father, no doubt. Not that he’d reported it to the police or social services. Families like that were drunken and feckless. There was no point in trying to improve their lives.
His captor leaned close again. “You’re probably wondering why Leslie Dunn didn’t bother you again. Well, I’ll tell you. You took my mother away from me, you destroyed my life back then. But if I’d hurt you, what would have happened? I’d have been caught, sent to a young offenders’ institution, had the shit kicked out of me. I didn’t fancy that at all.” His smile was pitiless, as cold as the heart of an iceberg. “Besides, I reckoned you wouldn’t forget me.” He glanced around the expensively decorated room. “Even in the middle of all this conspicuous wealth.” He looked back at Keane. “I was right, wasn’t I?”
The doctor nodded slowly. The boy had been too ignorant to launch a medical negligence suit, but the guilt had always been there, lurking like a malevolent spider in the most inaccessible part of his mind. If only he’d been brought up a Catholic, like the trembling, dispirited woman who had come to him for help all those years ago. He’d have been able to confess his sin and get on with his life. But it didn’t matter now. He was sure he was at the end of his road.
Keane watched as the man who’d called himself Webster stripped off his suit and shirt. Beneath them he was wearing a white coverall with a hood like the ones used by scenes-of-crime officers on the TV. He dug deeper into his bag and brought out an oilskin bundle. Clearing the desk with a backhand sweep of his arm, he unrolled the oilskin. Gleaming surgical instruments were lodged in pockets. They ranged from needle-thin probes to a large bone-saw.
“Nnngg!” Keane moaned, pulling on his bonds. The pain in his hand didn’t bother him now. He was consumed by fear of what was to come.
“Take your punishment like a man,” Dunn said, laughing emptily. He picked up a scalpel. “Now, where shall I begin? Oh, I know. You failed to diagnose a case of advanced stomach cancer. You didn’t even bother to order the most basic of tests. Have you any idea how much pain my mother was in?” He pulled open the doctor’s striped shirt and caught his eye. “For someone who specializes in dieting, you don’t set a very good example, do you?” He ran the scalpel down the support girdle Keane wore and pulled it apart. “The pain my mother suffered was like this.”
The doctor jerked back in the chair as his stomach was pierced, almost swallowing the gag.
“And like this.”
Another stabbing pain.
“And like this.”
Again and again he tried to scream, breathing desperately through his nose. He was in agony, his eyes blurred by tears. The thrusting and cutting continued. He had no idea how many wounds had been made. The pain was almost unbearable, but he didn’t pass out.
At last Dunn stood up and tossed the bloody scalpel onto the desk. “Take a look,” he said, wrenching the doctor’s head down.
Keane was horrified at the damage that had been done to his abdomen despite the pain he was in.
“Come in,” he heard Dunn say. Turning slightly, he saw a figure approaching. He couldn’t make out the face.
“We’re just getting to the good bit.” Dunn’s face was close to his again. “Take this thought with you to the eternal furnace, you fucking murderer,” he said. “We’re going to rape your wife and daughter before we cut them apart. Then we’re going to slaughter your horses and feed their guts to your dogs, before we finish them off, too.”
The last thing that Bernard Keane saw though his remaining eye was the carving knife in Leslie Dunn’s right hand and the bone-saw in his left.
Before his world dissolved in a welter of crimson, he wondered who his killer’s accomplice might be. He was an only child when his mother had died…
As soon as I saw the TV news after the Saturday sport, I knew it had to be the White Devil. A Harley Street doctor murdered in what was described as “the most gruesome fashion”-it was just his style. I called Sara on her mobile and asked her if she’d heard anything about it. She told me that Jeremy, the crime correspondent, was back from Belfast and that he was covering the killing. She’d been sent to a climate-change conference in Cambridge after the environment correspondent called in sick. She didn’t think she’d be back till late, so we arranged that I’d go round to her place on Sunday evening. I told her I loved her and she repeated the words, though she sounded distracted.
I sat at my desk wondering what to do. If the bastard had killed the doctor in a way copied from one of my books, it wouldn’t be long before someone made the connection my mother had and contacted the police. If they confiscated my computer and examined the hard disk, they’d find the chapters I’d written for the Devil. They’d also find his e-mails to me, but the different addresses he’d used meant that they could easily say I’d written them myself. Then there was the money. If the police found it, I’d have a lot of explaining to do. I had to get rid of it. But how? My tormentor was watching me, he was listening to me. Whatever I did, he’d know. And then what would happen to Lucy and the others?
Jesus. I was a writer. I used my imagination every day of my life. I had to be able to come up with a plan. I sat with my head in my hands for a long time, but nothing happened. I needed to kick-start my brain. When inspiration didn’t appear during the writing process, I used to put on my headphones and listen to loud music. It was worth a try. I looked through my CD collection and settled on Richmond Fontaine’s Post to Wire. My mind filled with images of deserted truck stops and dusty motels, but then the plangent vocals and weeping guitar lines brought the clarity I was after. Things began to come together.
I decided that, whatever I did, it had to be in the open. If the Devil really was watching me all the time, I couldn’t do anything that would raise his suspicions. So I got all the bundles of twenties together and put them in a kit bag from my rugby days. Then I put it in the bottom of my wardrobe. While I was bending down there, I hastily transferred the bundles to a hunting jacket my mother had given my for some reason best known to herself-I’d never hunted anything in my life. It had numerous large pockets for the carcasses of dead game. I kept the lights low in the bedroom, hoping that the Devil couldn’t see what I was up to. If he could, I reckoned he’d be on the phone soon enough to ask what I thought I was doing.
I went back into the sitting room and booted up my computer. I transferred all the e-mails to and from the Devil, plus the chapters I’d written, to diskettes. They would be going in my hunting jacket, too. The difficult part was what to do with the computer itself. I had a plan. Going into the kitchen, I made myself a mug of coffee and then went back to my desk. Looking as nonchalant as I could, I put the mug down beside the laptop. Then I started to type. Given that the bastard seemed to be able to hack into any file I opened, I wrote up my thoughts on the Harley Street killing. That would impress him. At least he hadn’t called-so far.
I picked up my mug and drank, pulling my mouth back with a yelp as if I’d scalded my lips and depositing the coffee all over the keyboard.
“Shit!” I yelled.
As I’d hoped, the machine reacted badly. After a few moments the screen went blank, a grinding noise started and the smell of burning filled my nostrils. I pulled out the mains connection and sat there swearing.
After what I thought was long enough, I picked up my mobile and called my rugby league friend Roger van Zandt, who was a computer expert.
“Hi, Rog,” I said. “You okay?”
“Down the Duck. Why aren’t you here, Wellsy? Shagging again?” He laughed. I could hear raucous sounds in the background. “Dave wants to know if your friend from the newspaper is a page three girl.”
Excellent. Two birds with one stone. “Tell Dave I’m coming down there to sort him out. Hey, Dodger, can you have a look at my laptop? I just managed to pour a mug of coffee over it.”
“You jackass. Yeah, all right. Bring it with you. And prepare to get very drunk.”
I cut the connection. So far so good. I put the computer in a heavy-duty plastic bag and then went into my bedroom, not bothering to turn on the light. I slipped the diskettes into my hunting jacket and then put it on. I also pulled on a pair of trainers I hadn’t used for months. If I was lucky, there wouldn’t be a bug in them. I took off my watch and threw it onto the bed. Making sure my mobile stayed on the desk, I picked up my keys and left the flat.
I felt like the Michelin Man in my money-inflated jacket, but I was hoping it would be taken for one of those
