The Shadow of the Soul (29 page)

He felt dizzy, and the black spots that appeared at the corners of his eyes were spreading. Someone would come … there were cameras … someone would see … This was too surreal. He couldn’t be dying. Not here. Not now. Not
him
.

A few moments later his body proved him wrong.

The weather isn’t as warm as it was in Paris, and it’s raining. The heavy drops patter on the small metal slide and climbing frame to her left as she swings open the damp gate and strolls into the gardens of Woburn Square. The path is made of yellow grit, and she thinks it’s pretty against the green of the central lawn. It makes her think of the walkways, and for a moment she is filled with a feeling she doesn’t recognise – an ache, something new amidst so many new things. A longing for home. She shakes it away and breathes in the air that smells of wetness and petrol and the sweat of millions
.

Water spills from the leaves of the trees that are spread out at regular intervals between the cast-iron fence and the path to afford some sense of peace and privacy in the midst of the bustling city, and she feels a splash of cool trickle down the back of her neck and slip under the collar of her baggy jumper.
Perhaps she should have worn more, but she likes the feel of the soft jeans on her legs and the wool brushing her body. Still, goosebumps prickle the fine hairs on her arms. She’s not sure if she likes them or not
.

A bus horn blares and a bunch of schoolkids pass on the other side of the fence, cussing each other in the vilest terms. The language sounds rough. London, she is realising, lacks the romance of Paris, and yet, she thinks with a smile, it has something of its own. It is old and gritty and filled with harsh truths hidden in plain sight. It is clever and fast and full of life. Its gestures are cynical, but made with a cheeky grin. London is a city that winks at you as it steals your wallet. There is no mistaking that this is the Architect’s home. It stinks of him
.

She smiles at the figure waiting for her in the wooden hut at the far end of the square. It is a quaint structure, with its white, waist-high fence that is almost picket-like, and the pale blue benches that line it within. There’s a miniature pavilion, which on a sunny day is probably filled with students, or workers eating their lunches and chatting, or maybe lovers, curled up together watching the world go by. She likes it. It’s a simple thing that has been built purely for the quiet pleasure of others. A good person designed it, she is sure of this
.

‘I like the look,’ she says
.

The tramp grins back, running a tongue over what are left of his teeth and highlighting the gaps as he plucks at the strings on his violin. ‘I thought you would.’ He puts the instrument carefully down on the bench beside him
.

‘Don’t stop on my account,’ she says. For a moment everything in the world falls silent, and then her head fills once more with the sounds of the city
.

‘There’s always music. You don’t need me to play it to hear it.’

And this is the truth. She hears the tunes in everything. ‘It’s good to see you.’

‘I thought you’d come soon.’ His eyes shine with his good mood. She’s glad he’s enjoying himself. ‘It’s all happening here,’ he continues
.

‘Isn’t it just?’ She looks around her. ‘Everything is happening all the time.’ For a moment she is overwhelmed. ‘This place is …’ She isn’t sure of the words she’s looking for. ‘This place is …’

‘… wonderful?’ He finishes her statement with a question, but she leaves it unanswered. Perhaps it is wonderful, but its wonders aren’t why either of them are here, and it would be best not to forget that
.

‘How is he?’ she asks instead
.

The tramp lets out a throaty laugh. ‘Oh my, he is something else. Do you think we should help him?’

The rain is coming down heavier now and she steps inside and sits beside him. ‘Not just yet. I think we’ll just watch a while longer.’

She smiles up at him. It really is good to see him
.

‘Play something lovely for me.’

And so he does
.

Adam Bradley didn’t run but walked fast from the hospital car park and rejoined the main streets and the flow of pedestrians moving quickly, all eager to get out of the rain. No one followed him. He hadn’t expected anyone to. Someone was probably only just getting round to calling the police once they’d stopped trying to perform a miracle on Dr Gibbs’ body. They would be wasting their time. Not even God could resurrect that man.

He slowed and turned down a side alley before pulling the mobile phone out of his pocket. He had one more job to do before he could head back. He smiled. So far the day had gone well. Mr Bright would be pleased with him.

The phone, a disposable pay-as-you-go – and one of hundreds he had access to – had only one phone number stored in it and that was on speed-dial, the direct line number for Chelsea Police Station. Under the limited protection of a fire-escape doorway, he pressed call.

‘I’d like to speak to someone in the Murder Squad, please,’ he said. ‘I think I just saw someone kill a man.’

The desk sergeant tried to take his name and details, and Bradley speeded his breathing up slightly, making his words panicked. ‘Look, if you don’t put me through, I’ll hang up. I probably shouldn’t have rung anyway. What if he saw me? What if—?’ He smiled as the voice at the other end did its best to soothe him before putting him on hold. After a moment a second voice came on.

‘This is Detective Inspector Charles Ramsey. You have a crime to report?’

‘Yes, I think there’s been a murder. 36A Dayton Gardens.’

‘What makes you think a crime has been committed, sir?’ The man was American, every word spoken in a strong Yankee drawl.

‘One of the front windows is smashed. I looked through the letterbox and saw blood on the hallway tiles. I think someone’s dead in there. There was a man in there too. Tall and dark. I saw him come out of one room and cross into another. That’s when I ran.’

‘What did he look like, this man?’

‘I don’t know, maybe six foot? Dark short hair. He was wearing a suit. Maybe late thirties. Craggy face.’

‘Sounds like you got a good look at him.’

‘I was scared, man. There was so much blood—’

‘I’m going to need to take your name—’

Bradley hung up and then turned the phone off. The Detective Inspector could call that number back as much as he liked and he wouldn’t get an answer. Once he’d found the body, of course, the anonymous caller will be like so many others: an ordinary citizen not wanting to put himself in the firing line of a court and the justice system, because they couldn’t afford the time off work, or had too many skeletons in their own closet to want to have their name on any police file. England was full of such people these days, all ordinary, all grubby. No one would spend much time looking for him. He took the phone apart and crunched the sim card under his well-polished shoe. On the main street he dropped the front of the phone in one rubbish bin and the back in a second.

There was a spring in his step that came from the satisfaction of a job well done, and knowing that his boss would be pleased. He looked around at the bland faces of the populace as they passed him by, their pasty bodies covered in cheap anoraks and tracksuits and off-the-peg suits. Once they would have considered him worse than the dirt on their shoes, and looked at him with fearful disgust, if they’d looked at him at all. These days, those same people still gave him a slight berth as they passed, and still looked at him as if he was different, but now the looks were filled with fearful awe. They recognised, if only subconsciously, the presence of superiority. It was in the fine wool of his coat, and the sleek cut of his hair. It was in his eyes. He was better than them all: he knew it, and so did they.

The black Mercedes pulled up along side him as he strolled down the pavement, and for a moment his smile fell.
He hadn’t organised his driver. He’d planned to make his own way home from here. He stopped and frowned. The tinted window slid down and from inside he saw a flash of silver hair and a sharp smile.

‘Get in, Bradley. I’ve got one more thing I need you to do.’

Bradley’s frown disappeared and he grinned. There were still some hours of daylight left, plenty of time in which to make whatever mischief his boss required.

‘Anything, sir.’

The door clicked shut.

Hours later, when night had fallen, Mr Bright stood on the roof of Senate House and stared out over the city. It glittered in the falling rain and he wished for a moment it would bring him more pleasure. He thought of Adam Bradley. It wasn’t remorse that he felt, perhaps something close to passing regret, but the boy’s death couldn’t be helped. He’d had a few months longer than he’d probably have managed if he’d been left on that estate with a needle deep in his arm. As it was, right from the start he’d had a part to play in something much bigger than his own short, pathetic life.

Somewhere in the tangled network of streets below, Bradley’s body lay waiting to be discovered next to an over-flowing skip. He had no identification on him and his neck had been cleanly broken. At least there had been no need to make him suffer. From the flat in Canary Wharf, various items of his possessions were being moved to a smaller council flat in his name that he’d never known about. His bank account details had been amended and a sum of cash placed in a drawer of the flat he’d never seen. New truths were so easy to create.

Castor Bright wondered if he should be feeling a small
sense of satisfaction that things were going according to his plans, but now, when there were divisions and mistrust everywhere he turned, it was hard to find the excitement he’d had in the early days. New truths were so easy to create – they always had been.

He turned his back on the city and headed inside. He needed to find out who was using the Interventionists against them. He wouldn’t be hearing from Cass Jones again, not just yet, and certainly not about Abigail Porter. But then, whether Cassius Jones could find Abigail Porter or not had never been the point of the meeting. It was just a convenient excuse.

He allowed himself a small, self-satisfied smile. If Mr Solomon were here, then he would be laughing and slapping Mr Bright on the back for his masterful control of the pieces of the game. The Solomon of old, at any rate, before the testing got out of hand and the Dying took hold of his sanity. Back when they had been brothers, Solomon, with all his gentle charm and charisma, would have appreciated with Mr Bright was doing. He would have ‘got it’. Sometimes people had to be immersed in the fire before they could rise out of the flames, better and stronger than they ever had been. That was Mr Bright’s plan for Cassius Jones.

Of course, sometimes –
it was Mr Solomon’s voice that rose unbidden in his head, the Solomon of aeons before, whose voice was filled with light and humour –
if you put something in fire, it just screams and burns
.

Mr Bright ignored the thought and pressed the button to take him down. Later, he would check in on the Experiment, but for now he thought he’d go and sit with the First. It was peaceful in there with his old friend. They understood each other. And he listened well.

*

At Cass’s flat, there was no evidence of a break-in. Whoever the fucker was who had stolen his kitchen knife – glaringly absent from the block – he had used a key. Cass had chucked the knife into a bin several miles away from Powell’s house. Now home, he regretted the action. He should have brought it back and bleached it clean, but he’d just wanted rid of it. Left with no choice but to destroy the rest of any potential evidence, he grabbed the block and remaining knives and shoved them into a carrier bag before going back outside into the rain and dumping the bag in the wheelie bin belonging to one of the flats in a block much further down the street. Back upstairs, he locked the door and put the chain on. He stared at it. It was like closing the fucking gate after the horse had bolted. Someone had been inside his flat. His blood simmered. He wanted to rip the fucker’s head off. Who was trying to play him now?

In the kitchen he washed the soles of his shoes and then stripped off his clothes. He’d been careful in Powell’s house, but he knew better than most how easy trace evidence could be picked up, as well as left behind. After scouring every room for any sign that more of his possessions might be missing – or, conversely, that something else might have been planted, he finally had a shower, forcing himself to try to relax under the hot stream. Maybe he should have called Powell’s death in and trusted in his colleagues to find the truth, but there were too many secrets wrapped up in this, and he had too many enemies on the force who’d be more than happy to see him go down for a murder he didn’t commit.

He still wasn’t in the clear. He chopped out the last of the cocaine into one long line and snorted it, hoping to quell the greasy fear in the pit of his stomach. He needed to speak to Dr Gibbs again. When he found out about his friend’s
death, the first thing he’d think about would be the policeman who had been asking questions about the Flush5 ward. He’d tell him some bollocks, like he’d forgotten the address, and could he have it again. Hopefully, Gibbs would be too tired and busy to be suspicious of a policeman’s motives. It wasn’t good, but it was all he had unless a brainwave hit him by the morning.