‘Sounds like it fits the bill,’ the sergeant said. ‘Thank you.’
A phone vibrated, and the DI tugged it free from his pocket. ‘If you think of anything else, anyone she might have seen to try and deal with it, then please let us know.’ He gave them a smile. ‘And thanks again.’
He turned away from them to take the call. ‘Jones. Yes. Yes, I want in on that. What’s the address? I’ll see you there.’
Rachel looked at Amanda and shrugged slightly, awkward alone with the young sergeant. ‘Is it okay if we go now?’
‘Yes, of course. Thanks for your help.’
‘No problem.’ They walked away, Rachel waving one hand in a quick wave to the DI as he spoke into the phone.
‘I wonder what phobias can have to do with it?’ she said to Amanda once they were out of earshot.
‘Who knows?’ Amanda tucked her books under one arm. They looked like they’d unbalance her tiny frame, but she kept her back straight. ‘Let’s get out of here anyway. Everyone’s staring at us.’
‘So, if you’re still not agreeing to help find Abigail, what the hell are you doing here?’
David Fletcher was waiting for him outside the Porters’ house in Causton Road, Highgate. Cass looked up at the clean brown stone and the large driveway. A Merc and a BMW, both top of the range, were parked side by side. Porter really was a high-flyer.
‘You might be after the live sister, but the dead one is still very much my priority.’ He looked back at the black cab; the engine was purring impatiently. ‘And he needs his fare paying.’ Fletcher glared at him, but pulled out his wallet. The head of the ATD had more chance of claiming the fare back than Cass ever would from the Met’s increasingly tight purse strings. He thought of the little girl who grew up here in order to end up dead beside a fireplace, her blood spilled all over the expensive carpet. Had her older sister overshadowed her all her life? Even now, the world was far more concerned with finding the very-much-alive Abigail rather than figuring out what happened to poor dead Hayley.
‘Tell me about the family,’ he said as Fletcher tucked the receipt into his wallet and the cab drove away.
‘Melanie Porter – née McCorkindale – is a society type. Upper middle class, I suppose you’d call her. A beauty in her day; she’ll be where the girls got their looks from. She’s bright, though, she’s got a Law degree from Oxford, but has never practised. Instead she got married and stayed at home to bring up the girls.’
‘And the dad?’
‘Alexander Porter. He heads up the ASKDAL Conglomerate.’
‘Which is?’
‘Big and successful – one of the biggest of its kind in the world. It owns several media organisations, building companies in the Middle East, and I think some Korean electric goods manufacturers.’
‘Spreads his interests wide, then.’
‘Not really. He’s a newspaper man himself – used to be the editor-in-chief of The Times, and according to his file got promoted to the Chair of the Board. Fuck knows how. I’ve never really understood all that boardroom politics. He must have done well, though, because it wasn’t long before he was racing up the ranks of the parent holding company. And now he’s responsible for running the whole show.’
‘Remind me to wipe my feet,’ Cass muttered as he pressed the doorbell.
A middle-aged woman in a sharp suit let them in and led them into a downstairs room. Mrs Porter had her back to them; she was staring out at the garden through one of the high windows. Her husband stood by the large mantelpiece, nursing a drink – whisky, maybe – in a crystal glass. He looked up, though his wife didn’t turn round.
‘Are you the police?’ He wore jeans and a sweater with a shirt under it, the top button undone with casual elegance, and his face was tanned rather than ruddy. His body had just started to run into the typical corporate fat cat shape.
‘I’m DI Cass Jones, Mr Porter. I’m investigating Hayley’s death, among others.’
‘He isn’t.’ Porter’s eyes swept over Cass and focused on Fletcher. ‘I know who he is.’ He raised one thick finger and jabbed it. ‘My girl had nothing to do with those bombings; I don’t care what you think. You try and accuse her of it and I’ll come after you with all I’ve got – and I have quite some artillery.’
Cass watched Fletcher hold the other man’s gaze. If this was going to turn into a cockfight, he wanted to get his business here done first.
‘It’s currently being treated as a missing person’s case, Mr Porter,’ he said.
‘As far as anyone she works with is concerned, she’s on compassionate leave.’ Fletcher’s voice was calm but firm.
‘Good, because if any of the news agencies gets wind of this, then that’s my career over.’
‘Please forgive my husband.’ Mrs Porter finally turned around. Her voice was cold and clipped as if she had no intention of doing what her words requested of others. She was still a beauty, Cass could see that, but it was her eyes he was drawn to. A silver glow poured from the edges, just like he’d glimpsed with Abigail. His guts curdled. There is no glow. He was having a hard time believing his own mantra these days.
‘I sometimes think he’s spent so much time working he forgets that real life exists outside of it.’
‘For God’s sake, Melanie,’ her husband hissed.
She didn’t look at him, but smiled softly at Cass. ‘One of our daughters is dead and the other is missing. How could that have happened to us?’ A small tear shed silver down her cheek. To Cass it looked like mercury, and part of him wished she’d just turn back round and keep on looking out of that window. He didn’t want to see her strange silver glow – the glow was gold, not silver. It always had been. He gritted his teeth. But then, Mr Bright had shed a silver tear in the church all those months ago – so silver and gold, maybe it was all the glow.
Whichever colour it was, he wanted no part of it.
‘I used to dream of Hayley dying, you know,’ Melanie Porter continued. ‘When she was little. I dreamed it for a month every night. So did Abigail. It was the oddest thing. I would wake up crying, and I’d have to go to her room to check she was all right. Twice I found her big sister already in her room, driven there by her own dreams.’ Another tear broke free, but her breathing didn’t hitch; it was as if her crying belonged to a different person. ‘The dreams stopped eventually, but after that I think I always knew that we wouldn’t have her for very long.’
‘Please excuse my wife,’ Alexander Porter cut in. ‘Too much sun, I think. She spends all her bloody time laying out in it in Portugal. I’m surprised she’s not riddled with skin cancer with the complexion of a dried prune.’
Cass studied the dark-haired woman with the olive complexion. She was far from wrinkled; her forehead and the area around her eyes were smooth and only a single crease ran down one side of her mouth.
‘We grieve in different ways,’ Porter continued. ‘I have never been able to do tears. I don’t see the point in them.’
Everyone did grief in different ways. Cass wondered if he should point that out to the magnate. These two with their distance, the Denters with their fear, his own contained emotions – he would never judge people on how they dealt with death.
‘Have you heard from Abigail?’ Fletcher asked.
‘No, not since a brief call after the news about Hayley.’ Alex Porter sipped his whisky, and Cass wondered if it was only so he could stare into it rather than look at Fletcher. ‘But that didn’t surprise me. That job of hers gives her so many excuses not to call us or come home. I think that’s why she likes it.’
‘She was a grown woman,’ Melanie snapped. ‘Why would she want to come home all the time? To talk stocks and shares with you over dinner? To have you probe her for inside news?’
‘Can you think of anywhere she might have gone if she wanted to get away from everything?’ Fletcher’s voice was calm and steady, cutting through the tension between the couple. ‘Any old school friends, or favourite places?’
<
br /> ‘I can’t think of any.’ Melanie shook her head. ‘There was no one she was overly close to.’
‘Including us,’ her husband added.
‘We have people watching your house in Portugal and the flat in Sloane Square. We’ll know if she turns up there.’
‘Of course you do, and of course you will.’ Porter stared at Fletcher with an open dislike that washed over him. Cass thought Fletcher must be used to it, but with Porter he couldn’t help but think that the dislike was purely a power issue – Porter was used to having it, but with a man like Fletcher, all his money and influence counted for nothing. And Fletcher had power of his own.
‘Can I ask you a few questions about Hayley?’ Cass asked.
‘Of course.’ Melanie smiled gently, and Cass focused on her mouth rather than the silver in her eyes.
‘She had a fear of flying?’
‘Yes, it was dreadful – she’d be in a panic for days before she had to go anywhere. That was why she tends – tended – to stay in London for the holidays, rather than come out to Portugal with us. She’d had it ever since she was a little girl.’
‘She did fly though,’ Alexander Porter cut in, and for the first time Cass heard a little pride in his voice. ‘She’d make herself do it. She’d take a Valium to calm herself down and force herself on the plane. She wasn’t the kind of girl to let fear get in the way of her life.’
‘Had she seen anyone about it recently? A new doctor?’
The line at Melanie Porter’s mouth creased slightly deeper as she thought. ‘She did mention that she was thinking of trying some experimental therapy, but that was a few months ago. She hadn’t mentioned it again and I didn’t like to ask. I thought she’d think I was pressuring her.’
‘Would you mind taking a look through her things and letting me know if you find anything that might indicate if she went?’
‘Of course I will.’ Melanie Porter didn’t ask why Cass might want to know, but the flash of silver in her eyes did. Cass ignored it.
‘Find my girl.’ Alexander put his glass down on the mantelpiece and stared at Fletcher. ‘We need her back.’
Fletcher nodded curtly, but said nothing.
Cass wondered what the honest man would say if he spoke: I intend to get her back, but it won’t be to come home and play happy families with you, to repair all the fractures in your lives – something like that, he was sure. Wherever Abigail Porter was, if Fletcher found her, she’d be spending a lot of time in an interrogation cell, and none of Porter’s much-vaunted power or influence would have any sway.
Armstrong put a bottle of beer for Cass and a vodka and Coke for himself down on the table. Cass wondered when coppers had stopped drinking good, honest pints – probably about the same time they’d stopped beating the crap out of people to get the confessions they needed. The world changed; that was guaranteed, and change was relentless.
‘Cheers.’ Cass tapped his bottle against the younger man’s glass. Here they were, finally having a drink in the pub together. Cass wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it. Armstrong was no Claire May, but Claire was gone and Armstrong was here and as much as he might not like it, he had no choice but to get used to it.
‘I’ve spoken to the families, and as far as they are all concerned, their kids weren’t being treated by anyone for their phobias.’ Armstrong pulled his stool closer into the table and sat down. ‘It’s really surprising how much parents don’t know about their children – neither Denter’s nor Lane’s parents were even aware that their kids had phobias.’
‘Children grow up,’ Cass said. ‘They learn to keep secrets. No adult likes to publicise their weaknesses.’ He took a mouthful, swallowed, and asked, ‘Where’s your car?’ There was no way this was going to be a one-beer-only night.
‘I’ve left it at the station. It’s parked right beside yours. My tube line’s running okay.’
‘Good.’ Cass settled back in the chair. ‘There must be something else. These kids didn’t know each other, but they were all getting cash payments, and they all died the same way. This phobia link must go somewhere – that, or we’re barking up completely the wrong fucking tree and wasting police time …’
‘And what does “Chaos in the darkness” even mean? I’ve had two PCs searching libraries and the Internet for the phrase, or some kind of variation, and they’ve come up with sweet FA.’
‘Fuck knows. Maybe if we find what links them, we’ll find that.’
‘I’ve done some digging into their childhoods – schools, clubs, secret societies, that kind of thing. As they were all in the same age range, give or take a year or two, I wondered if they might have been on the same school excursion or something. You know those places where loads of schools go on some stupid river-wading Geography field trip, or visit war memorials?’
‘Even at my advanced age I can dimly recall those.’
‘I couldn’t find any common ground, though. I really don’t think these students had ever met.’
‘That must have taken some time.’ Cass sipped his beer again. ‘You’ve been busy. Good use of initiative.’ He knew he sounded patronising, but right now he didn’t much care. He’d earned the right to patronise.
‘You’ve been off doing whatever it is you’ve been doing. I had the hours.’
The two men watched each other across the table for a few moments, and Cass internally groaned. He was going to have to give Armstrong something. The problem with men who worked on their own initiative was that they couldn’t just switch their curiosity off when it suited him. It had taken years for Cass to train himself to remember what happened to the fucking cat.
‘There’s a lot of people wanting pieces of me at the moment.’ He didn’t break the stare.
‘All work?’ Armstrong asked.
‘Some personal.’ That was as much as he was willing to give the sergeant. If he wasn’t careful, this would be the last beer they’d share after work, and that was no good for a team.
‘Maybe whatever it is would be best done officially. Through work?’
‘Maybe, Toby, you don’t know shit about that of which you speak.’ Cass leaned on the table. ‘Are you going to be a problem for me here?’
‘You’re the boss.’ Armstrong finally looked away.
‘Your curiosity is what makes you a detective. What’ll make you a good detective is knowing when to keep your nose out.’
Silence hung awkwardly between them. Even the general clink of glasses and the chatter from the rest of the pub refused to come near it.
‘Listen,’ Cass said eventually, ‘it really is personal – nothing to stress about. It’s just some family business.’
The image of the strange fat man on the tube platform with Abigail Porter rose up in his mind. I am family. That’s what he’d said, and it made Cass shiver. Family business. Who were these people who’d made his family their business and so royally fucked them up? He still dreamed of Solomon’s death sometimes: the explosion of light, the explosion of flies. There was nothing natural about it: it was glow business.
Abigail Porter. The fat man. The Underground platform. All thoughts of the glow left him as the dead students gathered closer. His heart raced.
‘How are you getting home?’
‘I told you.’ Armstrong frowned. ‘The tube.’
‘How are you paying?’
‘I’m not – well, I’ll be using my Oyster card.’
‘Exactly.’ Cass grinned, the pieces forming a whole in his mind. ‘And if you were a student living here who had to get around London every day, how would you do it?’
A light went on in Armstrong’s eyes as his brain caught up with Cass’s. ‘A student-discounted Oyster card!’
‘Is that your first drink tonight?’
‘Yeah—’
‘Go back to the office, get your car and then go and find those Oyster cards. If we can see their journey histories, maybe we can find a link that way.’
‘Now?’ Armstrong
looked at his unfinished drink. ‘But it’s half-past seven. I thought you said I had to get the work/life balance shit sorted?’
‘I lied. I want those cards by morning. And ring whoever the fuck runs Oyster and tell them we want a man with a scanning machine at the station by ten tomorrow.’
‘What if they didn’t register their cards?’
‘They’ll be registered – they’d have to be to get their student discounts, and you know what students are like: they’ll save money wherever they can to pay for their beer.’ He drained his bottle and got to his feet. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Since you’re now too busy to be a drinking partner I think I’ll go and fry some other fish. You don’t need me holding your hand.’
He felt Armstrong’s eyes on his back as he left the pub, but he didn’t look back. He walked for several blocks before calling Directory Enquiries.
‘The Bank, head office, London, please. Just put me straight through.’
The woman at the other end did as she was told and the line rang out in his ear.
‘The Bank, good evening, how can I assist you?’ The voice was soft and professional and entirely feminine.
‘Put me through to Mr Castor Bright, please.’
‘I’m afraid we have no one of that name here, sir. Could anyone else help you? Unless your business is with our overseas division, most of our staff have already left for the evening.’
‘Just tell Mr Bright that Cass Jones called and I’m on my way in to see him. I’m sure he’s expecting me.’
He ended the call before she could speak again. Despite the chill in the air, his palms were sweating as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. He stared out at the life on the London streets, cars and buses fighting each other to get to where they were going. He suddenly felt very apart from it all. The Bank and Mr Bright were waiting for him. It was time to play the game.
‘They’re saying what?’ Alison McDonnell stared across the table at the man standing there so casually, his hands jammed in his pockets as if he were telling her the time, or what he had for breakfast. Spin doctors had no soul, she was sure of it. If only politicians didn’t need them so badly.
The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two Page 22