action.”
“Shit, I don’t know. I can’t come down there. She knows what I look like. I doorstepped her when I was researching
“Yes, guv.”
“All right, get out of there. Tell her that because it’s an undercover operation, we won’t be making it a scene of crime. Did anyone else hear the shots?”
“Doubt it. No one’s come out.”
“You are a tosser, calling me DCI Oates.”
“Right, guv. See you later.” Andy handed the phone back.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Doris Carlton-Jones said. Then she closed the door, took off the chain and opened up again. “Why don’t you come inside now? You’re getting soaked.”
Andy looked back at the van. Its rear was sticking out into the road, but not too excessively. He decided it was worth cultivating Sara’s birth mother.
“Thank you, madam, just for a minute.”
“I’ll make some tea,” the woman said. “Go into the sitting room.”
Andy did as he was told. The house was spotlessly clean. The long sitting room was filled with what seemed to him to be good-quality antique furniture, and the sofas had tasteful burgundy covers. He looked around for family photographs, wondering if there might be any sign of Sara and her brother as babies. But there was only a series of shots of Mrs. Carlton-Jones with a man who had less and less hair as he got older.
“Your husband?” he asked as she bustled in with a tray.
“Yes, that’s Neville. He passed on four years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Carlton-Jones seemed momentarily to have lost the tight grip she kept on herself. “It was cancer,” she said, shaking her head. “He only lasted three months after the diagnosis.”
Andy sensed that nothing he could say would comfort her.
“Anyway, how do you take your tea?” the elderly woman said, twitching her head.
“Em, two sugars, please.” Andy never drank tea, but he didn’t want to spoil the mood. Who had ever heard of an English policeman who didn’t like tea?
After they were both settled with cups and saucers, Mrs. Carlton-Jones turned to him. “So, Sergeant Jansen, what happens now?”
“Well,” he said, gathering his thoughts, “because this is an undercover investigation, there won’t be the usual fuss with the street being closed off and everyone in the vicinity being questioned.”
Doris Carlton-Jones raised an eyebrow. “Won’t you even be taking a statement from me?”
“Later,” Andy said. “When the investigation has run its course. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
She shook her head. “No. The first thing I was aware of was your van careering toward us, after I asked the rider what he wanted.”
“And he-or she-didn’t speak to you at all?”
“No. At least not that I could hear above the sound of your engine.”
“I thought you were in danger. What was it that the rider was holding out?”
“I don’t know. A small package. I think it was wrapped, like a birthday present.”
Andy scratched his head. “And is it your birthday?”
“No, it isn’t.” She looked at him calmly, waiting for the next question.
The American took a surreptitious deep breath. “What about children?” he asked.
Mrs. Carlton-Jones’s eyes opened wide. “Children? What do they have to do with what happened outside?”
Good question, Andy thought. “No, I mean, is there anyone you’d like to come over? Do you have children?”
“Oh, I see.” She looked him straight in the eye. “No, I don’t.”
Andy held her gaze. Now he knew she was a liar.
The man in the mask and cowl walked away from the smoking altar. He heard the footsteps of the naked supplicant behind, as well as the cackling of Beelzebub.
“Where is Faustus tonight?” the supplicant asked.
“Busy,” Mephistopheles said, his tone brooking no further questions.
He slid open the door to the outer chamber. “Your offerings are always welcome, Asmodeus. But this one was somewhat lightweight.”
The supplicant started to dress, and then looked around at the leader of the order. “I am sowing the seeds of destruction, my lord. Soon, great riches will fall into my hands.”
“Into our hands,” Mephistopheles corrected. “We are all depending on you.” He took off his mask. “I am depending on you.”
Asmodeus took in the flawed face. “I will not let you down.”
“Good,” the leader said, shrugging off his cowl and robes. “I wouldn’t like to think that you were only killing for pleasure.”
The supplicant remained silent.
“All that we do is toward the greater glory of our master Satan,” Mephistopheles said. “Do not forget that.” He took the head of a cockerel from his pocket and tossed it to the mandrill.
The two humans watched as the creature’s jaws crunched together, then they smiled.
Fourteen
Andy’s performance in Sydenham put me right off my stride with the clue. At least, that was what I told myself. The truth was, I hadn’t got any further with it. Slash’s suggestion in the message he texted that Doris Carlton-Jones might be the victim was smart, but I found it hard to believe. Sara might have had issues with her birth mother, but I didn’t think she’d murder her. Then again, what did I know? I’d spent over a year sharing a bed with her, and it had never occurred to me until the end that she was working with the White Devil.
Looking at the puzzle again, I couldn’t see any direct link to Doris Carlton-Jones, but I didn’t have enough information to be sure about that. Maybe the sun setting, the westernmost dunes and Alexander’s womankind would mean something to her. I considered getting Andy to ask her, but decided against it. I texted him, saying that he should stay in the vicinity till further notice, just in case she was the target.
I looked at my watch. Under two hours to go. The floor of the hotel room was covered in crumpled paper. I was still trying out ideas, but as the deadline approached, they were getting more and more abstruse. I logged on to the Internet and went to the site Rog had set up. Neither he nor Pete had come up with anything coherent regarding the clue. Rog had managed to run it through all sorts of encryption software and got nothing but gobbledygook. I was sure it was the kind of puzzle that needed a human rather than a digital brain.
I found myself tantalized by some of the words. “Set”-there was something lurking in the back of my mind about that. What else could it mean? As a noun, a number or group of people or things; a complete series; a team of horses; a receiving apparatus, like a wireless set; the movements in a dance. Where did that get me? As a verb, to cause to sit; to place; to sink, like the sun-as in the clue; to prescribe; to adjust; to come into a rigid state. Great-that was also going nowhere. I had the feeling this was a puzzle that didn’t abide by the unwritten rules of crossword clues. Maybe there wasn’t even a logical answer.
It was nearly eleven o’clock. I thought seriously about calling Karen. But what good would that do now? The police were unlikely to come up with a convincing answer when Rog, Pete and I, plus numerous computer programs, hadn’t. If I’d given it to Karen in the morning, she could have got a warrant to find who had set up the
