The Soul Collector

The name stirred something deep in my memory. I tried to excavate it, but failed.

Karen looked up at me and I saw she was about to come out with something bad. She tightened her grip on my midriff. “Look, it probably isn’t significant…”

“Just tell me,” I said, taking a deep breath.

She nodded. “There was a pentagram drawn on flagstones in the garden. And there were Latin words inside it.”

“What were they?”

“You know Latin?” Karen asked.

“I did it for a few years at school.”

Karen sat back. “Okay. Let’s see if that’s enough. ‘FECIT DIABOLUS.’”

“I can get that, all right. ‘The devil did it.’” I looked at her, feeling a sudden chill. “Did what? The murder?”

She shrugged. “I suppose so. It would hardly be the first Satanist killing in Greater London, would it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t like it, Karen. It makes me think of the White Devil and his sister.” I felt a surge of panic. “Jesus, is Sara back?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Matt,” Karen said. She got up and went into the en suite bathroom. “There was nothing connecting the murder to you or any of your friends and relatives.”

That didn’t make me feel much better. The White Devil had taunted me with quotations from revenge tragedy previously. Maybe this was Sara’s adaptation of that, and she was using Latin to muddy the waters. She was cunning and vicious enough to play that kind of game.

Karen came back into the bedroom and looked at me. “Get hold of yourself, Matt.”

“Tell me exactly what you found, will you?” I said, suddenly noticing that I was pacing up and down. “Please, Karen.” I sat down next to her on the bed.

After instructing me not to mention anything about the murder in my column, she did.

“Are you sure there was no message on the body?” I asked when she’d finished.

“Redrose said there wasn’t. You know how keen he is to check that kind of thing. We’ll know for certain when he does the postmortem tomorrow.”

I got up and went over to the laptop I kept in the bedroom. I logged on and checked my e-mails. There was nothing from Sara-no taunts, no threats, no disposable e-mail addresses.

“Okay?” Karen said, giving me a reassuring smile.

“Not really,” I said.

Karen shook her head. “For God’s sake, Matt! Has it ever occurred to you that, in writing The Death List, you gave every psycho lunatic in London, no, in the whole country, if not the whole world-”

“The global sales were good, weren’t they?” I said.

She ignored that “-an open invitation to pretend they were Sara. You went into such detail about the White Devil’s methods that you’re probably responsible for dozens of murders.” She turned away and murmured, “Good night.”

Karen, used to seeing dead bodies at all times of day and night, despite her initial disquiet, fell asleep not long afterward. Eventually I dropped off, but not before I’d got out of bed to check the alarm system. I was vaguely aware of Karen rising at some ridiculously early hour and kissing me on the cheek. Then I dropped off again. At least I wasn’t disturbed by nightmares.

When I finally surfaced it was after nine. I would normally have done half an hour on my exercise bike, but today I wanted to be sure that everyone was all right. I ran my eye down the morning e-mails. All my family and friends had confirmed they were okay. I thought about raising the level of alert after the murder last night, but decided against it. Karen was right-a single mention of the devil in Latin wasn’t worth getting too worked up about.

I sat back in my?2000 desk chair and considered the name that Karen had mentioned. Shirley Higginbottom. There was something familiar about it. I looked at the row of reference books on the nearest shelf. Who’s Who? Who’s Who in the Arts? The Rugby League Year Book? None of them seemed likely, though there was probably no shortage of league players called Higginbottom. Farther along the shelf there was a small yellow booklet. It was the annual directory of members of the Crime Writers’ Society. Something clicked. I grabbed the booklet and found the pages with names beginning in H. No Higginbottoms. Then I remembered the section that matched authors’ real names with their noms de plume. I was in that-Matt Stone = Matt Wells. Back when I’d started writing novels, I thought Stone would give me a harder edge in the market. That had been one of my many delusions.

Then I hit pay dirt. There it was: Mary Malone = Shirley Higginbottom. Jesus-Mary Malone. She was a major bestseller. She was also notorious for staying out of the limelight. She’d been invited several times as guest of honor to crime-writing festivals and had always declined. There wasn’t even a publicity photograph of her in circulation, leading to nasty speculation that she was a fearsome hag-or, perhaps, a man. She’d sent her editor to collect her two Historical Crime Novel of the Year awards.

I picked up the phone and called Karen.

“This isn’t a good time, Matt,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes, it is. What would you say if I told you that your murder victim last night was a bestselling crime novelist?”

“What?”

“I was expecting at least one expletive.”

“Tough. So she had a nom de plume?”

“Yup. Mary Malone. She wrote about eighteenth-century Paris and she was a global bestseller.”

“Interesting. Look, I’m in a case conference now. I’ll pass that on to the team that’s working the murder.”

“Sure you don’t want to take it over? I could be useful to you. Insider knowledge of the victim’s milieu, personal experience of-”

“You just want to make sure crazy Sara’s not involved, don’t you, Matt? Talk to you later.” The connection was cut.

“Bollocks!” I shouted into the phone. A few seconds later it rang. “It’s all right, darling,” I said. “I forgive you.”

“Very kind of you, Matt. What did I do?”

I recognized the overcooked Cockney tones of Josh Hinkley, author of a popular series of gangster capers. He’d treated me like shit when my career was in the doldrums, but since my success he imagined he was my best friend.

“Sorry, Josh. I thought you were someone else.”

“Not the delightful DCI Oaten, by any chance?”

My relationship with Karen was common knowledge in crime-writing circles. Some authors would have paid good money to go out with a senior police officer, and Hinkley was definitely one of them.

“What are you after, Josh?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if you knew one of our colleagues was brutally murdered last night.”

“Of course I knew,” I said hastily, surprised that he’d found out so quickly. He didn’t waste any time telling me how.

“Journo on the Express, who I drink with, rang me up an hour ago. One of the cops told him they found a Crime Writers’ Society membership card in the name of Mary Malone when they went through her desk. Wondered if I knew her.”

“And what did you tell him?” I asked, wishing I could have told him I’d already tipped Karen off.

I heard Hinkley draw hard on a cigarette. “Well, what could I say? I never met her, did I? None of us ever met her. I did check the membership directory, though. Confirmed that Shirley whatever was her real name.”

“And no doubt your name will get mentioned in tomorrow’s paper,” I said snidely.

“Of course, old cock.” He laughed. “I don’t need a column in the Daily Indie to show how smart I am. You can pass the pseudonym on to your girlfriend with my compliments.”