. I went outside. “You think you’re so clever, but you’re not the only person with a functioning brain.”
There was a pause. “Is that right, Matt?” His voice was now ice cold. “Have a listen to this.”
I heard what sounded like a slap and then a muffled groan followed by choking, high-pitched screams. Jesus, who did the bastard have?
“Recognize the voice?”
I kept quiet, too shocked to hazard a guess.
“I asked you a question,” the Devil said, almost shouting.
“I don’t know!” I yelled back.
He laughed. “You think you’re so clever, Mr. Award-Winning Crime Novelist. Well, I’m not going to tell you who I’m about to torture and kill. How does that make you feel?”