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

by Sarah Pinborough

  The bright foyer was still empty as he strode through. He didn’t acknowledge the woman behind the desk, just kept walking until he was safely back out in the night. He didn’t look back, and he certainly didn’t look up. Brian Freeman’s advice from so long ago had no place here.

  He waited until he was around the corner and out of sight of the building’s security cameras before pulling out his phone. Of course Mr Bright knew he would be calling Fletcher, but the idea of the man watching him from a window as he did it grated on him. He felt dirty enough as it was.

  Fletcher answered on the second ring.

  ‘I’m in,’ Cass said.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘My sense of social responsibility.’ He hung up. And then sighed. Ahead of him, the old tramp perched on the low street sign, his legs crossed in a poor imitation of Mr Bright’s elegance. The lower foot tapped on the pavement, a gentle drum beat, and he grinned as he played. The tune was light and cheerful as if this were early May, and the tramp would be spending a night in a five-star hotel after dinner at the Savoy. It was old-school music from a bygone era of top hats and tails. Cass wondered if life had been simpler then. He doubted it. Most people probably just had to walk more and work harder.

  ‘Evening, officer.’ The tramp’s voice was still gravel and earth. ‘You taking your place in the game?’

  Cass stared at him for a moment while lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Oh, just fuck off,’ he said eventually before turning away to find a taxi. The old man didn’t stop playing, but at least he didn’t follow him, and that, Cass thought, was something.

  ‘What’s that music?’ The question drifted out as Abigail sank into the cushioned foam that moulded itself to her body. The white sides of the shiny oval rose up a little all around her, preventing her from seeing anything but the plain ceiling high above. At least she thought the sides were white. It was hard to tell any more.

  ‘Can they hear the music?’

  There were two other women here now; one, like her, was quiet; the other was screaming and shouting in Russian, something like Pazhalsta! Pazhalsta! Please! Please! She recognised the language, but it was hard to focus. Something was happening to her – it had been for what seemed like for ever. She’d got to the hotel and met the man from the telephone, and he’d taken her out through the fire escape and down to the alley at the back of the kitchen, where a black car had been waiting. She clung to the timeline, pulling herself along it: it was important that she remembered something that was hers, rather than all this other stuff that was filling her head.

  The man had been waiting for her in one of the closed tube stations, and he’d led her down here, so far under the streets of the city. She hadn’t been afraid of him then, and she wasn’t now, even though some part of her – the old her – was sure that she should be. But he glowed golden when everything else had turned to black and white, and there was goodness in that glow, she was sure of it. He’d left her here, locked in a small room for hours, maybe days, but now he was back and there were two more girls, and there was this strange, bright room, with its strange white seats. And the music. Though the music was new.

  Hands strapped her arms down. She didn’t resist, though she wondered if perhaps she should – but she didn’t have the energy, and anyway, where would she go? Something was happening to her; she was changing. Her head was filling again, and if it didn’t stop, she was sure her skull would burst from the pressure.

  The golden man leaned over her and his brow furrowed. Somewhere apart, the Russian girl screamed again. Abigail didn’t think her cries would help. It sounded like she was getting strapped in anyway.

  ‘Can you hear it?’ she asked the glowing eyes. ‘It’s so loud.’

  He smiled, and the beautiful light shone brighter.

  ‘What have you done to me?’

  ‘This will calm down,’ he said. ‘You’ll settle. You’ll learn to control it, and this place will help you. When you’re ready, there is something I want you to do.’

  ‘You’ve changed me,’ she whispered, but the words were loud in her head.

  ‘I haven’t,’ he said softly, ‘They did. They wanted something, and I allowed them to have it. You’re just the added benefit. You will make me proud. Lie back and relax. This fear will pass.’

  Abigail did as she was told and someone leaned over her and strapped her head down, and then the glow was gone. Voices muttered, one of them deep and rich and golden, and a door clicked shut.

  Soon after, the lights above went out and she was left with just the hum of the machines. The Russian had finally stopped wailing, but occasionally her breathing hitched in a low moan. Abigail wondered if perhaps she should cry too, but the concept felt alien. There were many things she should be crying about, but she was damned if she could remember them. Instead, she began to sort the images crowding her head: unfamiliar faces and places, city streets, politicians and paupers. She found that if she stopped being afraid, she liked the pictures; they came in colour in a world that had become black and white. They calmed her. She just wished the music would stop. It didn’t belong here.

  ‘These belong to the dead kids, don’t they? I recognise this name from the paper.’

  ‘If you could just scan them, Mr Conroy.’ Armstrong smiled politely at the chubby man as he spoke.

  Cass scowled. To give his sergeant his due, he’d managed to get hold of all five Oyster cards, and organised Mr Conroy from London Transport, complete with a scanning machine which could be attached to their computer to upload the information – and all by half-ten – but Cass wished he’d just let Armstrong finish the job by himself. He didn’t have the energy for the niceties of dealing with someone else’s curiosity right now.

  ‘I’m sure you’re as busy as we are,’ he muttered.

  ‘Ha! Yes, but we don’t get the newspaper inches for what we do. I know your face too.’ Conroy nodded at Cass. ‘We’re just the little people.’

  ‘My heart bleeds.’ Perhaps that was a bit harsh, but Cass was tired, and there was nothing ‘little’ about Conroy.

  ‘It should, mate – I lost friends, you know? In those bombs? And others spent hours helping the police and ambulance men digging people out. They saw some things, I can tell you.’

  ‘Where were you?’ Cass asked.

  ‘Day off.’ Conroy sniffed as he fiddled with the cables and finished attaching it to the slim laptop. ‘There but for the grace of God and all that.’

  ‘Does God do the shift rota then? Fuck me, you lot are special.’ Cass couldn’t help the sarcasm. He was full of bitterness, left over from his meeting with Mr Bright, and nothing had been able to shift the sour taste in his mouth. He hadn’t slept properly, just tossed and turned under the glare of the dead eyes that watched him from every corner. When he did finally manage to drift off, it had been into dreams of shiny black brogues with spots of crimson on them. He’d half-expected to find Christian’s ghost sitting neatly on the end of his bed when he finally forced himself awake, but he was alone in his room. His brother had left him to it for now.

  ‘You look tired,’ Armstrong said. ‘Busy night?’

  ‘How far back can you go with these?’ Cass asked Conroy, ignoring his sergeant’s question.

  ‘As long as they’ve had them. How far back do you want to go?’

  ‘Do a year. If we find nothing, we’ll get you back in. In fact, you can just leave the machine with us and that’ll save you the journey and the time out of your day. We’ll get it back to you when we’re done.’

  ‘This is London Transport property,’ Conroy said as he started the upload. ‘I’m responsible for it.’

  ‘I’m sure London Transport is as much in hock to The Bank as everyone else, and trust me’ – Cass looked over to the laptop screen that started filling with the mundanities of Cory Denter’s daily journeys – ‘The Bank doesn’t really give a shit about one ticket machine.’

  His phone buzzed and the scree
n flashed up Fletcher’s name.

  ‘When these are done, get someone to drive this bloke back to work,’ he said to Armstrong. ‘Without his bloody machine. Then figure out how to get the computer to cross-reference all the cards.’ He answered the call. ‘One minute, I’m heading to my office.’

  ‘“This bloke”?’ Cass heard the railway man say as he left them behind. ‘I don’t much care for your boss’s tone.’

  ‘No,’ Armstrong answered, quietly, ‘he takes a bit of getting used to. I’m not sure I’m entirely there myself.’

  Cass closed the door to his office and shut them up.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘How did you know the bodywork on our bomber was outsourced?’

  ‘Call it a hunch. Who took it?’

  ‘God knows. The order went out to our ME almost immediately he got the mess back to the lab. He was told he had to release it to some anonymous outfit. Experts, apparently. The order came from somewhere in the Home Office. And I thought I was in charge of the fucking ATD. Should I be chasing to get the body back?’

  Cass almost laughed. Fletcher had to be as tired as he was; he wasn’t thinking straight. Even if he did request the body back, he wouldn’t get it – maybe something that looked similar, but it wouldn’t be the strange fat man’s body. Nor would he be able to trace where it had actually gone. The ATD might have the nation’s resources at their fingertips, but the Network owned the nation. Whoever had placed that order from within the inner echelons of government wouldn’t have even known where it had gone, or why, let alone truly understood the nature of the powerful shadowy men requesting it. It was all wheels within wheels.

  ‘Not worth it. It won’t help you find Abigail.’

  ‘You sound very sure.’

  ‘Let’s just call it a hunch.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Fletcher sounded pissed off, and Cass didn’t blame him. It must really grate on him that a fucked-up DI looked like he knew more about what the ATD were investigating than he did.

  ‘We’ve been through the hotel footage right up to last night and rechecked those coming in and out. Two other women went in after Abigail who had no right being there. One is Mary Keyes, personal assistant to the Governor of New York, and the other is Irena Melanov, a known face in the Russian security services who is normally to be found in the presidential entourage. Neither US nor Russian intel will confirm or deny whether these two are missing, but they were both very keen to be kept informed on any developments, which is as much confirmation as we need. Those girls aren’t on holiday.’

  ‘Both from places that got bombed.’

  ‘Yes – and with bombing suspects who look identical to ours,’ Fletcher said. ‘So whatever is going on here isn’t just our problem, but it looks like I’m carrying it.’

  ‘That’s your business, Fletcher. My only concern in this is getting some idea of what’s happened to Abigail Porter.’

  ‘Aren’t you the lucky one? I’m going to send these images from the hotel over on disk. See if you recognise anyone we don’t.’

  ‘Print them out and send them. I might need to look at them on the move,’ Cass said. ‘Also send me whatever family history you’ve got on the other two. I’m curious.’

  ‘On the way.’

  With the call ended, Cass scrolled through his phone until he found the numbers for Dr Tim Hask. He dialled the office line.

  ‘Mr Jones, what a pleasant surprise.’ Hask was cheerful as ever at the other end of the line. ‘Is this a social call, or business?’

  ‘As much as I’d love to say I’ve called for a chat, I’d be lying. I need to pick your brains about a job you did a couple of years ago. Where are you working? Can I call in?’

  ‘Sounds intriguing. I’m at the ISISOR building in the city, stuck here all day, so come by any time. What was the job?’

  ‘A psyche evaluation on a woman called Abigail Porter – she’s part of the Prime Minister’s personal security team. Your assessment feedback is missing from her file.’

  ‘I remember her. Very tall, very striking.’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘I’ll have her notes somewhere on my laptop. Give me twenty minutes to dig them out, then I’m all yours. I need a break from all this banality anyway.’

  ‘And I need an excuse to get out of the office.’

  He hung up, then dug out the piece of paper with Dr Gibbs’ home number scribbled on it and punched the digits into the phone. It rang out; no one answered. He’d already stored Gibbs’ mobile number in his own phone; when he rang that it went straight to answerphone. The doctor must be working; Cass decided he’d try the hospital after speaking to Hask.

  Armstrong knocked once on the door and then opened it, grinning as he came inside.

  ‘We’ve got something.’

  Cass looked up. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘For a period of six weeks all our dead kids, except Angie Lane, went to Temple Underground Station on Tuesday evenings, arriving there at roughly seven-thirty and leaving to head home at approximately ten-thirty. Jasmine Green took the number 42a bus, which stops on the Embankment, just by the tube.’

  ‘When was this?’ For a second, all thoughts of Abigail Porter, Mr Bright and even Luke were gone. ‘They all went there during the same six weeks?’

  ‘No,’ Armstrong qualified, shaking his head, ‘not exactly, but they do all overlap. Wherever they were going, for a few weeks they were all there together.’

  ‘When was this? Just before they died?’

  ‘No, but the time between the end of their six week-periods and their deaths are approximately the same: four weeks, roughly.’

  Cass frowned. ‘Explain it to me.’

  ‘James Busby made his first trip to Temple on 14 July. He went for six weeks, then nothing. Four weeks after his last trip he sent that “Chaos in the darkness” text to his mother, then slit his wrists in the bath. Katie Dodds started her visits to Temple the week after Busby, on 21 July. She did her six weeks, and then she died slightly less than four weeks after her trips ended, killing herself four days after Busby. Cory Denter started on 28 July, and Jasmine Green and Hayley Porter the week after that. Given that Angie Lane died within days of Cory Denter, then I guess we can presume that she started her six weeks at Temple at the same time as he did.’

  Cass looked up at the tatty wall calendar. ‘So there were three weeks where all their journeys overlapped. Wherever they were going is the link. They must have met there. But why no travel record for Angie Lane?’

  ‘It was summer and she lived just across the river, a mile away at most. Maybe she walked? Or got a cab?’

  ‘And they killed themselves four weeks after finishing whatever they were doing there,’ Cass mused. ‘So what caused the delay?’ He roused himself from his thoughts and turned back to Armstrong.

  ‘Take two or three PCs and get up to Fleet Street with blown-up pictures of our kids. Go in all the local shops, the usual routine. Someone might recognise them. While the plods are doing that, I want you in every business in that area that’s open in the evenings. Someone was paying these kids cash: what kind of job only lasts six weeks? Look for something unusual. Whatever it was, I doubt it was stuffing envelopes. These kids weren’t using their own bank accounts much right up until they died, so whatever money they were getting, it was enough to see them through four weeks or more.’

  ‘I’m on it. You coming?’

  ‘I’ve got to follow up something for this ATD shit, but I’ll have my phone on. I’m expecting a package to come from Fletcher. Tell someone on the desk to have it biked over to the ISISOR building in the City when it gets here.’

  Armstrong nodded. He looked pissed off, but Cass let it wash over him. He was letting the young sergeant do most of the gruntwork on this case, but it wouldn’t do him any harm. He’d get over it.

  The ISISOR building was one of the last high-rise structures to go up before the recession really hit, and its sleek glass walls
were home to twenty or thirty companies. ISISOR itself had gone bust within weeks of moving in as stocks and shares collapsed around the world, but the name lived on as a highly prestigious address for the most successful of those companies which had somehow survived the recession.

  Cass found Hask on the eighteenth floor, in a boardroom that was bigger than the whole of Paddington Green nick’s Incident Room, and with a side-table full of cakes and sandwiches sitting next to a bubbling coffee machine. The pastries looked fresh, and Hask looked, as ever, larger than life.

  ‘So this is how the private sector live,’ he said.

  ‘You’d hate it, Cass. All this wealth and privilege.’ Hask got to his feet and picked up a miniature Danish from the plate. ‘Let them eat cake.’ He popped it whole into his mouth and wiped his fingers on a napkin.

  ‘They still got you assessing people after the bombings?’

  ‘God, it’s interminable.’ Hask rolled his eyes. ‘Most of these people are cold as sharks anyway. Whatever psychological problems they have don’t stem from whether or not they were stuck in London on 26 September.’

  ‘I presume you’ve told their employers that?’

  Hask laughed cheerfully and poured two cups of coffee. ‘I will do. Eventually.’ He handed Cass a mug. ‘Drink that and weep.’

  The coffee was strong and rich and a million miles away from the vaguely brown liquid dispensed from the nick’s vending machines, or the over-brewed gravy that came out of the coffeepot, if anyone even remembered to fill it in the mornings. ‘Yeah,’ Cass said over the fragrant steam, ‘life here must be hell.’

  ‘So, what is this about Abigail Porter? I thought you were working this teen suicide thing?’

  ‘I am. Porter’s sister is one of the dead students.’

  ‘And that got you access to her personal file?’ Hask’s eyebrow rose. ‘Call me old-fashioned, but since when did an ordinary DI get access to such highly confidential information?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Cass said, ‘because I can’t tell you.’