The Wrath of Angels

20





Walter Cole sat in his armchair, a beer in his hand and a dog at his feet. He had put on some weight, and there was more white in his hair than I remembered, but he was still recognizably the man who had been my first partner when I made detective, and whose family had consoled me when my own was taken from me. His wife, Lee, had greeted me with a kiss when she answered the door, and an embrace that reminded me there would always be a place for me in their home. Years before, I had found their daughter when, like a child in a fairytale, she got lost in the woods and was taken by an ogre. I think Lee viewed it as a debt that could never be repaid. I looked upon it as some small return for keeping a light in the darkness for a man who had once been forced to look upon the butchered bodies of his wife and daughter. Now it was just Walter and me, and a yawning dog that smelled faintly of popcorn.

I had not spoken to him of Epstein, not yet. Instead I had eaten a late supper of leftover meat loaf and a baked potato. Walter had joined me even though he had already eaten, which probably went some way toward explaining why he was now more than the man I remembered. I had helped him clean up when we were done, and we had taken our coffee into the living room.

‘So, you want to tell me about it?’ he said.

‘Not really.’

‘You’re sitting there glowering at the rug like it just tried to steal your shoes. Somebody lit your fuse.’

‘I misjudged an old acquaintance, or he misjudged me. I’m not sure which. Maybe both.’

‘He still alive to tell the tale?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then he should be grateful.’

‘Et tu, Brute?’

‘It wasn’t a judgment, just a statement of fact. I’ve saved your clippings, but I don’t want to know the unofficial details. That way, I can plead ignorance if someone comes knocking. I’ve reached an accommodation with what you are, even if you haven’t.’

‘What I am, not what I do?’

‘I don’t think there’s a separation where you’re concerned. Come on, Charlie, we’ve known each other too long. You’re like a son to me now. I judged you in the past, and maybe I found you wanting, but I was wrong. I’m on your side here, no questions asked.’

I sipped my coffee. Walter had also opened a beer for himself, but I had declined one. He was singlehandedly keeping the Brooklyn Brewing Company in business. There had barely been room in the refrigerator for food.

So I began talking. I told Walter of Marielle Vetters, and the story of the plane. I told him of Liat, and Epstein, and the second confrontation in the restaurant. I told him more of Brightwell, because Walter had been there when a woman came to my house asking for help in finding her lost daughter, a request that had led, in turn, to Brightwell and his Believers.

‘I ever tell you that you keep some strange company?’ he said, when I was done.

‘Thanks for pointing that out. What would I do without you?’

‘Spend money on expensive hotel rooms in New York. You sure you don’t want a beer?’

‘No, coffee’s fine.’

‘Something stronger?’

‘Not my bag any more.’

He nodded.

‘You’re going to go back to Epstein, aren’t you? You’re curious about this list, and the plane. More than that, you’re interested in Brightwell. He got under your skin.’

‘Yes.’

‘Doesn’t mean that what Brightwell thought about you was true or right. If you’re an angel, fallen or any other kind, then I’m Cleopatra. That stuff is okay if you’re Shirley MacLaine, otherwise it starts to sound flaky. But if you want some company dealing with the Chosen People, let me know.’

‘I thought you’d signed up for “don’t ask, don’t tell”?’

‘I’m an old man. I forget what I’ve said as soon as I’ve said it. Anyway, it’ll be an excuse to leave the house that doesn’t involve doctors, or a trip to the mall.’

‘You know, you’re quite the ad for active retirement.’

‘I’m going to be a centerfold for the AARP magazine. They promised. It’ll be like that Burt Reynolds pic from Playgirl, but with more class, and maybe more gray hair. Come on, I’ll show you to your bed. If you’re not going to drink beer, then you’re no good to me awake.’

Epstein called my cell phone before I went to sleep. Somewhere in our brief exchange there was an apology of sorts, perhaps from each of us.

I slept soundly.

I did not dream.





21





I met Epstein late the following afternoon at Nicola’s Italian grocery and delicatessen at 54th and First. This part of town was known as Sutton Place, and for much of its history the rich and the poor had lived side by side here, tenements coexisting alongside the homes of socialites, the noise from factories, breweries and wharves providing the soundtrack while artists such as Max Ernst and Ernest Fiene worked in their studios. In the late 1930s, construction began on what was then known as the East River Drive, and subsequently became the FDR. The tenements and wharves began to disappear, and slowly high-rises started to take the place of many of the more civilized, characterful buildings. Still, some of those with long memories remembered a time when the apartments of Sutton Place were occupied mostly by actors and directors, when it was a haven for theatrical folk and, by extension, the gay community. It was said that eighty percent of the population of this small area was gay. Rock Hudson, among others, had an apartment in the 405 building across the street from Nicola’s. In those days, if you told a cab driver to take you to ‘Four out of Five’, he would bring you straight to its door.

The choice of Nicola’s as the venue for the meeting was mine. Nick, who owned the store along with his brother Freddy, was ex-military, having served his time in Vietnam. His genius there lay in sourcing whatever was necessary – food, equipment, booze – in order to ensure the continued smooth running of the US military endeavor in Southeast Asia, but particularly that element of the endeavor which affected the comfort and care of his unit. Whole camps had been sustained thanks to Nick’s abilities to scavenge and procure. Given another thousand men like him, the US might even have won the war. Now he had settled comfortably into the role of a store owner in New York, where his undoubted skills in negotiating and appropriating continued to serve him well.

Nick and Freddy were both behind the counter that morning, each dressed in the store’s unofficial uniform of check shirt and blue jeans, although on Saturdays Nick eschewed the uniform in favor of a more formal black shirt, a nod to the days when he would hit the town after the store closed. Nicola’s was a relic of a better time in New York, when every block had its neighborhood store, and there were personal relationships between shopkeepers and their customers. If you stood still for long enough in Nicola’s, either Nick or Freddy would press a fresh espresso into your hand. After that, you were theirs forever. On a crate beside the door sat Dutch, one of their oldest customers, his coffee in his left hand, a blanket across his lap concealing his right, along with the gun that the hand contained on this particular afternoon.

The appearance of the store was deceptive. Although it was compact, with barely enough room for a handful of customers to stand in line, a flight of steps at the back led to a small storage space, and that space in turn opened up into the bowels of the building behind, where Nick and Freddy kept an office. A couple of storefronts to the right of the store, facing the street, was an iron gate that gave access to a large yard at the rear of the block, its footprint massive by the standards of real estate in the city.

Epstein arrived shortly after I did, trailed by Adiv, Liat’s would-be suitor, and Yonathan, the older man who had riled me during the previous night’s confrontation. When Adiv and Yonathan tried to follow Epstein into Nicola’s, Walter Cole appeared and blocked their way.

‘Sorry, boys,’ he said. ‘Space is at a premium.’

Epstein stared at Walter.

‘The ex-policeman,’ said Epstein. He emphasized the word ‘ex’.

‘Once a cop, always a cop.’

‘Are you a guarantee of safety?’

‘I live to serve. Like I said, once a cop, always a cop.’

‘Is there another way in?’ asked Adiv.

‘Building on 54th, and through the gate to the right,’ said Walter. ‘Makes you feel better to take one entrance each, then go ahead. As for the store, nobody’s going to get past the four of us.’ He indicated Nick, Freddy and Dutch. ‘Plus we’re all so wired on espresso that if the mailman makes a sudden move we might even take him out. Go for a walk, boys. Get some air into your lungs.’

Epstein considered the arrangement, then nodded at his two bodyguards and they moved away, Adiv to the corner of 54th where he could watch both the storefront and the entrance to the apartment block, and Yonathan to the iron gate on First. I led Epstein down the stairs, through the storeroom, and across the hall to Nick’s large office where we could talk without clean-shaven young Jewish men with guns threatening the peace.

As we walked, I couldn’t help but wonder where Liat might be. Liat troubled me. I hadn’t slept with anyone since Rachel left me, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d ended up in bed with Liat, beyond the fact that I had wanted to, and she had been there and willing, which were pretty good reasons in themselves. But last night, at the restaurant, she’d shown no great desire to repeat the experiment, and Epstein had clearly entrusted her with the task of watching me closely as he confronted me with the list, and assessing my reactions to his subsequent questions. Asking him if he’d also suggested that she sleep with me in order to examine my injuries seemed kind of crass, and I might not have been flattered by the answer; asking what would have happened if she had shaken her head instead of nodding at the end of the questioning might have had a more damaging effect on my feelings toward all concerned.

Nick provided us with more strong Italian coffees on a small tray, and some fresh pastries. Epstein was halfway through a tartlet when Walter Cole wandered in and took his seat at a table in the corner.

‘I thought we were going to talk alone,’ said Epstein.

‘Your mistake,’ said Walter.

‘I understood this to be neutral territory.’

‘No, you misunderstood this to be neutral territory,’ said Walter.

Epstein turned back to me. ‘And your guardians, Angel and Louis?’

‘Oh, they’re around,’ I said. ‘In fact, I think they may be keeping Adiv and Yonathan company right about now.’

Epstein tried his best not to look unhappy at this news.

Tried, but failed.

Outside, Adiv and Yonathan both found themselves with guns pressed against their sides just as the sun began to set. They could see each other clearly, so Adiv was privy to Yonathan’s situation, and vice versa. Adiv saw a tall black man with a shaved head and the graying beard of an aspiring Old Testament prophet, albeit a prophet wearing a thousand-dollar suit, materialize behind Yonathan, the gate opening silently as he emerged, his mouth whispering something softly into Yonathan’s ear, his left hand on Yonathan’s shoulder, his right driving the gun hard under Yonathan’s armpit. Adiv, whose father was a tailor, just had time to adjudge the suit as remarkably well cut before a small, unshaven white man resembling a bum with some access to laundry services was threatening to blow out his insides if he moved, and so Adiv stayed very still indeed while the man disarmed him. Louis was having a similar exchange with Yonathan, with similar consequences, although he took the trouble to add, ‘And none of that krav maga shit either. Trigger pull on this is so light a passing breeze could set it off.’

A huge, battered 4WD with smoked glass windows, and driven by a Japanese gentleman, pulled up outside the grocery store. Its rear doors opened to reveal a second Japanese man, and Yonathan and Adiv were bundled inside, Angel following. As the doors closed again, they were forced to the floor and their hands were secured behind their backs with cable ties. Their phones and wallets were taken from them, along with their spare change.

‘What are you going to do to the rabbi?’ asked Adiv, and Angel was impressed by the fact that the kid was more concerned about the rabbi’s safety than his own.

‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘My friend is going to stay by the store to make sure the rabbi is safe, and we have another man inside, just in case.’

‘So what is this about?’ asked Yonathan.

‘It’s about not pointing guns at people who are on your side,’ said Angel, then poked Adiv hard in the ribs with the toe of his glitter-covered cowboy boots. ‘Oh, and not telling people on your side to go f*ck themselves when they try to exchange pleasantries with you just because you’re sore about what they may or may not have done with your girl, especially if they didn’t know at the time you thought she was your girl, and more particularly when she isn’t even your girl to begin with because you’re just holding some hidden flame in your heart for her that only you can see. What are you, nine years old? A nice Jewish kid like you should be too smart to be that dumb.’

Yonathan shot a poisonous look at Adiv.

‘What?’ said Adiv. ‘You were the one who pointed the gun at him.’

‘Boys, boys,’ said Angel. ‘Recriminations will get you nowhere, although I will admit that it is entertaining from up here.’

‘The rabbi’s safety is above such concerns,’ said Yonathan, striking for the moral high ground. ‘We should be back there with him.’

‘You’d have thought, except for the fact that you were taken on a city street in daylight and are now lying in the back of a jeep heading for Jersey. I’m not in the personal protection industry as such, but it suggests to me that the rabbi ought to be contracting for better staff, if you don’t mind me saying so. And even if you do.’

‘What are you going to do with us?’ asked Adiv. His voice didn’t crack. Angel had to admit that the kid had balls; not much in the way of manners, but definitely carrying a pair.

‘You know what the Pine Barrens are?’

‘No.’

‘A million acres of trees, reptiles, bobcats, and the Jersey Devil, although I admit the Jersey Devil may not exist. It’s a long walk home, even without the devil on your tail.’

‘You’re going to abandon us in the wilderness?’

‘It could be worse: we could be dumping you in Camden County.’

‘The city invincible,’ said the Japanese driver, speaking for the first time.

‘What?’ said Angel.

‘“In a dream, I saw a city invincible”,’ said the driver. ‘Is the motto of the city of Camden. I learn it in citizenship class.’

‘You mean “city invisible”,’ said Angel. ‘Someone probably stole it while the cops weren’t looking. F*cking city is so violent even dead people are armed. Personally, I’d take my chances in the Pinelands.’

‘But—’ Adiv began to say, but Angel aimed another kick at him as he started to protest, silencing him quickly.

‘It’s a done deal,’ he said. ‘Quiet now. I do some of my best thinking in the backs of cars.’

We sipped our espressos. They were very, very good.

‘So let’s start again,’ I said to Epstein. ‘Tell me what you know about the woman who provided the list.’

‘Her name was Barbara Kelly.’

‘Was?’

‘She died last week.’

‘How?’

‘She was cut repeatedly with a blade, scourged with a belt of some kind, and partially blinded. Her killer or killers then set fire to the house, probably in an effort to hide the evidence of the attack. They were very careful in how they approached her torture. There were no broken bones, and she was still alive when the fire was started in the kitchen, although probably unconscious. She had quite a sophisticated alarm system, with recessed smoke and heat detectors independent of the main system but running parallel to it. It was also raining heavily, which helped arrest the progress of the conflagration. Nevertheless, by the time the fire department arrived, the blaze had consumed part of the kitchen and spread to the living room, but somehow Kelly had managed to crawl into the hallway. She was badly burned, and died on the way to the hospital. The post-mortem revealed the extent of the injuries she had received prior to burning.’

‘You learn anything more since then?’

‘She claimed to be an independent consultant. She had very little in her bank accounts, and appeared to be just about keeping her head above water. Her income came from a variety of sources, mostly small businesses. Appearances would suggest that she worked very hard for a modest return, barely enough to cover her mortgage and living expenses.’

‘Except?’

‘We’re looking into the companies, but already two have been revealed as no more than names on mailboxes. We believe there were other sources of income, and other accounts.’

‘Did the police find anything at the house?’

‘A laptop mentioned in her insurance submission is missing and has not been traced. The hard drive had been removed from her desktop, and her personal files seem to have been carefully harvested.’

‘A dead end.’

‘We’re still looking. And there is an added complication.’

‘Isn’t there always?’

‘We believe that we were not the only ones to whom she sent material. She had cancer, and she felt that she was running out of time. She wanted to make reparation for her sins. She needed to know that the process had begun, that her offer of information was being taken seriously.’

‘Who would she have sent it to? The newspapers? A DA somewhere?’

Epstein shook his head. ‘Don’t you understand? The whole point of this conspiracy was to acquire influence and favors, either now or for the future. From the two extracts we’ve seen, we know that they own politicians and reporters. Don’t you think that they’ve also wormed their way into the lives of police officers, lawmakers, prosecutors? She couldn’t send the list through the usual channels. She had to be more selective.’

‘Then how did she decide upon your lawyers?’

‘She knew of us because we were her enemies.’

‘And she gave no indication of the other recipients?’

‘Recipient. There was just one other. The only clue she gave was to warn us to act quickly, because if we did not another less scrupulous than ourselves would take vengeance into his own hands, and through him she would earn her salvation.’

I knew the man she meant. So did Epstein. There was only one individual who fitted that description, who had the resources and, more importantly, the vocation to do as this woman wished.

He called himself the Collector.





22





The envelope had arrived at the offices of the lawyer Thomas Eldritch in Lynn, Massachusetts, by standard mail. Lynn was known in local parlance as ‘the city of sin’, in part due to its reputation for high crime rates during the peak of its industrial boom but mostly because of the ease of the rhyme. Nevertheless such taunts have a tendency to get under the skin not only of individuals but of entire cities, and at the end of the twentieth century it was suggested that Lynn should change its name to Ocean Park, which gave fewer opportunities to amateur poets for unkind rhymes. The proposal was rejected. Lynn had been Lynn for a very long time, and altering its name would be tantamount to a bullied schoolchild admitting that the bullies had won, and moving to a different school to avoid further confrontation. Also, as any schoolchild will tell you, the more you protest about name-calling, the louder the catcalls become.

Eldritch was not troubled by the conjunction of the words ‘Lynn’ and ‘sin’: he found it rather apt, for Eldritch was in the sin business, specializing in those of a mortal nature. He was, though, more prosecutor than final arbiter, assembling details of a case, confirming the guilt of the parties involved, and then passing on what he had learned to his private executioner so that the ultimate sentence might be carried out. Eldritch understood the disjunction between the concepts of law and justice. His response was to refuse to accept this fact unconditionally: he was reluctant to wait for justice to be applied in the next world when it could just as easily be dispensed in this one, with a concomitant reduction in the amount of evil and misery contained in this realm. The possibility that he might be a party to that which he hated rarely, if ever, bothered him, and it certainly did not cross the mind of the one who wielded the blade at the final moment.

But the letter was problematical. The return address was a box number that did not exist, and the envelope contained only two sheets of paper. One was a list of names, the other an unsigned covering note which read:

I have made errors in my life, and I am afraid. I have confessed my sins, and seek to make reparation for them. I believe that the names on this list may be of interest to you and one of your clients. Please believe me when I tell you that it represents only a fraction of the information I have available to me. I know of the Believers. I know of the Army of Night. I can give your enemies into your hands, hundreds and hundreds of them. If you wish to talk further, you can contact me at the number below from November 19 for one twenty-four hour period, beginning at 00.01 a.m. on that date. Should I fail to hear back from you during this period, I will assume that I was mistaken in my approaches. You are not the only ones in a position to act upon this knowledge, and you are not the only ones with whom I have shared it.

Typed below the letter was a cell phone number. When the number was tested, it was discovered not to be in operation. It was still not in operation when November 19 arrived, and passed. This was the source of considerable frustration to Eldritch & Associates, as a cautious investigation of the individuals named on the list, most of whom had not previously come to the firm’s attention, revealed that a number were indeed compromised, and had apparently willingly colluded in their own damnation. Some accompanying documentation that followed by mail a few days later, apparently from the same sender, confirmed this view. They had sold themselves in return for influence and advancement, for favors financial and sexual, and sometimes simply for the satisfaction of secretly doing wrong. The letter had promised a treasure trove of further information once contact was made; instead, there was only silence.

The law firm of Eldritch & Associates was an operation that prized documents, as any good law firm should. It knew the value of paperwork because a thing set down on paper was difficult to erase, and the fact of its existence could not be denied. Mr Eldritch liked to say that nothing on a computer screen really existed. He distrusted anything that did not make a noise when it was dropped, but he was no Luddite: he simply prized secrecy and confidentiality, and the success of the firm’s mission was predicated on its ability to leave no trace of its actions. Dealings and communications conducted through the Internet left a trail that an idiot child could follow. Thus it was that there were no computers at Eldritch & Associates, and the firm did not accept submissions or messages by email or other electronic means.

Even the firm’s phone was rarely answered, and, when it was picked up, assistance of any kind was seldom forthcoming. A caller who contacted that venerable institution in the hope of securing advice or aid relating to difficulties with the law would usually be told that the firm was not accepting new clients at present, and rarely did the name of Eldritch figure in any but the most esoteric of cases: disputes over ancient wills in which some or all of the relevant parties had by then activated wills of their own through the workings of mortality; property dealings that related to houses and plots largely unwanted and generally regarded as unsaleable, often linked by some connection, either peripheral or direct, to crimes of blood; and, most infrequently, offers of representation on a pro bono basis for those involved in the most heinous of crimes, although in each case the defendants had already been found guilty in a court of law, and the approach by Eldritch & Associates typically involved only a carefully worded commitment to investigate the circumstances of the conviction. The interviews would be conducted in person by Mr Eldritch himself, a vision of old world refinement in dark pinstripe trousers, matching waistcoat, black jacket, and black silk tie, all overlaid with a faint patina of dust, as though the lawyer had been roused from the sleep of decades for just this purpose.

Only occasionally did someone comment upon the fact that Mr Eldritch bore a striking resemblance to an undertaker.

Mr Eldritch was a consummate interrogator. His particular interest lay in cases where unanswered questions remained: questions of motivation and, more specifically, of suspicion about the involvement of unknown others in the commission of crimes, men and women who had somehow avoided attracting the attention of the law. He had discovered that self-interest was the great motivator, and the possibility of a sentence reduction, or the avoidance of the needle in a bare room, tended to loosen tongues. True, one had to mine a great weight of lies to uncover a single gem of truth, but that was part of the pleasure for Mr Eldritch: one had to test the acuity of one’s processes on a regular basis if one were not to become physically old and mentally slow. Being old was bad enough. He couldn’t afford to relinquish his faculties as well. Mr Eldritch enjoyed these sessions with the criminal kind, even when he emerged from them without useful information. They kept his mind keen.

Nobody ever won a reprieve from the death chamber, or a reduction in sentence, because Mr Eldritch took an interest in his case, but then Mr Eldritch never made any such specific promises. In fact, those who spoke with him couldn’t quite recall why they’d agreed to do so in the first place once Mr Eldritch had gone on his less-than-merry way, and eventually they seemed to forget about him entirely, either of their own volition or through, once again, the actions of mortality, state-sanctioned or otherwise.

But those of whom they spoke with Eldritch – accomplices, employers, betrayers – frequently lived to regret the fact that the old lawyer had taken an interest in their existence, although their regret was destined to be as short-lived as they were. In time a caller would come, trailing nicotine and vengeance. He would have a gun, or more often a blade, in his hand, and as their lifeblood warmed his cold skin, his eyes would scan his surroundings, seeking some small remembrance of the occasion, a token of a sentence carried out, for collecting is an ongoing obsession, and a collection can always be added to.

And so it was that when no response could be elicited from the phone number supplied with the list of names, efforts were made to discover the identity of its owner. Although Mr Eldritch had no fondness for computers, he was willing to employ others to use them on his behalf, just as long as their unnatural glow did not sully his own environment. The number was traced to a cell phone that was part of a batch supplied to a big box store near Waterbury, Connecticut. An electronic search of the store’s sales records came up with a date and time of purchase, but no name, indicating a cash payment. Security footage from the premises was stored digitally, and proved to be as easy to access as the store’s inventory. An image of the woman was found: fifties, brunette, rather masculine in appearance. She was timed leaving the store, after which footage from the exterior cameras was examined. Her car was identified, and its license plate checked. The plate led, in turn, to her name, address, and Social Security number, since the State of Connecticut required the presentation of a Social Security card to issue a driver’s license. Unfortunately, by the time Eldritch & Associates had obtained all of this information, Barbara Kelly was already dead.

But now they had a name, and the Collector could begin his work.

Most smokers have an impaired sense of smell, as smoking damages the olfactory nerves in the back of the nose as well as the taste receptors in the mouth located on the tongue, the soft palate, the upper esophagus, and the epiglottis. The taste buds on the tongue sit on raised protrusions called papillae. Examined in a microscope, they resemble fungi and plants in some exotic garden.

The Collector had noticed some diminution in his capacity to taste in recent years, although since he ate sparingly and unostentatiously he regarded it as only a minor irritant. The ongoing damage to his ability to smell he found more troubling, but as he wandered through the wreckage of Barbara Kelly’s home, taking in the damage caused by fire and smoke and water, he was pleased to be able to discern among the conflicting odors the unmistakable porcine stink of roasted human flesh.

He stood in the ruins of the kitchen and lit a cigarette. He was not worried about being seen. The police were no longer concerned with personally securing the scene, contenting themselves with signs and tape to keep away the curious, and the house was sheltered by trees from its neighbors and the road. He twisted the head of his flashlight and commenced a slow and careful examination of each room, starting and ending with the kitchen, his worn but comfortable shoes splashing through puddles of dirty water. His fingers searched dresses and jackets stinking of smoke, underwear and stockings that would eventually be destroyed, towels and medicines and old magazines, all the detritus of a lost life. He found nothing of interest, but then he had expected as much. Still, one never knew.

He went outside. The woman’s car had been found fifty miles from her house, burned out. A second vehicle, a red SUV, was discovered closer to the house, also burned out, and with its plates missing. The chassis number revealed that it had been stolen from Newport two days earlier. Curious. It suggested that Barbara Kelly’s killer had arrived in one car and departed in another, perhaps because the first vehicle had broken down.

No signs of forced access, so she had invited her killer in. That suggested it might have been someone known to her. On the other hand, she must have been aware that by sending out the list she was taking a considerable chance. These were not ordinary individuals for whom she worked, and they were very, very careful. They were particularly adept at sniffing out betrayal. She would have been wary of any approaches, whether from strangers or known associates. The background check on Kelly had revealed her sexual orientation. Women in fear tended to be less wary of other women, a small psychological chink in their armor that Kelly’s lesbianism might have further compounded.

A woman, then? Perhaps. But then the situation had changed. At some point, Kelly had made a break for her car, but was pulled back inside. No, dragged back inside: there was grit embedded in her heels.

He returned to the kitchen. The flames had scoured it of blood, but this was where she was tortured and left to die. The oven and range were electric. A pity: gas would have been so much more effective. Instead, her killer had been forced to use the contents of the liquor cabinet to start the fire. Messy. Amateurish. Whoever was responsible had planned for a different outcome.

The kitchen was surprisingly neat, especially given the damage to the rest of the house. The surfaces were marble, the cabinets polished steel, and all of the kitchen utensils appeared to have been hidden away behind their doors. He reconstructed it in his head, seeing it as it was while its owner was still alive: pristine, sterile, with nothing out of place; apt surroundings for a woman who had hidden so much about herself.

He squatted beside the sink. The coffee pot lay on its side, its glass blackened but unbroken, although the plastic on the rim had become fused to the kitchen tiles. Could the firemen have knocked it over? Possibly, but the fact that it was stuck to the floor suggested otherwise. He looked around. The larger knives were kept on a magnetized board by the oven, directly above the silverware drawer. No reason to be over there, unless you were preparing food.

How did you run? How did you escape, even temporarily? The Collector closed his eyes. He had a good imagination, but more importantly he had a finely honed understanding of the relationship between predator and prey in any range of given situations.

You couldn’t go for the knives: that would have been too obvious unless you were cooking, and there was no indication that this was the case. So what do you do? What would be normal behavior, even as your suspicions were perhaps becoming aroused?

You would offer a drink. It was cold and wet on the night that you died. You could have suggested liquor – brandy or whisky – but you would have wanted to stay alert, and liquor would have dulled your responses. The one who was planning to hurt you might have declined for the same reason. Something hot, then: in this case, coffee.

You go to the kitchen. Maybe you’re not yet worried – but, no, you probably are. You’ve made a mistake allowing a potential threat into your home, but you haven’t revealed your fear. You’re tamping it down because as soon as it’s sensed, action will be taken against you. You have to act normal until an opportunity presents itself to strike and defend yourself.

You make that opportunity.

Let’s say that you threw the contents of the coffee pot, and you must have hit your target because you bought yourself enough time to get to your car, but not enough to escape. Scalding coffee, probably to the face. Painful. Incapacitating. But you still didn’t manage to get away. Not just one attacker, then, but two or more. No, just two: if there were three, you would never have made it so far.

Eldritch & Associates had obtained a copy of the medical examiner’s report on Barbara Kelly. It revealed, in addition to the various cuts on her body, a wound to her cheek that appeared to be the result of a bite. Human flesh was a notoriously undependable substance for the recording of bite marks. The reliability of the bite mark record could be affected by the status of the tissue under analysis, the time elapsed between the bite and the creation of an impression, the condition of the skin damaged by the bite pressure and the reaction of the surrounding tissue to it, the size of the wound, and the clearness of the marks. The fact that Kelly’s face had been badly scorched by heat caused further difficulties, and meant that there was no possibility of obtaining DNA samples from saliva, or even of making a reasonable comparison based on dental analysis should a suspect be found. What was interesting, though, was the fact that the bite radius was comparatively small, with the first premolars and second premolars absent from both the upper and lower jaws.

Barbara Kelly, it seemed, had been bitten by a child shortly before she died.

The likelihood of a woman being present increased. Yes, it was possible that Kelly might have admitted a man with a young child, but why not take the next logical step and disarm her entirely with a woman and a child?

Why would a child bite a woman?

Because you threatened, or actively hurt, its mother.

That was how you got away, thought the Collector. You used something in the kitchen, in all likelihood the coffee pot, to attack the mother, then ran. It was the child that came after you, distracting you for long enough to allow the woman to recover and drag you back inside. Well done. You must have come close to surviving.

The Collector thought that he might have been quite interested to meet Barbara Kelly. Of course, his interest would have been both personal and professional. If, as he believed, she was responsible for the corruption of so many souls, then he would have been forced to take a blade to her, but he admired her for the battle that she had put up at the end of her life. He knew many people labored under the illusion that they would fight to stay alive under such circumstances, but he had ended too many lives himself to believe that such responses were not the rule, but the exception. Most went to their deaths without a struggle, frozen by shock and incomprehension.

He wondered what she had told them at the end. That was the other thing: nobody resisted torture. Everybody broke. It was nothing to be ashamed of. The difficulty for the torturer lay in figuring out the truth of what one was being told. Scourge a man for long enough, and if you ask him to tell you that the sky is pink and the moon is purple, that day is night and night is day, he will swear to it on the lives of his wife and children. The trick in the early stages was to cause just enough pain, and to ask questions to which the answers were already known, or were easily verifiable. Every study required a baseline.

So what did she have to tell? Well, she had promised in her letter that there were more names to be given, and she had more information to provide, but the kind of people who would inflict that level of pain on another human being and then leave her to burn were hardly on the side of the angels and were therefore unlikely to be sufficiently interested in the identities of those like themselves to kill for them. No, they would be more interested in curbing the supply of such information. They would want to know whom she had approached, and what she had already given them, and she would have told them because the pain would have been too much for her. Her killers now knew, therefore, that Eldritch & Associates had been provided with a list of names. They might move against Eldritch, which would be unwise, or they might seek to limit the damage caused through other means, perhaps by silencing those on that particular list.

Then there was the small matter of who else might have been approached by this woman. There were few candidates who could be trusted enough. In fact, the Collector could think of only one.

But then, the old Jew could take care of himself.

The Collector finished his cigarette and carefully doused the tip in a pool of water before slipping the butt into the pocket of his black coat. The Collector regularly wore a coat, regardless of the weather. Excesses of heat or cold had little effect on him, and anyway, a man always had need of pockets: for cigarettes, a wallet, a lighter, and an assortment of blades. He looked to the north, where Eldritch was probably still sitting in his office, poring over papers. The thought brought him pleasure, even though they had argued earlier that day, and Eldritch and the Collector rarely exchanged a harsh word. On this occasion, the Collector reflected, it was a matter of conflicting philosophies, a belief in preventive measures coming up against the lawyer’s requirement for evidential proof of the commission of a crime. In the end, though, it would come down to the blade, for the man with the blade always has the final word.

In his office, a banker’s lamp casting soft light across his desk, Eldritch looked up from the list of names as though sensing the thoughts of the other. He and the Collector were almost a single entity, which made their earlier disagreement all the more difficult. Files of varying sizes on most of the individuals named on the list rested by his right hand. All were compromised, but fatally so? Eldritch was uncertain. He approved of the final sanction being used in only the most extreme of cases, and his view was that none of these individuals unconditionally qualified for the Collector’s attentions. But he also acknowledged that, like loaded guns or honed blades, they had the potential to do great harm, and it could be argued that some, by their actions, had already committed serious sins. The question remained, though: was their potential to do harm, as yet unrealized in most cases, justification for taking their lives? For Eldritch, the answer was ‘no’, but for the Collector the answer was ‘yes’.

A compromise of sorts had been reached. One name was chosen, the individual whom Eldritch regarded as the most distasteful. The Collector would talk with him, and a decision would follow. Meanwhile, the problem of the final name remained, the only name typed in red.

‘Charlie Parker,’ whispered the old lawyer. ‘What have you done?’