"Has she shown up?" Andy asked.
I shook my head. "No," I said. "At least, not definitely." I told them about the murder of Mary Malone.
"I heard about that on the radio this morning," Rog said. "They didn't mention anything about a pentagram or words in Latin."
"The cops are keeping some things back from the press," I said.
"Is Karen working it?" Pete asked.
"No," I said. "Not yet, anyway. But she was called over to check it out last night."
Dave drained his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "So that's why you got us all over here."
I shrugged. "I thought you should know about it."
"Aye, you were right." Dave got up and collected the glasses-he bought rounds, but he never allowed anyone else to buy him a drink. "Back in a moment." He went to the bar, limping slightly. He'd been wounded in the legs at the climax of the White Devil case and had never got full movement back, despite wearing two physiotherapists out.
"'The devil did it,'" Andy said. "Could that mean the White Devil?"
Bonehead raised a finger. "There you have it, my learned friend. Is it her pretending to be her dead brother, or just a common and garden murderer?" He turned to me. "Wouldn't your ex have written 'White Devil' in Latin? What's 'white' in that language anyway?"
I racked my memory. "'Albus,' I think."
"As in Dumbledore?" Rog said. He had a touching attachment to the works of J. K. Rowling.
When Dave came back, we talked a bit about counter- surveillance-Rog had supplied us each with an electronic bug detector-and about checking if we were being followed. We'd spent time with Dave, as a group and individually, learning how to operate firearms and how to fight with a knife. The other three had done the same courses in boxing, judo and karate as I had-Andy was by far the most proficient, as well as being a heavyweight. But Dave was our main man. He'd learned dozens of ways to kill, maim and render unconscious when he was in the army. We weren't going to be taken by surprise this time.
"You're sure there was no message for you?" Rog asked. "If Sara comes back for revenge, the likelihood is that she'll copy what her brother did, isn't it?"
I looked at him. "Maybe. But Sara's smart and she had a much better education than the devil. It's quite possible she'll come up with her own ways to make my life a misery."
Dave kicked my shin lightly under the table. "Don't worry, lad. I'll look after you."
"Aw, sweet," Andy said, and they all laughed.
"Sod off," I said, and the evening reverted to type- men's talk, plenty of guffawing and more beer than was a good idea.
It was fun. I even managed to forget about Sara for a couple of minutes.
It was after ten-thirty when Nedim Zinar closed up the general store in Dalston, East London. He didn't work there, but his cousin Muhammed had asked him to check the security a year back and it turned into a regular thing. Nedim found that the man who worked evenings had been taking a percentage from the till in addition to his salary. At least he wasn't a relation, which meant that Nedim could beat the crap out of him and throw him into one of the nearby Clapton Ponds to bring him around.
It wasn't Nedim's fault that the asshole had drowned. Nothing came of it. Everyone in the Kurdish community knew that Nedim was an enforcer for the King. Although the man himself had been in prison for the last three years, he still controlled his interests, both legal and illicit, by phone and coded message. Everyone in important positions was a family member. There were legitimate busi- nesses-a freight and haulage company, travel agencies, a car dealership, estate agents and a food importing company that supplied delicatessens all over Britain. But the King also bought and distributed drugs, mainly heroin and ecstasy, trafficked people and porn, ran brothels, financed robberies and ran protection rackets. His operations were all over East and North London. The police knew about them, but were content with a few token arrests each month. They knew that the streets would be much more dangerous if the King and the other gangs didn't keep their people in line.
Nedim checked the last lock and stood looking at the shop for a few moments. It wasn't his, but as he could walk in and pick up anything he wanted free of charge, it felt like it was. Occasionally he got a call from Mu- hammed-some kids who had run off without paying, or alcoholics who had stuffed bottles of cider in their stinking coats; even young mothers who had slipped tins of food under their babies. Muhammed caught them himself most of the time and if he didn't, he had a good idea who they were. All Nedim had to do was go around and talk, or knock, some sense into them. Even the junkies didn't try it again after that.
The big man-Nedim was six foot one and over sixteen stone-checked his watch. He would have time for a quick beer before he went to work the door at the nightclub the King's brother ran in Islington. He crossed Lower Clapton Road, holding his hand up to stop the traffic-he wasn't one to waste his energy walking to the lights fifty meters away. A couple of black guys in a four-by-four yelled at him, but they shut up when he made the sign of the letter K in the air. Only the hardest members of the Turkish gang known as the Shadows would take objection to that, and Nedim wasn't scared of them. He had a Beretta 92 in his breast pocket and people knew he would use it.
It took Nedim five minutes to reach his minivan. That was the only problem with Muhammed's shop-there was no parking in the immediate vicinity, and even the King's lawyers couldn't do much about the police cameras that registered infringements. The other boys in the operation had laughed when they heard he was getting a "mummy's car," but they shut up when they saw it-the black paint and custom-built stereo system almost made it cool. It wasn't as if Nedim had any choice. He was often told to move people around in groups-tarts, illegal immigrants, men tooled up for action. Besides, he had four kids.
At least there was a narrow lane that most people never noticed a few minutes' walk away. Nedim parked the wagon there every evening and it had never even been touched-he would have known. As he walked around the corner, he pressed the button on the key. There was a chirp and lights flashed on the vehicle.
Nedim was trying to decide whether to play traditional Kurdish music or his recent discovery, Bruce Springsteen, and he didn't notice the figure crouching behind the car. He went to the rear door and walked into a long blade that went into his belly to the hilt. The breath went out of him and he looked down at the hand holding the instrument of his death. It was sheathed in black leather. He tried to scream as the blade was wrenched upward, but he no longer had control over his voice. He dropped to his knees, dimly aware of the crack they made on the cobblestones. By then, the pain from his abdomen had made his eyes blur with tears. He felt shame, but not for long. The blade was biting, tearing into his very being. He toppled sideways, his shoulder hitting the car. Then the knife was pulled out in a rapid movement.
Nedim Zinar clutched the gaping wound, feeling the slick coils of his gut spill through his fingers. Then the horror came to a climax when he saw his killer's face.
It was that of a scarred and deformed devil.
I went home without making too many detours. People stared at me when I did my on-off performance with three trains, but I made like I was drunker than I really was. No one paid much attention-behavior like that is pretty standard in London after the pubs shut. I took more care when I came out of Fulham Broadway Station, stopping in doorways and doubling back down a couple of alleyways. There was no sign of anyone following me.
As I headed toward the river, my cell phone rang.
"Where are you, Matt?" Karen asked. She sounded wiped out.
"Homeward bound. You?"