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

by Sarah Pinborough

  As he scribbled, lost in the Redemption file and the conversation with Father Michael, he completely forgot about the two account numbers he’d stored in his phone the previous day and the missed phone call of earlier. The small message icon pulsed quietly in the corner of the screen, unnoticed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘You should be quite comfortable here.’ The rector smiled. ‘As long as you can live without television during your stay.’

  Cass laughed. ‘I wish I had time for telly.’ He left his suitcase in the small bedroom and followed the older man out. He’d half-expected the roof to cave in when the Reverend Terence Abercrombie had shown him the small chapel. Father Michael hadn’t lost his sense of humour, sorting him out with a room in a seminary. Still, he was grateful; the large complex was right in the middle of Westminster, and aside from a small donation, the rector had refused any other payment. God only knew what the premises were worth now - the buildings had housed priests for well over a hundred years, surviving all the twentieth century could throw at them.

  ‘Feel free to stay for as long as you like. You’re more than welcome.’ Revd Abercrombie had the kind of thin face that should have looked mean, but somehow didn’t. He smiled too much, and there was too much kindness in his eyes. It didn’t make Cass feel particularly relaxed.

  ‘Thanks, but I should be sorted in a couple of days. And I’ll be out most of the time.’ He shrugged. ‘Police work isn’t exactly nine to five.’

  ‘I understand. Our good Lord keeps strange working hours himself.’

  The sun was setting, but the sky was clear, and only just turning a deep midnight blue. As the two men stepped outside at the back of the main building a security light came on, shining brightly over the slightly overgrown garden, where plants fought for space in overcrowded borders framing a lawn. Cass was glad to be outside. He wasn’t up on all the commandments, but he knew some of the big ones: thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not covet and thou shall not kill. If there was ever a man who shouldn’t be seeking shelter in the House of the Lord, Cass knew it was him.

  A tabby cat yowled as it crept out from the undergrowth, heading straight for the rector and wrapping itself around his legs. Its fur was scruffy, and it was thin.

  ‘Seminary cat?’ Cass asked.

  ‘No, she’s a stray. There are too many people with allergies, so the trustees don’t allow pets.’ He leaned down and stroked the creature until she started purring. ‘Every day I say that I’ll call one of the animal rescue people to come and get her, but every day I find myself putting out a bowl of food instead.’

  He smiled up at Cass. ‘I’m sure the Holy Father won’t mind a few pennies going to help this little homeless one. We’re all his creatures. And all life is sacred.’

  The rector’s innocent words sent a chill through Cass. There was at least one man in the city busy proving the priest wrong. Cass bent over to pet the small animal, but it hissed, ducking away from his hand and retreating to the bushes. Its eyes glinted amber from among the leaves.

  ‘Sorry about that. She’s been out on the streets too long, I think.’ The rector sighed. ‘In hard times people can be cruel to strays. Still, she’s getting friendlier.’

  ‘And she knows better than to bite the hand that feeds.’ Cass stared at the bush where the cat was hiding. A stray. Something about that bugged him, but his brain was too tired to figure it out. Somewhere inside a bell rang out.

  ‘That’s the bell for evening prayers. If you want to unpack, dinner will be in half an hour in the refectory. I’ll collect you, shall I?’

  With one eye still on the hidden animal, Cass followed the rector back inside. A thought niggled abstractly at the corner of his mind, refusing to come to the fore. He looked back as the doors shut. Nope. He couldn’t see it yet.

  It finally came to him at 6 o’clock the following morning, as the seminary stirred into life around him. A ringing bell shook his brain alert and he sat up in the narrow single bed that took up most of the space in the small room. The stray cat and his craving for a cigarette filled his head in equal measure and he reached for his trousers and a T-shirt. Outside for a smoke, and then the shower.

  He padded past the fresh-faced young men who smiled as they headed towards the chapel. He felt surprisingly alert himself, and realised that he’d had ten hours of solid sleep for the first time in a very long while. The garden shimmered with dew, but the sun was already brightening the sky. It was going to be another glorious day. As the nicotine rushed into his grateful system, Cass peered around. There was no sign of the cat. The niggling thought he hadn’t been able to grasp the previous night had suddenly exploded in his head. If it turned out to lead somewhere, then he’d buy that mangy moggy a month’s worth of Felix.

  By the time he’d hunted down some coffee in the refectory and showered it was half-past seven, and students and teachers alike were hurrying to finish their breakfasts and start the daily lessons. Cass left them to it and went back outside to ring Claire.

  ‘Animal sanctuaries,’ he said the moment she answered.

  ‘What?’ In the background he could hear traffic. They were obviously on their way in to work. He was surprised they weren’t already there.

  ‘Ask Mat if they checked all the animal sanctuaries and rescue shelters to see if they’d had any pentabarbitone stolen. I can’t remember anything saying they did in the files.’

  ‘Animal shelters?’

  A flurry of wings sent three small birds skywards as the cat appeared on the far wall. It stared at Cass, watching him curiously.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said.’ He frowned. She sounded distracted. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Not really. We just had a phone call from Dr Farmer. Josh Eagleton was in an accident last night.’

  Cass froze. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t really know. He got run over. Not far from his house.’ Her breath hitched. ‘They left him for dead. The driver didn’t even call for an ambulance.’

  ‘Is he okay?’ The tips of his fingers tingled against the phone. Eagleton was just a kid.

  ‘No, he’s in a bad way. He’s in St Thomas’s, and he’s in a coma. It’s touch and go, Dr Farmer says.’

  ‘Jesus.’ His good mood vanished into the sunshine that continued to shine brightly, oblivious to a young man fighting for his life. Maybe individual lives weren’t so sacred after all.

  ‘Did you speak to him yesterday?’ Claire asked.

  ‘No.’ Cass paused. ‘I didn’t get round to it. I’ll see you at work in half an hour or so.’

  The call ended, he stared at the small message icon that had waited patiently for him to notice it since the previous afternoon. He drew a deep breath and dialled the answer phone.

  ‘Detective Inspector Jones?’ Cass recognised Josh Eagleton’s voice straight away. ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’

  He sounded nervous. Quiet. What was Josh afraid of? Being overheard? Cass listened intently, not only to the words, but the nuances between them.

  ‘I just . . . I just really need to speak to you. It’s about your brother’s wife.’

  The tiny hairs all over Cass’s skin rose as one.

  ‘I mean, there’s probably a good reason, but something’s not making sense. Not to me anyway.’ The words were coming out in a rush, but they landed like tiny ice-cold drops in Cass’s head.

  ‘Can you meet me at the Farmer’s Arms in Chiswick at about nine?’ There was a breathy pause. ‘I was here first, you see, when they brought the bodies in. And I . . . Well, I’ll explain later.’

  The call clicked off.

  Shit.

  By eleven it felt to Cass like he’d never been away from the office at all. He’d had an awkward conversation with Morgan, who’d made it clear that he still thought Cass should be off the case, at least until this ‘evidence issue’, as he referred to it, was cleared up. But the Commissioner had thought otherwise. The DCI had made it clear he wasn’t happy about that, but as it w
as Cass the killer had called, he had to agree it was better having him and his phone at work. Cass had sat quietly and let his boss go through the usual list of demands: don’t rock the boat. Do as you’re told. No smoking on the premises. Help Bowman where you can; he’s back to being the officer in command unless he goes off sick again.

  Cass had nodded, but he was only half-listening. The station had always felt like the closest thing to a real home he’d had, but now that feeling had shifted. It was like a bubble, and he was now somehow on the outside of it. He could feel people watching him as he strode through the corridors, and he knew what most of them were thinking: no smoke without fire. But for every suspicious glance that came his way, he was sending one back. Someone had tried to set him up, and it was most likely they were in this building.

  As he’d been leaving Morgan’s office the DCI had called him back. His voice sounded lighter, as if what he was about to say was almost inconsequential. ‘Oh, and this Bright business? I’ve told your sergeant to leave it alone. It’s clear from all the evidence that he’s not your killer. We need our limited manpower to chase more pertinent leads.’ Morgan had peered over the paperwork he was hiding behind. ‘Okay and understood?’

  Cass had nodded, his face calm. That old Columbo ‘one more thing’ routine wasn’t fooling him. Claire had already reported her conversation with Morgan, and the DCI was, all unwitting, giving him some answers. Mr Bright was an important person, that much Cass knew, and if he was controlling one of the X accounts, then he would have more power and influence than Morgan could even begin to imagine. Someone on high had told the DCI to stop that thread of the investigation, that was written clearly across Morgan’s pinched face. And he was willing to bet they hadn’t given him any reasons.

  Cass had also seen the email the police liaison woman at The Bank had sent, and he’d smiled at its clever answer. There is no one of that name in our employment database. Cass was certain there wasn’t: he didn’t yet know quite what Mr Bright was in relation to The Bank, but he certainly wasn’t any ordinary employee. As it was, with everything he’d discovered or worked out over the weekend, he was happy for that line of investigation to stop. At least within the office, and for the time being. Mr Bright and his family were interwoven in some way and so that would be a private investigation.

  After leaving Morgan’s office, he’d sorted through the piles of paper that had mounted on his desk, and caught up on the autopsy reports on Hannah West. He stared at the close-up picture of the tiny fly eggs, lined up so perfectly along the edges of the words written in blood. He needed to find this man. He’d put everything else aside - the photos, the Redemption file, his brother’s death, even the Jackson and Miller case - he needed to find this man. He remembered the way the killer had laughed on the phone when Cass had asked if he was Bright. The two men knew each other, and that sent a chill through his bones. If Mr Bright could pull strings to get a major police investigation off his back, then could this man do the same? It would take more than Morgan forbidding him to stop Cass from doing his best to catch him.

  Apart from taking a long look at the photos inside, he’d ignored the Jackson and Miller file. He was itching to hear back from Perry Jordan, but that call wouldn’t come in today; even Jordan wasn’t that fast. So Macintyre had allegedly made some confession yesterday, but he wasn’t buying it. He could believe that Bowman had paid the gangster to give him some names to bring a nice tight closure to the case, not to mention a big fat bonus and probably a promotion for Bowman himself.

  He bit back his annoyance at the other man. He’d wait and see what Perry came back with before making any noise. From behind his desk he could feel the invisible barrier between him and his colleagues growing thicker. He was keeping too much to himself, he knew that, but who could he trust? For now, this was just the way it was going to have to be.

  The days of interview tape recorders were long gone; now, when the record button was pressed, the interview was saved directly into the computer mainframe. Backups were on disc, of course, and the files were stored and available for anyone with the correct clearance to access as and when required, from the comfort of their own desktop. Cass was about to listen to the Macintyre interview when Claire came to collect him for the briefing. He followed his sergeant past the hive of activity in the Incident Room to the smaller conference room at the other end. Blackmore and Bowman were there already, as was Charles Ramsey.

  Cass raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t know you were on this case.’

  ‘I’m not.’ The American smiled. ‘But right now, you’re all I’ve got for my case. So I’m sticking with you. I figure if I follow you around long enough, we might find some time to talk.’ He paused. ‘And did you find that laptop?’

  Cass grinned. ‘Funnily enough, I did. I’ll get it back to them today.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ramsey smiled back, ‘I’ll make sure you do.’

  Cass liked the man. And what he liked best about him was that he wasn’t from Paddington Green nick. He was outside the bubble too.

  The moments before Hask arrived were filled with awkward chat. Bowman pulled out a chair, draped his jacket over the back and slumped in it. He was dressed as smoothly as ever, but he looked pale, and patches of sweat were slowly spreading out from the armpits of his expensive shirt. The air in the room was cool and Cass figured he had to be running a temperature.

  ‘I heard about young Josh Eagleton,’ Ramsey said. ‘From what I hear he’s got the makings of a good ME himself. Bright kid.’

  Cass had forgotten that Farmer and his team did Chelsea’s bodies too. ‘Let’s hope he pulls through.’

  Blackmore looked up. ‘By the way, I asked Farmer what Josh had wanted to speak to you about yesterday, but he didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ Cass shrugged, keeping his shoulders loose. ‘He didn’t leave a message. Can’t have been important.’

  The door opened and Hask’s huge frame squeezed into the empty space. ‘Sorry. Just had to print something out.’ He sent a beaming grin in all directions. ‘Have I missed anything?’

  ‘No, we waited for you,’ Bowman said. He gave the large man time to wedge himself into the second seat before nodding at Blackmore. ‘Let’s get everyone up to speed on what we’ve got.’

  ‘Okay, the first thing we chased yesterday was Claire’s possible Covent Garden link between the victims. Hannah West’s husband says she often stopped there on the way to her hospital shifts, but he didn’t know whether it was to browse the shops or have a coffee or what.’

  Cass was pleased that Claire had been able to run with his suggestion. She glanced up at him and he winked. She obviously felt bad about taking credit, but he didn’t mind. She could hardly have told Bowman it had come from him. That would have gone down a storm.

  ‘We’ve had people out reinterviewing and it looks like there might be something in it. Emma Loines had temped at a solicitors’ office in Garrick Street. Carla Rae’s sister works as a waitress in Ponti’s, in the Jubilee Market, Amanda Carlisle had a disabled aunt she visited there, and Jade Palmer occasionally worked at a jewellery stall.’

  ‘So that has to be it.’ Bowman looked up. ‘It’s the only thing that we’ve found that connects these women. Somewhere in Covent Garden he’s selecting his victims.’

  ‘But where from?’ Cass frowned.

  ‘I doubt they’re random,’ Hask added. ‘He’ll be taking them from somewhere precise.’

  ‘We’ve borrowed some local constables to take photos out and see if people can remember seeing the women and where. They’ll be out for the next couple of days on the street.’ Bowman shrugged. ‘It’s the best we can do, and it’s better than nothing.’

  Cass couldn’t argue, but he didn’t hold out much hope for someone remembering all five of them, especially as they’d gone missing at different times.

  ‘We’re trying to track that pay-as-you-go number, and we’re also calling all the animal sanctuaries in the Greater Lo
ndon region to see if any of them have had any drug thefts.’ Blackmore gave Cass a quick nod of acknowledgement. ‘We missed those first time round. The team have been on the phones all morning so hopefully we’ll get something.’

  ‘That leaves this phone call Cass was blessed with,’ Bowman said.

  Was that a slight tinge of jealousy in Bowman’s voice. Psycho-envy? Cass thought he’d heard it all now.

  ‘Yes, this is interesting.’ Hask smiled. ‘He must see you as his adversary. I’ve got the notes of your conversation here.’ He was enjoying himself, and Cass didn’t blame him. There was a real buzz in tracking a killer, no one who worked on a murder could deny that. ‘Something prompted him to ring, and from what he says, it has to have been the press conference.’

  ‘Because we called him socially awkward and stupid?’ Bowman asked.

  ‘No.’ Hask shook his head and his jowls wobbled for a moment or two more. ‘I think it was because he expected to see Cass running it.’ His thick forefinger stabbed at the paper. ‘He said as much. But what really got my attention was this phrase: “I thought I had it all sorted out”.’ He looked at Bowman. ‘When did you start feeling ill, Detective Inspector? I’m guessing it was about the time this case started, maybe just before.’

  Bowman slowly nodded. ‘About a week or so before the first body. I just ignored it for a while. Why? What are you implying?’

  Cass stared at Hask. ‘Are you saying that this guy did something to get Bowman off the case before he’d even started?’ That hadn’t ever occurred to him. And what the killer clearly didn’t know was that there was no way the DCI would put Cass in front of the cameras. He’d had an occasional fuzzy photo in the papers, but even after ten years the last thing any of them needed was someone recognising him from the Birmingham fiasco.