The Chosen Seed (11 page)

‘Seems like everyone’s always had an eye on me. It must get crowded for all of you in those shadows.’

‘Still a cocky sod, then.’

‘It’s part of my charm.’

‘There were people out there with an eye on you long before I added myself to the list. Guess I just couldn’t stop wondering why men like Bright and Solomon would be interested in a fucked-up copper like you.’

Hearing the names spoken aloud felt like yet another blow to Cass’ solar plexus.
Bright and Solomon
. Even though Mr Bright had alluded to paying Brian Freeman off in some way or another, Cass hadn’t expected the old gangster to know his nemesis’ name. Nor that of the serial killer who called himself the Man of Flies, and who had died in a blaze of supernatural light.

‘What do you know about Mr Bright and Mr Solomon?’ He glanced over to one of Freeman’s men. ‘And where are my cigarettes?’

‘Interesting pair, weren’t they?’ Freeman smiled. ‘I reckon Bright would have been happy just to have had me and the boys done in and have that be the end of it – that’s the feeling I got when he first came to see me. I was strapped up in the hospital and high on all kinds of painkillers, but I still knew he had to be someone fucking powerful to get past the armed guards.’

His crumpled pack of cigarettes, a lighter and an
expensive crystal ashtray appeared on the coffee table, and Cass lit one. Freeman didn’t complain, but neither did he have one himself. Cass had never taken the old man for a quitter, but in this instance he must have been wrong.

‘Bright did all the talking and Solomon – I didn’t know his name then – he just stood in the background.’

‘And they offered you a deal you couldn’t refuse just to leave me alone?’

‘Something like that.’ Freeman’s eyes darkened. ‘Of course I’m no mug, and I wanted to check them out. Sent a couple of the lads to follow them around, that kind of thing. They never came home, and at that point I realised that I didn’t actually have a choice.’ He paused. ‘I’ve got cleverer about looking into them; I’ve learned the ways of subtlety since then.’

‘How did you get to know who Solomon was?’

‘Strange one, Solomon.’ He leaned back against the sofa, his drink in hand. ‘I quite liked him, as it goes, back then, anyway. There was something almost spiritual about him. Maybe it was just that he had those kind of looks that you can’t help liking. He was a handsome bastard – and you know I’m no poof – but he was. He drew people to him like a movie star or something.’

Cass thought of all the women Mr Solomon had left dead across London. They would have known exactly what Brian Freeman was talking about. He remembered the story of Solomon killing the kittens in the animal sanctuary – cruelty and kindness all rolled into one.

‘But sometimes he had this air of melancholy about him. I should have seen that as a sign there was something fucking up his head, but I didn’t. I was too busy adjusting to my new life.’

‘But how do you know so much about him?’ The
combination of booze, painkillers and nicotine was giving Cass a steady buzz despite the throbbing pains in most of his body.

‘After I moved down here he came to check on me a few times. He would stay for hours, just talking. Sometimes we talked about you – you hurt me, Charlie, there’s no denying that – and sometimes we just talked about life, and how it took you in all kinds of directions you weren’t expecting. I
liked
talking to him. He had no blokey bullshit. I used to think that he was visiting me on that Mr Bright’s instructions, but now I don’t think Bright even knew. I think he was just getting information. I think he was planning ahead, even back then.’

‘What do you mean?’ Cass leaned forward.
Wheels within wheels
. Mr Solomon had used the phrase, and the truth of it had replayed in his head more with every passing week. How many people’s lives had the Network toyed with – and why? What was the point of it all?

‘I told him about my family during those talks. Looking back, I can’t understand why, but like I said, there was something about him. It was like he
understood
you. I figure that by the end of it, what he didn’t know from whatever files Bright had on me, I’d told him myself.’

‘I still don’t get what you mean?
How
was he planning ahead?’

‘There’s something you haven’t asked me yet, Cass, and it surprises me. You were always pretty sharp.’

‘It’s been a long day.’

‘You haven’t asked me,
why now
? Why I’m coming for you a decade after you fucked me over?’

‘Well, until a couple of moments ago,’ Cass stubbed the cigarette out, ‘I was presuming that Mr Bright had paid you to find me for him. It’s the only reason I can think of why
you’d have grabbed me and I’d still be alive and not halfway to the bottom of the Thames with concrete boots on.’

‘What, like that poor fucker the police claimed was Charlie Sutton? That would be fucking ironic, don’t you think?’

Cass felt the sting: another black mark on his soul – the unknown John Doe who had been buried in his place to bring the whole sorry undercover mess to an end. He wondered if a woman somewhere still looked out of the window at nights with tired, sad eyes, wishing for her boy to come home, or at least for someone to tell her what had happened to him. He knew it was that, not knowing, that was the killer, even after all hope was gone.

‘Yeah, like him.’ He didn’t let his guilt show. He’d become an expert at that over the years – and no way was he going to let Brian Freeman take the moral high ground here: it was Brian who had told him to shoot the kid. Brian Freeman’s soul was far from stain-free.

‘Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree – quite the opposite, in fact. Things have changed. Mr Bright may have forgotten about me, but I’m coming after him. All bets are off.’

‘Why?’ It was a curveball, and Cass wasn’t sure whether to trust it.

Freeman poured more brandy before continuing, ‘Do you remember a dead girl called Carla Rae?’

Cass almost visibly recoiled. What would Freeman know about Carla Rae? ‘Of course I do – she was one of the Man of Flies’ – Solomon’s – victims. The first crime scene I went to when I took the case over from Bowman. What about her?’

‘She was my half-sister’s granddaughter.’

For a second Cass didn’t speak. His brain was trying hard to get to grips with everything beneath the haze of pain and
drugs. ‘But that can’t be right – it would have come up on the system. Someone would have spotted any link with you, especially because of me.’ He couldn’t even remember Carla Rae’s file mentioning Birmingham.

‘They wouldn’t have known, son: that’s my point. My old man never put his name to our Maggie’s birth certificate – my mum would’ve had his balls if he did – but we all
knew
Maggie was his. He’d been knocking off her mum for years. Me and Maggie were close because we came along within two months of each other. We went to school together, played together, and although I never called her my sister because my mum would have gone mental, I still knew it. I was godfather to her Jenny, Carla’s mum. They’d all gone to London by the time Carla came along, but I still sent Jenny some money every now and then. That is, until you turned up and I ended up banged up and with Bright and Solomon reorganising my life.’

‘So what’s the point?’ Cass was struggling to keep up. Hearing how someone else’s life had been woven so closely with his own with him having no knowledge was a head-fuck. He could remember staring down at Carla Rae’s dead body, looking at the words
Nothing is sacred
scrawled across her naked chest. How would he have felt then, if he’d realised she was related to Freeman?

‘The point is: I told Solomon about Maggie and her family. Bright wouldn’t have known – you and the police wouldn’t have known – but Solomon did. And he killed her.’

‘But why?’

‘To bring you and me back together – hedging his bets, maybe. He knew that I’d follow the case, and he knew you’d be on it. Maybe he knew you had more trouble coming your way, and if so, then he was fucking right, wasn’t he? Maybe
he knew if he went that far, then I’d want to go after his mate Bright and find out what the fuck all this was about. Solomon was a crazy, and you know better than I do whatever was driving him to kill all those people, but I know that he chose Carla because I told him about her, and because his mate Bright wouldn’t know about her. I think all his visits to check on me and chat with me were to get to a name – a name he could use in whatever fucking game they’re playing with you.’

Cass sat back, numb.

‘Now the thing is,’ Freeman continued, ‘I’m no hot-headed pup, and Carla was blood, but she was also a virtual stranger, so I wasn’t going to do anything rash. But my interest was flagged. I had people – proper people, not the lads like last time – try and dig into our Mr Bright and Mr Solomon, and all they brought me back were questions, no answers.’

‘Welcome to my world,’ Cass muttered.

‘I’ve even got people working at The Bank’s headquarters, and that wasn’t easy, I can tell you. But they’ve been coming up with nothing. And then all the shit with you kicked off. I’d seen about your brother and his family, and I knew he’d worked at The Bank, but then it came back on Bowman and Macintyre. It was when you went on the run with two murders stuck on you that I knew there was more.’

‘How?’ Cass’ mouth was dry. All this time Freeman had been watching him.

‘You ain’t no murderer, whether you’re Charlie or Cass or fucking Shirley. I saw you blow someone’s brains out once, and I know what it did to you – don’t think I don’t. You ain’t no killer, not like that.’ Freeman leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees. ‘Someone’s playing with you, and we both know who that is. I’ve been through that
little suitcase of yours and there are some interesting photos in there.’

‘If you’re looking for answers about who Bright and Solomon are, then I don’t have them. I want to find them, though, and I want to bring that bastard Bright and all his people down if I can.’

‘And that’s what seems strange to me. As far as I can see he’s done his best to protect you over the years,’ Freeman said softly. ‘So what the fuck has he done to piss you off so badly?’

Cass stared at Freeman. It would be easy to tell him everything – he
wanted
to – but this could all be some elaborate fuck-up devised by Bright and the Network. The only man he’d trusted was Artie Mullins, and in the end even he had given in to Freeman.

‘How can I trust you?’

‘Ha!’ Freeman snorted. ‘Coming from you I find that rich. But as it happens, I thought you might need a token gesture of my sincerity.’ The old man’s eyes were smiling. ‘So I took it upon myself to do you a little favour.

‘I recorded this from the news earlier.’ He turned the large TV on. Mat Blackmore’s photo filled the corner behind the newsreader.

‘Detective Sergeant Mat Blackmore, who was awaiting trial on a charge of murder and several counts of police corruption, died earlier today of what is believed to be strychnine poisoning. Mr Blackmore had received a visit from a man claiming to be from his solicitor’s office to discuss the impending trial. The man, as yet unidentified, is believed to have given Mr Blackmore a birthday cake, which contained the poison, before leaving the prison. Mr Blackmore’s solicitors, Watson, Harvey and Rogers, have told police the visitor was not affiliated with their company
in any way, and they are demanding an inquiry into how he gained access to a high-security prisoner with false paperwork.’

Cass watched, dumbfounded, until Brian Freeman turned it off again.

‘You killed Blackmore?’

‘I thought you’d rather him than the other bastard.’ Freeman grinned. ‘This one killed that girl you worked with.’

For a moment, Cass couldn’t speak. Freeman knew him well, even after all these years. Bowman might have been the ringleader, and the one who had been fucking his wife, but Blackmore had killed poor Claire May. Yeah, he’d rather the young sergeant was dead. And now Bowman would be sweating, believing someone would be coming for him next.

He looked up at Brian Freeman. ‘Mr Bright’s got something of mine that I want back,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘My nephew.’

It was Freeman’s turn to be silent for a moment. ‘Tell me everything,’ he said eventually.

And Cass did.

Chapter Fourteen

M
r Bright dismissed the car that had been waiting for him outside the small private nursing home tucked away in the heart of London. Despite the freezing cold, he wanted to walk in the midst of the noise and life of the city for a while and clear his thinking. He pushed his leather-gloved hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat as he strolled casually among those who hurried and scurried to their destinations. Newspaper hawkers tried to push the latest issue into his hands – the headlines screamed of an Angel of Death walking among them – but he ignored them. There was nothing he could read in the paper that he didn’t already know.

First Mr Solomon, and now Mr Craven: both so different in character, and yet both chosen to make a point by killing
them
. He was tired of it. He had no feelings for Mr Craven; unlike Mr Solomon, Mr Craven’s message and purpose was crude and bitter and selfish. Mr Dublin could deal with it while they all waited for Mr Craven to hurry up and die.

Here and there he saw people with medical masks over their faces, their eyes scared, and he felt a vague disgust. They reminded him of those among his own who whined about the Dying that had come among them and how they feared it. The fear was pointless: the Dying would either come for each of them or it wouldn’t. He was proud that
most in this city were more like him – they shopped and drank and ate and loved and kept their fear quiet. Sometimes their unknowing strength left him in awe. They refused to give up. They were like a vermin on the face of the planet, but vermin were survivors. There was nothing crumbling about this world, despite what the cohorts might think. It was changing, perhaps, going through a dark time, but it wouldn’t crumble.
They
wouldn’t allow it.