The Shadow of the Soul (9 page)

‘No. I haven’t.’ He scanned the accompanying article. The hack, Oliver McMahon, who’d written it seemed to have a lot of information at his fingertips, especially about Cass himself and his role in ‘uncovering the corruption at the heart of the London Met’. The piece claimed the deaths were linked by the single phrase,
Chaos in the darkness
, although it didn’t go into detail about how each suicide had used the phrase.

Once he’d finished, he passed it sideways to Armstrong. Keeping his eyes focused on Heddings, he said, ‘It doesn’t surprise me, though. The two girls we met yesterday at Angie Lane’s flat already knew about the others.’

‘We really don’t need any more bloody fiascos.’ Heddings cheeks were flushed.

‘With all due respect, sir, don’t take it out on me. I haven’t said a word.’ It was only a small lie; mentioning the deaths to Hask and Ramsey didn’t count, and it wasn’t as if they’d even discussed the full potential of the case.

‘They make you sound like the saviour of the Met.’

‘Is that what’s bothering you?’

‘No.’ Heddings flashed him a glare. ‘Despite what you
think, I’m not that petty. I just don’t like having my hand forced.’

‘I’m not with you, sir.’

‘Really? If it’s in this rag today, then it’ll be in all the others by tomorrow. We’ll look like a right bunch of callous bastards if we do nothing about it.’

Cass bit back his smile. ‘So have I got the case, sir?’

‘You bloody know you have.’

Cass didn’t let the grin stretch across his face until the door closed behind them and he was heading back to his office.

When Armstrong knocked on his door forty-five minutes later, Cass had a copy of the paper on his desk and was staring at the computer. He’d typed in the phrase ‘Chaos in the darkness’. Even after hearing what the students had said the day before, he was surprised to see how many forums and message boards had picked up on it. He’d been going through them for nearly an hour and had yet to scratch the surface.

‘We should be ready to dig up the bodies this afternoon. I’ve called Eagleton and he’s getting prepped. I’m just waiting for the official go-ahead and then we can get a team in.’

Armstrong put the fresh coffee down. ‘The Dodds and Busby families need informing, but her parents are in Guildford, and Busby’s are somewhere in Buckinghamshire. Do you want me to get the locals on it?’

‘No, you go with a WPC. I want to know about these kids’ lives. I’ll do their colleges.’ He sighed. ‘This shit is all over the Internet and it’s spreading like wildfire. We’re watching a new urban myth in the making.’

‘I know, I did a search last night. What are you looking for?’

‘Something referencing the phrase prior to these deaths.’

‘Once you’ve briefed the team, get a couple of plods working on it.’ Armstrong’s face twitched into a smile. ‘No offence, but they’re probably more Internet-savvy than you.’

‘I’m still in my bloody thirties, you know.’ Cass couldn’t help feeling slightly rankled. ‘Maybe only just, but I’m not a dinosaur.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘You seem a little more enthusiastic about working with me today.’

‘It’s good to have a proper case.’

‘I know that feeling.’ Cass looked down at the newspaper. ‘What was your degree in before you joined the force?’

‘Politics and journalism. Why?’

Cass had half-expected the young man to lie, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t. At least it showed he didn’t take Cass for an idiot.

‘This article has a lot of valid information. It surprised me to see Cory Denter’s story in there. Even his parents weren’t aware that he’d scribbled “Chaos in the darkness” in his work file. Didn’t that stand out to you? I’ve just got off the phone to them. It probably would have been better for them to hear from us that there may be something dodgy about their son’s death before reading it in the papers.’

‘They knew. You were there yesterday. They might not have
known
, but the fact that you turned up? They’d have realised something wasn’t quite right.’

Cass looked at the paper again. He wasn’t letting his enthusiastic young sergeant get off that lightly. ‘It’s a clever piece. There’s enough there to make it interesting, but not so much that it causes us any major problems in any investigation. It also says some overly kind things about me.’ Cass watched his sergeant thoughtfully. ‘You got friends at that paper?’

Armstrong met Cass’s eyes. ‘It was a case that needed
investigating, sir. And now we’re investigating it.’

‘So the ends justify the means?’

‘I couldn’t comment on the means.’ Armstrong glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better get the team ready for briefing if I’m going to see both sets of parents today. Anything else, sir?’

‘No.’ Cass leaned back in his chair. ‘Just don’t ever go to the papers without my say-so again. You’ll end up getting fired for a stunt like that.’

‘No, I won’t.’ Armstrong was on his way out the door. ‘Trust me.’

The ambiguity of the answer wasn’t lost on Cass; there was obviously more to his new sergeant than he’d at first thought. He could live with that, he reflected, looking back at the screen filled with short messages mainly written in some Internet version of teenage textspeak. A little ruthlessness could take you a long way in the force. But he’d be keeping an eye on Armstrong from now on. The young man might think he was clever, but the stupidity of youth stopped them all realising they were never as clever as they thought.

A
s the car pulled in through the barricades and onto Leicester Square, Abigail was glad that David Fletcher was back at the ATD and not with them on this public outing. He unsettled her. He was too straightforward. Where Andrew Dunne and the Prime Minister had believed her change of heart about the fat man and accepted that she had just been mistaken, Fletcher had not. He’d seen her initial reaction, and no matter what she’d said in the interview afterwards, he hadn’t let go of that. She could read his face as well as he had read hers in that moment. They’d spent the afternoon locked in a wary battle, and however many times he had smiled at her politely, they both knew he
knew
.

Still, knowing and being able to do something about it were two different things. Fletcher had his hands full, and he could run as many searches on her as he liked, they’d always come back as clean. She
was
clean.

Through the tinted glass of the window she could see the memorial that was going up for all those who’d lost their lives, not only in 26/09, but in all the acts of terrorism that had taken place over the past decade. It was supposed to be modern art. Abigail wondered if anyone else thought the sculpted metal looked like the twisted wreck of a train carriage. She guessed not – or if they did, they weren’t saying.

The surrounding roads had been temporarily closed off, but within the pedestrianised square a large group of grieving relatives were standing behind a smaller barrier about fifteen feet from the microphone. More onlookers gathered in crowds further away behind the Road Closed cordons. The Prime Minister had wanted this memorial up quickly, not just to draw a line under the events as much as she could, but also she wanted the public to be here to show the world that London was not afraid of terrorism, that Londoners were made of sterner stuff. Crowds had turned out, but nowhere near the numbers this part of the city should draw. Maybe Londoners weren’t so brave after all.

The car slowed to a halt. Perhaps if the King had come, as he’d wanted to, the crowds would have been larger, but his health was failing, and McDonnell had persuaded him to allow the Prince of Wales to come in his stead at a separate time. The public would prefer that anyway; most people believed the old king should have passed his crown to his son, just like he’d wanted his own mother to do. The country needed a morale boost, and a young and dynamic king would raise spirits. Some leaders just didn’t know when to step down. Even empty power could be addictive.

Cameras started flashing as soon as they got out of the limousine. The journalists had been kept behind the inner barrier. Special Branch officers would be moving among them, as well as the relatives and the main crowd of onlookers, further back, dressed in their civvies, monitoring the population for the slightest hint of any suspicious behaviour. Abigail didn’t know their faces, but she could always pick them out by their posture and concentrated expressions as their eyes flicked across the crowd. Body language was the biggest tell of them all.

It was only ten a.m. but the day was already warm. For
once her expensive dark glasses – so stereotypical, thanks to Hollywood, and yet vital for masking the target of her gaze – did not look so out of place. Behind her, Barker pulled the large wreath of flowers from the car and followed the Prime Minister over to the steel and black structure. McDonnell took it from him and after placing it carefully on the ground, she turned to the crowd. Abigail moved so that she was slightly to one side of her boss, where she had a clear view of all the people in front of them, and the barriers beside. Her earpiece remained silent, but she scanned the buildings and windows, just in case the great Secret Service machine had missed anything. It hadn’t, of course. Today, there would be no chance of any attack; highly trained individuals had flooded the area to be sure of that.

As the Prime Minister began to talk, Abigail remained focused. Her heartbeat stayed regular and even. She didn’t think about the strangeness of her job, the ability to leap in front of a bullet without hesitation. They could dress it up with whatever title they wanted, but that was the essence of her position. Her sole responsibility was to ensure that should any attack on the Prime Minister happen, the other woman would have every chance of survival, which meant severely limiting the chance of her own. She’d been trained to move and calculate angles in order to take a bullet with the least likely outcome of death if she had to, but everyone knew that, really, it was just a matter of luck. The training was just something to help you sleep at night.

Abigail knew her colleagues viewed her strangely. They couldn’t understand why a young, attractive woman would apply for that job, especially when so many world leaders were coming under attack. She didn’t fit the image. She certainly hadn’t throughout the interview process either,
but she’d come top in all the tests, both physical and mental, and the psyche evaluation had proven her the most suitable for the position, and so here she was: death’s body double.

More cameras flashed as McDonnell’s speech continued. Abigail watched the crowd, her gaze moving from left to right through the group of relatives. There was nothing suspicious, as she’d expected. Her eyes moved again—

—and froze. Her heart thumped into life. A figure stood at the back, a step or two away from the last of the relatives. He hadn’t been there seconds before. Her mouth dried as he smiled.
At her
. Even from the distance she could see the purple mottling on the skin that stretched across his fat face. He wore a dark suit. One hand undid the buttons of his jacket, his black eyes still fixed on hers. The earpiece was silent. Why the hell hadn’t anyone spotted him? The finger to the lips, the note under her door, all her secrets were lost as her training kicked in.

Too much happened in too few seconds. The fat man held open his suit jacket. Something was strapped to his already oversized chest. Blocks of white. He smiled again, tilting his head to one side. He raised his left hand. He was holding something small in it. A triggering device? She looked at the white again.
Plastique
.

Action took over and she pulled her gun free with one hand while pushing the PM and her press officer to the ground. She shouted, not lowering her head towards the discreet mike attached to her suit jacket, but loud enough to be heard across the square. The sombre moment cracked, and the memory of the lost dead was replaced with the screaming fear of a crowd’s sudden awareness of their own potential mortality. The barrier was shoved sideways as people fled. The officers who had hidden among them stood dumbfounded, looking this way and that for whatever
the cause of the panic was. Why the hell hadn’t they seen him?

On her feet, Abigail was running before she spotted the fat man again. He’d moved fast, already across the far barrier. Why had no one stopped him? What the hell was going on? Were they all half-asleep? Her feet pounded the tarmac and she pushed past the scattering people until she reached the metal, vaulting it in one smooth move. Someone was yelling in her earpiece but she couldn’t work out what they were saying. She ripped it free. They could wait.

She spied the man at least one hundred yards away heading towards the empty Trocadero building. He’d paused and was looking backwards. What the fuck was he doing? Waiting for her?
Yes
, a still voice inside her whispered.
Of course he’s waiting for you. He always has been
. She didn’t listen. It was drowned out by the rush of her urgent breath. As she picked up her pace to a sprint, the suited man smiled. He ducked between a gaggle of pedestrians who’d frozen like rabbits in the headlights in the midst of the sudden commotion and she lost him again. Bastard. How did he move so fast? She hadn’t even seen him running. Her shirt clung to her back with sweat as she chased him. Somewhere behind her, other feet would be coming fast. She wanted to reach this man before they did. Why the hell hadn’t he detonated the bomb at the memorial? There was nothing she could have done about it if he had. No one else had seen him. Why was he taunting her?

He waited for her at the entrance to Piccadilly Circus tube station. She was almost at him when he disappeared inside. She swore under her breath and headed down into the stinking heat of the humid Underground. She spied him
again as he stepped onto the escalator towards the Bakerloo Line. He was facing the wrong way, looking upwards, smiling at her as his face disappeared, carried down into the earth. Abigail’s breathing was raw. Sweat itched her hairline. She pushed passed commuters and shoppers, their angry exclamations turning to sharp intakes of breath as they saw the weapon in her hand and fought with each other to get out of her way in the overcrowded station. Some were unsuccessful, finding themselves kicked and shoved aside as she tried in vain to keep her eyes on her target. She couldn’t.

‘Which way did the fat man go?’ she shouted into the crowd at the bottom of the escalator. Wide eyes stared dumbly back at her. Two paths to choose from. He could have taken either. Fuck it, she thought, and turned to her left. If she picked the wrong platform he was likely to be gone by the time she fought her way to the other, even with the reduced services, but in a game of chance all that mattered was that you chose – the outcome was all about luck. She chose left. Someone tumbled on the stairs as she rushed down them, her voice ringing out loudly to
get out of the way
to people who had nowhere to go to. From the corner of her eye she saw a man bend to pick up the shaken woman. Abigail didn’t give her another thought. The people around her were just hindrances: obstacles in the way of her target.

As it was, though she hadn’t been able to get the commuter population to give her some space, the fat man had plenty. He stood just the other side of the ‘stand clear’ line with an arc of empty platform around him. The air was heavy with stale breath from the crowds jammed together in the surrounding area waiting for the next already overloaded train, but despite the numbers present, the platform
was eerily quiet. Perhaps they all sensed something odd about this man too.

‘Don’t move,’ Abigail said, raising her gun. She walked slowly forward until they were only a few feet apart. His hand stayed clasped round whatever device he was holding, his pudgy thumb poised. From this close the mottled tone of his skin was more pronounced, the purple patches looking like bruised flesh. Although he wasn’t sweating, he was shiny, as if somehow he was slick with damp, just on the other side of his pores. His eyes were black, she’d swear on it: not dark brown, but black, through and through.

‘Put that on the floor and step backwards.’ Her voice shook. She should be revolted by this strange man, but instead she was drawn to him. She wanted to run her hands over that obese body – but there was nothing sexual in the feeling. It came from somewhere deeper and more primal, somewhere in her cells, in her very being. She fought it, keeping her gun levelled at his head.

‘I said put that down.’

The fat man smiled. His gums were bleeding badly, and thin rivulets of pink spilled onto his lips. What the hell was wrong with him – radiation sickness? How could he be so obese and move so quickly, and yet be so ill?

‘How long have you been emptying, Abigail?’ He kept his hand up, his thumb poised. His voice was a melody carried on the wind. It caught her breath.

‘You can feel it, can’t you? Everything draining?’ His smile stretched wider and he tilted his head. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘Who are you?’ she asked. Her own voice was gritty and rough and ugly.
Earth to air
. Her words tasted like shit in her mouth. His felt like honey in her ears. Behind her came more shouts. Police.
Her
side. They’d be here in moments.
‘I am family.’ The grin widened. More thin blood oozed from his gums.

‘Take it,’ he said, and held out his hand. She leaned in and closed her palm around the cool flesh. Everything stopped. Her head filled with darkness and flashes of colour, hundreds of shades of gold and light. Images she didn’t understand reached into the empty spaces that had been silently craving them.

She gasped as he let go. For a moment her body forgot how to breathe as the cells started realigning, part one thing, part another, into something new. A sharp pain ran from the base of her neck and up through her skull, as if a skewer had been driven hard into her head. Her gun clattered to the ground.

Feet pounded down the stairs. Male voices shouted, authoritative, threatening.
Empty
.

‘Interventionist,’ the fat man whispered, and the pain stopped. His beautiful word sounded wet, as if the blood that filled his mouth was now clogging his lungs. He winked at Abigail.

Her hair lifted in the hot roar from the tunnel. A train was coming. He stepped backwards. She couldn’t speak. Hands grabbed at her arms, pulling her away to get closer to the target. Everything moved in a haze.
Dark eyes on hers
. The rush of the train. The smile, as the fat man elegantly stepped from the platform edge. She squeezed her eyes shut against the impact. Several women screamed. The train screeched in unison.

There was a moment of silence.

‘Jesus fucking Christ!’

Abigail didn’t look at the sweaty Special Branch officer beside her. Neither did she look over the edge at the mess that would no doubt be splattered along the tracks and up
the sides of the platform for a hundred yards or so. She trembled. She tried to remember the feeling she’d had when he touched her.
Completeness
. It was gone – not far, she thought, but like something lost somewhere just out of sight, and no matter how quickly you spun round, you never quite found it.