The Old Vengeful

certainly crippled a few . . . and Willie Fullick never killed anyone most likely, because he couldn't break the skin on a rice pudding— though it wasn't for lack of trying, and 'e'd 'ave managed it sooner or later . . . with some poor old nightwatchman, or a sub-postmistress maybe . . .

But Julian Oakenshaw killed seven people—six men and one woman—and he killed them slowly, and he enjoyed every minute of it ... And each time we couldn't even prove he was in the same county when he did it, because he was a Bachelor of Arts and he was smart—and that's why my two sergeants are going to fix that report so you'll come up smelling sweeter than the biggest bank of roses you ever saw at Kew Gardens, Dr Mitchell—okay?'

The fact that it was all delivered unemotionally, like a traffic report on a Bank Holiday, served to silence Paul.

'I'm sorry, Miss Loftus—' Del Andrew's dark eyes clouded sympathetically as he saw that, where Paul was merely dummy3

silenced, Elizabeth was actively terrified '—but Dr Audley here wants me to make this plain, so you don't misunderstand anything: this . . . this man Oakenshaw was a real bad bastard—a psychopath of the most dangerous kind—

not just hard, but bad, and crafty with it... Not just your ordinary villain, like I was brought up with, but one of your maximum security throw-away-the-key swine, if we could ever have got our hands on him. So you were lucky, Miss Loftus.'

She nodded. 'Yes ... I think I do understand that, Chief Inspector.'

The eyes—the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen—almost black-brown—darted towards Audley, and then back to her.

'Ye-ess ... he said you would ... So what you want to know now is that for his daily bread Julian Oakenshaw specialised in getting information— like, sometimes, where the really tricky burglar alarms were, an' the electronic gear . . . and industrial espionage, that was up his street too—he had a good analytical brain, and when he was briefed right he always knew what to look for ... The only thing wrong with

'im was that, when the moon was full like last night, he preferred people to be difficult, so he could burn a pretty pattern on them first, before they told him what he wanted to know, before he cut their throats—' Del tensed suddenly '—

sorry, dear—but that's what he would have done, when you'd sung for him. And you would have sung, believe me—that was his stock-in-trade, gettin' results for carriage clients who dummy3

weren't fussy about how he got them, just so they weren't involved: information was his business, an' that always came first. But inflicting pain was his pleasure, an' he liked to mix pleasure with business when the opportunity presented itself and the moon was full, an' he had a clear run.'

'And was that well known?' asked Paul.

'In the trade it was—we knew about it. But he was too fly to let anyone pin so much as a charity flag on him . . . like he never used the same talent twice to watch his back, and do his heavy work for him. That pair he had yesterday, that you sorted out. . . that was their first time as well as their last—

an' the first time he picked two dud 'uns too, thank God!'

Mitchell looked at Audley. 'Then that doesn't fit, David.'

'You don't think so?' Audley seemed to know what didn't fit, but it evidently didn't worry him.

'I know so.' Paul caught Elizabeth's eye, but almost without seeming to see her. 'The KGB would never sub- contract an important job to a psycho—not in a thousand years.' He focussed on her suddcnly, 'It's just not their style, damn it!'

He swung back to Audlcy. 'And with Novikov sitting in his car, trailing Elizabeth? It never did fit, David—Novikov careless is bad enough, but Novikov there at all cancels his connection with Oakenshaw.'

Audley shrugged. 'Maybe he was watching over his investment to check on the dividend. Who knows?'

Mitchell frowned at him, then at Chief Inspector Andrew. 'Is dummy3

that what you think?'

'What do I think?' Del Andrew finished his drink. 'About this Novikov I don't think, because I don't know 'im well enough . . . an' the same goes for 'style', 'cause I haven't been playin' this game long enough to suss it out. But Oakenshaw would have put his grannie through it if the money was right

—that was his style . . . Only, having said all that, it wasn't Comrade Novikov who put the money up for is—you're spot on there, Dr Mitchell.'

'Then who was it?' Mitchell brightened.

'It was a right little villain named Danny Kahn—'

'Dinner's on the table,' said Faith Audley through the doorway. And you still haven't opened the wine, David —'

Danny Kahn?

The meal, whatever it was like—over-cooked or not—was purgatory for Elizabeth.

Danny Kahn?

HM Frigate Vengeful, 36 guns, 975 tons—

A right little villain, Danny Kahn?

Lieutenant Chipperfield, Mr Midshipman Paget, Gunner's Mate Chard . . . Danny Kahn—?

It was purgatory because, by apparent convention, they dummy3