The Soul Collector

rattlesnake’s tail.

When she saw the misshapen face outside, the smile vanished from her lips faster than the Sacramento Mountains sucked down the evening sun.

The e-mail from my mother duly arrived. I read it and realized that she hadn’t come up with an answer, though she did point out a couple of things I’d missed. Set with a capital s was the ancient Egyptian god of disorder, and in a cryptic crossword, that could suggest that letters or words had been mixed up-fair enough, and that was the reference of “set” that had been at the tip of my tongue, but it didn’t get us much further. More interesting was Fran’s reading of “by the westernmost dunes”-she wondered if the use of “by” could mean “next to,” and that therefore we shouldn’t be looking for the most western beaches such as Cornwall in England, but those in Devon, the only county next to Cornwall. Again, fair enough, but what was I supposed to send Flaminio/Doctor Faustus? I had no choice. It had to be Katya, even though her only connection was the dead critic named Alexander.

Heart thundering like a bass drum, I logged on to my e-mail program. At exactly eleven fifty-nine there was a chime and an e-mail arrived from next is who? — the sender’s new address. I hit Reply and sent the Bulgarian’s full name. Then it struck me-what was going to happen next? Would Sara, or whoever had set up the clue, answer immediately, or was I going to have to spend the night monitoring the news? In the rush toward the deadline, I hadn’t considered the time after it. I stood up and stepped away from the laptop, but kept my eye on the screen. Screw the guy in the room underneath, I needed to walk. I only got halfway toward the discolored wardrobe when I heard the chime. The bell had tolled. Was someone about to die?

I clicked on the new message, and my heart sank like a stone.

Who? Never heard of her. Right sex, though.

“Now hast she but one bare minute to live…”

Doctor Faustus

Jesus. If the bastard who sent the message was to be believed-and what had been said about the Mary Malone murder showed insider knowledge-there was a woman in London being murdered as I stood in front of the screen. I replied, asking for more time, but there was no response. I recognized the quotation-it was from Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, one of the few set-texts that I’d actually paid attention to at university. It should have read

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,

And then thou must be damn’d perpetually.

My mind filled with visions of violence and death. Because I’d arrogantly assumed I could solve the clue and hadn’t involved my mother earlier, I had condemned a woman to death. It wasn’t just Faustus who’d been damned for eternity. I had been, too.

The sound of her cell phone woke Karen Oaten instantly. She had got home from the office at eleven and gone straight to bed. Although she had grabbed the phone automatically-she’d had long years of practice-her brain took a few seconds to function and she had to ask Amelia Browning to repeat what she’d said. The alarm clock showed 00:46.

“Dead woman at a hotel in Soho,” the detective sergeant said breathlessly. “We need to get over there and take it from Homicide Central.”

“Hold on, Amelia,” Karen said, blinking in the bright light she had turned on. “What’s so significant about-”

“Single stab wound to the heart,” Browning interrupted. “And a message on the body.”

Oaten felt her stomach flip. It sounded very like the White Devil’s modus operandi. “What does it say?” she asked, gripping her phone tightly.

There was a pause. “It…it says ‘Ask Matt Wells about this,’ guv. There was music playing, as well.”

“Jesus Christ.” The chief inspector swung her legs out of bed and padded over to the wardrobe. “Where’s Taff?”

“At home, I suppose. But I can-”

“You’re on night duty in the office, sergeant, and that’s where you have to stay. How did you find out about the murder?”

“I was monitoring the emergency frequencies.”

“Good work.” Most of Oaten’s team spent night duty catching up on their paperwork or playing solitaire on their computers. Amelia would have finished her paperwork long ago. “Have you spoken to anyone in Homicide Central?”

“Yes, guv. I thought it was best if I declared the VCCT’s interest.”

“Well done again. But that’s enough. I’ll take over now.” Oaten cut the connection and started to dress. She could imagine how well a call from a lowly sergeant in her team would have gone down with whichever grizzled senior officer was in charge. After she’d put on a pair of sensible black shoes, she called John Turner.

“Sorry, Taff, but I need you.” She explained the situation, then arranged to meet him at the hotel. It was on Charlotte Street and seemed to be in the color supplements every weekend.

It wasn’t till she was in her car and heading for Soho that Karen thought about the mention of Matt. Why had the killer left a message referring to him? She called his home numbers, both open and ex-directory, and his cell phone. Each time she got his answering service and had to leave messages. The fact that he wasn’t picking up gave her a bad feeling. He and his mates were up to something, she was sure of that. Surely they hadn’t managed to provoke Sara to murder?

She left her car outside the police tape in the Soho street. Uniformed officers were struggling to hold journalists and photographers back. As she bent under the cordon, she heard a familiar voice.

“Is this a case for the VCCT, Chief Inspector?”

Karen Oaten ignored the tall figure in a dark blue Barber jacket. Jeremy Andrewes, crime correspondent of the Daily Independent, had been a colleague of Sara Robbins. Oaten had little time for the aristocratic news-hound, although he was less of a muckraker than most of his breed. She wondered how the pack had heard about the murder. A hotel employee had probably earned a nice little bonus.

Inside the hotel’s opulent lobby, she recognized detectives from Homicide Central. They were talking to hotel staff and guests, some of whom looked shell-shocked.

John Turner came up to her, wearing a white coverall, the hood up. “It’s on the third floor, guv,” he said, leading the way.

“Any witnesses?”

“Not so far.”

“Who found the body?”

“A room-service waiter. The door of the suite was a couple of centimeters open.”

“Who’s in charge from Central?” Oaten asked as she pulled on a set of protective clothing and gloves.

“DCI Younger.”

“Could be worse.” When she was ready, she followed the Welshman up the stairs. CSIs had run tape down one half and were examining the floor and banisters for prints.

They came out into the third-floor corridor, black-and-white geometric paintings mounted on the pale pink wallpaper. The victim’s suite-the Windermere-was first on the left, a large Japanese fan spread open and mounted on the gray door. As they went in, they met Dr. Redrose on his way out.

“Ah, the chief of the elite,” he said, jowls wobbling. “I was wondering when you’d make an appearance.”

Karen gave him a dispassionate look. “Going somewhere, Doctor?”

“I’m finished,” Redrose said, one hand on his protruding stomach. “A simple case. One stab wound to the heart, a smooth, two-edged blade. The murderer is right-handed, probably not as tall as the victim, who is fractionally over six feet, and the time of death was after 11:00 p.m. according to the body temperature, though I gather the poor woman placed a room-service order at eleven fifty-three and the waiter found her at ten past twelve, so you already have a tight window.”

“Hello, Chief Inspector,” said a gray-haired man with a curiously boyish face.

“Ditto, Colin,” Oaten said, looking around the spacious suite.

There was a pair of cocktail glasses and a tray on the floor near the door, and some damp patches on the