Ward stared at the names.
Edgar Allan Poe Caravaggio Frank Sinatra John Dillinger Stalin He was still staring half an hour later.
The rapidity and profusion with which the names continued to appear showed no signs of stopping.
‘What do we do?’ Connelly asked.
Ward could only shake his head. He held out the piece of handwritten paper he’d found in his office.
Connelly took it and read it.
‘It was there when I got to the computer,’ Ward told him.
‘Any idea what it means?’ said Connelly.
Ward shook his head.
The computer continued to rattle off an increasingly long list of names. And it showed no signs of stopping.
AN INVENTORY
9.34 p.m.
‘Seventy-six pages,’ said Ward.
The names on the sheaf of paper he held were in non-alphabetical, random order. Many he recognised, many more he didn’t.
Connelly was also flicking through some of the printed sheets.
‘These names don’t have anything in common,’ Ward said.‘Not as a whole. There are groups of them that you can match up. Musicians. Writers. Artists. Even some sportsmen. Some are old, some are new.’
‘What do you make of it?’
‘Christ knows. What the fuck do Edgar Allan Poe and Madonna have in common? Or Christopher Marlowe and Lenny Bruce for that matter? Joseph Goebbels and Bill Gates?’ He shook his head. ‘There are hundreds of names on here that I don’t recognise either. They’re not well-known people.’
‘Perhaps if we looked them up,’ Connelly offered.
‘Where, Martin?’
Connelly merely shrugged.
Ward continued looking at the names. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered.
‘What is it?’
‘These names sound familiar,’ said the writer. ‘Declan Leary. Melissa Blake.
Joe Hendry.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘They were all characters in that book I’ve just finished. They all died.’
Connelly stared at the list. ‘What was that about imagination becoming reality?’ he said quietly. ‘In one of those handwritten sheets.’
Ward nodded. ‘But I created those characters. Why are they on this list?’ he asked. ‘They weren’t real.’
‘Somewhere they might be. Somewhere in this world there are probably people with the names Declan Leary, Melissa Blake and Joe Hendry. The names aren’t that uncommon, Chris.’
‘We’ll see,’ Ward snapped and hurried out to the hall. He returned with a copy of the phone book and flipped it open, running his index finger down the list of names. ‘There’s an M Blake,’ he said. ‘A J Hendry and a D Leary.’
‘I said they weren’t uncommon.’
Ward scribbled down the numbers.
‘What are you doing?’ Connelly wanted to know.
‘I want to speak to them.’
‘Chris, what for?’
Ward was already heading for the hallway. He snatched up the phone and dialled the first number. And waited.
No answer.
He tried the number for J Hendry. It rang.
And rang.
Then was finally answered. ‘Hello.’ The voice at the other end was that of a woman. Subdued, barely audible.
‘I’d like to speak to Mr J Hendry, please,’ said Ward.
Silence.
‘Hello, I said I’d like to speak to—’
‘Yes, I heard you,’ the woman said softly. ‘I’m sorry. Joe died two days ago.’
Ward put down the phone. He tried the number for Leary.
A young man told him that Declan Leary had been killed in an accident two weeks earlier.
Ward exhaled and wandered back into the sitting room. ‘Two of them are dead,’
he said.
‘It must be a coincidence,’ Connelly told him.
‘What if these other names are names of characters I’ve created in the past?
Characters I’ve killed off.’
Connelly shook his head. ‘Art mirrors life?’ he said. ‘Not that literally.
Anyway, you didn’t create all the names on this list. Also a lot of them are still alive.’
Ward ran a hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps there’s an answer in this,’ he said, holding up the piece of handwritten paper. ‘Like this date. Twelve, twelve, eighty-four. Twelfth of December, 1984.’
‘Does that date have any significance for you?’ asked Connelly.
‘Not that I can remember.’
‘What about some of the other things mentioned?’
‘“The terms were accepted,’” Ward murmured. ‘Terms of what? “Now is the time for payment”.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘“Many others have walked the same path.” Which path?’
‘You work it out.’
‘Twelve, twelve, eighty-four,’ Ward whispered. ‘Jesus Christ. If those numbers are a date, then I recognise
them and so should you. It was the date I signed to your agency. The day you became my agent.’
‘Can you remember what you said when you signed? You said you wanted to be so rich it was obscene. You said you wanted everything. The world.’
‘I was rich. But not any more.’
‘Terms were set,’ Connelly said quietly. ‘Nothing lasts for ever, Chris.’
‘That still doesn’t explain the names on this list.’
‘Run through them again. Just the first three or four.’
‘Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven. Christopher Marlowe.’
‘A general who became an emperor. A composer who wanted immortality,’ Connelly began.
‘And a writer who wrote about a man who made a pact with the Devil,’ Ward added.
‘I had to let you work it out, Chris.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘What was Marlowe’s most famous work?’
‘Doctor Faustus!
‘Remember the story?’
‘A man who wanted wealth and fame sold his soul to the Devil in return for it.
He had to face a reckoning. So did Marlowe himself. He was murdered in a pub in London.’
‘He was paying his debt.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘Marlowe wrote about a man who sold his soul to the Devil. A man like himself.
Like all the others on that list. How do you think they got what they wanted?
Everything’s got a price, Chris. Anything can be attained if you’ve got the right goods to barter. All those
