The Shadow of the Soul (23 page)

‘Of course I will.’ Melanie Porter didn’t ask why Cass might want to know, but the flash of silver in her eyes did. Cass ignored it.

‘Find my girl.’ Alexander put his glass down on the mantelpiece and stared at Fletcher. ‘We need her back.’

Fletcher nodded curtly, but said nothing.

Cass wondered what the honest man would say if he spoke:
I intend to get her back, but it won’t be to come home and play happy families with you, to repair all the fractures in your lives
– something like that, he was sure. Wherever Abigail Porter was, if Fletcher found her, she’d be spending a lot of time in an interrogation cell, and none of Porter’s much-vaunted power or influence would have any sway.

Armstrong put a bottle of beer for Cass and a vodka and Coke for himself down on the table. Cass wondered when coppers had stopped drinking good, honest pints – probably about the same time they’d stopped beating the crap out of people to get the confessions they needed. The world changed; that was guaranteed, and change was relentless.

‘Cheers.’ Cass tapped his bottle against the younger man’s glass. Here they were, finally having a drink in the pub together. Cass wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it. Armstrong was no Claire May, but Claire was gone and Armstrong was here and as much as he might not like it, he had no choice but to get used to it.

‘I’ve spoken to the families, and as far as they are all concerned, their kids weren’t being treated by anyone for their phobias.’ Armstrong pulled his stool closer into the table and sat down. ‘It’s really surprising how much parents don’t know about their children – neither Denter’s nor
Lane’s parents were even aware that their kids had phobias.’

‘Children grow up,’ Cass said. ‘They learn to keep secrets. No adult likes to publicise their weaknesses.’ He took a mouthful, swallowed, and asked, ‘Where’s your car?’ There was no way this was going to be a one-beer-only night.

‘I’ve left it at the station. It’s parked right beside yours. My tube line’s running okay.’

‘Good.’ Cass settled back in the chair. ‘There must be something else. These kids didn’t know each other, but they were all getting cash payments, and they all died the same way. This phobia link must go somewhere – that, or we’re barking up completely the wrong fucking tree and wasting police time …’

‘And what does “Chaos in the darkness” even mean? I’ve had two PCs searching libraries and the Internet for the phrase, or some kind of variation, and they’ve come up with sweet FA.’

‘Fuck knows. Maybe if we find what links them, we’ll find that.’

‘I’ve done some digging into their childhoods – schools, clubs, secret societies, that kind of thing. As they were all in the same age range, give or take a year or two, I wondered if they might have been on the same school excursion or something. You know those places where loads of schools go on some stupid river-wading Geography field trip, or visit war memorials?’

‘Even at my advanced age I can dimly recall those.’

‘I couldn’t find any common ground, though. I really don’t think these students had ever met.’

‘That must have taken some time.’ Cass sipped his beer again. ‘You’ve been busy. Good use of initiative.’ He knew he sounded patronising, but right now he didn’t much care. He’d earned the right to patronise.

‘You’ve been off doing whatever it is you’ve been doing. I had the hours.’

The two men watched each other across the table for a few moments, and Cass internally groaned. He was going to have to give Armstrong something. The problem with men who worked on their own initiative was that they couldn’t just switch their curiosity off when it suited him. It had taken years for Cass to train himself to remember what happened to the fucking cat.

‘There’s a lot of people wanting pieces of me at the moment.’ He didn’t break the stare.

‘All work?’ Armstrong asked.

‘Some personal.’ That was as much as he was willing to give the sergeant. If he wasn’t careful, this would be the last beer they’d share after work, and that was no good for a team.

‘Maybe whatever it is would be best done officially. Through work?’

‘Maybe, Toby, you don’t know shit about that of which you speak.’ Cass leaned on the table. ‘Are you going to be a problem for me here?’

‘You’re the boss.’ Armstrong finally looked away.

‘Your curiosity is what makes you a detective. What’ll make you a good detective is knowing when to keep your nose out.’

Silence hung awkwardly between them. Even the general clink of glasses and the chatter from the rest of the pub refused to come near it.

‘Listen,’ Cass said eventually, ‘it really is personal – nothing to stress about. It’s just some family business.’

The image of the strange fat man on the tube platform with Abigail Porter rose up in his mind.
I am family
. That’s what he’d said, and it made Cass shiver.
Family business
.
Who were these people who’d made his family their business and so royally fucked them up? He still dreamed of Solomon’s death sometimes: the explosion of light, the explosion of
flies
. There was nothing
natural
about it: it was
glow
business.

Abigail Porter. The fat man. The Underground platform. All thoughts of
the glow
left him as the dead students gathered closer. His heart raced.

‘How are you getting home?’

‘I told you.’ Armstrong frowned. ‘The tube.’

‘How are you paying?’

‘I’m not – well, I’ll be using my Oyster card.’

‘Exactly.’ Cass grinned, the pieces forming a whole in his mind. ‘And if you were a student living here who had to get around London every day, how would you do it?’

A light went on in Armstrong’s eyes as his brain caught up with Cass’s. ‘
A student-discounted Oyster card!’

‘Is that your first drink tonight?’

‘Yeah—’

‘Go back to the office, get your car and then go and find those Oyster cards. If we can see their journey histories, maybe we can find a link that way.’

‘Now?’ Armstrong looked at his unfinished drink. ‘But it’s half-past seven. I thought you said I had to get the work/life balance shit sorted?’

‘I lied. I want those cards by morning. And ring whoever the fuck runs Oyster and tell them we want a man with a scanning machine at the station by ten tomorrow.’

‘What if they didn’t register their cards?’

‘They’ll be registered – they’d have to be to get their student discounts, and you know what students are like: they’ll save money wherever they can to pay for their beer.’
He drained his bottle and got to his feet. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Since you’re now too busy to be a drinking partner I think I’ll go and fry some other fish. You don’t need me holding your hand.’

He felt Armstrong’s eyes on his back as he left the pub, but he didn’t look back. He walked for several blocks before calling Directory Enquiries.

‘The Bank, head office, London, please. Just put me straight through.’

The woman at the other end did as she was told and the line rang out in his ear.

‘The Bank, good evening, how can I assist you?’ The voice was soft and professional and entirely feminine.

‘Put me through to Mr Castor Bright, please.’

‘I’m afraid we have no one of that name here, sir. Could anyone else help you? Unless your business is with our overseas division, most of our staff have already left for the evening.’

‘Just tell Mr Bright that Cass Jones called and I’m on my way in to see him. I’m sure he’s expecting me.’

He ended the call before she could speak again. Despite the chill in the air, his palms were sweating as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He stared out at the life on the London streets, cars and buses fighting each other to get to where they were going. He suddenly felt very apart from it all. The Bank and Mr Bright were waiting for him. It was time to play the game.

‘They’re saying what?’ Alison McDonnell stared across the table at the man standing there so casually, his hands jammed in his pockets as if he were telling her the time, or
what he had for breakfast. Spin doctors had no soul, she was sure of it. If only politicians didn’t need them so badly.

He repeated, ‘That perhaps you staged an attack on yourself to raise your ratings.’

‘But how could that possibly be?’ She pushed her coffee cup away. She was exhausted and running on adrenalin, and more caffeine really wasn’t going to help her think straight. ‘What kind of person would do that – is that really what they think of me? I didn’t even raise the alarm!’

‘The problem you have,’ Desmond Simpson continued, ‘is that no one saw this apparent assailant, not a single person in the crowd, nor in fact any of our Secret fucking Service men. All they saw was Abigail bloody Porter pushing you to the ground and then chasing a phantom.’ He sipped his own coffee. ‘Add to that all the journalists and news crews who were filming at the location, who also have no record of our fat man being there, and …’ He stared at her, then looked down at his cup. ‘Well, you can see how we need a fucking miracle to make sense of any of it, can’t you.’

‘So who’s actually saying this?’ The Prime Minister leaned back in her chair.

Lucius Dawson looked more tired than she felt, if that was possible; he didn’t see her glance at him because he was too busy looking at Simpson for an answer. Sometimes she wondered if any of them ran the country at all, or if it was all done by these shadowy figures in the background who spent their lives making new truths out of old ones.

‘It started somewhere on the back benches – nicely anonymous. But it’s spreading now, and Merchant will grab it and run with it as soon as he thinks there’s enough support.’

‘He’s the leader of the Opposition,’ McDonnell said. ‘He’d never be allowed to make such an outrageous claim.’

‘He would if he thought there were people within your own party who agreed with him.’

‘And are there?’

Simpson looked over at the Home Secretary. McDonnell did the same.

‘I’ve heard people talking,’ Dawson said, eventually. ‘They’re worried about what a story like this could do to us.’

‘We’re not dead in the water yet.’ Simpson sat on the edge of the desk. ‘I know she’s on compassionate leave, but we need to bring Abigail Porter in. You need a scapegoat, and it needs to be her. She can say she overreacted and thought she’d seen something when she hadn’t; that she panicked, forcing a poor civilian who happened to have some mental illness – I’m sure we can make up some shit about him – to jump in front of a train because he thought he was about to get fucking shot. I don’t care if we say she was on LSD and cracked, we just need to make it her fault and not yours.’ Despite his language, his voice was calm. This destruction of careers – of
lives –
for the greater good was what he was paid for, and he was damn good at it. It exhausted McDonnell to even
try
to think like him, and she heartily disliked the fact that she needed him.

‘In some ways, she’s the best choice,’ Simpson continued. ‘Her sister’s just died, so the press – and any inquiry – will go easy on her, and her father can get her another security job, and one that pays a damn sight more than she’s on at the moment. If we get her in tomorrow …’ He paused and looked at the Home Secretary. ‘What? What am I missing?’

Dawson looked at McDonnell. If she’d been less tired, she might have laughed. It was all becoming something of a farce. How quickly empires crumble.

‘It’s Abigail,’ she said.

‘What about her?’ Simpson’s eyes narrowed.

‘She’s not on compassionate leave. She was, but she disappeared. She went out the back window of her flat and hasn’t been seen since. Fletcher’s got people looking for her, but so far the trail’s dead.’

‘Holy mother of shit.’

‘But surely,’ McDonnell continued, ‘if we tell people that she’s gone, they’ll think that if anyone planned this, it was her. Which is exactly what we’re thinking – so what’s wrong with telling the truth?’

‘Two things.’ Simpson stood up and looked down on her. ‘First, if they want to get rid of you – of all of us – they can do it by blaming you for hiring her in the first place: they’ll say you were incompetent and naïve.’

‘Technically, Alison didn’t hire her,’ Dawson cut in.

‘Save that bullshit. She’s in charge, she takes the buck on this. No one gives a shit who actually does the hiring and firing; they’ll say if you can’t see a security threat in the middle of your personal security team, then how the hell are you going to spot an external one? They’ll crucify you. Before you know it the London bombs will be your fault.
Personally
. ’ He barely paused for breath. ‘Second, those who aren’t busy calling youa stupid foolwill think you’ve got her hidden away somewhere because you
did
organise the whole thing to boost your ratings and don’t want anyone getting to her for the truth. It’s a lose–lose situation for you.’

‘The truth?’ McDonnell looked up at him. ‘God forbid we should ever speak the truth, or care about people’s lives and integrity.’

‘Don’t get sanctimonious with me.’ The spin doctor’s eyes hardened. ‘If you care so much about the fucking truth and people, go join a bloody nunnery, or work with fucking disabled children. This is
politics
.’