The Wolves of London (39 page)

I was about to say how delicious the soup smelled when my phone chimed to let me know I’d got a text. I looked at it, thinking it would be from Candice or DI Jensen or Dr Bruce – and then the blood seemed to drain out of my head, making me feel faint.

Clover set the tray down hurriedly. ‘What’s the matter, Alex? You’re as white as a sheet.’

I swallowed but couldn’t speak. With shaking hands I handed her the phone.

I watched her face change, her eyes widen, as she read the text. I knew what it said. The words were already burned into my memory:

Your daughter is with me. It’s time to meet. Noon tomorrow at the house of the man you killed. Don’t worry about the police, they’ve done with the place. Come alone.

A
s I cautiously approached McCallum’s house I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to run. If I did, then maybe the adrenaline would kick in and over-ride the fact that my body felt like one big bruise, but I really didn’t relish the prospect of putting it to the test.

In addition to the pain, I was knackered. The text I’d received yesterday had whipped me into such a state that I had barely slept last night. I’d spent the long hours between then and now mostly pacing through the house, trying to build up my strength and get some mobility back into my battered limbs. My ankle, where it felt as though the dog had gnawed through to the bone, hurt like buggery, though Clover had assured me that the wound was healing and was not infected. Apparently, while I had been sleeping, I’d been given tetanus shots and antibiotics and God knows what else to keep me healthy and alive.

The building where I’d been recuperating was beautiful. A big old town house in an exclusive little enclave overlooking Kensington Gardens. Clover had told me our neighbours were mostly A-list movie stars, politicians and industry tycoons. When I asked her who owned the house she simply said, ‘You do, for now. The real owner wants to remain anonymous.’ When I said that secrets made me uncomfortable, she just shrugged. ‘Sorry, Alex, but there’s nothing sinister about this. Believe me, if I could tell you everything, I would, but I’m under strict instructions. The owner doesn’t want to get involved. If that changes, I’ll let you know. But in the meantime, just enjoy this place while you can. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?’

Once the nausea after waking up had passed, I ate ravenously, despite the apprehension gnawing away in my stomach. The fridge and cupboards in the kitchen were full of food and drink. The kitchen itself was modern, tasteful, expensive-looking and full of top-of-the-range gadgets and equipment. The rest of the house, I discovered, was an impeccably blended mix of the old and the new. Original fireplaces and priceless antiques rubbed shoulders with up-to-the-minute entertainment systems and computer technology. There was a vast library of books, a spotless home office that looked like something out of a science-fiction film, even a long attic room that had been converted into a home cinema. Yet although the place was beautiful, it was oddly anonymous – the show home to end all show homes. I was not restricted in my movements – I could go wherever I wished, delve into whatever nooks and crannies I could find – and none of the rooms I came across were locked. Even so, I found no indication, nor even the slightest clue, as to who owned the place, or (if the two things were not mutually exclusive) who might live here. There were no photos, no documents, no personal knick-knacks, nothing. The place wasn’t bland – it was too luxurious and well-appointed for that – but, all the same, the personality of the owner or owners was peculiarly absent.

Although I had taken a long bath, changed into fresh clothes, and fed myself not only with food and drink but plenty of painkillers, I hardly felt fighting fit. I was grateful in a way that McCallum’s house was not much more than a stone’s throw from where I was staying, though at the same time I felt uncomfortable being so close to the scene of my terrible crime. It was like tempting fate. Or, in spite of the fact that the choice had not been mine, it felt arrogant, even disrespectful, to set up camp virtually on my victim’s doorstep. Was it coincidence that the kidnapper had contacted me now and suggested McCallum’s house as the venue for our meeting, or was it his way of indicating that he knew where I was staying and that there was nowhere I could hide that he wouldn’t find me? I knew that over-analysing the question would only make me more paranoid, but I couldn’t help it. As I limped slowly up Bellwater Drive, I was unable to shake off the notion that everything about this situation smelled bad – and yet at the same time there was no way I was going to turn down the possibility of meeting and speaking with my daughter’s abductor.

Although it was daylight, the neighbourhood was no busier than it had been the last time I’d been here. It was a cold day, but the autumn sun in the bleached-bone sky was as harsh as light reflected off tin and gave everything a crisp, sharp brightness that hurt my eyes.

I was dressed in jeans and boots, a dark grey sweater and my black zip-up jacket. The jeans and boots were mine, but the sweater was from a chest of drawers in the house. I’d been loath to wear someone else’s clothes at first, but Clover had told me she’d been unable to get the bloodstains out of my grey hoodie and so had burned it. The fact that the stains had come from the shape-shifter had also given her and Frank cause for concern. I saw her point: what if Hulse, Jackery and the shape-shifter had been working together and the death of the false Clover had been part of the plan? The false Clover might have been discovered after a short time in my company, but we’d be more likely to overlook the stains, to forget that they were part of the same living organism. Clover’s argument was that at some point – while we were asleep, for example – they might have oozed from the fabric, formed into an entirely new entity and murdered us in our beds before making off with the heart.

Far-fetched? Paranoid? Maybe, but it was an example of the way we were thinking. Impossible as it seemed, we were trying to cover every angle, consider every eventuality. We knew that to find some kind of resolution to this matter we had to take risks, but at the same time we were trying to eliminate unnecessary ones.

Of course the necessary risks were often the biggest of all. We might try to keep our heads down, to cover our tracks, but if an open invitation came to meet with our enemies there was no way we could ignore it.

No way
I
could ignore it, anyway. I had too much to lose. After the text had come through yesterday, Frank and Clover had spelled out the dangers, had felt compelled to point out (as if I didn’t know) that this was almost certainly another trap. And yet they hadn’t tried all that hard to dissuade me from accepting the summons. They knew as well as I did that if there was even the remotest chance of seeing Kate again, of getting her back, then I had to take it.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I reassured them. ‘The heart will keep me safe. And
they
must know that by now, whoever
they
are.’

Clover nodded, but she didn’t look convinced. We both knew that all manner of things could go wrong. What if Kate’s kidnappers threatened her life in front of me and the heart did nothing? Or what if the heart
did
react and my weakened body couldn’t cope with another symbiotic link so soon after the last one?

‘I’ll be close by,’ Frank said, ‘in case you need me.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I won’t have Kate’s safety jeopardised. The text said I should come alone. If something goes wrong and they find out you’re with me, hiding in the shadows… Sorry, Frank, but I just can’t risk it.’

Alone aside from the heart, which as always was tucked into the inside pocket of the leather jacket, I came to a halt outside 56 Bellwater Drive. In the daylight the house, which I could see through the iron gate, looked shabbier than it had in the darkness – the stonework in need of re-pointing, the wooden window frames rotting at the edges – but it was still an impressive and imposing structure. A strip of yellow and black police tape hung limply from the gate itself, another from the frame beside the catch. Clearly it had once been a single piece, tied across the gate as a flimsy barrier, presumably after McCallum’s body had been removed and the police had concluded their forensic examination. Now the barrier had been breached – pulled apart or simply snapped. Not that this was a sign that Kate’s kidnappers were already waiting for me up at the house, of course. The tape might have been broken by a member of McCallum’s household staff, or even by the police themselves returning to the house for a follow-up examination.

I stood for maybe ten seconds, staring up at the windows, trying to detect signs of life. Eventually, when it occurred to me that if I stood there any longer I might draw attention to myself, I reached through to undo the latch, pushed the gate open and went in. It was a still day and there was hardly any movement, only the very tops of the trees lining the high wooden fence that bordered the sides and back of the property nodding sagely as I passed. Unlike the last time I had been here I walked up the gravel path that encircled the house. My footsteps crunched slightly, but the sound seemed less pervasive in the daytime – besides which, I had no particular reason to conceal my presence this time.

I still had the key for the French windows that Clover had given me a week ago. As I was reaching into my pocket for it, I saw that I wouldn’t need it. The French windows were ajar, an obvious invitation. I thought briefly of a spring-loaded mousetrap ready to snap shut when the bait was taken. And then I stepped inside.

My heart started drumming the instant I crossed the threshold. I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house recognised me and was raising its hackles in memory of what I had done. I looked down at the now-faded pink bloodstain on the carpet and wondered who had cleaned it up. McCallum’s housekeeper? Or did the police have a special team that dealt with such things?

The familiar smell, of old carpets and furniture polish, made me gag, not because it was unpleasant but because of its associations. Although the police must have swarmed all over this room since the murder, it looked no different to the last time I had been here. The body was gone, of course, and the broken glass from the smashed dome had been removed. But the rest of the room was just as it had been on the night the old man had died. There wasn’t even evidence of fingerprint dust on the surfaces or the muddy boot prints of all the coppers who must have come traipsing through here.

My attention was snagged by something which I had been too preoccupied to notice the last time I’d been here. It was a large framed poster above the fireplace advertising a performance by ‘The Great Barnaby’ at the London Hippodrome on Friday, 10 December 1948. I remembered Clover telling me about the poster the first time we’d met. The main painting depicted a moustached and bearded man in a red eye mask, a top hat perched at a jaunty angle on his head. His hands, in white kid gloves, were upraised, fingers widely spread. An array of objects – playing cards, candles, pocket watches, juggling balls – arced in a glittering rainbow above him. Dressed in a black jacket, a red cravat and a cream-coloured waistcoat emblazoned with stars and ringed planets, the magician was grinning widely, almost crazily. I stared at the poster – and my heart gave a jolt. One of the objects he was ‘juggling’ was the obsidian heart.

Suddenly I tensed. As before, from elsewhere in the house, I could hear the slow, sonorous ticking of a clock. But now that sound was accompanied by another – a faint, rhythmic
squeak-squeak
…
squeak-squeak
… As this new sound grew louder, approaching the room, I took an instinctive step back towards the French windows. Though my body was stiff and aching I felt my muscles bunching, readying themselves to flee.

The squeaking sound halted right outside the room and then the door in the far corner started to open. Next moment a wheelchair entered, pushed by a burly man with a square jaw and dark, close-cropped hair, his pumped body straining to burst from a sombre pin-striped suit and tie. However I barely gave him a second glance. My attention was focused on the frail old man in the wheelchair.

It was Barnaby McCallum.

I stared at him, thinking of the warehouse in the Isle of Dogs. As his minder or carer pushed him further into the room I raised a hand and took another step back towards the French windows.

‘Don’t come any closer,’ I said. ‘I know you’re not him.’

The old man in the wheelchair peered at me with an expression of… interest? Perhaps even sympathy? As if mirroring me, he raised one of the gnarled hands that were resting on a thick blanket across his knees, his face crinkling like a walnut as he spoke.

‘I am, you know,’ he said, ‘though, of course, you’re right to be suspicious.’

I licked my lips, aware that I was up on the balls of my feet, prepared to run. ‘How can you be? You’re dead.
He’s
dead.’

The old man tutted. ‘How long have you had the heart in your possession, Mr Locke? A week? Have you learned nothing of its properties in that time?’

Despite myself I felt offended by the question. ‘I’ve learned plenty.’

‘Ah. Then you’re no doubt aware that it displays a certain… ah,
temporal
flexibility?’

I looked at him warily. ‘Go on.’

His face crinkled even more alarmingly, as if it was folding in on itself, and I realised that he was smiling. ‘Haven’t you guessed? I’ve used the heart to travel forward in time. Today is… what? Monday the eighth of October?’

I nodded.

Tapping the arm of the chair, he half-twisted towards the burly man behind him. ‘What day was it when we left, Hartson? The last Friday in September, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Which means that in… three days – or is it four? – you’re going to kill me, Alex.’

My heart gave a jolt, causing me to gasp as my various bruises throbbed with pain. I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

‘It’s quite all right,’ the old man said in his rasping voice, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering why, if I know this, I don’t take precautions to prevent it?’