The Soul Collector

The Soul Collector by Paul Johnston

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Authors: Paul Johnston
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never yet had to use the suitcases they had permanently ready. Caroline indicated left and drove up the Sevenoaks exit. Matt would explode when he discovered they were in her car. The standing instruction if she picked up Fran was for them to take the older woman’s considerably less noticeable Renault Clio. Caroline couldn’t do without her Mazda RX-8, though. It was fast, it could outpace almost any tail. Because Matt’s emergency plans were so compartmentalized, it was quite possible that he’d never find out about the car. Everything worked on a need-toknow basis—and he didn’t need to know about the black Mazda.
    Eighteen months ago, she’d memorized the five instructions on the list that had then been destroyed. The second required her to call a number and ask if there were 94
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    any messages for Zeppelin Delta. She’d be given the address of the safe house. Matt had told her that further instructions were taped beneath the top drawer of the chest in the largest bedroom. Although he’d bought the safe house with a small part of his ill-gotten gains from The Death List, he’d done so via a solicitor who’d been instructed never to give the owner details of the property or its address—the story was that the terms of the divorce settlement required that confidentiality. Caroline sometimes thought it was a ridiculous overreaction to the White Devil case; then she would remember her abduction at the hands of the madman and his sister, who was still on the loose and had threatened revenge on Matt and his circle. And she would remember that Fran and Lucy had also been taken by the bastards. She glanced in the mirror. Any inconvenience was immaterial as long as her daughter was kept safe.
    Fran turned to her granddaughter when Caroline got out at the service station. “This is exciting, isn’t it, dear?”
    Lucy shrugged. She was on the cusp of adolescence and nothing her elders said was satisfactory. “I don’t see why Mummy had to take my phone away.”
    “You have to trust her,” her grandmother said. She had turned her own cell phone off. That didn’t bother her, as she despised the things. She was more concerned at the disruption to her latest book. The Flight of the Bumbling Bee was at the crucial second draft stage. At least she’d remembered to bring a disk with the text on it. Presumably there would be a computer in the safe house. The standing instruction was that laptops were not to be brought, in case bugs had been fitted. Fran didn’t see how that could happen as she never took her laptop away from home, and Matt had made sure that her home was equipped The Soul Collector
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    with armored windows and doors, enough locks and chains to keep a prison governor happy and an alarm system that must have cost him a fortune. She hadn’t been happy when he told her that an expert could still get in and out, and leave no trace.
    “Gran?” Lucy said, her eyes fixed on the door of the service station. “Who’s Mummy talking to?”
    Fran’s stomach clenched when she saw that Caroline was deep in conversation with a woman whose back was turned to the car.
    Ignoring Matt’s strict instructions, Fran opened the door and swung her feet out. Lucy wasn’t staying on her own. She wrestled with the rear-opening door and clambered out after her grandmother. Seven
    Karen sat down next to me at the kitchen table after she’d taken a preliminary look. We were both in coveralls and overshoes. All my clothes had been taken away for examination.
    “This is awful, Matt,” she said, touching my arm. My hands were in clear plastic bags prior to fingerprints being taken. “Tell me what happened.”
    I had decided to come clean with her about the others’
    presence—detectives knocking on doors would probably get descriptions of several men in black combats and woollen hats, and I didn’t want any potential sighting of the killer to be compromised. So I told her about Dave’s call using the alert

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