The Shadow of the Soul (31 page)

C
ass got to the station just before eight, not too early and not too late. Despite trying to act as normally as possible, it felt as if everything he did was in some way conspicuous or slightly out of place. He hadn’t slept much, and his dreams had been disturbed by the constant invasion of the dead and the feeling that at any moment someone would come knocking on his door asking about Powell’s death. No one did, though, and when morning finally rolled around the ghosts retreated to wherever they went when daylight pushed them aside.

After parking in his normal space he took the stairs two at a time up to his office, nodding his usual hellos as he went. He paused to grab a coffee from the machine. The station was rarely empty, and even this early it was already buzzing with life, people firing up computers and sorting through the files of crimes – some they had a chance of solving, others so cold they’d all but frozen – and nearly all bland and dull and terrifyingly mundane. These days it sometimes felt like everyone was a criminal.

The coffee burned and he felt an invisible bubble form between him and the rest of the people working. Sure, a few of them had known about, and even in a small way been involved in, Bowman’s drug syndicate, but yesterday he’d
tampered
with a crime scene – no, he thought as he
walked towards his office, he’d tampered with a
murder
scene. He’d perverted the course of justice and left the scene of a murder with the death unreported. He might not have killed Powell himself, but he’d done enough to hang himself if anyone ever found out. In his mind he’d had just cause, but no one else would see it that way. What he’d done was criminal – there were no two ways about it. He turned his computer on and waited for the inbox to fill with people requesting various overdue reports as it did every day. Yes, what he’d done was criminal, but as long as he wasn’t found out he could live with it. He lived with worse. Still, a cold sick feeling refused to release its grip on his guts and it took every bit of his willpower not to keep checking the doorway for unfamiliar coppers striding towards his office.

As it was, the next person to come in was Armstrong, just before nine.

‘Where have you been?’ Cass asked. ‘Thought you were an early bird.’

‘I am.’ The sergeant held up some sheets of paper. ‘The phone records boys get in at 8.30. I was waiting for them, and sat on them until they got us these.’

Armstrong was good. He was a career copper and a good detective, a rare combination. Cass had decided the young man was like a terrier; if he got something between his teeth, he wouldn’t let go. ‘Good. What have we got?’

‘It is good. There’s one number that comes up over and over on Angie Lane’s records, for the best part of the last six months. Some calls and a lot of texts – I mean, hundreds in a month.’

‘And? Who is it?’

‘His name’s Dr Anthony Cage.’ Armstrong grinned. ‘He’s a lecturer in Business at South Bank University.’

Cass leaned back in his chair, all his own troubles forgotten for a moment.

‘Do you think she was calling him about her schoolwork?’ The heavy sarcasm in the young man’s voice made clear what he thought about it.

‘Let’s go and find out.’

‘He’s at home. No lecture until this afternoon.’

‘Got the address?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ Cass drained the last of his coffee. ‘I’ll drive.’ He was glad to be getting away from the oppressive confines of the office, and in his own car he could smoke. Armstrong was just going to have to get used to that. ‘Let’s go and crawl through the rush hour.’

Rachel Honey’s tea was almost cold by the time she remembered to drink it. She sipped it anyway, her mind elsewhere as she stared out of the window and onto the street. Sleep had evaded her; what she’d seen in the Uni car park had been niggling in the back of her mind. It was wrong, she knew it. And then there was the other thing. She sighed, and it felt like her flat sighed back at her in sympathy. Maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe it could all be explained away. She didn’t think so, though. The knot in her stomach was telling a different story.

She put the mug down before getting the policeman’s card out. She stared at it for a moment, indecisive and hesitant. He
had
said to call if she thought of anything. But what if he thought she was just wasting police time? She chewed her bottom lip. There had been something slightly frightening about DI Jones – something hard in his eyes that she’d never seen in someone before. But there had been kindness there too, and he was clever – anyone could see
that. She shook herself slightly and picked up the phone, her heart thumping nervously in her chest. The call rang out and clicked onto answerphone. She waited for the gruff voice to finish and then left her message. It wasn’t what she’d planned to say, coming out all garbled and wrong, and she hung up, embarrassed. God, she could be such a moron at times. Still, hopefully he’d get what she meant, and anyway, she could always call back later.

She took the undrinkable tea into the kitchen and poured it away. She might not have spoken to the detective but she felt better already. She leaned against the sink. Why was she waiting for him to do all the work anyway? If she wanted to be a journalist, then why the hell didn’t she start now?

Cass got out of the car and glanced at his phone before heading up the path to Dr Cage’s house in Chiswick. Doctors were surrounding him these days, but at least this one was not a medical doctor but a PhD in Business, and he was still very much alive. He’d had two missed calls; one from Perry Jordan and one from a number he didn’t recognise, and his message icon box was flashing.

‘Turnham Green Tube Station is just round the corner from here,’ Armstrong said. ‘That came up on her Oyster card.’

A net curtain twitched in the approaching house and Cass put his phone back in his pocket. The messages would have to wait. He didn’t want Armstrong overhearing anything Jordan might say, and if it was Mr Bright on the other number, that could wait for now too. He was here on the business of the innocent. Angie Lane’s dead fingers had tightened their grip. The curtain dropped back suddenly and Cass almost smiled. He could smell the man’s guilt from here. It was amazing what human behaviour gave away.
The front door hadn’t opened before they reached it, even though Cage knew they were coming. Cass knocked hard. The man who opened the door stared impassively at them.

‘Yes?’

‘Detective Inspector Jones, and this is DS Armstrong. Murder Squad. We need to talk to you about Angie Lane.’

‘You’d better come in.’ The faux-casual expression slipped and the man swallowed. Cass could tell that this wasn’t going to take long.

‘Is your wife at home?’ Cass asked.

‘I don’t have one.’ Cage led them into the sitting room. ‘Never been married. I like my own space.’

Cass was surprised. Why would Cage have killed Angie if it wasn’t to protect his marriage? ‘We’ve been looking through Angie’s phone statements,’ he said. ‘She sent you a lot of texts. And it wasn’t one-way traffic. What was going on with you two?’

Cage sat opposite him. Armstrong stayed standing. It was clear Cage wasn’t lying about living alone; there were no soft touches or knickknacks dotted on the surfaces, and there was a distinct lack of family photographs.

‘Does it matter? She’s dead now.’

‘It certainly matters if they were in any way relevant to her death,’ Armstrong said.

‘But Angie killed herself. One of those student suicides.’ Cage’s eyes flickered from one policeman to the other but didn’t linger on either, falling to the floor instead. He wasn’t a bad-looking man for someone in his fifties, but his skin was starting to sag around his jowls and when his shoulders slumped, the small pot belly was accentuated. Fear never made anyone pretty.

‘I’m a busy man, so let’s cut to the chase.’ Cass leaned forward, forcing Cage’s nervous eyes to meet his steady
ones. ‘We both know that Angie didn’t kill herself. It just looks like she did. Now, why don’t you tell me what went on with you two?’

‘I didn’t kill her,’ Cage said. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘You were sleeping with her. And giving her money. Don’t deny it; we’ve seen the cash withdrawals.’ Cass was jumping the gun on the bank account details, but it was a good hunch, and if it got a confession out of the man quicker, then Cass was all for that.

‘I don’t know how it started.’ Cage shrugged slightly. ‘Well, I do – a cliché. Extra help with assignments. Staying after class. That sort of thing.’

He hadn’t denied the money, and Cass saw Armstrong scribbling down a note. He’d be getting the statements for the evidence file as soon as they were back at the station. Cass was learning that Armstrong was nothing if not efficient – maybe at last some of the endless paperwork would get done.

‘A lot of the students like me.’ Cage fiddled with his thinning hair. ‘I try to make studying more interesting for them – you know, tell a few jokes, give them personal anecdotes. But although they like me, they’re still lazy in the main. Angie wasn’t, though. She really wanted to do well. She was maybe more grown-up than some of the rest.’

‘So you started fucking her?’

Cass was crude deliberately, but it worked; Cage flinched.

‘Yes,’ he said, staring down at his hands. ‘Yes, I did. She was young and pretty. I didn’t think she’d fall in love with me, though.’

‘You didn’t feel the same way?’ Armstrong asked.

‘I was fond of her.’ Cage smiled sadly. ‘I was definitely flattered. Maybe for a little while I thought that was love.’

‘Did you tell her you loved her?’ Cass said.

Cage had the good grace to look away.

‘I might have done. Once or twice. And then she started talking about us moving in together and starting a family and I knew then that I’d made a terrible mistake.’

‘You thought it was just fun between consenting adults.’ Cass snorted, derisively. ‘But for her it wasn’t just fun, because she wasn’t really an adult. Not like you. She was just starting out, and she’d fallen in love. So what did you do? Break it off?’

‘Yes.’ Cage’s trembling had spread up his body and he swallowed hard. He had the look of a man who had been wanting to talk for days. So much murder was mundane, and Cass could almost feel sorry for this man, if he hadn’t so coldly dressed the murder as suicide.

‘She didn’t take it well. At first she texted constantly, telling me how much she loved me, and that she was sorry and she wouldn’t push for the relationship to go further – all that stuff.’

‘But you’re old enough to know she didn’t mean it, right? She was just saying whatever it would take to get you back.’

‘I knew that the best thing I could do was to be firm about it. It would be better for her in the long run. I’ve got this far through my life without becoming a family man. I couldn’t start now. Plus, well – she was a student.’

‘It’s not illegal to sleep with a university student, is it?’ Armstrong asked.

‘No, it’s not, but it is frowned upon. And Angie knew it. Once she realised I meant what I’d said she started making threats – she was going to tell the Dean that I’d been giving her money for sex.’ His face flushed. ‘As you know, I
had
given her money. I even gave her a thousand pounds – a kind of goodbye gift. But the money wasn’t anything to do with sex and never had been. She’d had a waitressing job in
some restaurant that paid peanuts, and she was struggling to pay her rent. Her parents were having a hard time, I think, so she couldn’t go to them. I wanted her to quit the job, so I said I’d help her with things.’ He shook his head at his own stupidity. ‘I think she read more into it than was there.’

‘So you killed her?’

‘God, no!’ Cage looked up. ‘No – I gave her more money. I thought maybe if I could just manage the situation until she calmed down then everything would be all right. She was a nice girl. I didn’t think she would actually tell the Dean – but I did worry about who she had told. She always swore she’d kept us a secret, but she was upset and angry, and you know what girls are like when they get a glass of wine or two into them. They talk about men; whether they’re twenty or forty, that doesn’t change. If she told someone, then it would be back to the Dean in no time. He’s a “no smoke without fire” man – “fire” being the operative word.’ He looked over at Armstrong. ‘It might not be illegal to sleep with a student, but I’m a man in my fifties and if I lost my job I wouldn’t get another shot. I’ve got some savings, but I need to stay in employment to get the mortgage paid off. I don’t have much of a private pension. I—I used to have a small gambling problem in my thirties, and I lost some equity that way, back when there was such a thing. There are plenty of younger lecturers out there who’d easily fill my place, and for a lot less money. One whiff of this and I’d be out on my ear – especially if anyone mentioned the cash.’

‘No one ever wants to look like they’re paying for it, do they?’ Cass asked.

‘And I wouldn’t want Angie to look like a cheap whore,’ Cage countered, showing a flash of inner fire, ‘which she wasn’t.’

‘Your concern for her is touching. Right up until the point you killed her.’

‘I didn’t kill her! Oh Christ, this is such a mess.’ He rested his head in his hands for a moment and composed himself before sitting up again. ‘She called me, said she had to speak to me, it was urgent. I’d been teaching, but she was at home. She said her housemate was out and could I go round, so I did.’ He took a shaky breath. ‘She was in the kitchen cutting up vegetables when I got there. She was smiling and happy – it took me off-guard. I had been expecting tears and tantrums. She made me a coffee and we talked for a bit, just small talk, about work and the course. Then out of the blue she told me she was pregnant. Just like that, with a big smile on her face. She said wasn’t it wonderful that we were going to have a family? She said we should get married; that she’d be the perfect lecturer’s wife. I couldn’t believe it – she was talking away, and all I could see in my head were the faces of my colleagues in the faculty office and how they’d sneer at me. I’d get the sack and then be stuck with a baby to support and a bitter woman. It was like seeing my entire life crumbling away because some silly little cow didn’t realise that it had just been fun and friendship.’