How he’d begged when they went to work on him. He offered money-apparently his daddy was a merchant banker-he offered his mother’s jewelry, he even offered a cottage in Wales. The Devil had laughed then bitten off his nose. His partner joined in, tearing the nipples off with relish. The Devil finished the upper-class fool off by sinking his teeth into his neck. The dentist who’d been paid handsomely to sharpen his canines had done a good job; he’d also agreed to delete the relevant records from his filing system-for an additional fee, of course. Not that it mattered. He’d used a false name.
The Devil got up and went to the extensive drinks cabinet. He poured himself a glass of neat Bombay gin and carefully tipped a single drop of Martini into it. It was time to celebrate. This was turning into even more fun than he’d thought it would be. Matt Wells was fighting back. He’d deactivated his mobile phone, thus rendering himself untraceable. He wasn’t using his car with the bug the Devil had placed under the chassis. And he’d done what he thought was enough to protect his nearest and dearest. It would be fascinating to see what he did next. Would the writer have the nerve to come after him? If he did, it would bring things to an explosive climax.
One of his mobile phones rang.
“It’s me.” Corky was out of breath and sounded rattled, his motorbike engine also audible.
“What is it?”
“Trouble. Three guys in an Orion waiting in my street. They’re about fifty yards behind me, stuck in traffic.”
“Police?”
“Not sure. They looked harder than that.”
“Villains?”
“Could be. But they remind me more of Jimmy Tanner.” The engine revs rose. “Got to go.” The connection was cut.
The Devil got his breathing under control. The Hereward had turned out to be a bad choice. Someone had passed on information, no doubt the fool Smail who had been cut apart. Could Corky have let something slip to him? No, he wasn’t that stupid, even though he sometimes looked as if he’d been drinking again.
He dismissed the thought and laughed. Ever since he’d won the lottery he had felt invincible. That had been proof that the world was his-if someone like him could win nine and a half million quid of ordinary people’s money, anything was possible. No, whoever was on Corky’s tail wouldn’t get to the Devil in time.
His next victim had only a few hours to live.
25
I woke up in the ridiculously comfortable bed that Bonehead had directed me to. He’d proudly announced that he had nine spare bedrooms, so Andy, Rog and I didn’t have to share after all. That was a relief. I’d been on several rugby tours with those guys, and though they were my mates, I never wanted to spend another night in the same room as them. Rog snored like a walrus, while Andy suffered from nightmares that seemed to involve him taking on the Germans at Omaha Beach single-handed. One time when we’d had to share a double bed, he’d hit me so hard that I thought the bruise round my eye would never fade. It scared the shit out of the guy who was marking me on the pitch the next day, though.
I took a shower, dressed and went down the corridor to find the others.
“’Morning, Andy,” I said, drawing gold-embroidered curtains and looking out over a huge expanse of lawn. “How are you feeling?” Last night he’d been a bit woozy from the drugs he’d been given in hospital.
“I’ll survive, man,” he said, touching the dressing on his upper chest gingerly. “God knows how, but the blade missed the lot-heart, lungs and major arteries. I’ve always been a lucky son of a bitch.” His expression darkened. “I’m going to get that little fuck in the mask.”
“No, you’re not. He’s mine.”
He laughed. “Like you could take anyone out. You’re a winger, a flyboy. Did you spend the night screwing Bonehead?”
I put my finger to my lips. All we needed now was to be turfed out of our temporary refuge. Andy wasn’t really a homophobe and he hadn’t voted against the Bisons’ onetime benefactor, but he could scarcely be classed as one of nature’s diplomats.
“Come on, then,” he said, pulling on a dressing gown. “I’m starving.” He headed off downstairs.
I put my head round Rog’s door. He was at the computer, his bed undisturbed. “Jesus, have you been at it all night, Dodger?” I asked
He glanced round and nodded, his eyes ringed in black.
“Any luck?”
“Sort of.”
I went over and looked at the heaps of printouts. The pages were covered in numbers. I picked one up. “Manston Investment Bank, British Virgin Islands?”
“Yup.” Rog pushed his chair back and stretched his arms. “I’ll tell you something, Matt. This guy’s bloody smart.”
“You’re tracing him via his financial transactions?”
He nodded. “Starting off was easy enough. Leslie Dunn paid the check that was made out to him into an ordinary account. I tracked it down pretty quickly.” He thrust a printout at me. “You see the deposit? Nine and a half million, September 24, 2001.”
“You hacked into the bank’s system?”
He shrugged. “Piece of piss. The thing is, he soon started shifting his newfound wealth all over the place. Mainly offshore accounts. Now they really are tricky to get into, but…well, you know how good I am.”
I slapped him on the back, harder than he expected.
“Ow, that hurt.”
“Get on with it.”
He turned back to the screen. “There are deposits in Jersey, in the British Virgin Islands, in various dodgy South American countries, even in Cuba.” His head dropped. “The problem is, the accounts are all code-numbered in the databases. No names appear anywhere.” He grunted. “So that people like me can’t find out how much has been squirreled away by bent politicians, rock stars and supposedly honest businessmen like Boney.”
“What about the National Lottery system?”
Rog bit his lip. “I’ve had several goes at that. It really is a bastard.”
I squeezed his shoulder. “Come on, you need to eat and sleep. You can try again later.”
We went downstairs and found Bonehead and Andy shouting abuse at each other across the kitchen table.
“-and my old dad knows more about bloody cooking than you ever will, you Yankee-”
“Boys, boys,” I said, raising my arms. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
“Oh yeah,” Andy muttered.
I glared at him. “In case it’s escaped your notice, you’re eating this man’s bacon and sausages. At least hold off putting the boot into him till you’ve finished breakfast.”
Our host grinned combatively. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, Matt.”
“I know you don’t,” I said, sitting down next to him. “But I might be needing you to do that for me.” I glanced at the other two. “We’ve got to get this guy before he tracks me down. If he gets me, then Lucy, Sara, Dave, his family, maybe you are next. Are you with me?”
The three of them took less than a second to respond positively, with a worrying amount of enthusiasm.
“What do you want me to do?” Bonehead asked, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke at Andy.
“Can you take a look at the financial trail Rog has found? You know about that kind of stuff. Maybe we can find the Devil’s new name that way. That’ll free Rog up to concentrate on the lottery archive.”