a substantial amount of blood on his or her clothing. I am appealing to the public to help us locate this very dangerous criminal. Please contact your local police station or call my team.” She gave a phone number. “All information will be treated in the strictest confidentiality.”
The reporter came back on and wrapped the story up. I wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. I was sweating heavily and my gut was coiled in a knot.
I knew the name Father Norman Prendegast. I’d typed it several times that day. It had been in the White Devil’s notes. It was the name of the priest who had abused him-he’d originally been called O’Connell, but the Church had arranged a new identity.
I felt myself falling into the abyss faster than Lucifer in Paradise Lost.
7
Eventually I got a grip. I kept telling myself not to be surprised. The White Devil had already shown himself to be a ruthless killer with Happy. The most worrying thing was the way he’d set things up. I was playing a game whose rules only he knew.
There was a chime from my computer-a new e-mail.
Facts Pertaining to the Murder of the Boy-Sodomizer Father Norman Prendegast.
One-a solid gold candlestick 1.6 meters in height was inserted into his fundament. Two-his eyes, which saw things they shouldn’t have, were removed and taken to a safe place. Three-after he’d begged for mercy and whined that it wasn’t his fault he liked boys, he was dispatched by a single stab wound to his black heart. Four-he was spread naked across the altar of the Mother Church that he’d defiled by his priesthood, as if he was buggering both it and, by extension, the corrupt leaders who turned a blind eye on his sins. Five-there was a quote from your favorite play about his person. “What a mockery…”
Are there bells ringing in your head, Matt?
There certainly were bells ringing in my head. This was getting beyond even the sickest of jokes. I got up, my knees jelly, and went over to the bookcase by the window where I kept my own first editions. I took out the second Sir Tertius novel, The Devil Murder. My hero had got himself involved with a bunch of demented Scots rebels led by a charlatan, who pretended he was descended from William Wallace. As history showed, rebels often ended up rebelling against one another. The murderous Rennie was set upon by his own followers after Sir Tertius revealed his lies. They performed a black mass in a ruined abbey and killed him by “skewering his fundament,” putting out his eyes and driving a dagger through his heart. When he found out about the murder, my clever-dick hero spouted the line from The White Devil about death making a mockery of the victim.
What was going on? Did the White Devil want me to write his story or was he framing me for the murder of the priest?
I sent a message asking those questions to the last e-mail address. It bounced back with a fatal error, saying the account no longer existed.
The phone rang, making me jump.
“Matt.”
Christ, he did have a camera on me. Or was he just guessing I’d be climbing the walls?
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“What’s your problem?” he replied mildly. “You’ve got an alibi for last night, haven’t you?”
Sara. I might have known he’d have logged her presence.
“Yeah, that’s true. But still…”
“Why am I using your modus operandi?” He gave a sardonic laugh that made the hairs on my neck stand. “Because I can. And because I genuinely like your books. But you should have written more with Sir Tertius. You disappointed a lot of your fans.”
“I can’t now, can I? I’m too busy writing your hideous story.”
“Oh, you don’t think it’s hideous, Matt. You love it. I can tell that from the chapter you sent me. I’m really looking forward to the next one, where you describe what I did to that shit-eating priest. Don’t disappoint me. You know how nasty I can get.”
He cut the connection.
I put the phone down after wiping the receiver on my shirt. I felt so dirty that a ten-minute shower did nothing to shift the muck.
I was a murderer’s accomplice, in thought if not in deed.
Later on, my inability to decide what to do disappeared faster than a wallet dropped in Leicester Square. After pacing up and down the confined space of my sitting room, I remembered the Devil’s earlier messages. I needed to keep a record, so I copied them onto a diskette, and then found myself unsure what to do with it. If I’d been a character in a crime novel, I’d have deposited it with my solicitor, in an envelope bearing the words In the Event of My Death. But my dealings with solicitors over the divorce had made me swear never to have anything more to do with their breed. I could have hidden it somewhere in the flat. Then again, my attempt to hide the money had been a conspicuous failure. What about Sara? I didn’t dare tell her anything about the Devil, but if I secreted the diskette somewhere at her place…Yes, that was a decent plan. I was going round there, anyway.
An hour later I was in Clapham. I went into her kitchen.
“Sara, my sweet?”
She was at the cooker, making an omelet. She gave me a mock suspicious look over her shoulder.
“You want something.”
“Charming.”
She laughed. “Only joking. It’s just that men are so transparent.”
I let that go. “Actually, you’re right. Did you see the news tonight?”
“Is there a night when I don’t see the news? I am the news.” She cut the omelet neatly in two and flipped the pieces onto plates. “Here you are.” We went over to the table.
“There was a murder,” I said, pouring her a glass of Chinon Blanc.
“There were several murders. If you include Iraq and Palestine, there were dozens of murders.”
“No, I mean in London.”
Sara briefly held the salad she was transferring to her plate in midair. “Oh, the priest.”
“That’s the one.” It had occurred to me that the Devil might have been messing me around. There hadn’t been many details of what had been done to the victim on the news. Sara had plenty of contacts on the paper. “Do you think you could find out what happened to him?”
“Why?” Bluntness was a quality she said she’d inherited from her father, a Yorkshireman who used to run a farm. I hadn’t met him and didn’t want to.
“Because I write crime novels,” I said, looking down at my plate.
“You revolting voyeur,” she said, pretending to be shocked. “Not to mention thief. Can’t you make up your own ways of killing people?”
This conversation was getting ironic beyond even my limits. “Ever heard of realism?” I asked innocently.
“You’re asking a reporter if she knows about realism?”
I raised my hand. “All right, point taken.” I gave her a placatory smile. “Is there anyone on the crime desk you can talk to?”
“The crime desk?” she said, laughing. “Is that how you think newspapers work these days? Everyone has their own workstation, a computer and a phone.”
“Okay, do you know anyone on the crime workstation?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you? You want me to do your dirty work for you.” She refilled her wineglass. “You’re still a journalist, aren’t you? Why can’t you use your contacts?”
