A Matter Of Blood (The Dog-Faced Gods Trilogy)

by Sarah Pinborough

  Claire took over from the constable who’d made the original enquiry and called Ms Middleton back. This time she gave the full name: Castor Bright. So much for the ‘difficult search’ and ‘lengthy wait’ her DC had been promised; within five minutes a one-line email response had pinged into her inbox: There is no one with the name Castor Bright on our employee database. Claire forwarded it to Cass’s email account. The queries she’d put out to her journalist contacts were all coming back blank too. It was intensely frustrating.

  On the upside, however, Cass’s burger man had been found, and she was now reaping the rewards. Blackmore was looking at her as if she’d screwed someone else, Bowman was so angry that his pale, sickly face was sporting two feverish spots of colour, and Ramsey’s expression was that of someone who was beginning to think he’d ended up in a Twilight Zone episode.

  ‘I can’t believe you thought it was okay to do this behind my back.’ DI Bowman was almost spitting at her.

  ‘It wasn’t behind your back, sir,’ she tried to explain, ‘I just didn’t see the point of bothering you unless the man could be found.’

  ‘If I didn’t know about it, May, then it was behind my back,’ he shouted. ‘You do not have the right to tell my staff what they should be doing unless you have cleared it with me or my senior officers first.’ He was almost incandescent with fury.

  ‘They were off duty,’ she said. ‘It was a favour.’ She couldn’t work out why he was so wound up about this - it was clear that he and Cass Jones had no time for each other, but given how understaffed they were, she’d thought he’d be happy to have Cass back to take up his own caseload.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, keeping her tone apologetic, ‘maybe I didn’t go about it the right way, but it was with the best of intentions. The man’s come in to be interviewed, and his description of DI Jones and his car are pretty spot-on - so Cass Jones couldn’t have been at his brother’s house if he was in the middle of a drunken argument with a burger van man at the Elephant and Castle, could he?’ Facts were facts, after all, she added to herself.

  ‘He never did have any class,’ Blackmore muttered.

  Claire fought the urge to bite back at her boyfriend’s dig at her ex-lover, choosing instead to ignore the jibe. ‘Sir, surely it’s enough to get him back to work, don’t you think? We need him here - especially after the phone call—’

  ‘She’s right,’ Ramsey broke in, ‘we should get him back. You guys need him to talk you through this phone call he’s had.’ He rubbed his head. ‘And on top of that, I just can’t see him having anything to do with what’s happened to his brother - call it gut instinct or whatever, it’s just not fitting in my head. And Dr Hask agrees.’

  Bowman snorted, and Ramsey gave a wry smile before continuing, ‘Trust me, I wish to God he had been there, because now my nice tidy murder-suicide is looking suspiciously like a triple homicide with planted evidence, and I really could have lived without that headache. I’ve got quite enough work on back at my own nick.’

  Bowman finally nodded, but he still looked unhappy. ‘Well, at least yesterday’s interview tied up the Macintyre case. Jones can dig in on the serial case.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘After all, he’s now the Chosen One in our killer’s eyes.’

  ‘Solved, sir?’Claire looked quizzically at Blackmore. How come he hadn’t told her this?

  ‘Don’t look so put out, given how much you’ve been doing without keeping anyone else in the loop,’ Bowman said. ‘We didn’t get confirmation of what Macintyre admitted yesterday until an hour ago. He neglected to tell us about a “disagreement” he’d had with some Chechens. Money, of course - drugs or money, isn’t it always? They probably put out the hit. We’re pulling in some names now.’

  As the door opened and DCI Morgan peered in and called, ‘May? A word?’ her heart sank. Maybe this was going to turn into a day of three parts. The way things were going, her career heading for the same path as Cass Jones’ - straight to the stagnant pond of no promotion.

  She stepped into the corridor, Sam Macintyre and his ‘Chechen disagreement’ temporarily forgotten. ‘Sir?’

  Morgan leaned in. ‘I hear you’ve been trying to locate this Bright character your witness claims gave him the film to deliver?’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I’m not getting very far.’

  ‘You won’t.’ His voice was cool, and he was close enough that she could smell tobacco on his breath, which came as a surprise given what a big deal he’d made about giving up when the smoking laws changed. She thought he’d succeeded. You never could tell what was really going on with people.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’s a wild goose chase. There is no such man. Your witness must have got the name wrong.’

  ‘No, he was pretty clear—’

  ‘I said,’DCI Morgan cut in, ‘that he got the name wrong.’

  This wasn’t making sense. She ploughed on, ‘With all due respect, sir, how can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because, young Sergeant May,’ he said, looking at her with old, tired eyes, ‘I’ve been told to be sure.’ His shoulders sagged. ‘Just leave it alone. If this Bright exists, then he’s nothing to do with your case. Bowman says we’re closing the Miller/Jackson case, and now Jones has had a call from the killer we’re looking at a different man, yes?’

  Claire nodded, dumbly. She didn’t know what else to do. Who the hell was this Castor Bright, to have got the search on him closed down so fast?

  ‘So no more of our limited resources wasted on this, right? Make the most of the leads you’ve already got.’

  Claire’s mobile started to ring but it did nothing to dissipate the tense atmosphere. She stared at her DCI, still trying to find answers in his face, but he remained inscrutable.

  ‘You’d better answer that.’ He turned and walked away.

  She watched him as she dragged the phone from her pocket. It might have been a Sunday, but the station was buzzing - Cass’s call from the serial had them all fired up. If only the boys out reinterviewing the first four victims’ friends and families could find some links to Covent Garden, then maybe they’d even have a chance of catching the killer. She wanted Cass back, and not only for that private comfort she got from having him around. If anyone could do it, then he could. She turned her attention to the phone.

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘Yes, who is this?’ She couldn’t immediately place the voice, and she was distracted by Mat Blackmore peering angrily round the door. It was obvious who he thought the call was from.

  ‘It’s Josh Eagleton. Are you at home?’

  ‘No, at work. We’ve had some developments so I came in.’

  ‘Oh.’ As Josh’s voice dropped so she could hear raised voices in the room behind Mat; Ramsey’s defence of Cass probably hadn’t gone down well with Bowman. Great. Blackmore glared at her again.

  ‘What do you want, Josh?’ She tried to keep the snappiness out of her voice, but failed. At least Mat might stop looking daggers at her now she’d made clear she wasn’t on the phone to Cass - her boss. His attitude was beginning to seriously piss her off.

  ‘I need Cass Jones’ mobile number.’ The young man spoke hurriedly.

  ‘I can’t give you that.’

  ‘But I—’

  She needed to get back and find out what was going on before it all came to blows. Maybe Ramsey had suggested something sensible - like sending Bowman home to rest. She glared back at Mat. She was tired of him being so angry at her. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so honest when he’d asked her about her past with Cass, back when they’d first started seeing each other. It wasn’t as if either of them had been virgins. Cass always said she was too honest, too trusting. Perhaps he had a point after all.

  ‘I’ll text him your number and tell him to call you. That okay?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thanks.’

  Claire cut off his stammered thanks. He was a strange kid, that one. It was up to Cass if he wanted to call him back. Josh was probably just running an errand for D
r Farmer, but Cass was technically on compassionate leave so they couldn’t have it both ways. She typed a quick text to Cass, attached the number and pressed send.

  ‘Who was that?’ Mat blocked the doorway.

  ‘Just the ME’s assistant. Wants to talk to Cass about something.’ His glare faltered slightly and she knocked his arm hard - only partly accidentally - as she pushed passed him and headed back into the fray.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Looking at Father Michael’s face was like looking at a crumpled photograph. Cass could see he’d aged in the five years since the funerals, even though he didn’t remember much about that day. He’d turned up for the service, and left with both his heart and his conscience heavy. The Father Michael he saw behind his eyes was the one from his childhood, somewhere between the young man in the picture he’d seen this morning and the old one standing beside him now.

  Father Michael had taken him out to the bench in the small graveyard to make the most of the sudden spring sunshine. ‘Will you bring Christian and his family to rest here?’ he asked.

  The soft words were like a punch in the heart. Cass hadn’t even thought about the funerals yet. ‘The police haven’t released the bodies yet.’ He looked away.

  ‘Bear it in mind. I think he would have chosen to come home.’ Father Michael patted his arm gently. ‘To be near your parents.’

  ‘I didn’t realise how long you’d known my dad until I saw some old photos Christian had dug out.’ Cass wanted to steer the conversation away from the personal. He was still buzzing from his discoveries, and Claire had texted to say the burger man had been found and he was wanted back at work. It hadn’t come as any surprise, but it had made him smile. She’d sent him Josh Eagleton’s number, but it just rang out and he didn’t bother leaving a message. If the ME had found anything good, he’d have called himself. He needed to head back to the grimy city he loved - but first, he wanted to try and make sense of this stuff, whatever had been winding his brother up so much.

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Father Michael smiled. ‘It’s the nature of young people: they can’t imagine a world that existed before they came into it. Just like they can’t imagine that they could cease to exist and the world would still continue.’ He waved an insect away from his face. ‘In a way your father and I were adventurers together. We met when I was spreading the word of our good Lord in some war-torn part of the world.’

  ‘The Lebanon?’

  ‘Yes, it might have been. Your father was relishing in the journalistic opportunities of war with as much enthusiasm as I was trying to stop the conflict. But we both drank and smoked, and we both loved the danger of wandering off the beaten path.’ He shook his head wryly. ‘We garnered ourselves something of a reputation, travelling together as we did. I think he got the stories and I got the converts simply out of the people’s curiosity.’

  It felt like the old man next to him was talking about a stranger. His dad had always been so placid. It had been a major cause of friction between them.

  ‘Doesn’t exactly sound like the dad I remember.’

  ‘He was different then, and people change. Back then he had no faith, and I’d given up trying to persuade him. He was quite wild, you know.’ His smile faltered a little. ‘But he was always a little odd. I sometimes thought he might be indulging in LSD, though I never saw any evidence of it.’

  ‘What made you think that?’ Cass almost laughed aloud. His dad on acid: now there was a sight he wouldn’t mind seeing.

  ‘Oh, the things he used to say when we’d been drinking . . . how different he was to other people . . .’ Father Michael’s face clouded. ‘I’d forgotten all about it until Christian turned up talking about the same things.’

  Cass’s stomach roiled. On the other side of the graveyard Christian had appeared, his back to them. Cass could see the crumpled blue shirt tails hanging down. He bowed his head in front of their parents’ graves.

  Cass tried to blink him away. It didn’t work.

  ‘I was there when your parents met,’ Father Michael said. ‘Alan and I were in South Africa - there was plenty of work for both of us there.’ He shook his head. ‘Some things don’t change. Anyway, we were at a party, and your mother, Evie, was there with her boss, a man called Castor Bright. She was his personal assistant.’

  The ghost was forgotten as the words cut through: his mother had worked for Castor Bright?

  Beside him, the priest hadn’t noticed Cass’s start at the words. He was lost in the memories of the past. ‘Mr Bright was quite a man. Very charismatic. He didn’t have much time for me. I always felt as if he was laughing at me and my beliefs in some way. Or perhaps that was just my own inexperience, my youth. He was a powerful man and looking back I doubt he even noticed me much. Evie was fond of him though.’ His brow furrowed. ‘He was an elusive man. Even now I don’t really know what to make of him. He owned a mining company there, as well as several other businesses - and it turned out he had a share in the newspaper your dad worked for. Coincidences, eh?’ The priest chuckled.

  Cass smiled with him, but the expression was tight. Coincidences? He wasn’t so sure.

  ‘David and Evie clicked straight away. In fact, they more than clicked; I’d say it was love at first sight. I think she bought into his funny ideas too.’ He laughed again. ‘Perhaps they’d both spent too long in the sun!’

  ‘Funny ideas? About what?’

  Father Michael sighed. ‘Your father believed that he could see - well, a sort of halo on some people. It’s what made me think maybe he was on something. When he was drunk he’d bang on about how some people were different, that something came out of their eyes. He called it the Glow. Apparently Evie could see it too. He said no one had it as strong as him and Evie - apart from Castor Bright.’ For the first time the priest looked searchingly at Cass. He said nothing. He was here to get information, not give it, and he doubted Father Michael needed anyone else spouting strange shit at him. The boys see the Glow! Yay! Despite his racing heart, he kept his face neutral.

  ‘Anyway, they got married, a lavish do that Mr Bright paid for - your dad was spending a lot of time with him by then - and I left soon after that. My own mother was dying and I’d decided it was time to settle down. After all the atrocities I’d seen, all that pain and suffering and sorrow, my soul was weary. I felt I’d challenged my faith enough and it was time I tried a nice quiet parish back at home, somewhere with smaller problems, where I might actually be able to help.’ He spread his fingers. ‘And here I’ve stayed.’

  ‘And my parents?’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything from them for a while, until they turned up here just after you were born. Your dad had changed. He was quieter. And he’d found religion.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘No, but I think it was something to do with this Bright fellow. When I left I had the sense that he was grooming your dad for something. He’d been trying to get him to work for him in a kind of public relations role. I don’t know what happened. Your dad wouldn’t talk about it, but he said he wanted to live in the shadow of a good church. And I think he trusted my faith.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I was flattered, but I’d rather have had my friend back without the haunted look. We stayed up drinking for several long nights when he first arrived here, but we didn’t laugh like we had before. Instead, he asked me a lot of questions about fate and destiny. I couldn’t answer most of them.’ He stopped and looked down at his steepled fingers.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Cass didn’t remember anything particularly disturbed about his dad, so something must have straightened out his thinking.

  ‘After a couple of months, his mood lifted. One day I found him in the church, praying. He looked peaceful. He said he and Evie had talked about it and that even if the world wasn’t what we all thought it was, he knew there was a God. His exact words: he knew it for a fact. And he intended to use his own free will.’ Father Michael peered into the distance, right through Christian’s gho
st. ‘He didn’t talk about it again, but he came to church a lot.’ He smiled. ‘And there were the names he chose for you and your brother. Cassius and Christian.’

  Cass looked confused.

  ‘Cassius was the surname of one of the oldest families in Rome. They were ambitious, vain and ruthless. Gaius Cassius plotted to assassinate Julius Caesar. Your dad loved history, particularly the history of Rome. We explored no end of ruins in the Middle East, and he drank up the stories, so when he turned up with a son called Cassius, I wasn’t surprised.’

  Cass was genuinely surprised - he had always hated his name, that’s why he’d shortened it. Most people didn’t even know it was short for something. ‘He always told me I was named after Cassius Clay,’ he said, shaken.

  ‘That was a white lie, I fear. By the time you were growing up, he probably wished it was true. His love of the cruelty of imperialism had gone by then. Hence Christian’s name.’

  ‘And what did Christian talk to you about?’ In the distance, his brother wandered through the long grass and disappeared through the trees. He didn’t look back.

  ‘He was talking about the Glow, the one your father said he and Evie could see.’ He looked at Cass. ‘He was agitated and curious, but I didn’t think he was depressed. If I’d known—’

  ‘I didn’t see it coming either,’ Cass broke in. ‘You’re not in any way to blame. At least you spoke to him. He’d been trying to reach me, but I was too busy.’ It was the closest he’d come to admitting his own guilt, and Father Michael nodded.

  ‘No one ever really knows the secrets of another man’s soul.’ He leaned back on the bench. ‘I wasn’t concerned when he started asking questions about your parents. It’s natural to want to know all about those we’ve lost. But when he started to talk about this Glow thing, I was surprised. He said that he could see it too, had seen it ever since he was a child.’ He looked at Cass. ‘He said you could see it too, but you closed it off. You refused to see it, that was how he put it.’