He stumbled from the shower, dripping water over the floor. Pausing only to dry his hands, Rog logged on to the ghost site again and sent a message to his friends: I can't do this on my own, guys. What are we doing hiding from the bitch? Dave would have wanted us to stand up and fight her in the open. Matt, at least let me and Pete work together. We'll look after each other. Please. I'm fucking dying in this dump.
Then Rog cut the connection to the Internet and buried his head in his hands.
"Matt?" Karen called.
"Coming," I said, trying to remember what I'd done with my Glock. Had I left it anywhere obvious?
"Morning, Karen," I said, sliding the chains off and admitting her. I kissed her on the mouth and then ran to my bedroom. "I left the tap running," I shouted. The pistol was lying in full view on my bedside table. I quickly buried it in a drawer full of old South London Bisons shirts. I didn't think she'd look there.
When I came out, she was dangerously near my computer. Fortunately she didn't have the nerve to touch the keyboard and mouse in front of me, though I suspected she might have had a look if I'd stayed away much longer. She'd be expecting the family and friends who'd gone to ground to be keeping in touch by e-mail. If she saw the message with the clue, she'd be duty bound to investigate it. That could be very costly, if the writer was as ruthless as he or she threatened.
Karen turned to me after she'd shrugged off her coat. "Did you get any sleep?" she said, opening her arms.
Feeling a complete bastard for doubting her feelings, I fell into her embrace. "Some," I said after a while. "You?"
"Under an hour." She sniffed the air. "You've had a rugby player's breakfast."
I nodded, hoping she wouldn't open the dishwasher and see the second plate. "What happened?"
"I was called out."
My heart missed a beat. "What was it?"
"A dead Kurd at Manor House."
I breathed out in relief. "Another gang killing?"
"Looks that way. God, I need a large dose of coffee."
I went over to the kitchen, leading her away from the computer. As I was spooning coffee into the filter machine, I asked her about the investigation into Dave's death.
"Taff's handling it," she said, sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island. "It would be fair to say the VCCT is stretched to breaking point."
"You've taken the case over?"
She shrugged. "Didn't have any choice," she replied. "The AC's running scared because your friends in the press are drooling at the prospect of another White Devil." She frowned. "Thanks to your book, they know all about Dave, not to mention Sara."
I felt the sting of her words. "Has Taff got anything?" I asked, after I poured her a mug of the black stuff.
"Not much. The neighbors only saw you and your friends. No one saw a woman, or anyone else in the vicinity of Dave's house yesterday morning."
"Are you sure? It was a Saturday morning. Most people would have been around."
"The whole street's been questioned. Most of them were off shopping or taking the kids to ballet, football, whatever."
"What about the houses at the back? Maybe she got in that way."
"Those people have been asked, too. They only saw your friend Pete. What exactly was he doing back there?"
I tried not to be evasive. If someone had noticed the bag he was carrying, Karen would nail me. "He was covering the back in case an intruder bolted. He took a tennis racket with him, would you believe?"
She held my gaze. "I wouldn't, but you're not going to admit to anything else. I don't suppose you've received a message from Sara."
I was able to answer that truthfully, at least as regards the names used by the sender. "No."
"I'm wondering if there's some connection with the murders in East London. I don't suppose Dave ever had a run-in with any of the bad men there."
"Not that I'm aware of. I don't remember him ever working in that area."
She sipped from her mug. "Maybe someone's taking out ex-Special Forces people."
"Like an Irish paramilitary group?" I hadn't thought of that. It wasn't completely beyond the realms of possibility. "And they copied the modus operandi from my book?"
She shrugged, avoiding my eyes. "The military intelligence people are following that up with Special Branch. Christ, what am I doing telling you this? Don't you dare put it in your column."
"Oddly enough, my column is the last thing I'm thinking about right now."
Karen stood up. "I've got to go."
"Hang on," I said, opening a cupboard and finding a plastic travel cup for her coffee. I stalled before giving her it. "Anything new on the Mary Malone murder?"
"It's still with Homicide West. Why? Do you think it's connected?"
"With Dave's death? Anything's possible in that madwoman's universe."
Karen leaned forward and took the cup from me. "Why, though?" she said, pouring coffee from her mug. "To put the shits up you?"
"Yes, before killing me." I looked at her, only now aware of the dark rings around her eyes. "Nice thought. You should sleep."
She gave a hollow laugh. "If that was an attempt to get me into bed, you need to work on your technique." She put the lid on the cup and moved around the island. "I'll call you later," she said, kissing me on the mouth.
"Okay," I said, watching her go. I went over to the door and put the chains back on. I felt bad about pumping her for information while concealing the message I'd received, but my experience with the White Devil had showed that involving the authorities wasn't a viable option.
I went into the spare room and knocked on the wardrobe. Andy opened the door, his silenced Glock raised. "Christ," I gasped. "It's only me. Karen's gone."
He looked past me. "You can't be too careful, man."
I knew he was right, but the problem was I had just over fifteen hours to figure out the clue I'd been sent. Right now, I hadn't the faintest idea whose name was concealed behind "The sun set behind the westernmost dunes of Alexander's womankind." The only Alexander I knew was a critic who'd been killed by the White Devil. Was Sara really hiding behind the revenger's name Flaminio? And what the hell did D.F. mean?
Faik Jabar was cushioned in something like cotton wool, his limbs and body softly supported. His sight had become so acute, he could make out the mountains of the Kurdish homeland he had never visited. The snow on the peaks was bathed in a golden light, and in the villages below the people were waving to him, calling for him to come down, saying that his place was with them, that he was their brother-
He screamed as he suddenly plummeted earthwards and crashed on to the stony ground. Opening his eyes, he did not recognize where he was. His right hand hurt like the bite of a rabid beast. He tried to move, but couldn't. Looking down the iron bedstead, he saw that his wrists and legs had been strapped to the frame. The mattress he was lying on smelled of sweat and urine.
"Hello?" he called out, first in English, then in Kurdish. He heard sounds behind the faded door. A key turned in the lock.
"So the brave soldier is awake," said a man in Kurdish. He had a thick mustache and was wearing a well-cut suit. "A pity about your friend."
The scene in the basement flashed before him, the traitor Aro Izady lying in a mess of his own blood. Faik tried to scream again, but his voice had disappeared. Then he saw the face of the killer, the man with the beard. What was it about him? Something weird. What was it? The image came back to him-the beard had come away, revealing part of the face beneath. It had not been a man's. It was the face of a demon from-
Faik felt a powerful slap on his cheek.
"You will listen when I speak to you, Kurdish shit!"
Faik blinked away the involuntary tears that had filled his eyes. He made out a different man, this one younger, maybe in his early thirties. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and his face was covered in heavy stubble.