I parked a couple of hundred yards away from the Vestine Building. We walked along the cobbled streets to what turned out to be a converted warehouse. There was a waist-high wall around it, the enclosed parking area filled with luxury cars. There wasn’t any sign of coppers on surveillance, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t hidden themselves. I took a deep breath and tried to slow my breathing.
“Right,” Andy said in a low voice, putting down his toolbox. “What’s the plan?”
“We haven’t got much choice. We’ll have to go in the main entrance.” We pulled on gloves, then I led him through the pedestrian gate. There was a panel covered in numbers by the heavy door. “We aren’t going to press number 12,” I said, as he raised his hand. “This usually works in my books.” I pressed several other numbers. When a voice came through the panel, I said “Electricity.”
There was a buzz and the door opened.
A woman holding a howling child poked her head out from a door as we headed for the stairs. “Problem on the second floor,” I said, flashing my bank card-fortunately it had a photo on it. She nodded without interest and disappeared. We raced up the stairs, following the signs to Flats 10 to 13. We approached number 12 cautiously.
I listened outside the door for a while. I could hear nothing inside. “Right, Andy. You’re on.” He’d often boasted about his underage criminal activities in the suburbs of Newark, including burglary. Now was his chance to show he hadn’t lost his skills. “Is there an alarm?”
“In a place like this? Gotta be. Don’t worry, I can handle it.” He took out a set of short steel rods, some flat and some with bent ends that he’d fashioned in Bonehead’s basement before we left. In under ten seconds he had the door open. I watched as he ran to the beeping alarm box, pulled off the cover and fiddled with a screwdriver. The beeping stopped. I waited for the full-scale apocalypse to be triggered, but nothing happened.
“Christ, you really do know what you’re doing,” I said, closing the door behind me.
Andy raised his hands to his lips. We were in a long hallway. I found the light switch. There were three doors on either side, all of them closed.
“Here,” Andy whispered, pressing a hammer into my hand. He was holding a long screwdriver. “You go left, I’ll go right. We’ll open them together, on three.”
I went to the first door and looked round at him. He mouthed “One, two, three.” I turned the handle and shoved the door open. The room was completely dark. With my heart thumping, I located the light switch. The place was empty, not even a shade on the lamp. The blinds on the windows were drawn. I looked round to Andy and saw that he’d had the same experience.
It didn’t look like anyone lived here. Tension slackening, we went to the next doors. Same procedure, same result. I had a bathroom with cobwebs in the corners, he had a kitchen-again, the blinds in both were firmly closed. We came to the last doors. One, two, three. This time I found myself in a wide-open space, with the light of the late-afternoon sun coming in through spaces between the blinds. Again, the room was emptier than a ransacked tomb.
“Jesus!” I heard Andy shout from the other side. I went over quickly. The room was the mirror-image of the one I’d opened. I guessed they were sitting and dining rooms as there was a glass partition between them. I opened it.
Andy was squatting on the floor next to a row of shriveled objects lying on a tarpaulin. There was a rank smell in the air, like game that had hung for far too long.
I put my hand over my mouth and nose. I counted five cats, four dogs and two rats, in varying stages of decomposition. As I went closer, I saw that all had been split open from the breastbone to the anus, the desiccated entrails spread around on the tarp. I immediately thought of Happy. It looked like this was where the Devil had practiced. But why had he kept the corpses? I shivered. Because he was a sick bastard, that was why. Then I looked toward the far corner and saw things that were even worse.
“Oh-oh,” Andy said, following the direction of my gaze.
On a larger tarpaulin lay several gray masses of flesh. This time, they hadn’t been cut open. Instead, they’d been flayed, their skins nailed to the wall behind. There were a couple of large dogs and a cat. But that wasn’t all. In the farthest corner was a large heap of skinless flesh. I made out human arms and legs. Hanging above them were two objects like deflated sex dolls. They were flayed skins.
“Holy shit!” Andy said, his hand to his mouth.
I couldn’t speak. But who were these two victims? They were nameless, unidentifiable without detailed forensic investigation. I felt rage course through me. How could someone have such disregard for his fellow human beings? How could he turn them into anonymous pieces of flesh?
We retreated and checked the rest of the place but found nothing that might lead us to the owner. It was clear from the dust on the floor that he hadn’t been here for some time. We’d left footprints all over, but I didn’t care. I was already in deep enough trouble, both with the Devil and with the police.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Good thought.” Andy attempted a smile. “There’s a chance that, when I disabled the alarm, a light started flashing in the local police station.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“We were having such a good time.” He turned away. “Come on.”
We left at speed, encountering no one in the corridor or on the staircase. We were about to open the main door when I saw a panel of mailboxes.
“Can you get into that?”
“With or without damage?”
“It hardly matters now. As quick as you can.”
He forced open the box marked 12 with his screwdriver. I stuck my hand in and came out with a single envelope. I stuffed it into my pocket. “Come on.” It was only as we went out of the door that I saw the CCTV camera on the inside above it.
Too late. Too bad.
When we got back to the BMW, I took the envelope out. It was an electricity bill. “Mr. Lawrence Montgomery,” I read.
“Who’s he?” Andy asked.
I felt a shiver run up my spine. “He might just be the Devil himself.”
We drove off into the evening’s deepening shades.
The three men in the aged Orion were all looking to the front, the passengers’ eyes fixed on the figure weaving in and out of the traffic ahead.
“Pity we haven’t got a bike like that,” the driver said.
“I didn’t hear you volunteering to buy one, Geronimo,” said Wolfe, his tone sharp. There was a dull ring from his pocket. He took out his mobile phone. “Yes?” He listened for a while. “Don’t worry,” he said finally. “We haven’t done anything to the piece of shit.” He cut the connection and looked round at Rommel. “Yet.”
“Our friend the detective?” the man in the backseat asked.
“Yup. Wetting himself that we’re going to chop the guy on the bike up like we did with Smail.”
“We are, aren’t we?” Geronimo asked.
Wolfe gave a hollow laugh. “Assuming he did for Jimmy Tanner, as I’m sure he did, you bet we are.”
The motorbike was about fifty yards ahead of them, moving toward London Bridge. The traffic lights changed and vehicles began to slow. So did the man on the bike. But when he’d come to a complete stop, he suddenly accelerated, narrowly missing a taxi that was turning right.
“Fuck!” Geronimo smacked his palms on the steering wheel.
Wolfe got out quickly and looked ahead. He saw the motorbike disappear over the bridge.
“Now what?” asked Rommel.
“I call our contact,” Wolfe said calmly, taking out his mobile. “It’s me,” he said. “We’ve lost our target.” He listened for a few seconds. “All right, but I’m expecting reliable information. Remember, you owe us.”