A Matter of Blood (17 page)

‘It was wrong. We both knew that,’ he repeated quietly, ‘and it was not something either of us were wanting to start up again, ever. They got on with their lives, and raising Luke. I stayed out of the way as much as possible. Me and Kate—’

‘—your wife,’ Ramsey interjected, clarifying for the recording.

‘Kate, my wife, and I would visit for Luke’s birthday, or Christmas sometimes. I saw them maybe three or four times a year. Kate saw them more often, but not exactly regularly.’

‘And as far as you’re aware, your brother never found out about the affaire.’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t know. When he rang me the other night he didn’t sound angry - maybe anxious and wound up about something, but not angry.’

‘Although we only have your word for that,’ Bowman added.

‘I guess you do.’ Cass refused to rise to the bait. ‘But Kate spoke to him briefly. I’m sure if he’d told her that I’d been screwing his wife she would have mentioned that when I got home.’

‘You can never tell how women will react.’

‘I think I probably know my own wife. We’ve been together a long time. She’s not the sort to take that sort of thing quietly.’

Bowman smirked, making Cass want to rip his heart out all over again.

‘Okay,’ Ramsey said, ignoring the DI, ‘let’s get back to the gun.’

‘Christian didn’t own a gun.’

‘Well, whether he’d owned it for long, had only just bought it or had borrowed it from someone, there it was, found next to his dead body, and your fingerprints were on the barrels.’

Cass stared. ‘The barrels? Not the trigger? Look, I’ve said this before and I’m going to keep repeating it until the cows come home,
because it’s the bloody truth
: as far as I was aware, Christian didn’t own a gun. I wasn’t there that night. I don’t know what happened, other than what’s in the report. Until Claire told me they were dead, I had had no bloody idea.’

He leaned forward, looked at Ramsey. ‘Look, I wish I did know more. I wish I could understand what my brother did. But I don’t.
And I wasn’t there
.’

‘Which brings us back to where you were.’ Bowman made a pretence of flicking through papers. ‘You drove around London and then fell asleep in a Tesco car park down in Newham? It’s not exactly the most watertight of alibis, is it? You’re not even clear on where you went before deciding that Tesco was the best place to lay your head for the night - when you’re in charge of two serious cases.’

Ramsey sent the DI a sharp glare. ‘Stay on the point.’

‘With all due respect, I am on the point. The Tesco security camera has his car parking up at gone three in the morning. He could have been anywhere between the time he rowed with his wife and stormed out of the house and when he ended up there. And he can’t tell us where he was.’

‘I did tell you where I was,’ Cass said, trying to keep hold of his exasperation. ‘I was driving. And I can tell you where I wasn’t. I wasn’t at my brother’s house.’

‘Again, we only have your word for that.’ Bowman’s voice rose slightly. ‘So you go out and get drunk, or whatever you did, and then, after sleeping it off in a car park, you go home and stick your clothes straight in the washing machine. Nothing else, just your clothes. And we’re just supposed to take you at your word?’

‘Like I said, I stank,’ he sighed. ‘And I had some blood on my sleeve.’

The room fell silent.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, you moron, it was
my
fucking blood! I’d woken up with a nosebleed.’

Both pairs of eyes stared at him. He stared back. ‘Go and check my fucking car. If I’d been at the scene, then we all know I’d have been covered in it. I just had a nosebleed. I went home and stuck my clothes straight in the machine. I didn’t think to go upstairs and get the rest of the fucking laundry. I just wanted to get showered and get to work.’ He turned to Ramsey. ‘It’s a set-up. It’s got to be. I can’t see how it can be anything else.’

‘How about this: you’d seen your brother’s wife earlier in the day. She’d told you he was going to be working late - we’ve got him on security camera leaving his office at The Bank at 11.30 p.m. Maybe you decided to go back to your lover’s house for a while. Have a quickie.’

‘And what?’ Cass almost laughed, it was so ridiculous. ‘Get caught and then sit there on the edge of the bed, waiting while he shot his wife and child? Don’t be so fucking stupid. That’s just fucking crazy.’ He stubbed his cigarette out. ‘It doesn’t fucking work and you know it.’

‘Well, what about this, then? Your brother’s acting funny. He calls you and your wife. Maybe Jessica is worried that he’s found out about your dirty little secret. You’re out driving around and you decide to call round there, check everything’s okay. But when you get there it isn’t. Your brother opens the door, gun in hand and covered in blood.’ Bowman leaned forward, his voice low, almost conversational.

‘You’re a policeman. You know what you’re doing, so you talk him down a bit. You go inside and into the dining room. At some point he tells you what he’s done. Maybe he starts to lose it again. He points the gun at you and you wrestle. He falls back into the seat and somehow he pulls the trigger. Completely shocked, you find somewhere to park up and calm down for a couple of hours. When you know your wife will definitely be asleep you go home, wash your clothes and then go to work as if nothing has happened.’

Cass stared at him. ‘How many times do I have to say this? It didn’t happen. I didn’t have sex with my brother’s wife. I wasn’t there.’

Ramsey rubbed his face. ‘But you can see how it could look that way.’

‘Or maybe it was you that snapped,’ Bowman cut in, ‘you that blew them all away.’

Cass gripped the edge of the table to stop himself lunging forward.

‘Enough, Bowman,’ Ramsey barked. ‘Right, let’s look at the facts again - just the facts. For a start the only prints on the trigger belong to Christian. And although there is a fingerprint of yours on the gun, I have to be honest with you, I don’t see you leaving it there. You’re not that careless. On top of that,’ he looked up, ‘Hask is pretty convinced you’re not the murdering type.’

‘That shows what
he’s
worth.’ Bowman pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘Every fucker on the force knows that Cass Jones is a killer. The worst kind. It’s all in the files.’

Cass’s blood boiled. ‘I did what I did, Bowman. You weren’t there. And do you ever wonder what you would have done in my position?’

‘Get out, Bowman.’ Ramsey’s voice was low but deadly. ‘Get the fuck out of here before I do something that I might not regret.’ Even with the hint of molasses in his accent, the words were sharp.

The DI glared at Cass as he paused at the door. ‘You think you’re above everything, Jones. You always have. But you’re not. You got away with murder once and still kept your job. It’s not going to happen again.’

Ramsey stood. ‘That’s not your call, Bowman. Now why don’t you go and cool your head somewhere else. You’ve got plenty out there with your own caseload to keep you busy.’

‘My pleasure.’

Cass figured it was taking all Bowman’s reserve not to spit in his face. He contented himself with slamming the door.

‘I always knew that bastard didn’t like me, but I never realised just how much until now,’ he said quietly. Despite the foul taste in his mouth he lit another cigarette. His lungs felt cold from smoking too much, but he sucked in hard regardless.

‘It’s true he doesn’t seem too keen on you.’ Ramsey waved away the offered Marlboro. ‘But he made some valid points. The way he suggested things went down could play out in court, you know.’ He held his hands up as Cass opened his mouth to protest again. ‘For what it’s worth, Jones, I believe you. But if someone is trying to set you up, then they’ve done a pretty good job.’

‘Someone isn’t
trying
, he
has
set me up.’

‘Then give me suggestions. Who and why?’

‘Maybe whoever tried to kill Macintyre wants me out of the way. Maybe they think I’ve got something.’

‘Killing your brother’s whole family is perhaps a little far out, don’t you think? Just to get you off a case?’

‘They shot two schoolkids in broad daylight. They didn’t seem to feel too guilty about that.’

Ramsey shook his head. ‘It’s still extreme - especially when from what I can gather you didn’t really have a lot to go on.’

Cass knew his fellow DI was right. It was hard to believe that someone would go to that length just to get him off a case that wasn’t looking solvable any time soon. But he couldn’t see any other explanation. Frustration gnawed at him. ‘There’s something here that we’re not seeing. We’ve got a suspect in the serial killings sending me a film of those two boys being gunned down. And now this set-up.’ Ash dropped to the table from the burning end of the forgotten cigarette. ‘And however bad it looks, I
know
it’s a set-up. Something’s linking all this, but we’re just not getting it.’

Ramsey looked at him. ‘Okay, so let’s say this is a set-up. How would they have got your sperm?’ There was no accusation in his tone, simply curiosity.

Cass shrugged. ‘Fuck knows. They must have gone through our rubbish. Got a condom.’

‘You and your wife use protection?’

‘She doesn’t like the pill and I didn’t want a vasectomy.’ He paused. ‘Can’t beat safety first in this day and age. I’ve seen people with Strain II . It’s not pretty.’

‘You think your wife was sleeping around?’

‘No.’ His smile was bitter. ‘But I know what I’m like. She probably does too, and you hear too many revengefuck stories these days.’ He finally remembered the cigarette and pulled on it. The smoke was hot and tasted of old dirt. He stubbed it out and immediately regretted it. ‘Don’t even try to understand my marriage. We don’t understand it, and we’re in it. It’s a fuck-up. I damaged it when I was undercover and it’s never recovered. If we didn’t use condoms, then that would mean that we trusted each other.’ He paused. ‘No, that’s not right. It would mean
she
trusted
me
.’ He smiled slightly. ‘And
I
don’t even trust me. Not like that.’

There was a long silence.

‘So what now? Are you going to arrest me or hold me?’

‘No, neither. But the DCI says you need to take a week’s paid leave. They’ll call it compassionate.’

Cass laughed. ‘And he’s all about compassion.’

Ramsey shrugged. ‘You know how it is. They can’t have you working either of the cases with this hanging over you. You need to prove you weren’t there. No one really believes you had anything to do with this awful thing, not even Bowman, under all his aggression. But if the media got hold of it and you were found to be still working the Jackson and Miller case, they’d be baying for blood.’

Cass nodded. He’d seen it coming the minute they’d started the formal interview. He’d been in the same situation ten years ago, knew what was likely to happen, but it didn’t stop feeling like a punch in the gut.

‘So basically, they’re suspending me.’

Ramsey’s silence said it all.

Claire had been waiting for him in the corridor, and she kept pace as he stormed outside.

‘Fucking suspended.’ Even though the sun was shining, the air was still damp. It smelled of mud and tasted of the earth as Cass sucked it in. His anger had left him almost breathless.

‘I heard it was compassionate.’

They were halfway down the stairs in front of the station before she managed to stop him.

‘That’s just semantics, and you know it.’

Claire pushed a strand of hair out her face. ‘It’s a fuck-up, that’s what it is.’

Cass almost laughed in surprise at the curse, and it calmed him down. ‘Careful. You’re starting to sound like me.’

‘Well, the whole thing’s just insane.’ She frowned. ‘Bowman’s loving it. Maybe you were right about him.’

‘Oh yeah, I’m right about that bastard.’

A shadow fell across the steps. ‘Inspector? DI Jones? Can I have a word?’

‘Not now,’ Cass answered before he’d even seen who it was. His mind didn’t change when he recognised the young man as the ME’s new assistant.

‘It’s just that I—’

Cass turned back to Claire. ‘My mobile will be on, so keep me informed on both cases. I want to know everything Bowman knows, and if possible I want to know it
before
he does.’ The lab assistant shuffled from foot to foot behind them. He could wait. He probably just wanted to apologise for that stupid photograph, and Cass was in no mood for simpering sorrys.

‘And look at that film again. Keep looking at it.’ He shoved his hand in his pocket, relieved to feel the data pen still there. ‘I’ll do the same.’

Claire nodded. Her eyes searched into his, full of a care he knew he didn’t deserve. ‘And you stay in touch. If you need anything then just call me. Any time.’

‘I’m sure the new boyfriend would love that.’

‘He’d get over it.’ She looked away. ‘He’s been a miserable bugger these past few days anyway.’