The Collector cupped his hands over the match and held it to the cigarette at his lips, then smoked it with the butt held between the thumb and index finger, the remaining fingers sheltering it from the rain. He had arrived just as Angel and Louis entered the building. He did not know where they had been, but he could guess: they would be tracking those responsible for the attack on the detective. The Collector admired their single-mindedness, their focus: no mercy dash north to be at the detective’s bedside, none of the fruitless beating at the darkness that comes from those who have grief without power and anger without an object. They would even have set aside their pursuit of the Collector himself in order to concentrate on the more immediate matter. The Collector knew that most of that impetus probably came from Louis, but his lover was not to be underestimated either. Emotionless killers rarely survived for long. The trick was not to stifle the emotions, but to control them. Love, anger, grief – all were weapons in their way, but they needed to be kept in check. The one called Angel enabled Louis to do this. Without him, Louis would have died long ago.
But Angel was dangerous too. Louis would calculate the odds and, if the situation were not to his liking, would back off and wait for a better opportunity to strike. The logician in him was always to the fore. Angel was different. Once he made the decision to move, he would keep coming at his target until one of them went down. He knew how to channel emotion as a weapon. That kind of force and determination was not to be underestimated. What most people failed to realize was that fights were decided in the opening seconds, not the closing ones, and there was something about facing an attacker of apparently relentless belligerence that could psychologically undo even a bigger, stronger opponent.
But what was strangest of all for the Collector, as he assessed these two men, was the realization that he had come to admire them. Even as they hunted him from nest to nest, and destroyed the hiding places that he had so carefully constructed for himself, he was in awe of their ferocity, their guile. Neither could he deny that he and these men, through their allegiance to Parker, were engaged in variations on the same work. True, the Collector had been forced to kill one of their number, but in that he had erred. He had let emotion get the better of him, and he accepted that he must pay a price for his lapse. The loss of his nests had been the price, but now he was tiring of the chase. He would give these two men what they wanted in order to secure a truce. If they did not agree, well, there was work to be done, and their pursuit of him was getting in the way of it. The distraction and threat that they posed, and the time and effort they were causing him to expend, enabled men and women of profound viciousness to continue to prey on those weaker than themselves. Judgments were waiting to be handed out. His collection needed to be replenished.
He called Eldritch from a pay phone. Over the old man’s objections, the Collector had secured the services of a nurse for the period of his enforced absence. The Collector trusted the nurse implicitly. She was a niece of the woman who had kept Epstein’s office in order, and put warmth in his bed, until her recent passing. She was discreet, and selectively deaf, mute and blind.
‘How are you feeling?’ said the Collector.
‘I’m well.’
‘The woman is taking good care of you?’
‘I can take care of myself. She just gets in the way.’
‘Consider it a favor to me. It puts my concerns at rest.’
‘I’m touched. Have you found them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you approached them?’
‘No, but soon I’ll have a message delivered to them. Tomorrow we will meet.’
‘They may not agree.’
‘One is a pragmatist, the other driven by principle. What I offer will appeal to both.’
‘And if it does not?’
‘Then this goes on, and inevitably blood will be spilled. They will not want that, I guarantee it. I believe that they are as weary of it as I am. The detective is their priority: the detective, and those who pulled the trigger on him. And, who knows, I may manage to negotiate a little extra for us, a prize that you’ve been seeking for many years.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘The location of a corrupted man,’ said the Collector. ‘The lair of a leper.’
47
Garrison Pryor’s tame cop had experienced difficulty in gaining access to the scene of the shooting. Not only was the Scarborough PD all over it, but so were the Maine State Police’s Major Crimes Unit and the FBI, which had immediately sent agents not just from its field office in Boston, but from New York too. The house and its environs had been locked down from the instant the first patrol car arrived, and the flow of information was being tightly controlled amid threats of suspension and possible imprisonment for any breaches by police or emergency personnel.
But despite all those precautions, Pryor’s guy was able to talk to one of the ambulance crew, and – cops being cops – managed to piece together small details just by keeping his mouth shut and listening. Nevertheless, days went by before Pryor learned of the symbol that had been carved into the wood of the detective’s kitchen door. The knowledge placed him in a difficult position: should he alert the Principal Backer immediately, or wait until he had clarified the situation? He decided to take the former course of action. He did not want to give the Principal Backer any cause to doubt him, and better to plead ignorance initially, and work to correct it, than be accused of withholding information, leaving himself open to suspicion.
As the morning sun tried to pierce the gray clouds over Boston, the Principal Backer listened in silence while Pryor communicated what he had learned. The Principal Backer was not the kind of man who interrupted, or who tolerated interruption in turn.
‘Well, was this the work of Believers?’ he said when Pryor had finished.
‘It’s possible,’ said Pryor, ‘but, if so, it’s not any of whom we have knowledge. There’s no connection to us.’
He didn’t need to mention that most of the Believers were dead. Only a handful had ever existed to begin with, and the detective and his allies had wiped most of those out. Although it had never been formally discussed, most of the Backers regarded the elimination of the Believers who were obsessed with finding an imprisoned angel one of the fallen as something of a blessing. Each group had its own priorities, and while their ultimate aims sometimes intersected or followed a similar path, neither party entirely trusted the other. But generations of Backers had been content to use the Believers when it suited them. Some had even allied themselves to the Believers’ cause. Connections existed.
‘If someone is scratching the Believers’ symbol into the woodwork of scenes of attempted murder, then there is potentially a connection to all of us,’ said the Principal Backer. ‘Any investigation could damage us.’
‘It may be the action of renegades,’ said Pryor. ‘If so, they could be difficult to find. We know the identities of the ones who have crossed Parker. Any others have kept themselves hidden, even from us. Ultimately, my instinct says that the symbol is a false trail. Whoever carried out the attack, or ordered it to be carried out, wants to divert attention from themselves.’