The Soul Collector

Faik tried to make sense of what was going on. The bearded man had said he had so much to show him, but he didn’t even seem to be there. Why had he chained Faik up? The pain in his full bladder was making it hard for the Kurd to concentrate, but he forced himself to admit that he had gone willingly with the man. He’d found himself drawn to him. That disturbed Faik. He wasn’t gay. What was it about the bearded man? Faik remembered what he’d seen beneath the false beard in the Shadow basement after Aro Izady was shot. The man was a monster, literally-he had killed a fellow Kurd, but still Faik felt attracted to him. What was going on?

Eventually the pressure in his bladder was too much for him and he let go. For a short time, the warmth was comforting-it reminded him of when he was a little boy. But soon the urine cooled and he felt shame. What would his captor think when he saw the evidence of Faik’s unmanliness?

The children’s programs were replaced by one of the stupid game shows that were so popular. Faik tried to reassure himself with the thought that his people, the King’s family, would be looking for him by now. The doctor would have told them. But maybe the doctor was no longer alive. The Shadows might not have believed him, they might have killed him. So maybe no one was looking for him. The thought cast Faik into a pit of darkness and he scarcely heard the door when it opened.

“Asleep, my friend?” came the familiar voice.

Before Faik could answer, a man was thrown between him and the television. He was balding and his face was pocked by smallpox scars. Blinking hard, Faik saw that he was wearing a gold Rolex and a coat that must have cost many pounds.

“Who is he?” he asked, turning his head.

The bearded man turned his prisoner’s head forcibly. “Watch and learn,” he said to Faik. “Afterward I might even unchain you.” He sniffed the air. “Oh, I’m sorry, my friend. I should have left you a bottle.” He gave a soft laugh. “Never mind. You aren’t the only one who’ll have pissed his pants by the end of the evening.”

The man on the floor whimpered and tried to get to his feet. Izady’s killer was around in a flash to whip the legs from beneath him. Then he kneeled on his captive’s back, a knife at the man’s throat.

“If you try that again, I’ll cut open your belly and tie you up with your own guts.” He leaned closer. “Do you hear me?”

The man on the floor nodded his head rapidly.

“Who is he?” Faik asked, licking his dry lips.

The bearded man looked around at him. “I’m sorry, my friend. I would give you something to drink, but I don’t think you’d keep it down.”

There was a high-pitched sound from the man with the Rolex.

“This piece of excrement works for the Albanian mafia. He’s Safet Shkrelli’s chief accountant.”

Faik’s eyes opened wide.

“I see you know the name.”

Faik nodded.

“The Albanians have a lot in common with the Kurds and the Turks,” the bearded man said.

Faik nodded. “They…they keep as much business as they can in the family.”

“Very good, my friend. This fucker of children is Safet Shkrelli’s first cousin.”

A feeling of deep foreboding overwhelmed Faik. “What are you going to do to him?” he asked.

“What are we going to do to him?” the bearded man corrected. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to kill him.”

Faik breathed out. “Good.”

The bearded man smiled. “We’re just going to hurt him till he tells us everything he knows about the Albanian mafia’s business in London.”

“You are insane!” the man on the floor said.

“And then we’re going to give him back to Safet Shkrelli, for a price.” The man with the beard looked back at the Albanian. “Me? Insane?” He plunged the combat knife into the man’s thigh, ramming a handkerchief into his mouth before the scream could be heard. “Oh, no, I’m not insane.” He looked around at Faik. “I’m the sanest person you’ll ever meet.” He laughed. “I just enjoy hurting people.”

Then the worst experience of Faik’s short but horror-filled life began.

When we got back at Rog’s cousin’s flat, I immediately checked for messages. There were two files from my mother and Caroline. I asked Rog if he’d got anywhere.

“Your mother and Caroline think that the first two lines refer to the name Brooks.”

I looked at the screen. As they’d thought, “The river shrinks” was a diminutive. One of the words for a small river was “brook”-and an archaic synonym for “bears,” in the sense of allowing something, was “brooks.” The second line clinched it. “Crows” were “rooks” and ice, or cold, made people say (or “crow”) “brr,” although “br” with one r would produce the same sound. They hadn’t got anywhere with “for a wife,” and were assuming it meant the Brooks person was male, as the message said.

“Brooks,” I said aloud, hoping that would give the name familiarity, but it didn’t. “I don’t know anyone called Brooks.”

“Me, neither. I’m assuming it’s a surname. I ran a search on the Internet and came up with a list.” He handed me several pages of printout. “No crime writers, though.”

“No, I didn’t think so.” I ran my eye down the list. There was an admiral, a senior civil servant in the Home Office, a professor of palaeontology and another of veterinary medicine, an actress and a load of less illustrious people. But why would Sara choose any of them?

“Brooks,” I said again. “I suppose it could be a first name. American, maybe?”

Rog nodded. “I thought that, too. Here’s a list of them.”

This printout was shorter. There were a couple of academics, a dancer, a businessman in Idaho, a fireman, and so on. Again, not very likely targets for Sara, and they were all a long way from London.

“Shit,” I said. “We need more.” I looked at the material from Fran and Caroline. They said they were working on the second couplet, but that they hadn’t come up with anything yet. My mother was thinking about the “imperial heiress”-heiress and wife were both female, and that had made her wonder about the target’s gender again.

I went over to the window. It was dark already, and there would soon be only five hours to go. We had one name-surely we weren’t going to fail because we couldn’t work out the other? I looked at the second sentence again. “The lean man’s imperial heiress/Is the thirsty draw of nothing.” I told myself to ignore the second part-if the pattern was repeated, it would be an alternative clue to the first part. “The lean man’s”-it was harder to take these words separately because of the apostrophe s. The lean man’s what? Who was the lean man?

I sat down and rubbed my eyes, then looked over at the bookcase. On the top shelf was a movie guide I’d always meant to buy. I was about to get up and have a look at it when I had a flash of insight. The words could be taken separately, and “lean” didn’t need a synonym or any other substitute word. It was a name in its own right, that of Britain’s most revered film director, David Lean-the definite article might have been used to put us off. But who was David Lean’s “imperial heiress”?

“Yes!” I yelled, punching the air.

“What?” Rog said, pushing his chair back and coming over. Andy and Pete were watching with interest.

“We’ve been made fools of,” I said, “but not anymore.” I underlined the second, third, fourth and fifth letters of “heiress.”

“Eire?” Rog said. “As in Ireland.”

“Correct. And what was the David Lean movie made in Ireland?”

“I know that,” Andy said. “It had Robert Mitchum in it, and that woman who always gets her jugs out.”

“Kate Winslet?” Pete asked.

“Sarah Miles, you moron,” I said. “And the movie’s name is?”

“Ryan’s Daughter,” Andy said, raising his arm in triumph.

Rog looked at me. “So what have we got? Ryan Brooks?”

I shook my head. “We’re not finished yet. What about ‘imperial’?”

“Something to do with the British Empire?” Rog asked.

“There’s stuff about the I.R.A. in Ryan’s Daughter,” Pete said. “They were fighting against the empire, weren’t they?”

He was right, but I couldn’t see where that got us. “What about other empires?”