A Matter of Blood (37 page)

Maya brought in the coffees. Cass took his and wandered over to study the huge canvas that covered one wall. Paint splatters flew in all directions, and for an instant he saw only the blood that had sprayed all over his baby brother’s dining room when his brains had been blown out. He flinched and turned away, half-expecting to see a pair of shiny black lace-ups daubed with crimson, but they were not there. He squeezed down a wave of grief, crushing it back into a small place deep inside.

Mr Red had taken a seat in one of the two wing-backed chairs. They reeked of expensive leather. He crossed his legs carefully before sipping his espresso. Maya lingered awkwardly in the doorway.

‘I’m very sorry about your brother, Detective Inspector,’ Asher Red said, ‘but I am surprised to see you here with Detective Inspector Ramsey. Surely you are not part of this investigation? Your presence here could be seen as something of an irregularity.’

Cass smiled, and walked behind the desk. So Mr Red knew who he was - but Cass had the upper hand. A pile of white business cards sat in a small box next to the computer screen. He picked one up. The card was richly textured, like the envelope Christian had left for him.

‘Oh, but I’m here on another matter entirely, Mr Red,’ he said as he slid the card into his top pocket. ‘I should have said.’ He grinned at the slight look of discomfort that flitted for a second across the man’s face. ‘I just thought I’d let Detective Inspector Ramsey get his work done first.’

Behind him, Ramsey yanked open a desk drawer with far more force than was required, as if to support Cass’s point.

‘And what would that business be?’ Asher Red studied him. ‘Perhaps I can help you?’

‘I want some information about an ex-employee of yours. A Mr Solomon.’

There was just the briefest tightening of fingers around the delicate china espresso cup. ‘Solomon? Do you have a first name?’

‘He stopped working for you approximately three months ago. And no. I don’t have a first name. But I’m sure your highly efficient computer system is capable of finding him.’

Asher Red tilted his head slightly in a reluctant nod. ‘And might I ask what this is regarding?’

‘No,’ Cass said. ‘You may not.’

Mr Red stared at him for a moment, his polite smile frozen on his face. ‘Just let me make a phone call and see what I can find out for you,’ he said eventually.

‘Thank you.’

Ramsey sighed. ‘If this office is exactly as Christian Jones left it, then I can’t see how he did any work.’ He stared at Mr Red, who had risen from the chair. ‘Your boys really did clear him out, didn’t you? There’s not even a photo of his family, just a bunch of stationery and an empty diary. Very efficient. ‘ He raised an eyebrow and turned to Christian’s assistant. ‘But please do expect that search warrant, Ms Healey.’

Asher Red didn’t even bother with a hint of an explanation or apology. ‘Let me take you downstairs then, if you’re quite finished, and I’ll search out that employment record.’

He nodded at Maya. ‘Miss Healey, if you could clear these cups away, then you may continue your work.’

She disappeared without even a murmured word of farewell. The three men rode the lift down to the ground floor without speaking.

 

They waited in the cool lobby, no doubt under the scrutiny of those hidden within the black glass box, while Ramsey rang through to Chelsea to start the paperwork for the search warrant. When he’d finished he looked at Cass, the closest to a glare he’d yet come. ‘If you found anything on that laptop of your brother’s then you’d better use it wisely and carefully, and keep me in the loop.’

Cass nodded, thinking of the numbers he’d stored in his phone. They were the only bits of information that he could imagine sharing with Ramsey, and he couldn’t do that yet. Ramsey would go through the proper procedures, and until Cass knew who’d set him up, everything outside of the serial case was going to be kept private.

Asher Red appeared silently in the corridor. He scanned a printed-out sheet. ‘Yes, we did have a Mr Solomon working here: David Solomon. A single man, according to our files. He worked with us on the merging of Abacus Entertainment into the Virginity Division of our corporations. He left about three and a half months ago.’ He looked up. ‘It appears he just rang in one day and said he was leaving. Some people find the pressure that comes with working at The Bank too much to cope with.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps that was part of what prompted poor Christian’s actions.’

‘Can I see that?’ Cass asked. He had no wish to discuss his brother with this odious bastard. All he wanted to do was break his nose, and then maybe throw him into the murky Thames outside.

‘Certainly.’ He handed it over.

Cass scanned the sheet. The information on it was minimal, and there was no mention of any Solomon and Bright Mining Corporation. There couldn’t be two families with this unusual surname linked to The Bank, which meant that what was printed here was probably unreliable.

‘This Canary Wharf address - this is where he lived?’

‘Yes, but the property belongs to the company.’ Mr Red shrugged gracefully. ‘I understand another employee was assigned the living space as soon as Mr Solomon moved out.’

‘That part of town isn’t cheap. I don’t recall Christian being offered a flash pad to move into.’

‘We expect a lot from our workforce, Detective Inspector, and we are very generous in return. Your brother was indeed offered company housing - and at a far more prestigious address than that one. He chose to stay in his own home. In return, we substantially reduced his mortgage payments each month.’

‘There’s a lot missing from here. Bank details, prior addresses. Not even his National Insurance number.’

‘I have released the information I can give you without first—’

‘—without first getting your superiors’ permission,’ Cass finished for him, and grimaced.

Mr Red smiled again. ‘We understand each other.’

‘One more thing. A pay-as-you-go sim card that was one of a batch stolen from this company has been used to make calls we believe may relate to a crime. Where do you keep these items?’

‘Ah yes. I believe someone mentioned this earlier today.

Each department has its own supply centre. The sim cards were taken from Mergers.’

‘The department that Mr Solomon worked for?’

‘Yes.’ Mr Red relinquished the word almost unwillingly. It was the first piece of solid information he’d actually provided.

Cass stared at him. ‘Well, thank you so much for all your help.’ He looked over at Ramsey. ‘Although I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again, aren’t you, Detective Inspector?’

‘Oh, without a doubt. Just as soon as that warrant comes in.’

 

They didn’t bother with formal goodbyes, instead ignoring Asher Red’s proffered hand and heading back to the car. Clouds had covered the sun and the breeze coming in from the river made Cass shiver. There was more to David Solomon than just some office exec who had burned out. Cass had seen the Redemption file. He’d seen the photos of Bright with his family. And Solomon had laughed at the mention of that name. This employment record was a fake; whoever Solomon was, he was far more intrinsically linked with The Bank than Asher Red was letting on. Cass thought about that smug bastard for a moment. Was it possible that he didn’t even know the record was a dummy? His brain itched for answers.

He drove from under The Bank’s shadow, he and Ramsey both lost in their own frustrated thoughts. He needed to get back inside the building unsupervised to find more information on Solomon, and he needed to know more about these two accounts that Christian had pulled out. And he could think of only one way to do that. But first, they had to get back to the office.

Bowman was still at the hospital. Either they were running some major tests on him, or even policemen with suspected poisoning and access to NHS couldn’t move to the front of the queue. Out in the Incident Room there was still a lot of activity, one person marking up all the new information on the board as others talked quietly or manned phones. The end of the room that had been dedicated to the Jackson and Miller case was silent; someone had already started dismantling the board. He ground his teeth together. How could anyone actually believe that Bowman had managed to get some kind of shitty gang war story out of Macintyre after one interview when Cass hadn’t after days of grilling the Irishman and his known associates?

‘Sir?’ Claire stood in the doorway. ‘So far no luck with people recognising our victims over in Covent Garden, but we’ve got a list of places that are open to the public that they might have all gone to.’

Cass scanned down the sheet. There were several cafés and restaurants, a church, the rock venue, the Opera House itself, and a number of pubs. It wasn’t a short list and most of the locations were not the sort where you would notice a new face or an occasional visitor. Covent Garden was filled with strangers most days. They probably had more chance of catching Solomon before they figured out how he selected his victims.

‘Well, if we’ve got the manpower, then keep them on it. I’m not too hopeful, though.’ He paused. ‘Any news on Josh Eagleton?’

‘No change,’ Claire said. ‘I rang them about an hour ago.

They say they’ll know better after this initial twenty-four-hour period if there’s likely to be any permanent brain damage.’

The kid’s message played over in Cass’s head and he kicked himself for not taking the call. Something Eagleton had noticed had freaked him out, and he could only hope the kid recovered so he could share it. He made a mental note to find time, and a reason that didn’t look suspect, to talk to Farmer and get the breakdown of that day’s events. It wouldn’t be tonight, though. This evening would be all about getting back inside The Bank.

‘What about the notebook?’

‘They’ve got prints from it and are searching the database. So far, nothing. The words are from
Paradise Lost
. Hask has the notebook now and he is going through the individual quotes, as well as seeing what he can get from the handwriting. That guy really is the expert’s expert.’ She paused. ‘It’s strange that Solomon left it behind, though, when he was so careful to clear everything else out.’

The same thought had occurred to Cass. ‘Maybe that’s what the puppy was for. To make sure if we didn’t get there of our own accord, someone in that building would smell it and report it. Hask says he’s clever. He’d paid up front and it wouldn’t have taken a genius to see that the landlord was a lazy bastard who was hardly going to be checking his tenants were happy every five minutes. Maybe we’ve found everything exactly when he wanted us to. He shrugged. ‘And on top of all that, who knows what makes this one do what he does? Sure as fuck, not me. Maybe he was testing us. He seems to like tests, this guy.’

‘I’ve got something else strange for you. I just had SOC on the phone. I asked them to look out for blond hairs - Sheena Joyce said he was blond, so I figured it would save some time.’

‘Good thinking. Well done.’

‘Well, the problem is’ - and Claire shook her head, bemused - ‘they haven’t found any.’

‘Nothing?’ Cass stared. Hair was normally the most abundant trace evidence found. The average person shed a hundred hairs a day, and in a dirty bedsit they should have been everywhere.

‘None that would fit the description. They’ve found dark hair, and some long blonde hairs with dark roots. None the right length to be our man’s.’

‘But that’s simply not possible!’

‘That’s what I said to SOC. If he’d cleaned the room of his own hair, then surely they wouldn’t have found any other hairs under the flies or in the bedding.’ She paused. ‘They said that was our problem.’

‘Charming.’

‘Maybe he was wearing a wig,’ Claire suggested.

It was a possibility, but Cass didn’t buy it. Sheena Joyce would have noticed. They didn’t make wigs that good, even for the movies.

‘And just to add to the confusion, apparently there are no pupal cases in the room. There are in the oven, but none outside of it.’

‘Pupil cases?’

‘Not pup
il
. Pup
al
. It’s what the flies hatch out of. If he’d had them there growing on something from eggs, the flies would have left these small dark shells behind.’

Cass had a vague recollection of Farmer talking him through the life cycle of a fly when he’d first come onto the case, but it had been pushed aside by more important information. ‘And there weren’t any of these cases in the bedsit?’

‘No. It’s like the flies just appeared, and died. Or maybe he brought them in already dead and scattered them there.’

‘Perhaps they’re part of the message. He’s left eggs on the victims; maybe this and the notebook are a message to us. The dead flies are the opposite end of the cycle. Maybe he’s saying something different to us. Maybe the dead ones represent him finishing something. Get the SOC photos over to Hask. That’s his department.’

He shut the door behind her and after a moment pulled out Christian’s business card from his top pocket. His brother’s name was typed in a small, elegant font and had no title underneath it. Having seen his office, that didn’t surprise Cass much. Christian was probably too high up in the company to have just one title. Underneath it was Maya’s name, and the title Personal Assistant, and under that was a number. He dialled it.

‘Maya Healey.’ It was a soft, sweet voice. The kind that oozed ‘Victim’.

‘It’s Cass Jones.’

There was a pause that suggested that if she hadn’t been such a polite person she would have hung up. As it was, she just let out a breathy, sharp sigh. It took Cass less than five minutes to persuade her to meet him after work for a drink to talk about Christian. She didn’t want to, but he pulled at her heartstrings until she said yes, he could pick her up round the corner from work when she finished. She said she finished at six-thirty. Cass decided he’d be there at six, just in case she let her obvious anxiety get the better of her and decided to flee a little earlier.