‘I converted the main bedroom into a bedsit when things started getting tight.’ Neil Newton, the live-in landlord and shop owner, was an over-cologned effete who was clinging to his younger days by wearing a styled shirt that was too tight across his growing pot belly. It wasn’t working. He was clearly in his mid-forties – long past dead in gay years.
‘We shared the bathroom.’ His hands trembled, his cheap gold chain bracelets clinking, as he gestured around the dirty flat. ‘He had his own cooking facilities in there, but I never minded if he wanted to use the bigger kitchen.’ Newton swallowed. ‘We’d become friends.’
Cass left him in the hallway and peered through the door to the other room. Joe Lidster, twenty-two, Media and Communications Studies student at South Bank University – the second of South Bank’s kids to die – was lying on the double bed, on top of the neat spread that matched the two cushions behind his head. His pale arms were stretched out sideways, displaying the deep cuts in his wrists. Blood had darkened a circle of the bed under him, and had created two pools on the thin carpet either side, where his fingers hung over the edge. They were no longer dripping. There were also no shiny black shoes for the drips to land on. Cass was glad about that.
The rest of the room, although cheaply furnished, was meticulously clean and neat. There was a small fridge and a hob along one wall, and a wardrobe and chest of drawers with a TV on top. It was dust-and mess-free. Cass thought that if this boy had shared the bathroom with Newton, then that would probably be spotless too – and it would have been all the student’s doing.
Beside the bed a piece of paper was tacked to the wall. The words written on it in thick black marker were clear even from the doorway. Chaos in the darkness. It hung slightly to one side. If Lidster had been alive, he would no doubt have wanted to straighten it.
Cass looked again at the room and couldn’t help but remember standing in a similar bedsit not so many months ago. There were no dead flies here, and no rotting puppy, just poor dead Joe Lidster, bled out and cold in a shit-hole in Soho.
‘With all due respect,’ he started as he turned back to Newton, ‘how did he come to be living here when he could have got something cheaper and better down by the South Bank?’
The applied grease in Newton’s hair merged with small beads of sweat on his forehead. Cass wasn’t sure if it was due to the heat or the situation, or if it was just Newton’s normal appearance. The latter wouldn’t have surprised him; the man wore enough cologne to hint at attempts to cover a sweat problem; he sure wouldn’t want to be standing too close to him by the end of the day.
‘He was at first. But you know what these students are like. He had a bad break-up, got himself into a financial pickle. Then he got a part-time job here, and I offered him the room.’ His eyes darted past Cass to the body. ‘He was a nice boy. It worked well.’
Cass was sure Newton had loved having the young man around.
‘I think he liked being in the middle of Soho,’ Newton continued. ‘It’s where all the media types are, after all. He’d just got a job as a runner for one company actually. Well, I say job – they didn’t actually pay him anything. But still, he seemed happier.’ He sniffed. ‘I don’t know what could have made him do this. I really don’t. Perhaps if I’d been in last night instead of at my sister’s, this wouldn’t have happened. I feel awful.’
‘Thanks for your help, Mr Newton.’ Cass blocked the bedroom doorway. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind waiting down in the shop while we do what we have to do here?’
‘Of course.’ His mildly disgruntled facial expression disagreed with his words, but he did as he was told.
Armstrong emerged from the bedroom, holding a clear plastic evidence bag. ‘We’ve got a mobile phone. It was by the bed. Do you want me to go through it?’
‘Yes – and send someone to get any mobiles the families might have for the other suicides. Cross-reference the numbers and see if we can find a link that way.’
‘No problem.’ Armstrong was talking into his own phone within seconds, quietly instructing someone back in the Incident Room to get to work. Efficient as well as ruthless. And always so calm. Cass’s jury was still out.
In the bedroom, Dr Marsden, the new ME, moved round the room, silently photographing the dead man. He was a quiet man; precise. He lacked Farmer’s ambition, but given what had just gone down at Paddington Green, that was probably no bad thing.
‘I’m nearly done. Not much of a crime scene.’
‘How are things?’ Cass asked. He didn’t need to elaborate. He meant the fall-out from the bombings.
‘Finally slowing down, thankfully.’ Dr Marsden sighed, and lowered his camera. ‘Now we’re onto all the report-writing next.’ He looked back at Lidster. ‘I’d say he bled to death. It’s consistent with his wounds. But then, you probably don’t need me to tell you that, not with all this mess.’ His voice was devoid of emotion as he surveyed the clotted blood pools. Dr Marsden probably hadn’t been an overly reactive man before the bombings, but after what he must have seen over the past couple of weeks, it would take more than a pair of slit wrists to raise an eyebrow.
‘He’s going to have to buy a new mattress before he gets any more pretty young men to rent a room from him,’ Cass said.
‘He doesn’t look like the sort who buys a new anything,’ Dr Marsden answered. ‘Even his aftershave is twenty years out of fashion.’
Cass laughed. Maybe Dr Marsden wasn’t without humour after all.
‘I’ll finish up here and get the body into the curious hands of my protégé,’ the ME said.
‘He’s good, Eagleton, isn’t he?’
‘Oh yes, he’s good. One day he’ll be excellent. We’re lucky we didn’t lose him.’
Cass decided Dr Marsden was the master of the under-statement.
Armstrong, still on the phone to the Incident Room, turned suddenly, his eyes seeking out Cass’s.
‘What is it?’
Armstrong flipped the phone shut. ‘We’ve got another one, sir. Sloane Square.’
The two men stared at each other for a moment, until Cass spoke.
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ It was all he could think of to say.
Chapter Eleven
Eagleton was in full flow by the time Cass got through the turgid mess that had constituted London’s all-day-long rush-hour since the bombings. The morgue might be somewhat closer than Soho to Sloane Square, but Cass still wasn’t sure how the young man did it. Maybe Josh Eagleton had taken to getting around on a moped. Cass wouldn’t put it past him. He knew from experience that even the full blues and twos couldn’t shift gridlock these days.
‘At least you’re keeping me busy until the exhumations arrive,’ Josh said as he led Cass inside. ‘And if it wasn’t for the dead body, there would be worse places to spend the afternoon than this pad.’
Cass had to agree. It was a far cry from the dump where he’d left the earthly remains of Joe Lidster. With a smartly suited doorman and 24-hour concierge downstairs, this apartment lived up to its Sloane Square address. The high-ceilinged rooms were beautifully decorated, and there were three large double bedrooms, each with its own en-suite bathroom. One was unused, politely dressed as a spare, with the bed covered in cushions and a small basket of hotel-style toiletries by the wash basin. The kitchen had solid granite work surfaces covered in brushed-steel appliances, and in the lounge the Bang & Olufsen TV and sound system sat comfortably in pride of place. A thick cream rug lay in front of the inlaid gas fire – the arty kind with smooth, pale stones rather than faux logs. All this opulence didn’t make the girl any less dead than Joe Lidster, though. In this they were very much united.
She was lying on the rug in just her underwear, in front of the fire which was, mercifully, turned off. Her slim, toned body was framed in blood. It looked like an expensive body, scrubbed and moisturised and exfoliated, and exercised on ski slopes. Her wrists were neatly slit, the small, sharp kitchen knife which had proved itself more than ad
equate for the job, lying untidily beside her.
The halo of blood that had soaked through the rug, travelling upwards as far as the fan of her hair, made it hard to see where her long tresses ended and the blood began. She looked like a fallen Rapunzel, thought Cass. She was – or had been – a real beauty. Even where her skin had turned blue and mottled, the olive warmth of its original hue clung on, and her brown eyes stared forever into the distance with a haunting quality Cass rarely found in the soulless eyes of the dead.
In the hallway, a similarly lithe and toned young woman sat on a chair by the lifts. Her knees were pulled up under her chin and her narrow shoulders shook as she cried. Under her blonde hair, her face was brown, not olive, like the dead girl’s, but sun-kissed. There was something less special about this girl. Cass couldn’t help the thought, as much as he didn’t like it. There was no glow. He pushed that one away too.
The girl didn’t wait for him to speak before she started, ‘I stayed at Justin’s last night.’ Her voice hinted at expensive holidays, trust funds and a house in the south of France. The emotion was all human though. ‘Hayley’s been so weird lately – I thought maybe she’d been taking acid or something and I definitely didn’t want any part of that.’ Her perfect eyes filled with tears. ‘I didn’t realise she would do anything like this. God, I feel like such a bitch. She was my friend. She was good to me—’
‘When you say she was acting strangely, how do you mean?’
‘We’ve always lived our own lives. She does her thing and I do mine, but we normally find time to make dinner together or something and catch up. But the past few days she hasn’t been herself. She wasn’t sleeping or eating. She’d just sit on that rug and stare into the fire. That’s why I thought it was acid, you know? She was acting all tripped out. Whenever I asked her what was wrong, she just said, “I saw. I saw it all. And I remembered.” It didn’t even sound like her.’
‘Was that all she said?’ Cass asked. ‘Did she ever use the phrase “Chaos in the darkness”?’
‘No.’ The blonde girl shook her head. ‘If she’d said that, I’d have stayed last night – and called someone. We’ve all heard what’s happened to those students.’ Fresh tears spilled over her cheeks. ‘I didn’t think. I just didn’t think.’
‘Can you stay at your boyfriend’s again?’
She nodded. ‘He’s downstairs waiting for me.’
‘Good.’ He paused. ‘This isn’t your fault, you know.’ She nodded again, but there was no conviction in the gesture. Cass left a constable to take her details and went back inside. Armstrong met him in the doorway to the lounge.
‘Her name’s Hayley Porter. She’s a second-year student of journalism at City University. Her parents are currently at their holiday home in Portugal. They own this flat, and the main family home in Highgate as well.’ He smiled. ‘Lucky for some.’
‘Apart from the dead daughter,’ Cass added.
Armstrong’s grin dropped.
‘I’ll call the parents,’ he said.
‘But they do seem to be surviving the recession well,’ Cass said. ‘What does the father do? Do you know?’
‘Yeah, he’s on the boards of several conglomerates worldwide. Media stuff mainly. Guess that’s why she was on this course.’
‘A family of high-flyers then?’
‘It gets better. You’ll never guess who her big sister is.’
‘If I’ll never guess, then you’d better just tell me.’ Cass didn’t have time for games. There were enough of those being played out in his private life.
‘Abigail Porter. The Prime Minister’s personal protection officer.’
There was a moment’s pause before Cass spoke. ‘Then let’s go and pay her a visit. See how close she and her sister were.’ He looked around the plush apartment. ‘I think this case just took a large step up the high-profile ladder.’
There was nothing in that thought that pleased him. He’d done enough high-profile for one career.
Abigail was tired and her head hurt. It had been thumping ever since her encounter with the fat man on the Underground platform; a dull, sick kind of petrol headache that just wouldn’t shift. Fletcher wasn’t helping. They might be calling it a ‘debriefing’ but it sure as hell felt to her like an interrogation. The head of the ATD had barely let her out of his sight as the tedious interviewing of bystanders had taken place and the remains of the fat man had been carefully scraped from the tracks. Now they were just going round and round in circles, because Fletcher was intent on making sense out of something that couldn’t make sense.
‘Okay, let’s go through this again.’ Fletcher sat on the edge of the desk and his shoulders slumped forward slightly. Maybe he was finally getting tired too. ‘All the people on the platform say the man had been standing there for at least six or seven minutes before you came down the stairs – at least as long as they’d been waiting for the next train, anyway. We’ve got twelve separate interviewees who are adamant about that. It wasn’t as if he was built to blend into the crowd well.’
‘What can I say?’ Abigail sighed. ‘They must be wrong.’ How long have you been emptying, Abigail? Her head throbbed louder and she fought a sudden bout of nausea. This was not a time to show weakness. ‘Why would I have run down there if I hadn’t seen anything?’
Fletcher couldn’t deny her logic. ‘I’m not saying you didn’t see anything. We saw on the footage from the bombings that this man must have doppelgängers. I’m just wondering where they went.’
Abigail said nothing. There was something good about seeing Fletcher losing his cool. It made him almost more attractive. Not that seducing the head of the ATD was still on her list, if it ever consciously had been, but she couldn’t help but wonder if she could break him. For the first time she thought that maybe she could.
‘It’s also strange that none of the Special Branch officers out on the streets saw him or his doubles either.’ There was mild accusation in his tone, coupled with doubt. He was a man who knew something was very wrong, but couldn’t put his finger on what it was, other than she was something to do with it.
Abigail kept her gaze level. ‘I told you. He was standing at the back of the crowd in the inner cordon. He opened his jacket and I saw the explosives strapped to his chest.’
‘Plasticine,’ Fletcher said. ‘It was fucking Plasticine.’
‘Yeah, well, if you can tell that from a hundred yards away, then you have better than my twenty-twenty vision. And it was strapped to him to look like explosives. He lifted what I thought was a detonator, and that’s when I raised the alarm. I chased after him, but I lost him in the crowd. Then I saw him at the barriers, and again at the tube entrance. It was just luck that I picked the right platform after following him underground.’ She didn’t mention his black eyes, or his bleeding gums. Those, somehow, felt private.
‘How could you lose a man like that in a crowd?’
‘How could no one else spot him?’ Abigail stood up, her hands on her hips. ‘You’re talking to me as if I’ve done something wrong. I chased the guy down. I found him. What’s your problem?’
‘What did he say to you on the platform?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That’s not what the men that followed you down to the platform say. They reported that he spoke to you before jumping under the train.’
‘The same men who couldn’t spot a fat man identical to the bombing suspect in the crowds?’
‘Enough.’
Abigail had almost forgotten there was anyone else in the room with them until the Home Secretary spoke. He had faded as the game between her and Fletcher had grown more tense.
‘We’re all on the same side here, if you care to remember,’ he continued. ‘Our good lady leader would not want to see us bickering like this.’
Abigail thought that if McDonnell heard herself referred to like that, bickering would be the least of the Cabinet minister’s worries.
‘How long she’s our leader for, however, i
s another matter.’ Dawson rubbed his face. ‘She’s in another emergency meeting about how best to fight the growing call for an election or change of leader. And it says something about how that’s probably going that I’d rather be here listening to this over and over again than in there. Let’s stick to the point. When I get back to her she’s going to be in a foul enough mood without me having nothing to deliver.’
Abigail stared at Fletcher. They might both have fallen silent, but the lack of trust was clear. Pain stabbed through the back of her neck and for a moment her vision was only black and white. What the fuck was the matter with her? Colour flooded back into the room.
‘Is this dead man the suspect from the bombings – or at least one of them?’ Dawson asked.
‘Yes.’ Fletcher turned away from Abigail. ‘And he’s probably the same man Abigail saw the night after the bombs on her way home.’
‘I told you, I—’
‘Leave that for now,’ Dawson interrupted. ‘What facts do we have?’
‘Although he wasn’t carrying any actual explosive, he’d rigged himself up to look like he was. The Plasticine that was taped to his chest is now all over the tube line. We’ve got the pen he was holding. It’s an ordinary ballpoint, and the only fingerprints on it are Abigail’s, even though he wasn’t wearing gloves.’ Fletcher held up his hand to stop Dawson’s question. ‘Don’t ask me how because I don’t fucking know. He also waited for one of us to arrive before jumping under the train. He clearly wanted to be seen.’
‘It was perfectly timed too,’ he added. ‘He got Abigail to the platform just a minute or so before the train arrived. They’re not exactly running frequently these days.’
The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two Page 10