The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two

by Sarah Pinborough

  The day was creeping away, and he’d be expected home soon. Cass thought he’d let him go in time. Elwood might be many things, but Cass was pretty sure he wasn’t a killer, not in this case, at least.

  He was about to stop the recording and let the man go back to his family when something occurred to him. ‘You said you unchained the door?’

  ‘Yes, on the way out.’

  ‘Are you sure of that?’

  ‘Yes – you’ve been in that flat, right? You saw how old and filthy everything is? Well, the chain was stuck and I had to yank at it a bit to open it. I remember it clearly.’

  Cass didn’t say any more until they’d seen the man out and were back in his office. Then he started, ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that Lidster put the chain on?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Armstrong said, ‘but maybe he just wanted to make sure they had privacy.’

  ‘His bedroom had a lock. He could have had privacy without putting the chain on the front door.’ Cass leaned against his desk. ‘Most people only put the chain on at the end of the evening, when they’re not expecting to go out again.’

  He thought for a moment, then looked at Armstrong. ‘Get on the phone to Marsden’s office and tell Eagleton I want Lidster’s blood testing again, for anything unusual or out of the ordinary.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’m sure.’ He reached for his jacket. ‘When you’ve done that, you can get off home. I’ve got a couple of visits to make and then I’ll be doing the same.’

  ‘More secrets?’ Armstrong asked.

  ‘Thought I’d go and see Jasmine Green’s boyfriend, and then call in on the Denters. See if either of them had a cash-in-hand job.’ He smiled. ‘No secrets.’

  ‘I’ll call the next of kin and the roommates of the others before I go home.’

  Cass was at his office door when he paused. ‘And get someone watching Neil Newton’s place. Nothing obvious. I just don’t want him doing a runner.’

  ‘But his alibi checks out.’

  ‘Maybe, but we’ve got the budget for some overtime and that door chain is really bugging me.’

  Cory Denter’s father answered on the third ring. His greeting was in a monotone, the voice a reflection of the man’s broken heart. Cory had had jobs, yes, but as far as his father was concerned, nothing cash in hand, nothing regular – he’d done some silver service waiting during the Christmas holidays, that kind of thing. He took his studies too seriously to have had a regular job. He was a good boy; he worked hard. He paused the call for a moment to check with his wife, but she knew no more than he did.

  The conversation was stilted. Cass didn’t have the answers to their pain; worse, he knew that even if he did get them answers to the questions surrounding their son’s death, they’d find that it couldn’t really take the pain away. It would just change, that was all. They didn’t know that yet, though. Their ignorance might not be bliss, but there was some mercy in it. At least for now they had a semblance of hope.

  ‘Cash in hand?’ The dread was back in Mr Denter’s voice. ‘Does that mean my son was involved in some bad business after all?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Cass said. ‘A lot of companies are trying to fiddle the taxman these days. Everyone’s struggling. It could be that he didn’t even know that whoever was paying him wasn’t putting it through the books.’

  It wasn’t likely – Cass had looked through Cory’s stuff and he hadn’t seen any payslips, dodgy or otherwise. If he’d been working quite recently, there’d have surely been something somewhere. There was a word hanging in the air.

  At last he said, ‘I don’t think your son was mixed up in selling drugs.’ There they were: the word was out there. Drugs. Done. ‘Kids who sell drugs normally do so to pay for their own habit. Your son’s body showed no evidence of any usage – nor did any of the other students.’ He spoke slowly, letting each sentence sink in before starting the next. ‘I can’t give you any guarantees on that, obviously, but my gut instinct tells me it is very far from likely. You had a good son, Mr Denter. He was a boy to be proud of. Whatever I find out or don’t, you should enjoy that memory of him.’

  When the other man started crying softly into the phone, Cass hung up, for both their sakes.

  There was no answer at Jasmine Green’s house. He’d call in there later. First he had a personal visit to make.

  Perry Jordan’s flat was less flash than Cass had expected, given that the private investigator was an East End boy through and through. But then, he thought as he sat on the brown leather sofa, they were all getting older, Perry Jordan included. The man who opened the door was no longer the laddish boy-about-town who’d been thrown off the force for a stupid moment of misplaced loyalty a few years ago. The lanky body was thickening in the chest and shoulders, and his smooth face was starting to roughen, ready for the creases that would settle there as the years went by. Time waited for no man, that much was for sure.

  ‘I’ve got some info for you, but it was like getting blood out of a stone.’ Jordan dumped a few sheets of paper on the coffee table between them and leaned forward. ‘The more I do this job, the more I realise the world is full of secrets.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ It wasn’t news to Cass.

  ‘The government bangs on about Flush5 being virtually independent. That’s a load of bullshit. They are owned by The Bank, or at least by several of The Bank’s holding companies. The paper trail is ridiculously complex.’ He looked up. ‘Over-complex, if you know what I mean – dig as I might, I reckon I’ll never get to the bottom of who truly owns it, but trust me, Flush5 is not the new fucking BUPA, no matter what anyone says in public. It’s not just hospitals and doctors’ surgeries they’re into, there’s pharmaceuticals, research – you name it, they own a part of it. I can’t even find out who founded the fucking thing, you have to go through so many paper hoops.’

  ‘Forget about The Bank,’ Cass cut in. The last thing he needed was for Jordan to get a bee in his bonnet about the nefarious practices of that particular institution. The Bank was Cass’s problem, not Jordan’s. ‘That’s the Big Boys’ league and I doubt they’ll like you digging around too much. Play safe. Stay invisible. You know that.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re too big – doesn’t that make you curious?’

  ‘Remember the cat, Perry! It’s a cliché because it’s true.’ The younger man smiled. ‘Okay, Dad, I’ll leave the big boys alone. Spoil all my fun, why don’t you?’

  ‘You’ll thank me when you live to be old and grey.’

  ‘Yeah, you look like you’re enjoying that phase of life. I’ve never known a man who smiles less.’

  ‘Cheeky fucker. Now, what have you got for me?’

  ‘Okay, so, this private ward? I’ve got someone on the case at Flush5 who’s trying to get the staff records for that night; I’m hoping to get those to you tomorrow. I’ll email you the list when it comes in. I doubt it’ll be long – from what I can gather, from the limited access to records, Flush5 had only been around a couple of months by then – unless of course there are layers of companies with different names disguising whatever they did before, none of which would surprise me, but it does appear that they were new.’

  ‘Stick to the point, Jordan.’

  ‘Sorry.’ His hands went up, giving in, but he was grinning. ‘It’s fascinating though, don’t you think?’

  Cass said nothing. Maybe Perry Jordan hadn’t grown up that much after all. From outside came the strains of a violin playing the blues, fighting against the traffic to be heard. Cass concentrated on the sounds of the engines and drowned it out.

  ‘There were five children born on the private ward that night, two girls and three boys. One of the boys died of cardiac arrest six minutes after birth.’ The humour had bled out of Jordan’s face. ‘Which was almost the exact time that Jessica Jones, down in the NHS ward, gave birth to a healthy boy, Luke.’

  ‘What was the dead boy’s name?’

  �
��Ashley Gray. His parents were Elizabeth and Owen Gray. I did a bit of digging around on them too. They were killed in a car accident in France four months after the baby died. They drove off a cliff, apparently.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Cass muttered.

  ‘It wasn’t suicide. It’s been recorded as accidental death. The hired car they were in had a faked Contrôle Technique – that’s the French MOT – and several faulty parts. Add a duff vehicle and bad weather conditions, and make of it what you will.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Cass said. The tiredness in his bones was disappearing. Could this boy, supposedly dead, be the one he’d known as his nephew all his life? ‘Any relatives that I can speak to?’

  ‘Of course.’ Jordan slid a piece of paper over to him. ‘The grandparents on the mother’s side – they live in Putney Bridge. Sure you could squeeze in a visit without it eating up too much of your working day?’

  ‘Let’s hope so. My new sergeant seems to want to nanny me.’

  ‘Is he working out?’

  ‘We’ll see. He’s starting to show some promise, at least.’

  Neither of them mentioned Claire, and Cass was glad. He had enough difficulty prising off the fingers of the dead as it was, without anyone speaking their names aloud.

  ‘There’s a phone number on there too, if you want to call ahead. You going to see them tonight?’

  ‘No, it’s rush hour – it’d take me for ever to get there. I’ve got a work visit to make. I’ll see them tomorrow.’ He smiled. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘The bill’s en route, don’t you worry.’ Jordan frowned and moved over to the window. ‘What is that? Is someone playing a fucking violin down there?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘London’s full of nutters these days.’ Jordan smiled. ‘Guess that’s why I love it so much.’ He peered out. ‘It is – it’s a bloody tramp, just standing in the street and playing the violin. How about that?’

  Cass found himself laughing along. At least whoever this musician was, he wasn’t a ghost like Christian – other people could hear him too. The wave of relief came as something of a surprise. There is no glow. There was only so much crazy he could take.

  ‘When you get them, email those staff details to my Black-Berry. I don’t want a chance of anyone at work seeing them and questioning what I’m doing.’

  ‘No worries. Take care, Jones.’

  ‘I always do,’ Cass said. ‘You take care yourself.’

  Perry Jordan just laughed.

  Thirty minutes later Cass was at Jasmine Green’s house, standing in the narrow kitchen and trying to avoid leaning against the worktops which were sticky with coffee and other substances Cass wouldn’t want to guess at. Neil Newton would be right at home here, although he guessed that at some point these students would most likely grow out of their laziness and invest in some cleaning products. For Newton that time was highly unlikely to ever come.

  ‘Do you need to go into Jasmine’s room?’ Craig Mallory asked. He had dark rings around his eyes and his pupils were wide and dark. The heavy scent of cannabis resin that hung in the air was no doubt the explanation. Cass didn’t care. The poor kid had watched his girlfriend plunge her arms into the TV screen and then tried to pull her out as she died in his arms. Cass didn’t really give a shit if he wanted to get a little stoned to help him sleep.

  ‘Because if you do, that’s fine, but most of her stuff was picked up by her parents, so you might be better off going to see them? We threw the TV out before they came. Figured they wouldn’t want to be faced with that …’

  Mallory had been half-heartedly looking into the cups scattered across the kitchen worktop to see if there was one clean enough to provide coffee in. He gave up and turned to face Cass. The DI was relieved; E.coli was something he could live without right now.

  ‘It was you I wanted to see, actually,’ he said, offering the student a cigarette and lighting one for himself. ‘You must have heard by now that Jasmine’s suicide seems to be linked with others in the city.’

  Mallory nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard. I didn’t know any of the others, though.’

  ‘That’s fine; it’s Jasmine I want to ask you about. Did she have a job at all? Something that paid cash, rather than directly into her account?’

  ‘Not that she told me about.’ The youth frowned. ‘But it’s funny you should ask that, because I did notice she had more cash on her, like when we were buying food and shit, she wasn’t paying on her card. She said she was trying to get her overdraft down.’

  ‘Did you ask her where the money was coming from?’

  ‘Yeah. But she told me she was taking it out of her account every week so she could see what she was spending better. Like she was budgeting.’ He looked at Cass as if the word was from an alien language. ‘She said she got the idea off one of them “get your life organised” shows that are on all the time.’ He paused and frowned as the significance of the question started sinking in through the smoke clogging up his head. ‘I guess she wasn’t, then.’

  Cass didn’t comment, but changed the subject. ‘Can you think of any times she was out regularly during the week?’

  ‘It’s hard to say – I had a job in the summer at an Ed’s Pizza’s so I was out quite a lot on odd shifts. And we try – tried – not to live in each other’s pockets, you know? That’s why we didn’t share a room. We both liked our own space.’

  ‘Sensible move,’ Cass said.

  ‘Yeah, but now I wish we hadn’t.’ Mallory’s shoulders sank. ‘This whole thing is too weird. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel or act or nothing. It’s like everyone’s looking at me the whole time.’

  ‘Trust me, I know how that feels.’

  Mallory didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Are you going to stay in this house?’ Cass asked.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet. We’ve got a couple of months left on the contract, so I’d have to find someone to take my room. We still need someone for Jasmine’s. I guess I could get something cheaper further out, so I’ll probably move when the lease is up. We only lived here because of Jasmine’s claustrophobia – she wouldn’t get on a tube, and there’s good bus routes here, especially for Uni.’

  An awkward silence settled between them.

  Cass wasn’t going to get any more here.

  ‘If you think of anything that might help, give me a call, right?’

  ‘I will,’ Mallory said.

  As he showed Cass out, the DI was relieved to find the only music in the air was the badly tuned orchestra of the traffic.

  Adam Bradley’s almost-black hair was still shoulder length, but these days instead of hanging lank and greasy it was well styled and shone with health. He still picked at his nails and smoked four cigarettes a day, but as the boss man said, a few vices didn’t hurt, just as long as you kept them under control. Bradley’s life was under control now; that much was for sure – it had been ever since the man had come back five months before and had two heavies haul him out of the squat and into the back of a waiting car. To be fair, there probably hadn’t been much hauling involved; he hadn’t exactly weighed much then. In his vague memory he’d been hauled; in reality, he’d probably been tossed into the back seat with no sign of exertion on the part of either of the large men.

  He remembered the smell of those leather seats clearly, and the way the boss had looked right into his eyes and said, ‘I thought so.’ He didn’t remember so much of the month that followed, apart from the sense of having lived through an eternity of hell. There had been no anodyne easing off the junk for Adam, no morphine to see him through. It had been a not-so-short, sharp drag through cold turkey for him, a dip into the freezing waters of the insanity of the true addict, and he had screamed and cried and scratched and shat himself as he climbed and clawed at the walls in that locked-away room. The boss had told him – with a smile – that he’d either die, or come through the fire purified, and if he survived with his mind and body intact then there was a job waiting for
him.

  He’d made it. He’d come out the other side whole and healthy and suddenly in possession of a upmarket, fully furnished flat in Canary Wharf, and with a car and driver at his disposal, and an exceptionally generous wage slip. In return, all he had to do was whatever task the boss required of him. It was a good job – an interesting one. Adam Bradley no longer had any need for junk, and when he found himself looking at the scars and pockmarks left on his body by the stranger who had inhabited it before, he couldn’t remember why he’d ever wanted that shit in the first place.

  He’d asked the boss why he’d saved him once, but all he’d said was that Adam had the glow; he’d seen a hint of it that first time they’d met, lurking under all that sickly addiction. Adam had asked what the glow meant, and the boss had smiled, and said it was something in his blood, his history. He said that they were almost family. Adam hadn’t understood, not back then; he’d wanted more explanation, but none had been forthcoming. Now that he was healthy and clear-headed, he didn’t think he’d ask again. He could feel the glow inside him, he was sure of it: there was a kind of strength that he was certain he could focus into something, if he tried hard enough.

  Even though it was warm – the Indian summer that had gripped London was refusing to let it go – he wore the long, dark overcoat that he’d bought with his first pay cheque. Bradley’s homage to the man who’d pretty much raised him from the dead had made the boss smile. Now, clothed in its unnecessary warmth, he stood on the corner of a tatty street of terraced houses two minutes from Queen’s Park station. He’d been waiting there ten minutes, and he’d be happy when he could leave. It was the kind of place he’d once dreamed of living, but now he just looked at with a vague sense of disgust, as if the filth and grime and tattered paint-work would somehow recognise a kindred spirit in him and drag him, kicking and screaming, back to the person he used to be. He just wanted to get this job done and get back to civilisation.

  He had three people to get to, and specific words he needed to say to each. He wasn’t nervous; he’d fulfilled this particular task several times before. If anything, he was somewhat bored of it, although the power amused him. He’d never realised people could be so easily influenced.