But Julian Oakenshaw killed seven people—six men and one woman—and he killed them slowly, and he enjoyed every minute of it ... And each time we couldn't even prove he was in the same county when he did it, because he was a Bachelor of Arts and he was smart—and that's why my two sergeants are going to fix that report so you'll come up smelling sweeter than the biggest bank of roses you ever saw at Kew Gardens, Dr Mitchell—okay?"
The fact that it was all delivered unemotionally, like a traffic report on a Bank Holiday, served to silence Paul.
"I'm sorry, Miss Loftus—" Del Andrew's dark eyes clouded sympathetically as he saw that, where Paul was merely dummy3
silenced, Elizabeth was actively terrified "—but Dr Audley here wants me to make this plain, so you don't misunderstand anything: this . . . this man Oakenshaw was a real bad bastard—a psychopath of the most dangerous kind—
not just hard, but bad, and crafty with it... Not just your ordinary villain, like I was brought up with, but one of your maximum security throw-away-the-key swine, if we could ever have got our hands on him. So you were lucky, Miss Loftus."
She nodded. "Yes ... I think I do understand that, Chief Inspector."
The eyes—the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen—almost black-brown—darted towards Audley, and then back to her.
"Ye-ess ... he said you would ... So what you want to know now is that for his daily bread Julian Oakenshaw specialised in getting information— like, sometimes, where the really tricky burglar alarms were, an' the electronic gear . . . and industrial espionage, that was up his street too—he had a good analytical brain, and when he was briefed right he always knew what to look for ... The only thing wrong with
'im was that, when the moon was full like last night, he preferred people to be difficult, so he could burn a pretty pattern on them first, before they told him what he wanted to know, before he cut their throats—" Del tensed suddenly "—
sorry, dear—but that's what he would have done, when you'd sung for him. And you would have sung, believe me—that was his stock-in-trade, gettin' results for carriage clients who dummy3
weren't fussy about how he got them, just so they weren't involved: information was his business, an' that always came first. But inflicting pain was his pleasure, an' he liked to mix pleasure with business when the opportunity presented itself and the moon was full, an' he had a clear run."
"And was that well known?" asked Paul.
"In the trade it was—we knew about it. But he was too fly to let anyone pin so much as a charity flag on him . . . like he never used the same talent twice to watch his back, and do his heavy work for him. That pair he had yesterday, that you sorted out. . . that was their first time as well as their last—
an' the first time he picked two dud 'uns too, thank God!"
Mitchell looked at Audley. "Then that doesn't fit, David."
"You don't think so?" Audley seemed to know what didn't fit, but it evidently didn't worry him.
"I know so." Paul caught Elizabeth's eye, but almost without seeming to see her. "The KGB would never sub-contract an important job to a psycho—not in a thousand years." He focussed on her suddcnly, "It's just not their style, damn it!"
He swung back to Audlcy. "And with Novikov sitting in his car, trailing Elizabeth? It never did fit, David—Novikov careless is bad enough, but Novikov there at all cancels his connection with Oakenshaw."
Audley shrugged. "Maybe he was watching over his investment to check on the dividend. Who knows?"
Mitchell frowned at him, then at Chief Inspector Andrew. "Is dummy3
that what you think?"
"What do I think?" Del Andrew finished his drink. "About this Novikov I don't think, because I don't know 'im well enough . . . an' the same goes for 'style', 'cause I haven't been playin' this game long enough to suss it out. But Oakenshaw would have put his grannie through it if the money was right
—that was his style . . . Only, having said all that, it wasn't Comrade Novikov who put the money up for is—you're spot on there, Dr Mitchell."
"Then who was it?" Mitchell brightened.
"It was a right little villain named Danny Kahn—"
"Dinner's on the table," said Faith Audley through the doorway. And you still haven't opened the wine, David—"
Danny Kahn?
The meal, whatever it was like—over-cooked or not—was purgatory for Elizabeth.
Danny Kahn?
HM Frigate Vengeful, 36 guns, 975 tons—
A right little villain, Danny Kahn?
Lieutenant Chipperfield, Mr Midshipman Paget, Gunner's Mate Chard . . . Danny Kahn—?
It was purgatory because, by apparent convention, they dummy3
didn't talk shop in front of Faith Audley during the meal—
that was plain from the start, from the way Faith controlled the conversations at both ends of the table—
Why should a man she had never met hire another man she had also never met to ransack her home and threaten to do such unthinkable things to her—?
"Peckham, Mrs Audley—" Del Andrew obstinately refused to call Faith anything but "Mrs Audley"; Elizabeth had become Elizabeth, and although Drs Audley and Mitchell remained Drs Audley and Mitchell Chief Inspector Andrew plainly wasn't overawed by either of them; but Faith he kept at arm's-length "—Peckham's the real world, all the rest is just a figment of my imagination—'pound note' country—"
Purgatory.
But in the end it came to an end, although not at all the way she expected.
"Very well." Faith gathered them all. "Now I'm going to stack the things, and then I'm going to bed. And Elizabeth ought to go to bed too."
"I'll help you," said Elizabeth dutifully, not wanting to help her, but only wanting to hear about Danny Kahn.
"I'm only going to fill the dish-washer, Elizabeth dear. Mrs Clarke will sort things out in the morning—"
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"We need Elizabeth," said Audley. "And in the morning you're both going to be busy—you too, love."
"Oh yes?" Faith looked at her husband suspiciously. "How busy, exactly?"
"You're going to Guildford—or wherever you go to waste my substance—and kit her out for travelling from top to ... ah ...
bottom—clothes, shoes, baggage to put 'em in, what she's not wearing—hair—everything, love." Audley peered at his wife over his spectacles and the candles. "Start at dawn, and Paul will meet you at twelve."
"He will?" Paul sounded mutinous. "Will he?"
"I can't possibly do that, David."
"Cancel your engagements."
"It's the time, not the engagements, David. And I go to London for my clothes, anyway."
"There's a smart place in Guildford. I've seen the bills, by God!" Audley gave a snort. "But don't worry about the money
—Her Majesty will pay—"
" I can pay," snapped Elizabeth.
"Hold on, Elizabeth!" exclaimed Paul Mitchell. "With Novikov on the loose—never mind . . . never mind anyone else . . . you'd better think twice about going anywhere, damn it!" He swung towards Audley. "And where is she going? And come to that—where am I going?"
Elizabeth looked at Audley. "Where am I going?"
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"You're not going anywhere," said Paul. "Because nowhere outside this house is safe."
Audley looked at Elizabeth. "She'll go where she wants to go
— right, Elizabeth?"
"Now you're being devious, darling," said his wife disparagingly.
"I hope so, love—that's what I'm paid to be ... But I know if I say there isn't the slightest danger that will only offend you, even though it's true ... so Aske and Bannen will accompany you tomorrow for the sake of reassurance, if for no other useful purpose, while you make your purchases, until Mitchell arrives to take her from you."
"And then?" Paul sounded unreassured.
"Then, all being well, you shall both go Vengeful- researching somewhere even safer, in so far as that is possible. And you can still keep Aske, if not for protection then as a chaperone."
Audley came back to Elizabeth. "Well, Elizabeth—are you game?"
"Don't agree," advised Paul. "He put the same question to me once—"
"And look at you now!" murmured Audley. "But I'm not going to argue with you, Elizabeth. You have a mind of your own, and can make it up for yourself."
And that was true, thought Elizabeth—true now as it had never been before, even though she was still her father's daughter . . . And, in any case, the incentives hadn't changed.