A Matter of Blood (42 page)

‘Mr Jackson, during the course of this investigation we have discovered that both you and Mr Miller have had some financial difficulties over the past two years. Is that correct?’

‘You could call it that.’ Jackson let out a short laugh, devoid of emotion. ‘I’d call it financial meltdown. Neither of us have ever saved, but we had a knack for picking the right investments to keep ourselves afloat. But we started to make mistakes. We were too cocky. The world had changed and we had not accounted for that. Everything was high risk and we started to make some losses. Big ones. We tried to rectify our mistakes and we made it worse.’ He looked at Cass. ‘You probably know all this already.’

‘I have the paperwork, but I’m no financial genius.

Explain it to me.’

‘You don’t have to be a genius to see when sums like that don’t add up.’ He leaned back in his chair and wiped his eyes as he sighed.

‘Does your wife know?’

‘What do you think?’ After a second he answered his own question. ‘No, we decided not to tell Clara and Eleanor.’

‘Why? You thought they would leave you? Both of you?’

Again the slow shake. ‘Oh no, much worse. They’d be disappointed.
Let down
.’ He sipped the coffee for a moment, then looked at Cass again. ‘Paul and I are reinventions of ourselves. We created the image of ourselves we wanted to be: successful, confident, men who could take on the world and win. Those were the men our wives fell in love with. Only Paul and I knew that we weren’t exactly all that on the inside.’

‘Everybody’s different on the inside,’ Claire said. ‘Even your wives.’

Jackson smiled at her pityingly, as if there were no way she could ever understand.

‘You thought they wouldn’t love you any more?’ Cass frowned. ‘That’s crazy.’

‘They wouldn’t love us
the same
. We wouldn’t be the men who
took care
of things. It would have broken everything.’ He looked down and the desk. ‘Maybe it sounds crazy, but at that point we still thought we could save everything and they would never need to know.’ The clipped accent had slipped since he’d started talking.

Cass wondered how much of his life had been pretence - sometimes he himself still heard that harder edge of Cockney that was Charlie Sutton in his head. He wasn’t unsympathetic. ‘So what happened?’

‘Paul met someone in a casino.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know exactly. Some high-class place around Baker Street.’

‘He was gambling? He had money for that?’

‘Of course he didn’t. But it’s the last station of hope for a desperate man, isn’t it? To play the odds on the cards or wheel? And it was easier to pretend to be working late than going home. The strain of keeping up appearances was unbearable.’ His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I think we were starting to hate each other. You know how it is, it’s easier to blame someone else. Anyway, he got drunk and started blurting out all our problems. He says he doesn’t remember much about what he actually said, but the man gave him a card. Plain white, expensive. All it had on it was a mobile phone number.’

‘Who was this man?’

‘I don’t know his name. Paul never told me - he said he didn’t remember. But he told Paul that if we called that number there might be a way out of our problems. He said that he’d been in a similar situation and the man on the other end had saved his life, turned it around.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘We called the number, of course.’

‘And who answered?’

Jackson smiled softly, though his eyes were cold. ‘He said his name was Mr Solomon.’

Claire’s eyes darted to Cass, but he didn’t look back, despite his own rising excitement. A business card, plain white, expensive . . . he knew the feel of a card like that. Threads were weaving together in his head.
Nothing is sacred
. People had been tested and found wanting. That’s what he’d said. What test had Solomon set these men that they had failed so spectacularly?

‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Two days after the first call he rang Paul and told us to come to his penthouse at the Wharf.’

‘And who was he?’

‘He said he was an investor.’

‘Did he work for The Bank?’

Jackson was about to answer and then hesitated. ‘I’m not sure he
worked
for them. He said he invested heavily in The Bank. He didn’t strike me as someone who worked for anyone.’

Cass thought of the empty office and the huge canvas that filled the wall. Jackson had nailed Solomon pretty well. It was also close to the description that Adam Bradley had given of Mr Bright. He found that didn’t surprise him either. Bright and Solomon were bound together in his head, two parts of a whole, twisting around him and his family and his past.

‘And then what happened?’

Jackson shifted in his seat and leaned forward. ‘Have you ever seen
The Godfather
?’

‘With Marlon Brando? A long time ago. Why?’

‘We went there expecting to be offered a loan at some extortionate rate.’ A bitter smile flashed across his face as if at a bad private joke. ‘But it was like the opening to that film. We explained our situation and he just nodded and listened. Then when we were done he said he wanted to speak to us each separately. I only know what he said to me.’

‘Which was?’

Jackson sighed. He almost stank of shame. ‘He said he would lend me one hundred and fifty thousand pounds to get myself straight, with no interest on the loan. But I had to cut my cloth accordingly. He said I should talk to my wife, about my work and money problems . . . and if I didn’t do those things, there would be a charge to pay on the money within a year. He was insistent we should learn from our mistakes.’ He looked at Cass. ‘He told me not to discuss any of this with Paul. He suggested it would be better if we eased up on our friendship.’

He stopped for a bit, his head hanging, then added, ‘It was like talking to some kind of counsellor rather than a loan shark. I’ve met some powerful people in my time, but this man was different. He couldn’t have been much older than us, but there was something about him that was completely different - I just can’t put my finger on why. Sitting with him, I had every intention of doing what he asked me. I couldn’t imagine
not
doing what he asked me.’

‘And then?’

A small shrug. ‘We went home. We didn’t talk about it, but I could see Paul was happy too. We cleared our debts and slowly started spending less time together. I broke away gradually so that Clara wouldn’t notice. I think he must have had the same instruction because he didn’t say anything about it.’

‘I’ve seen your bank accounts,’ Cass said. ‘It doesn’t look like you told your wife.’

For the first time tears appeared in Isaac Jackson’s eyes. ‘I didn’t - I
couldn’t
. Paul obviously hadn’t told Eleanor, so how could I tell Clara? They’re best friends. It would have killed her’ - he stumbled a little over the phrase - ‘if Eleanor were able to maintain her lifestyle while Clara couldn’t. She’d have been humiliated.’

Tests. It was all about tests, and these men had failed. Cass could see it unfolding so clearly. Paul, and Jackson too, probably, supposed to talk to their wives about their overspending, both watching and waiting for the other to do it first. An absolute classic case of having to keep up with the Joneses, and both wives blithely unaware of the cost - but at
what
cost?

Jackson’s defeated voice intruded on Cass’s thoughts as he continued, ‘A month or so ago my phone rang. It was Solomon. He wanted us to meet.’

‘Back at the penthouse?’ Surely Solomon wouldn’t have met the men at the bedsit?

‘No, not this time, in a restaurant. An ordinary place, one of those steak chains. It was in Soho. Solomon looked different. He wasn’t so smartly dressed. He seemed less . . .
contained
. Maybe it had all been there the first time, but I hadn’t seen it. I’d been too worried about myself then to see the madness in him.’

‘You think he was crazy?’

Jackson laughed for a full thirty seconds. The sound was at odds with the bleakness of their confines and his tale. Eventually, he continued, ‘Oh, he was crazy. And I think he made me crazy too. I’d gone in there knowing he was going to ask for something. He’d said at the first meeting there’d be a charge if I didn’t tell Clara we needed to cut back, but I’d allowed for that. Investing on my own I’d made some extra money - nothing major, I’m not as brave as Paul, so the choices I’d made were less risky. But I’d kept the money, put it aside for when this call came.’ That sour smile flashed again. ‘I thought I had it covered. How wrong can you be?’

‘Tell me.’ Cass had an awful feeling in his gut.
Nothing is sacred
. We’d been tested and found wanting. What did Isaac Jackson and Paul Miller do?

‘He said that my wife’s life was an illusion. I’d failed to be honest with her and allow her to share in reality as he’d told me to do.’ He paused and swallowed hard. ‘He said that he’d made that clear when he’d given me the money. He said that her life was the charge.’ His eyes met Cass’s, the horror of reliving those moments so clear that Cass felt he could almost see the film running in a loop deep in those chocolate-brown eyes.

‘I didn’t understand what he was saying at first. I kept babbling about the money I’d put aside for him. He waited until I’d finished. Then he just said, “I’m going to kill your wife.” As simple as that.’ Jackson ran his hands over his head and then rested his face in his palms, his long fingers pressing against his mouth and nose as if that could somehow stop him from finishing this story.

‘But your wife is still alive.’

Jackson’s nod was almost imperceptible. ‘And sometimes, God help me, I wish she wasn’t,’ he whispered. ‘I begged and pleaded, and in the end, he gave me a choice.’ A whine crept into his deep voice, and Cass recognised it: it was the sound of someone who badly needed forgiveness of some kind. He’d heard it a thousand times before, in a thousand squalid police cells, and just like then, suddenly he was the Father Confessor. It was always the way, but he could offer no forgiveness; all he could do was to mete out justice. His face stayed impassive, but his stomach churned. He thought he could see where Isaac Jackson’s story was heading.

‘A choice?’ Claire asked softly.

‘He said a life was forfeit.’ His breath was ragged, the calm of earlier fading. ‘He said that if it wasn’t Clara, it had to be someone else. At first I thought he meant Justin and that almost sent me over the edge . . .’ Now tears flowed unchecked down his face and he stopped for a while until Cass prompted him again. ‘He started talking about Paul, and how the mess I was in was as much his fault as mine. As if he knew what I’d been thinking, why I didn’t tell Clara. Then he gave me my choice. Clara or Paul’s John.’ He buried his head into his hands again, and Cass could barely hear him when he said, ‘God help me, I chose little John.’ Snot ran from his nose and the words dribbled out with it: ‘I chose John.’

Cass stared. He was feeling so much he almost felt nothing at all. He was numb in the face of what had happened. Solomon had set them a test, and they’d failed. Pride, vanity, stupidity, and the craziness of one rich man: all these things had collided to create a tragedy, and two boys died. And even right at the end Jackson hadn’t offered up his own life to pay for his own weaknesses, no, he chose the life of
someone else’s child
over that of his wife. Did he even once say, “Don’t take either of them, take me”? Would things have been different if he had? Maybe that would have been Solomon’s Get Out of Jail Free card: offer the ultimate sacrifice and all will be well. Perhaps that was one high-risk bet that Jackson wasn’t ready to take.

‘And then when it happened, I knew.’ Jackson’s mournful gaze could have cracked ice. ‘Of course Paul and I both knew. We’d made the same choice. Our beautiful boys were gone, and now the devil is dancing with our souls. I can’t look at him any more. Nor he me.’

Cass couldn’t help the disgust that rose up inside him. He wanted to show him the tape. Perhaps he would. Maybe both men should live with the sight of their boys, friends to the last, gunned down side by side. Maybe then they’d see the reality of what they’d done. He glared at the sobbing man.

‘If I could take it all back I would,’ he was repeating, ‘oh God, I would.’ He was a broken man.

Black shoes. Crimson spots. There was one more thing Cass needed to know. ‘If you feel so bad, then why did you try and set me up?’

‘What?’ Jackson’s head slowly rose and revealed a face riven with guilt . . . and now confusion. ‘What do you mean?’

‘My brother and his family. The evidence that was planted.’

Jackson stared at him and then glanced at Claire before looking back at Cass. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

‘This was the only case I was working. It had to be you or Miller.’ He leaned in and growled, ‘Things cannot get any worse for you. You and your good friend - your
best
friend - just killed each other’s children.’

He enjoyed the visible recoil as the statement hit home. ‘Just tell me why. I need to know.’

There was a long pause. Jackson looked helpless. ‘But I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t tried to set you up - Christ, I was
relieved
when you came for me. That’s the truth.’

Seconds ticked past silently. The problem was that Cass believed him. Compared to killing his best friend’s kid, this was
nothing -
he had nothing left worth lying for.

 

Miller didn’t take long to break after that. Cass saw the horror on his face when he realised Jackson had told him everything. It took less than thirty minutes of increasingly abject ‘no comment’, most of which Cass thought was the last vestiges of self-denial, before Paul Miller was in tears as well, blabbing out his version of events much less coherently than his former friend had. Cass wondered if there wasn’t something more honest in this loss of all self-control than there had been with the stoicism Isaac Jackson had displayed when he started his interview, his completely unjustified sense of ‘doing the right thing’.