trees that I would never even see him. And I haven’t.” I smiled at her ingratiatingly. “But I was thinking, if you had, I could still win the bet. I mean, if you could tell me, if you saw him, of course, which trees he was hiding behind…”
I could tell she wasn’t convinced by my story, but she wasn’t able to stop herself showing off how observant she was.
“As a matter of fact, I have seen a man.”
I felt my stomach clench.
“I don’t remember where he was exactly, but I saw him at least three times.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “In fact, I thought about calling the police in case he was a stalker or a child molester. But I watched him through my binoculars. He never stayed long, just a few minutes in the morning and a few more in the late afternoon.”
“Can you describe him?” I asked. “Just so I can be sure it’s my friend.”
“‘Nondescript’ is the best I can do,” the old woman said, nodding as if that was how she’d expect any friend of mine to look. “He always wore a black coat and a woolen cap pulled low over his forehead. And, yes, he did have a camera.”
“What kind of size was he?”
“Medium height, I would say. At best.”
“Yes, that sounds like Steve,” I said lamely. “Mrs. Stewart, you remember when I was round at our…at Caroline’s house in the middle of the day earlier this week?”
“The day Happy went missing,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
I nodded. “Did you happen to see him then?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.” She started to close the door. “I was watching you and wondering what you were doing.”
I gave her my story about shifting books. It didn’t look like she was too convinced.
“Good day to you,” she said, closing the door in my face.
I stood outside the black wooden panels and wondered exactly what she’d seen. Did she think I’d loaded Happy into the Volvo?
I walked away. All I’d learned was that the Devil, or someone working for him, had been in the park- something I already knew from the photograph. And that he-or his sidekick-wasn’t very tall. Big deal. All I’d really done was make Mrs. Stewart suspicious, and perhaps draw her to the bastard’s attention.
Too bad, I thought as I went back to the Volvo. I had other things on my mind.
In particular, the contents of the next e-mail attachment that I was sure was waiting for me back home.
8
The man was standing at the window of his penthouse. Today the river looked even grayer than usual. It was amazing that salmon and other fish survived in that murk, he thought. In the past it had been much worse, though. He remembered the bodies floating downstream and being picked up by scavengers in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Back then, the Thames wasn’t grey-it was dark brown with the untreated sewage that poured into it twenty-four hours a day. But in John Webster’s time it had been better-there were millions fewer people living in London in the early seventeenth century. And yet, the filth that culminated in the Great Plague must have been disgusting. The river had always been a sewer, from the time the Romans built the first city. The river was an open drain and human beings were animals. He knew that better than anyone.
The White Devil thought about the notes he’d sent the writer that morning. He couldn’t have said that they’d disturbed him. Nothing disturbed him anymore. He was immune, driven, dedicated only to his purpose. But he’d felt stirrings of something as he put the facts down. Not remorse or anything as feeble as that. Not even hate, though there had been enough of that in the past. It took him some time to identify the emotion, but he finally got it. Pride. He was proud of what he’d done, just as he’d been proud of what he’d done to his father. People like that deserved to die, they deserved to die in agony. They had done, and soon others would be going the same way.
It was why he’d been put on the surface of the earth.
“Les Dunn, Les Dunn. Les ’as done it again! Les ’as done it again! Pissed ’is pants. Crapped ’isself.”
The words burned into him, even though they weren’t true. Richard Brady had always picked on him, from the first day in Primary One. He was big, red-faced, and he had a mouth on him. His father was a lorry driver who brought him sweets and other things he stole from his loads. Richard Brady didn’t even have to nick from the shops on the Roman Road like the rest of them. He came to school with his pockets full.
It was the last year of primary school now.
“Oy, Les! ’Ave you done doing it?”
The crowd of arse-lickers around Brady sniggered. When Les didn’t answer, the bully walked quickly over to him.
“I didn’t hear what you said,” Brady yelled, cupping his ear.
Les felt himself start shaking, but he kept his lips together.
“Gone all quiet, ’ave we?” Brady grinned, and then grabbed Les’s balls. “Still can’t hear you.” He squeezed harder.
Les’s eyes were bulging. He took a deep breath and whispered two words. “You’re…dead.”
Brady leaned closer. “What?” Suddenly he was less sure of himself.
“I’m…going to…fuckin’…kill you.”
The bully took a step back, his face less crimson than usual. He looked round the crowd that had gathered. “Yeah, I think ’e’s done doing it,” he said, taking his hand away.
His cronies stared at him as he walked off, then started shouting at Les again. But he didn’t care. He knew he’d won. He’d discovered the power of words and how to wield it.
For the rest of that final term, Richard Brady kept his distance. He still joined in when the other boys made fun of Les, but he didn’t instigate the bullying. It was as if he’d seen a small dog’s teeth and lost the will to taunt it. He even waved at Les on the last day in the playground. He was moving to Watford in the summer holidays and he wouldn’t be seeing any of his primary schoolmates again.
By that time, Les had become an expert at concealing himself and watching people covertly. He took up a position behind some rubbish bins when the Brady family was getting ready to move out of the terraced house in Gawber Street. They had five kids and so much stuff that it wouldn’t all fit in Mr. Brady’s lorry. He’d got a friend to bring another one. When they’d filled it, old man Brady shouted out the address to the other driver.
Les smiled as he wrote it down in his notebook.
Two weeks later, he used some of the money he’d got from the local fences to take the train up to Watford. He had found a map of the town in the library and made a copy showing the streets between the station and the Bradys’ new place. It was a sultry day, the August sun hidden behind gray-white clouds that presaged rain. Les hid behind a battered Ford Cortina. In the early afternoon, the five kids appeared. Richard was the third by age and the only boy. He said something and all four of his sisters started shouting at him. Then they gathered together and walked away. Richard watched them leave, and then turned in the opposite direction. Les followed him, slinging the canvas bag he’d brought over his shoulder.
Richard Brady didn’t seem to have made any new friends since he’d arrived. He mooched around on a street corner, but when none of the local boys paid any attention to him, he set off toward a patch of green at the end of a road. Les, keeping his distance, realized that it was a small wood. Beyond it could be seen recently harvested fields. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. The heat was keeping people indoors, as well as making Richard Brady’s armpits damp. Les sniffed. He could smell him.
Brady disappeared into the trees. As Les got closer, ducking behind the parked cars, he picked up another scent. Richard was smoking from behind a tree trunk. When he reached the edge of the wood, Les squatted down and opened the bag. After he’d pulled on gloves and equipped himself, he concealed the bag beneath a bush and started to crawl silently through the undergrowth. He could hear Brady singing some horrible Sham 69 song about going drinking. He stopped when he got behind the tree. Controlled his breathing. And started the countdown.
