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

by Sarah Pinborough

  As she said the names, the final pieces of the jigsaw slid neatly into place and he realised exactly what he’d been missing on that film. A glint of light that told a separate story. He needed to get back to the office.

  Claire swivelled Cass’s chair from side to side as she sat behind his desk and watched the film. Something about the opening was bugging her; as soon as the two boys came into view, she clicked the mouse to stop the film and start it again from the beginning. She’d been staring at the screen so long that her eyes were burning. Customers sitting at their tables. The waitress moves between them. A man’s hand rises as he sips his coffee. His cufflink flashes in the light. Macintyre gets out of the taxi. He stops by the café and lights a cigarette.

  Claire stopped it and rewound again, this time just a few frames. She felt a slight tingle as she zoomed in. The picture quality was pretty dreadful, but for this it was enough. Macintyre didn’t just stop to light his cigarette. He was also acknowledging someone . . . someone sitting inside the coffee shop. Focusing intently, she identified the briefest twist of a smile, and the flick of his wrist at someone on the other side of the glass. She ran it forward, frame by frame. There. Just in the corner of the shot, a white sleeve with a cufflink rose slightly in response.

  She leaned back in the chair, her mouth open slightly. The cufflink. Cold sweat made her palms sticky as she zoomed in as close as she could, until the little piece of jewellery filled the screen. She stared, shaking. The lab boys would be able to clean it up, but she already knew what she was looking at. Jesus.

  The building was quiet; most of the team had gone to the pub to celebrate closing not one but two major cases in one day. As far as they were all concerned, Paddington Green nick was the stuff of legend, as of today. She stared again at the screen. How were they going to take this? Would they expect her to sweep it under the carpet, shut her mouth and get on with her career? Probably. Cass needed to see this.

  He needed to know it. This was why he’d been set up: to stop him seeing this. She was about to reach for the phone when Mat peered into the office.

  ‘You okay? Coming for a drink?’ he asked. Other than a couple of constables clearing the boards in the Incident Room they were the last left.

  He was at the desk before she could get her act together quickly enough to switch screens. He frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She couldn’t quite keep the shake out of her voice. ‘Something’s been bugging me - then I realised we’d missed something on the film. We missed who Macintyre had gone there to meet.’

  Blackmore’s eyes widened. ‘What are you talking about? I thought this was all wrapped up?’

  ‘The shooting is, yes.’ She looked at Mat, pleased when he took her hand. She needed someone’s help, and even if she knew, deep down, that he would never be her true love, if she couldn’t trust the man she was sleeping with, then who else was there?

  ‘But I think I know who set Cass up.’

  ‘Who?’ Blackmore’s voice dropped. ‘You know who did it?’

  She nodded at the screen. ‘You must recognise those cufflinks.’

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he studied the screen. Eventually he asked quietly, ‘Is that really who I think it is?’

  Claire gripped his hand. ‘I know this must be awful for you, he’s your DI - but it can’t be anyone else. And if he was there innocently, then why didn’t he say? Can you remember where Bowman said he was when the shootings happened ?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I can’t.’ He ran his free hand over his spiked hair and swallowed. ‘Jesus, Claire. GB. He’s got those cufflinks.’ He looked back at the frozen screen, then at Claire. ‘Look, maybe it’s someone else. Maybe—’

  ‘Someone else? How likely is that?’

  Red blotches were covering his neck and face. ‘When did you figure all this out, Claire?’

  ‘Just now. Seconds ago,’ she said. ‘I need to tell Cass.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mat said, nodding, ‘we do.’ He picked up the phone and punched in a number. It rang out and he shook his head. ‘Straight to answer phone.’ His keys were in his hand. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you. Where is he?’

  ‘Ramsey called it in; he said Cass’d gone home once he’d secured the crime scene. He was a bit shaken.’ Adrenalin was pumping through her and her own legs trembled as she stood. Thank God Mat was with her on this, she thought. They jogged down the corridor to the far stairs. ‘Where’s Bowman?’ she panted. ‘Still at the church?’

  ‘No, he’s left that to the lab rats. I think he’s in the pub.’ The door closed behind them and he stopped suddenly.

  Claire looked at him and frowned. ‘What’s the matter? Let’s go.’ Her words echoed in the empty space.

  His hands squeezed the tops of her arms and he pulled her close. For a moment Claire thought he was going to kiss her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

  The handrail was pressing uncomfortably against the small of her back as she tilted, off balance, and confusion cut through her panic. What was Mat doing? This didn’t make sense—

  Until he shoved, hard, toppling her over the side of the steps, and she realised how utterly stupid she’d been. Her hands clutched at empty air as she tumbled, and she tried to catch her breath to scream. She wanted to click on rewind, she wanted to remind herself that there’d been two people in the interview room with Macintyre on Saturday. She wanted to kick herself for being so moronically thick for thinking even for one moment that Bowman could be involved without Blackmore, without his poisonous little sidekick . . . She wanted a lot of things.

  But as the ground rushed up far too fast to meet her, she squeezed her eyes shut. Most of all, she wanted not to die.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cass knew there was something wrong the minute he arrived at the station. The cab dropped him beside his own car and he walked inside. He needed to watch the film again, and then he’d grab the DCI or the Commissioner and make them see what he knew he’d see on it. He’d tried calling Claire, but got no reply. She was probably in the pub with Blackmore, celebrating. There was no reason for her to be listening out for any calls. The cases were closed . . .

  An ambulance was parked in front of the steps and Cass frowned as he made his way round it. Had someone been hurt in custody? That would just be fucking typical on top of what he had to tell the headshed - and on a day when they should be celebrating good, solid police investigation . . .

  The reception area was quiet. Everyone waiting with a grievance or a crime to report must have been hustled out. He vaguely recognised the desk sergeant, who looked up from the papers he was shuffling when Cass asked, ‘So what’s going on?’

  The sergeant gestured at the main doors. ‘In there.’ Whatever had happened must be bad; he obviously hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell Cass about it. Cass felt that familiar cold roiling mass in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t over yet.

  He pushed open the doors to see a small crowd of people gathered on his far left, where the doors to the side stairs were. One of the uniformed WPCs turned at the sound of the doors opening and saw him. She gasped quietly and went white.

  That sharp intake of breath. The flash of dark eyes; did they looked reddened? Bile rose in his throat as the whole group turned his way. He felt like he was wading through mud, moving inexorably forwards. A hush blanketed them and they silently parted to let him through to the fire doors, which had been propped open, and into the middle of the clicking cameras and huddled detectives. Dr Farmer was present, his wild grey rock-star hair immediately visible among the more expensively coiffured detectives. He was talking quietly, but when he saw Cass, he stopped. They all did.

  It was the shoe that Cass saw first. It was lying on its side under the stairs, forgotten. Not a black lace-up. No crimson stains. This one was blue, with a sensible one-inch heel. It was small and feminine and fragile. His face burned as he turned, peering through the gaps between the living to catch a glimpse of
that familiar body sprawled on the ground. This time there was no supernatural wind sucking the oxygen from his lungs. Instead it was his own body simply refusing to breathe as he stared at her.

  A large pool of blood formed an uneven halo at the back of Claire’s head. She didn’t turn to look at him, or smile, that twinkle of fond recognition in her eyes. She remained facing the other way, her head twisted on her bent neck. Her eyes were dull, glazed over, but her mouth was formed into a surprised ‘O’, despite the obvious force of the impact as she’d hit the ground.

  Cass almost collapsed onto the second step. Her hair was shiny, the red hints clashing with the thick blood that had burst from some awful wound that was out of sight. His hands shook and now, finally, he forced himself to breathe. Life to unlife. All in one shattering instant. He felt sick to his soul.

  ‘What happened?’

  It was only when he spoke that he realised how silent it was. Two paramedics slipped through the double doors. They would wait. They had no place here; there was nothing they could do now but carry her to her slab, a freezing bed in a morgue fridge where she would grow colder yet. They wanted no part in explanations or grief. Cass wondered how cold Claire’s fingers had to get before they’d start tugging at him. She was facing away from him, with one arm stretched out behind her. He looked at the pale skin and neatly trimmed nails. Maybe she was reaching for him already.

  ‘I said, what happened?’ He looked up, now taking in the faces around him. Mat Blackmore was there, leaning against the far wall. He looked small next to DCI Neil Morgan. Another DC - he should have known his name, but right now his mind had gone blank - looked away. He had his hands shoved deep in his pockets. It was the ME who finally broke the silence.

  ‘It was just an accident.’ Farmer coughed slightly. Cass had never heard him sound awkward before. ‘She and Mat were leaving to go to the pub. He went to the loo while she was turning off the computer. Someone had spilled some coffee.’ He stopped briefly, thrown by the look on Cass’s face, then went on, ‘She must have come through the doors and slipped on it and—’ He stumbled again, then finished, ‘She fell over the handrail.’

  ‘She slipped on coffee?’ Cass, incredulous, almost laughed. ‘But people don’t—’ He stopped himself. He’d been about to say: people don’t slip forwards. They trip forwards, they slip backwards. It was the basis for every fucking banana skin routine or slapstick comedy that had ever existed. He’d been about to say that, and then he’d stopped. The detective with his hands in his pockets had cast a quick sideways glance at Blackmore, who in turn had looked furtively at Mark Farmer. It all took the briefest of seconds. Farmer kept his eyes firmly on Cass.

  ‘People don’t die from slipping in coffee,’ he finished, allowing some melancholy to flood out in his words. ‘It’s stupid.’

  He felt it. The slightest ease in tension in the men around him. It made the awful truth clear. Claire hadn’t slipped. She’d been pushed. He knew it, and he was pretty damned sure that at least three people there in that stairwell knew it too. He rested his face in his hands and let his shoulders slump.

  ‘If it’s any consolation,’ Farmer’s voice was soft, ‘she died the instant she hit the ground.’

  Cass gritted his teeth. Anger and grief and death boiled inside him. Yeah, the instant after she’d been pushed - the instant after knowing what was coming. That was some fucking consolation for the death of a woman who was better than all of them put together.

  He lifted his head. ‘Thanks.’ He looked over at Blackmore. ‘Are you okay?’

  The young sergeant shrugged. ‘Not good. I just keep thinking, if I hadn’t gone ahead. If I’d waited for her . . .’ He looked sick. He also couldn’t look Cass in the eye.

  ‘Life’s not like that,’ Cass said. ‘This was an accident. You can’t fight accidents.’

  ‘Why don’t you get home, Cass?’ It was the first time his DCI had spoken. Cass watched him, looking for signs of something sinister, but there wasn’t anything he could pinpoint. Should he risk trying to talk to him? He stood up, shakily, and looked down at Claire’s broken body. He remembered the feel of her, her soft heat, as she’d moved under him and on top of him. He remembered the way she’d looked at him, as if he were the man he would have liked to have been. His fractured heart cracked some more, but he fused it with rage. He’d grieve later.

  He couldn’t risk talking to Morgan now. He didn’t know if he could trust him - anyway, this was something he had to finish by himself. He owed her that.

  ‘Yeah, maybe I will,’ he said. ‘I’m fucking tired.’

  ‘Take your time.’ The DCI sounded almost sympathetic.

  ‘You’ve had a bloody awful week.’ He paused. ‘And you’ve done some good policing too. Go home and grieve.’ The awkwardness in the compliment was genuine. It didn’t stop Cass feeling like he was treading through a nest of vipers as he moved between them.

  He said a silent goodbye to Claire’s broken body and turned his back on her for the last time. He felt her cold hand slide into his, and the sharp edges of those neatly trimmed fingernails dug into his palm. He should have picked her up and carried her out of there. He shouldn’t have allowed their dirty hands to touch her. But still he walked away. Claire was gone. The small crowd on the other side of the doors parted for him again, but he didn’t even look at them. Hush now, he silently whispered, lost in the memory of the clean scent of her hair. I will get you your vengeance. And it shall be terrible.

  He didn’t go back to the seminary. He drove instead to Muswell Hill. Kate wouldn’t be there. He was pretty sure about that. The single kitchen light was still on, but now that night had fallen the rest of the house was shrouded in darkness. He smoked a cigarette in the kitchen before pulling out Ramsey’s gun. He spent some time checking it over thoroughly, getting a feel for the action. It was fully loaded. He was a little sad at how familiar it felt to have a gun in his hand once more. Then he took the phone from the holder in the hallway and went and sat in the dark lounge. He put his mobile on one arm of the chair, the land line handset on the other.

  He lit another cigarette and smoked in the darkness. His eyes were as gritty as his heart. Bowman would either come here, or call. He didn’t have any other choice: he needed to know what - if anything - Cass knew. The smoke tasted acrid as he breathed it out and for a moment he wondered, if he looked hard enough, would he see the curious dead in it as it hung in the air? Claire. Christian. Jessica. Luke. Solomon. Even Carla Rae and the two dead boys. Were they all here watching him, wondering what he was going to do? He wondered how much they knew but couldn’t share.

  Shards of ice formed in his heart as he stared into the darkness. Surely he should feel more than just this cold rage that was filling him? What about anguish, guilt even? Or was he so immersed in that already that there was no room for more? He’d left Claire to make sure the murderous fathers watched the deaths of their sons. If he hadn’t done that, then her clever mind would never have spotted what the phone bill and the accounts had shown him.

  His mind went in circles. It was his fault she was dead, and hers too, for being so trusting. She must have told Mat Blackmore - her lover - what she’d discovered, and in his panic he did the only thing he could: he killed her. Desperate measures for desperate men. Maya had said there was a lot of money at stake here - easily enough to set him up. And enough to kill Claire for. Was she the only one they’d killed? Bloodstains in doorways. Jessica had got out of bed, come running to check on her baby. She’d been thrown backwards . . . Could Bowman have done that? It seemed too extreme, just to set him up, even for that corrupt bastard.

  Cass’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness and now he was seeing the world in blacks and greys. He didn’t look at his watch; he had a while to wait yet. How far did the rot go, he wondered. The news of Claire’s death would have cut short the celebrations in the pub. How many whispered conversations were now being had behind closed doors, or in pub car parks and toilets? What the fuck
had they all been up to - and why had they never invited him in?

  He thought of Bright and Solomon, and the Glow. How different was he to other people? Could they sense it? Had that been the problem with him and Kate? Was that what had drawn him to Jessica? A knife twisted in his gut. Kate and Bowman. He remembered himself with Jessica, and Claire, and so many others. Could he really blame her for going elsewhere? Logic said no, but the rage that was freezing him from the inside out said otherwise. And she’d picked Gary Bowman, of all men. That made him feel sick. Had they done it in their bed? Had it started during their brief separation and been going on since then?

  Rain tapped at the window outside and he thought the dead sighed in the small draught that crept from the sash windows. Cass could feel them so close to him, the new and the old, here in the shadows where nothing really existed. He wondered if they were trying to draw him to them. Perhaps they’d even succeed; maybe that’s how this night would end, in his own messy death. He had a gun, but did Bowman? He didn’t think he’d much care either way as long as he got to the truth before it was all done. He was finally alone. All those he had ever cared for were either dead or gone. It frightened him, how liberating that thought was. That freedom created too many terrible possibilities. There was no one left to care for, or worry about, or feel a sense of duty for. He could do whatever he wanted. The gun rested on his lap, its solidity a cold comfort.

  He waited.

  It was gone half-past eleven when the phone finally pealed out. It was the land line. He let it ring three times. When he answered, the dead skittered into nothing at the sound of his voice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me.’ Her voice was a thousand memories shattering. ‘Are you still up?’

  ‘Yes.’ His hand gripped the plastic too tightly. He wondered how she felt to Bowman when he fucked her: warm, wet, eager - forever out of reach? He knew he hadn’t really touched her since he’d become Charlie Sutton. They’d both been damaged beyond repair by the aftermath of that single gunshot. All they’d ever got right was the fucking. And that was how she chose to betray him.