my neck. That adds to the challenge.
Besides, everything I’ve found out about Gavin Burdett suggests that he’s a major-league scumbag. He has a reputation in his company for treating subordinates like dirt; his wife divorced him after she caught him with his dick in the Filipino maid; and one of his former business partners put his head under a train rather than face the charges Burdett had set him up for. Tailing a bastard like that will surely reveal something interesting.
Burdett sits down in the only available seat in the Tube carriage, beating a heavily pregnant woman to it and resolutely avoiding her outraged glare. I raise a newspaper and watch him surreptitiously. He takes a magazine from his briefcase. The multimillionaire investment banker gets down to Big Babes on the Bounce, indifferent to the scandalized looks on other passengers’ faces.
“Pillock,” I say under my breath, then get ready to leave the train when my target stands up.
Burdett comes out on street level at Bethnal Green and looks around. The bastard is handsome in a slightly raddled way, his hook nose, sallow skin and the thick black hair brushed back from his forehead giving the impression of a practiced lothario. I wonder if he is on his way to some woman-maybe he likes a bit of rough, something that wouldn’t be hard to find on the Roman Road. But instead, he starts walking north up Cambridge Heath Road. I keep a discreet distance. Then he slows as he approaches a row of shops. He goes into the second one.
I stop about twenty yards away. This is interesting, but not in any way that I’d have guessed. Gavin Burdett has gone into an establishment called Black As Night. According to the door the shop supplies “Candles, Tarot Cards, Caribbean Herbs and Roots, Occult Books-Everything Wild, Wicked and Witchy.”
Burdett comes out half an hour later with two heavily loaded plastic bags. I’d never have put him down as a devotee of black magic. Then again, he’s about as satanic-looking an individual as I’ve ever come across. And that includes the White Devil and the Soul Collector…
“Hey, Pete, you still alive?”
I came round to the sound of Bo’s voice and blinked away the vision of Gavin Burdett. “Where are we?”
“Between Philly and Baltimore. Some dream you were having, man.” A radio presenter was rattling away in the background.
I nodded, my mouth dry. “Haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
“Not much sleep to be found down in D.C., neither.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Bo grinned. “You know those occult killings?”
I felt a stab of unease in my gut. “Yeah?”
“Well, there’s been another one.”
Thirty
At MPDC headquarters, Clem Simmons logged off the Internet and leaned back in his chair. He wasn’t happy with what he’d just found. Joe Greenbaum was right about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant-its ravings had been reported on a site run by an occult enthusiast who called himself The Lord of the Underworld. Earlier, Simmons had got a techie to access the e-mail correspondence on Professor Singer’s laptop. There were no threatening messages in the mail program, but the victim had made a folder for them in his documents file. He had named it “Filth.” Dana Maltravers hadn’t caught it-another disappointment. The virulence of the threats had surprised Simmons-the professor was going to have his throat cut with the jagged lid from a can of pork; the same weapon would be used to mutilate his wife and children; their bodies were to be dumped in acid baths.
The problem for Clem was what to do with the material. It was circumstantial in the extreme and, according to the Web site, no member of the Antichurch had been identified. On the other hand, those people were clearly inciting racial and religious hatred. The obvious course of action would be to ask Peter Sebastian to involve the FBI’s experts, but Simmons wasn’t sure how much he trusted him.
Gerard Pinker came up to his partner’s desk, a wide grin on his face.
“What going on?” Simmons asked, looking up.
“Get this. The English guy Matt Wells got away from twenty-five New York staties this morning.”
“What are you so excited about? Sounds like Sebastian was right about him.”
“Give me a break, Clem,” Pinker said. “Dickhead’s been blowing smoke up our asses.”
Simmons heaved himself to his feet. “Come on, we’re going to be late for our very own deep throat.” He grabbed his coat and headed for the elevator. After hitting the street, they walked toward the National Mall.
“You seriously think Gordy Lister’s going to have anything on the murders?” Pinker asked, stopping at a kiosk to buy gum.
Simmons shrugged. “He’s helped us before.”
“Yeah, with a loony tunes dope dealer we already knew about and that vigilante pimp-killer the Star Reporter turned into a celebrity.”
“We aren’t exactly overflowing with leads, Vers.”
Pinker tightened his silk scarf as the wind whistled between Capitol Hill and the Potomac. “All right, let’s see what the slimeball has to say.”
The newspaperman was where they’d asked him to be, in front of the Washington Memorial. He wore a thick wool coat. His hands were in his pockets and his back was toward them.
“Gordy,” Pinker said, from the newspaperman’s left side.
“Lister,” Simmons added, from his right.
He gave them each an angry look. “What the fuck, guys? What’s so important that I have to freeze my ass off out here?”
“If memory serves, you’re the one who prefers meeting out of doors,” Pinker said.
Lister gave a hollow laugh. “Yeah, well, I got my reputation to think about.”
“You’re going to have your nuts in a bag if you don’t mind your mouth,” Pinker said, baring his teeth.
“Cool it, Vers,” Simmons said. “I’ll get straight to the point, Gordy. You guys been running plenty of stories about the murders.”
The newspaperman gave him a neutral glance. “You mean the occult killings?”
“As you call them,” Clem Simmons said, twitching his nose. “So, we were wondering if you maybe had some angle you haven’t come clean about.”
“What do you mean ‘some angle’? We aren’t detectives, my friend.”
“You got that right,” Pinker said, stepping in front of Lister. “Hey, asshole, you forgotten the last time you tried to play cute with me?”
Gordy Lister looked at his cowboy boots. “No,” he mumbled.
“I didn’t think so. If you don’t want me to stomp on your toes again, start talking.”
Gordy’s head stayed bowed for some time, before he raised it slowly and looked at Simmons.
“Call off your attack poodle, will you, Clem?”
Simmons laid a hand on his partner’s arm. “Don’t mind him,” he said, smiling encouragingly. “What have you got?”
“What I heard, a writer from London is the man. Matt Wells, his name.”
Pinker edged closer. “Come on, Gordy, you know that’s bullshit. He could only have done Professor Singer if he used a private jet.” He caught Lister’s eye. “And he didn’t.”
Lister shrugged. “That’s what our sources are giving us.”
“Those sources wouldn’t happen to be in the FBI, would they?” Simmons asked, poker-faced.
Lister looked down again. “You kidding, Clem? You want me to name our sources?”
“Rhetorical question. What else are you hearing?”
“Not much. ’Course, the guys who are working the stories might be looking at things they haven’t told me yet.”
Gerard Pinker shook his head. “You people are so hot for that sexy occult angle, aren’t you?”
Lister raised his bony shoulders. “Sure. It sells papers.”
