‘Fair enough.’ The fat man grinned. ‘I do like a bit of cloak and dagger.’
‘I wish I could say the same.’ Cass took a sip of his coffee. ‘So how come your report’s missing?’
‘Probably because I didn’t pass her. If they gave her the job anyway it’s likely the panel chose to remove it and therefore hide any personal liability, should anything go wrong with her. I’m surprised they didn’t replace it with a different doctor’s evaluation. I should imagine that there are plenty of respected professionals out there who would have passed her.’
‘If they would, then how come you didn’t? Was it because she was young?’
‘God, no. Young people will die for any Tom, Dick or Harry. In her line of work, youth’s an advantage.’ Hask leaned against the large highly polished wooden table, and the solid frame creaked under his weight.
He looked up at Cass. ‘There was just something about her that didn’t ring true. She had all the right answers, and on paper she was the perfect candidate for the job, but I just couldn’t pass her.’
‘She was lying?’
‘No.’ Hask shook his head, and his chins wobbled. ‘No, I don’t think she was aware of what was missing. It was something else.’ He reached forward and picked up another small cake, this time breaking a small chunk off and chewing it thoughtfully.
‘She was too detached. I felt that she was faking her fear.’ He looked over at Cass. ‘Part of the evaluation consists of reaction and image tests. Her face and heart-rate showed exactly the right result for every image or situation we gave her to look at.’
‘And this was a problem?’ Cass asked.
‘It was too exact – no one reacts perfectly to the model, especially not every time. That’s part of the test. We all have our quirks and secrets – things that excite us that shouldn’t; things that we’re afraid of. It was as if she had no personal responses of her own; as if she had learned the required reaction and duplicated it.’
‘Can you do that?’
‘Technically, yes. These tests are supposed to be confidential, and they get varied from year to year, but of course people get hold of them. The thing is’ – he swallowed the rest of the cake – ‘whether someone’s seen the test or not, they shouldn’t be able to fake their reactions, and certainly not to such a great extent that they’ll fool the testers. It’s a bit like a lie detector in that it picks out your involuntary responses: dilation of pupils, increase in heart-rate, that kind of thing. The verbal reactions are almost irrelevant. Cheating is pretty much impossible.’
‘But you think Abigail Porter did?’
‘She scored perfectly, and that’s not possible. It was enough for me to know that I couldn’t pass her. I’ve never done an evaluation like it.’
‘And yet they still gave her the job,’ Cass said.
‘There’s no accounting for people. Maybe she had friends in high places.’ Hask smiled, but Cass felt a chill ripple down his spine. Someone had wanted Abigail Porter to get that job and if it wasn’t Mr Bright, then it must have been someone else in the Network. Maybe the Jones family wasn’t the only one being toyed with by the hidden organisation and their endless funds in the X accounts.
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and Cass turned to see a young woman hovering nervously.
‘DI Jones?’
Cass nodded.
‘A package had come for you. Apparently, he’ – she stepped aside to allow a tall, dark-suited man through – ‘has to give it to you personally.’
The man didn’t smile, but stared hard at Hask and then Cass before approaching.
‘Can I see some ID?’ His voice was devoid of accent, and even when walking he moved with athletic ease.
Everything about him made Cass want a cigarette. ‘Keep your knickers on.’ Cass grinned as he showed his police ID. ‘I’m sure you know exactly who I am.’
The man scanned Cass’s badge, and then handed the package over. ‘It’s from Fletcher.’ Without another word, he turned and left, leaving the poor woman to scurry after him.
‘I’d have passed him,’ Hask said, ‘without a moment’s hesitation.’ He looked down at the thick envelope Cass held in his hands. ‘Fletcher, eh? You’re always involved in the serious stuff, Cass.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’
‘Are you sure it’s not too soon?’
The question came out of the blue, and for a brief moment Cass didn’t know what he meant, and then the weight of it came flooding back. Kate, Claire, Bowman. The Man of Flies. That’s what Hask was talking about.
‘I’m fine.’ It was all he could think of to say.
‘You look tired, that’s all.’
‘I am, but I’m fine.’ Cass smiled.
The doctor smiled back. ‘Good. Well, when you’ve cleared your plate a bit, let’s go for a beer again, shall we?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
*
Cass lit a cigarette before opening the envelope. It was the middle of the day and the brightly lit basement car park was empty. He tugged out the contents, on top of which was a handwritten note from Fletcher. I presume you’re smart enough to get rid of all this when you’re done. Cass stared at it. If he was presumed smart enough, then why the fuck had he felt the need to mention it? He threw the note onto the passenger seat and then flicked through the brief dossier the ATD man had included on the US and Russian women. Cass figured he was getting the watered-down version, but that was fine; he wasn’t sure what he was looking for himself.
Both women were young and attractive, and both had been promoted quickly in their adult lives – just like Abigail Porter – and both came from successful, wealthy families. He scanned through their family backgrounds. The Russian girl’s was scant, mostly a list of unpronounceable companies that her parents had worked for, but from the job titles Cass could see her father, like Abigail’s, had been promoted fast over the past fifteen years. The American woman’s father hadn’t started rising up the corporate ladder until he was fifty, normally the time that workers were getting thrown out with the waste in this new buyer’s market. How was it that he suddenly, like Abigail’s father, started making waves in the boardroom? Even if they were late starters, no one would be listening to them by then, however much business sense they were making. Fuck it. Those questions weren’t his to answer and they could wait.
He put the personal notes aside and turned his attention to the stack of glossy ten-by-eights. Each had a date at the top, and under each picture was the time the person had entered the Latham Hotel. Cass went for the day Abigail Porter disappeared first and flicked through. There were at least thirty on that day alone. No wonder Fletcher had wanted to send them all over on a disk – and so much for the recession. He peered at the strangers’ faces, forcing his eyes to dwell on each one, rather than dismissing them quickly. He settled back in his seat and threw the cigarette butt out of the window. He was going to be there for a while.
The man who came into the hotel that day at 16.54 p.m. according to the time code didn’t need focused attention to jog Cass’s memory; he recognised him straight away. Despite his determination to stay on the periphery of the hunt for Abigail Porter, he couldn’t fight the buzz of excitement that fizzed in his gut. Mr Bright was going to love this. Or not. Cass did, though.
Without taking his eyes from the image, he dialled the number stored under ‘A’ in his phone. It rang three times before it was answered. Cass wondered if Mr Bright was really busy, or just creating the impression that he was in no overwhelming hurry for whatever information Cass might have discovered.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve got something for you.’ The words almost stuck in Cass’s throat. He didn’t like this bargain he’d made, and could only hope the end justified the means, and that Christian would forgive him – no, not Christian. Christian was dead. What mattered was whether he could forgive himself for one more betrayal of his little brother.
‘Which is?�
�
‘Firstly, I don’t know whether this will interest you but it appears two other women in similar positions to Abigail Porter have gone missing from their home towns, and each turned up on the Latham Hotel’s somewhat limited CCTV footage on the same day. One is Mary Keyes – she works for the Governor of New York – and the other is Irena Melanov, apparently a member of the Moscow Security Service. Both families are successful and influential. You might want to check them out. I’m not doing any more of your dirty work than I have to, and we both know you can dig deeper than I ever could.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Oh no,’ Cass said, ‘none of the women have been seen since they went into the Latham over a period of two days. But guess who else I saw going into that same place, just a few hours earlier than Abigail Porter?’
He particularly enjoyed the long pause at the other end.
‘Go on.’
‘Someone who clearly thought no one who might recognise him would ever see the photographs. Someone just a little too smug for his own good.’
‘You might have to narrow it down,’ Mr Bright said, dryly.
‘Asher Red.’
Cass was quite sure that for a nano-second at least Mr Castor Bright had held his breath. Cass didn’t blame him. Asher Red, the smooth-talking face of The Bank during the Man of Flies investigation, and Cass’s brother’s boss, now looked as if he was perhaps not quite so loyal after all.
‘Now that is interesting,’ Mr Bright said eventually.
Cass hung up without saying another word. He checked his watch. Armstrong would be busy for a while yet, so there was no point heading back to the office. He probably had time for another visit first.
He had to show his badge at the desk of St Bede’s Hospital before the woman would even page Dr Gibbs for him, and even then she watched him warily from behind the toughened glass that separated her desk from the general public. He didn’t blame her. St Bede’s was one of the few hospitals left in London that treated NHS patients, as well as those who couldn’t afford to go anywhere else, and he was sure many of those would be infected with the bug. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting spat in the face any more. The bug would find whatever way in it could.
A nurse finally came and collected him and took him down to a small lounge deep in the heart of the hospital, where he found a middle-aged man pulling on a jumper. A pile of green scrubs sat at his feet.
‘Dr Gibbs?’ Cass asked.
‘You were lucky to catch me. I was just on my way home,’ the doctor said as he tugged his sweater down over his stomach. ‘Eight hours on A&E is quite enough for anyone.’ He smiled, but there were heavy bags under his eyes, and Cass was sure that the man’s scruffy hair had nothing to do with styling and everything to do with lack of time to get to a barber’s. He’d finally found someone who looked as tired as he felt.
‘So, what’s this about? The RTA brought in earlier?’
‘No,’ said Cass, ‘I wanted to ask you about an incident during your time at the Portman Hospital. On the Flush5 maternity wing.’
‘Really?’ Dr Gibbs frowned. ‘That was a long time ago. Ten years?’ He smiled. ‘I’d like to say I’ve come a long way since then but that probably wouldn’t seem entirely true. What is it you want to know? If I can remember that far back.’ He dumped the scrubs in a large green bin in the corner of the room and then pulled a pair of trainers out of his locker.
‘A baby died on your shift a couple of months after the ward opened. Ashley Gray. His parents were Owen and Elizabeth Gray. I want to know more about what happened that night.’
‘I’m afraid you’ve made a wasted trip,’ Dr Gibbs said, changing his shoes. ‘I wasn’t working that night.’
‘Yes, you were. Your name is on the shift records.’
‘I wasn’t working. There was only one baby lost in my time there, so I’m not mistaken. I was swapped off-shift at the last minute.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly what I said. I was literally about to leave the house to come to work when I got a call saying they wanted to give a new doctor a trial shift.’ He put his work shoes in his locker.
‘Didn’t you find that odd?’
‘Not overly. I was old enough to be grateful for the time off, and even in those days you didn’t argue with Flush5. Plus, they said they’d pay me anyway, so I wasn’t complaining. I guess that’s how my name is still down on the staff list. Must have been a glitch with the payroll. Of course, the next day I heard what had happened – it came as a bit of a surprise, because Elizabeth Gray’s pregnancy had been pretty textbook. But you never can tell.’
Something was off here. The doctor might not know what had happened that night, but something was very wrong about this.
‘Who called you about the change of shift?’
‘I think it was the ward sister, if my memory serves me correctly – which, to be fair, it often doesn’t. Most days I can’t remember what I had for lunch by teatime.’
‘Do you know the name of the doctor they gave this trial to?’
‘Sorry, no.’ Dr Gibbs shook his head. ‘I don’t remember if anyone actually told me. He never came in again. The baby’s death probably didn’t look great on his CV.’
‘What about the ward sister? Would she know?’
‘Susan? Yes, I’m sure she would have, but she died of a heart attack a couple of years later.’ He frowned as he got to his feet. ‘How come you’re so interested?’
‘I’m a fraid I can’t tell you that. But it’s nothing too major. Just routine.’ Cass’s stomach sank. Maybe Mr Bright had been right. Perhaps he wouldn’t get anywhere looking for Luke on his own.
‘I know who might know, actually,’ Dr Gibbs said suddenly. ‘Nigel Powell – he was the Portman Hospital administrator. I didn’t know him then, but we’ve since been on a couple of committees together and we’re pretty good friends, in a kind of “game of golf every couple of weeks” way. I’m sure Flush5 would have had to keep him informed of some things for the hospital’s admin. Even if it didn’t go down on record anywhere, he’d have known who was working that night.’
Cass had to fight back a grin. Fuck you, Mr Bright. You’re not the only one able to get information.
‘Did he ever talk with you about what happened to the Gray baby?’ Cass asked.
‘No,’ the doctor said, ‘it was just a dead baby – oh God, I know how harsh that sounds, but I haven’t thought about it since it happened. You must know what I mean. You must have cases like that. Someone else’s tragedy is just routine for us.’
Cass knew exactly what he meant. ‘Have you got a number for Mr Powell?’
Dr Gibbs opened his mouth to speak, and then hesitated. ‘I think he’s just changed it. Last time I rang I got a dead tone. I do know his address though, if that will help?’
‘That’ll do.’ Cass grinned.
*
Andrew Gibbs watched the policeman head out of the hospital before heading into one of the small offices off the reception area. He could have walked out with the DI: he was on his way home himself. He probably should have … Whatever this DI Jones was digging around in the past for, it was probably nothing. He was tired and he had his coat on; he should have just gone home. He looked at the phone on the desk. Why would anyone be interested in a baby that had died so many years ago? Maybe that was what was troubling him. That, and that he might have inadvertently dropped his friend in it.
Powell was only just coming out of divorce fugue; he really didn’t need any more aggravation. Perhaps that’s why he’d lied to the policeman about not having Powell’s number. At least this way he could forewarn his friend to expect a visit.
He sighed and picked up the phone.
‘Hey, it’s Andrew Gibbs. Glad I caught you. Look, it’s probably nothing, but I’ve had a policeman here, a DI Jones. He was asking questions about a baby that died on the Flush5 ward. Ashley Gray? You probably don’t even remember it.’ He paused. ‘Nothing strange
happened that night, did it?’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t think so. Just letting you know, really. He might call round and see you.’
‘Gibbs?’ A face appeared in the doorway and broke into a grin. ‘Glad you’re still here – get your scrubs on, you’ve pulled a double. Markham’s called in sick.’
‘Great,’ he said into the phone while waving an acknowledgement at the disappearing figure. ‘Looks like I’ve got to go. So much for an early finish. I’ll call you for a game when I eventually get a day off. We should make the most of this mild weather.’
He hung up and stared at his locker in disgust. Time to change his shoes again.
‘So, are you going to come to the Union tonight? Johnny’s band’s playing – Cream Face Pie. It should be good.’
‘Yeah, probably.’ Rachel followed James outside the main building. A night out did sound like fun, but if James thought it meant that he’d be getting a drunken fumble at the end of the evening, he’d got another think coming.
‘Great!’ James grinned.
Inwardly, Rachel sighed. The grin was too large and the excitement in his voice just a little too much for a few halves of lager in the Uni bar with a friend. It was her fault, of course; after a couple of pints James always seemed funnier than he actually was, and the acne that covered the lower part of his face miraculously disappeared … until the next morning, of course. Thankfully, she’d never been so drunk that she’d got herself in the terrible position of seeing him first thing, but if she kept up with the random snogging, then that day would eventually come, and at this rate it was going to be sooner rather than later. Then she’d have to face the idea that on some level she did find geeky James attractive, and that maybe he was the kind of man who was waiting for her in her future. That really wasn’t a place she was ready to go yet.
‘They’re putting a demo together and going to take it out round to all the major labels. Someone’s bound to pick them up. I’m doing their website. It’ll be the first in my portfolio. I mean, they can’t pay me or anything, but who cares at the moment? I mean, really, it’s just so cool they asked me.’
Rachel smiled at him and wondered if he talked with this much over-abundant enthusiasm to everyone, or just to her. She had to admit it was nice to see someone looking at her with that much shine in their eyes. She was attractive, she knew that, but she wasn’t a great beauty – and Uni seemed to be filled with the slim and long-limbed. James didn’t seem to notice them, though. He only ever noticed her – it was one of the things that made her wonder if there was something wrong with him.
The Shadow of the Soul: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Two Page 25