Dead Men's s Boots — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

And to come back again and again (because Les Lathwell’s fingerprints were the same as Aaron Silver’s) – well, that was the cherry on top of the sempiternal trifle.

Either way, Mount Grace was the link. That was where the killers went. That was where John had gone after he’d engaged Todd to change his will. And I was willing to bet a rupee against a roll-over lottery win that that was where Myriam Kale had been taken, after Ruth gave up her sister’s mortal remains to Mister Bergson, the charming killer with the bleach-blond hair.

‘Thanks, Nicky,’ I said. ‘I owe you.’

‘Yeah,’ he confirmed. ‘You do. More than you can pay. That briefcase is full of the Git’s bits and pieces. There’s no way I’m gonna try and sell them now: I’m going underground, and they’re too fucking easy to track. So you keep them to remember me by.’

‘Going underground?’ I tried to read his expression. ‘Do you mean that literally, or-?’

‘Ask me no questions, Castor, I’ll tell you no fucking lies.’

I looked out of the window. I had the sense of clocks ticking and events accelerating past me, out of control. I’d vaguely assumed that we’d be taking the North Circular and I could jump out at Wood Green on the way through to Nicky’s gaff in Walthamstow, but the cabbie had taken the M25 and we were coming down on the A10 now, through Enfield and Ponders End. A memory stirred in my mind.

I looked at my watch. It was very late, but what the hell. If nobody was home I could always come back another time. It felt like more than coincidence that I was passing this close right after Nicky had dropped that bombshell on me. Then again, that’s how all the best coincidences feel. First things first, though. Too much unfinished business was pressing on me: if I could shunt some of it off, I’d travel lighter.

‘Can you get a message through to someone for me?’ I asked Nicky. ‘On your way to wherever it is you’re going?’

‘Maybe,’ he allowed warily. ‘Who’s the someone?’

‘The governor of Pentonville.’

He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Fine. What do you want me to say? That you love him after all?’

‘That a demon from Hell is probably going to walk through his front door some time in the next twenty-four hours, looking to let a serial killer back out onto the street. A guy in the remand block. Douglas Hunter.’

Nicky stared at me.

‘A demon from Hell?’

‘Yeah. Wearing human flesh. Answering to the description of a wet dream.’

‘Juliet?’

‘Obviously.’

‘You’re rolling over on Juliet?’

‘I wish. Look, I don’t think there’s anyone in that place with the balls or the tradecraft to exorcise her. I just want them to keep her out. Otherwise – well, a shitty situation gets one degree shittier.’

Nicky considered. ‘I can drop him an email through a blind proxy. That good enough?’

‘That’s perfect, Nicky. Thanks.’

‘You’re very welcome. Where I’m going, even she won’t find me, so what the fuck do I care?’

‘Hey,’ I called to the cabbie, ‘can you fork a left at Nags Head Road?’

‘I was going to anyway,’ he grunted.

‘Great. You can drop me on the other side of the reservoir. That’s Chingford Hatch, right?’

‘Chingford Green. Chingford Hatch is a bit further down.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘Who do you know all the way out here?’ Nicky demanded, genuinely curious. He’s curious about everything, because he knows, deep down, that the huge global consp³ge alliracy of which we’re all a part takes in every tiny detail. I think he even believes that one of the tiny details may turn out to be the clue that unlocks everything else.

‘A guy who runs a crematorium,’ I said.

19

The cab rolled away into the night, leaving me standing on a rain-slick pavement in the middle of a strangely lopsided street. In front of me was an unremarkable row of white-fronted semis: at my back was the Lea Valley reservoir, a broad slash of night-black nothingness barely contained behind a chain-link fence.

King’s Head Hill lay to the north of me, most of the rest of Chingford to the south. Taking advantage of a street light, I fished out my wallet and rummaged through it until I found what I was looking for: the calling card that Peter Covington had given to Carla on the day her husband got cremated, and that Carla had passed on to me because she had nowhere to put it in her funereal glad-rags. The address was off New Road, in Chingford Hatch, and it had a name instead of a number: ‘The Maltings’. Less than a mile away, anyway, even if it was at the further end of New Road, up by the golf course. I made a start.

As I walked I mulled over what I knew and didn’t know. The crematorium was the centre of some reincarnation racket whose implications I couldn’t get my head around just yet.