A Matter of Blood (24 page)

He watched Gary Bowman walk towards the central seat, Blackmore on one side and the DCI on the other. The long white table separated them from the journalists. There was no sign of Hask, but that wasn’t a surprise. Ironically enough, on the rare occasions the headshed were prepared to fork out for profilers, they always kept them low profile. Technically, they were civilians, and as such they needed to be protected. Bowman sat down carefully and Cass noted how pale he looked. What the fuck was he doing back at work? Brown-nosing for a promotion, probably. He waited for the noise in the room to subside before resting his arms on the table and leaning forward. His cufflinks glinted in the flash of a camera as he raised a hand to get silence.

‘This isn’t going to take long, and I’m not going to answer any questions at the present time, so listen carefully. This morning we found the dead body of a female nurse in Charing Cross Hospital. We believe that she was murdered.’

He paused as the expected buzz of noise made its way round the room before continuing, ‘We believe her death may be linked to those of four other women found dead in the central London area over the past few weeks.’ This time Bowman just raised his voice and talked over the hacks until they finally shut up. ‘We believe that the individual committing these crimes is a white male over the age of thirty. He may move jobs quite frequently, and he is probably something of a loner.’

Cass recognised the profiler’s analysis in Bowman’s words. He sipped his coffee and watched.

‘He may recently have gone through an upheaval, or perhaps a crisis of faith.’

‘Is it true he’s written on them in blood? “Nothing is sacred”?’

The voice cut through from the back of the crowded room, and despite his dislike of Bowman, Cass didn’t envy him having to deal with this pack of hounds.

Bowman stared, but the camera didn’t cut to whoever it was had called out. After a moment he said, ‘You know I can’t disclose any information on the killer’s methods.’

‘But has he—?’

Next to Bowman, DCI Morgan leaned forward and spoke into the microphone. ‘You’ll either listen, or we’ll terminate this press conference right now,’ he growled. ‘And thank you for no doubt adding to the number of false confessions my officers will have to waste time sorting through. Maybe I should send your newspaper the bill?’

He had the kind of voice you didn’t want to argue with, even though Cass had managed it several times. Was it only yesterday that voice had been directed at him in the interview room? Felt like longer . . .

‘He may be socially awkward,’ Bowman continued, ‘and we think he’s probably below average intelligence.’

Cass sat up. This was not what Hask had said; he’d distinctly said the man they were looking for was probably highly intelligent, not below average. He’d also said that he was probably quite charismatic, despite being a loner. Cass stubbed his cigarette out in the saucer he was using as an ashtray. He understood what they were doing: they’d be trying to get a reaction from the killer, to force him into making an angry mistake. They didn’t have enough clear information to make any true description worthwhile, so they were using the press conference both to appease the papers and to see if they could draw him out.

Cass thought it was a long shot. He doubted their killer would be so easily wound up. He turned the TV down as the three men got up to signal the end of the press conference and the screen cut back to the studio. He wondered if the smart and stylish Mr Bright had seen the news. Was he the killer they were looking for? After what Artie had said about the man’s reputation Cass wasn’t sure himself, but he was most certainly involved in this mess in some way. He was eager to hear what Claire had managed to find out about any links he might have with The Bank.

But right now, he had another task. He slid Christian’s small laptop from its bag and opened the lid. It was a make he didn’t recognise, but its elegant shape, size and light weight indicated expense. Many of the founders of The Bank came from IT backgrounds, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if they had a range of equipment solely for use by its employees.

He pressed the On button and the crystal display came immediately to life. He’d been right. This machine was good. Against the black and silver backdrop a command box opened, demanding a password. Cass stared. He typed in Jessica. It failed. He tried Luke. It failed again. He frowned. Christian was predictable. Whereas Cass’s passwords, as and when he ever needed them, were always completely random, he was pretty sure that Christian would fall into most people’s habit of using a loved one’s name. He typed in JessicaLuke, all one word, and almost pressed enter, but his fingers paused above the keys. Christian’s password would never be made of words. Christian loved his wife and child, or at least he had until that final night, but he thought in numbers. Cass deleted his typing and instead inserted the two numbers 7 and 4. There were seven letters in Jessica and four in Luke. He pressed enter and the red screen disappeared, instantly replaced with a clear homepage. He grinned. Maybe he still knew his brother a little after all.

He wasn’t sure what he should be looking for, so he clicked on Start and began to rummage through the files. He started with the email application, but as he scrolled down they all looked entirely bland, all work-related. Efficient as Christian always was, the history only went back about six weeks, so anything further back was probably deleted or backed up into the system in The Bank’s London HQ. Most of what remained were from Maya Healey, the assistant Ramsey had mentioned, checking on the progress of various audits and account transfers. Occasionally there was one from his boss, Asher Red, but those were always short and polite, and, to Cass, relatively pointless. Whatever Christian was doing at The Bank, it was impressing the bosses. Mr Red’s communications were all asking Christian if he needed anything, or congratulating him on doing such a fine job. Cass wondered if maybe Asher Red could give DCI Morgan a tip or two on how to talk to your staff.

The last email conversation was from Christian to Maya on the day that he died. Cass looked at the times. It was probably only an hour or so before he’d called Cass. He was querying some transfers and personal details on accounts. Cass frowned. ‘
Please double-check these. This can’t be right
.’ Something had been bugging Christian. The sentences were too short and to the point. He scrolled down to Maya’s response, which was to confirm the transfers and details were correct and to ask what he was doing auditing small businesses rather than company ones. Christian answered that a batch had arrived on his desk and he was just working his way through them. Someone must have been off sick. He then asked for a print out of all movement from one of the accounts to take home and look at. Surely, if Christian had taken the statements home, they would have been in the laptop bag, but that was empty.

He typed the two numbers into his phone. Maybe it was something, maybe nothing, but they would be worth checking out.

He searched both the Inbox and Outbox for anyone with the surname Bright, but there was no result. He tried a search on the contents of all mail files, but there was still nothing. He gritted his teeth. It was never going to be that easy. His finger moved over the narrow touch-sensitive mouse pad, clicking on various files, most of which contained accounts or reports on various companies. Some of the names he recognised as being part of The Bank group; others came as a surprise. There was also a file with companies that were about to become viable for future purchase. Cass scanned the pages. All joking aside, maybe within ten years everyone would work for The Bank in some form or another. No wonder the moguls that headed it were always smiling.

He left the individual files alone and explored the drives. There was very little in the way of anything personal, and not a lot that Cass really understood, but nothing struck him as out of the ordinary. He peered at an icon down at the bottom of the list. He almost hadn’t seen it; without a file name attached and in the middle of so many others, it was almost invisible. He clicked on it and as another dialogue box opened the screen behind vanished back to silver and black.

FILE: REDEMPTION.

He stared at the word. Redemption. What was it Christian had said to him on the phone that night?
It’s about redemption. That’s the key
. His heartbeat quickened. Whatever his brother had wanted to talk to him about, it was in this file. He typed 7 and 4 into the password box. The dialogue box changed. PASSWORD ONE: ACCEPTED. Beneath it a blank space flashed next to the command PASSWORD T WO.

Fuck. He lit a cigarette. He added Christian’s name in numbers, 9, to the tally. Nothing. He tried rearranging them. There was nothing again. For ten minutes he tried various combinations of words he thought might be significant to Christian, right down to the name of his first pet, a short-lived hamster called Woolly. Nothing worked. He’d even tried CASS but, as expected, that had failed. He sucked on the butt of the cigarette until it was damp, and then ground it out. What the hell would Christian have used?

He shut the computer down and leaned back in the chair for a moment. There was no point in just typing in random words; he’d end up trying for all eternity. Christian had been coming down to the house for a while, that’s what Father Michael had said. Maybe the clue to the password was here somewhere. He looked around at the bland lounge. Whatever it was, it wasn’t in here. The sun had dispersed the last of the clouds and Cass opened the window slightly to air out the smoke before heading back upstairs.

What had been his own bedroom as a child was pretty much as it was the last time he’d been here, made up as a small spare room and completely impersonal. It hadn’t housed any of his junk since he’d left home. Once his parents had moved his stuff into the attic - or chucked it out - they’d given it a lick of paint and bought some new furniture. There was nothing of Cass left in it. He paused in the doorway, remembering dark blue walls and the stars his dad had painted on the ceiling. Even when he’d hit his mid-teens he’d kept those walls. He’d pretended that he couldn’t be bothered to change things, but really he loved them. It was the smallest room in the house, but he’d liked its position at the other end of the house from the rest of the family. As the older brother he should have claimed the biggest bedroom, but it had never crossed his mind. With a small smile, he pulled the door closed and headed down the long landing to his brother’s room.

As they had done with Cass’s, his parents had also redesigned their youngest son’s room into a nice spare, with a small double bed at its centre. This was obviously where Christian had slept on his visits. One of their dad’s old suitcases was open on the bed. Cass looked at it. This wasn’t a case that had been used for holidays in the years before they died; the scuffed tan surface looked more like a relic from the sixties or seventies, with flight labels dirty with age stuck to its rough skin. Inside it was lined with frayed pink silk.

Cass sat on the bed. It was full of old photographs: a case full of memories. For a moment he didn’t touch them. His mouth dried. In the far corner a sepia-tinted image stood out, showing a stiffly dressed couple smiling awkwardly, their hands resting on a small boy’s shoulders. Cass didn’t recognise them, but they had to be grandparents, maybe even great-grandparents. He’d known none of them, on either side; his family were cursed when it came to living to a ripe old age. He felt the ache inside again. They were all gone apart from him, even little Luke.

He swallowed and reached into the case, ignoring the older black and white photos, instead picking up a handful of the coloured ones. The gloss on some had stuck them together and he carefully peeled them apart. His mum and dad twinkled at him from under their Christmas cracker paper hats. They were laughing. The next one was taken on the same day, probably by his mum. It was his dad, him and Christian. He stared at the teenager he’d been. His skin was smooth and his smile was open. Although he was looking into the camera, his father and Christian were both staring at him. His dad looked proud and Christian had something close to awe on this face. There was a lot of love in both their eyes, you’d have to be blind not to see that.

He picked up a different picture, his father again, now as an older man. He was in the garden doing something to a rose bush, thick gardening gloves covering his calloused hands. His skin was rough like Cass’s, but it was cracked in a kind smile. Silver glittered in his dark hair. Cass swallowed. This must have been taken not long before they died, maybe a year or two at most. He looked like his dad, he suddenly realised. Christian was blond, like their mother, but he and his dad had the same shaped face, same build, even similar mannerisms. How had he never noticed this resemblance before? He looked more closely. Their eyes were different though: both dark, yes, but his dad’s were gentle. Care shone in them. He wasn’t hard like Cass.

‘
Come home, Cass. We can talk about it. Please come home. It wasn’t your fault.’

His father had called a lot after the shit had well and truly hit the fan during his undercover time. After all the debriefings and the six months spent holed up in the middle of nowhere while the rest of the world cleaned up after him, his dad had kept on calling, saying the same things over and over. Come home. We can talk about it. Cass didn’t want to go home, though, and what was there to talk about? It was done. He remembered the soft kindness in his dad’s voice. Maybe if Alan Jones had got angry Cass would have gone home, but the kindness would have killed him. And really, what could his dad have said - it was all okay? He should forgive himself? It was far from okay, and he didn’t think he could ever forgive himself. He couldn’t see how.

Aside from what he’d actually done that night, there was some poor stiff who had been dragged out of the Thames and buried in a grave in London under the name of Charlie Sutton. Cass wondered about that poor sod’s family. They’d never know what became of their boy; he was nothing more than a convenient dead body to get a copper off the hook and lay a fucked-up case to rest. Guilt scraped the inside of his skull. They always said not knowing was the worst thing. And that family would never know.