puffer things that skiers wear. Walking at medium pace down the streets to the Village, I kept my eyes and ears open. I couldn’t see anyone on my tail. Then again, the Devil wouldn’t need to bother. He probably knew exactly where I was going.
The Duck was as packed as it always gets on a Saturday. I spotted Rog and Dave in the far corner. They were with Andrew Jackson, an American guy from the rugby club. The next hour passed in the standard way-talk about the state of the league game, whinging about kids, mockery about wives and girlfriends. Sara had made it clear from the start that she didn’t want to meet my male friends. The problem was, that made them think she was a snooty bitch, as Rog so pleasantly put it.
Then Dave turned to me and stroked his boxer’s nose.
“So what about these murders then, Mr. Crime Writer?”
“Oh yeah,” said Andy Jackson. He was tall, heavily built and fair-haired. A chef by profession, he’d come to the U.K. ten years back to get married to a woman from Croydon. They’d got divorced a year later, but he’d never got home again. He found an undemanding restaurant to work in and spent the rest of his time in the pub or playing rugby league. “They must be giving you some ideas, man.”
I shrugged and swallowed lager. “I don’t need ideas.” I tapped my head. “I’ve got a wonderfully healthy imagination, Slash.” We called him that because of the way he took the legs away from opposition players-nothing to do with the Guns N’ Roses guitarist.
“Screw you,” he replied with a grin. “I remember you telling me you read the papers every day for stuff.”
Rog, a curly-haired and deceptively thin former center who used to put in heavy tackles, was giving me a thoughtful look. “Didn’t you have someone killed in a church with something up his arse in one of your books, Matt?”
Shit. I went on the offensive. “So?” I said, glancing around the pub. Everyone else seemed to be involved in their own conversations and there was no one obviously watching me. “You think people read my books and carry out copycat murders?”
The three of them sat back, surprised by my vehemence.
“Of course not,” Andy said. “Take it easy.”
I let my shoulders drop. “Sorry. Bad day at the typeface.” I handed the bag with my computer to Rog. “See what you can do with this.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully. “But if liquid’s got to the hard disk, I’ll have to replace it.”
That was what I was hoping. I nodded, my expression fake unhappy. “Whatever it takes. No hurry. I’ve got my old one in the loft.”
“He’s got an old one in the loft,” Andy said in an attempt at a Bela Lugosi accent. “In the east wing.”
“Pete Satterthwaite’s the only person I know with a house big enough to have wings,” I said.
Rog laughed. “Bonehead? He’s also got all sorts of skeletons in his cupboards.”
We talked a bit about the team’s former main sponsor, who was balder than the baldest coot. Then we got on to the inadequacies of the current Great Britain Test team, until Dave got up to take a leak. I let him go ahead, then followed him. I’d kept my jacket on despite the heat in the pub. Now came the tricky bit. Dave was my closest friend, in as much as writers have close friends. I trusted him, but would he trust me?
Inside the toilet, I waited until a pisshead fumbled with his buttons and left. Then I beckoned to Dave.
“What’s up, Matt?” he said, one hand on his member. When he’d finished, he followed me into the only crapper. “People will talk,” he said with a grin.
“Listen, Psycho,” I said, my voice low. “I want you to keep something for me.” I pulled a plastic bag out of a pocket and started filling it with the bundles of banknotes.
Dave whistled. “Jesus, have you been robbing banks?”
“Wanker. No, I got paid in cash for a job. I’ll tell you about it later. I don’t want Caroline to find out about it or she’ll be on my back for maintenance, even though she earns a fortune. Can you keep it for me?”
Dave stared down at the bag. “How much is it?”
“Ten grand.”
“Bloody hell! Why can’t you put it in a deposit account?”
“I will. But not yet.” I touched my nose with my forefinger. “I’ve got my reasons.”
Dave shrugged. “All right. I’ll stick it under the floorboards.”
“One more thing,” I said, grabbing his arm. “I don’t want the other guys to see it. Can you stuff it down your shirt?”
“What?” He looked at the bulky bag. “There isn’t room for my belly in this shirt.”
Fortunately he had kept on his loose parka. After a lot of fiddling, we managed to secrete the money and the backup diskettes down his back and front. Then I stuffed my own pockets with all the toilet paper I could find so that my jacket kept its former shape.
“Are you all right?” Dave said, rubbing his chin.
“I’ll explain everything later.”
When we got back to the table, the other two looked up at us.
“I don’t think buggery’s permitted in the head here,” Andy said with a wide grin.
“Sod off,” Dave said, provoking a gale of laughter.
It was only as I was buying the next round that I realized what I’d done. I’d brought my best mates into the Devil’s field of fire.
That betrayal made me feel lower on the evolutionary scale than an earthworm.
15
John Turner stood in his white coveralls and bootees, trying to get his breathing under control. The body had been found by a doctor on the floor below who’d come up to borrow a journal. That man had had a lucky escape.
The inspector opened the gauze curtains and looked down at Harley Street. Ordinary people were going about their ordinary lives, black cabs passing and foreign teenagers shouting at one another. Why did he have to put up with scenes of horror like this on a more or less daily basis? He knew the answer well enough. His father had been a copper, ending up as a desk sergeant in central Cardiff, and his grandfather had walked the beat, too. It was in his blood. He froze, conscious again of the torn body to his right. It was bad enough, but what lay on the floor beyond had gone beyond anything he’d ever experienced. Even the most degenerate horror film scriptwriter would have struggled to come up with anything as horrendous as that.
Karen Oaten looked up at him from where she was squatting by the severed head. “Come on, Taff. It’s got to be done.” She turned to the pathologist, Redrose, who was at her side. “Well?”
“It’s Bernard Keane, all right,” the potbellied medic said, shaking his head. “I knew him from one of our charity committees. This is appalling.” He returned her gaze. “Jesus, someone will have to tell his wife.”
“She’s on her way,” Oaten said. “Don’t worry, I can handle that. You’re sure it’s him, though? I don’t want to put her through identifying him formally until the undertakers have been to work on him.” She shook her head. “They’ll have their work cut out.”
“I’m sure it’s him, Chief Inspector.” The pathologist got to his feet unsteadily.
Oaten gave him a few moments. “What about the cause of death?”
“Take your pick. Shock or loss of blood.” Redrose moved over to the chair where the victim’s body lay sprawled. “Judging by the lack of blood spray, I’d say that the head was removed postmortem. Conversely, these wounds, or at least many of them, were inflicted while Bernard…Dr. Keane was still breathing. My initial examination indicates that the stomach has been cut out.” He looked at Oaten and then at Turner. “There’s a clear plastic packet inside the abdominal cavity.”
Turner’s hand moved to his mouth before he could stop it.
“Take it out,” the chief inspector instructed the pathologist.
“I should really wait for the postmor-” Redrose broke off when he saw her expression. “Very well.” He picked up a pair of tweezers from his bag and, pulling up his mask and bending over the opened midriff, carefully removed a flat, square object.
