The Shadow of the Soul (15 page)

Mr Craven looked down. ‘Am I naked?’ His eyes were hard.

The man didn’t say any more.

Mr Craven looked back into the apartment. There was never any telling how long a meeting could go on for, and if he was still in the mood, he could always arrange for another.

‘There’s something in the bedroom that needs taking back to where it belongs.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps clean it up first.’

The man registered no surprise, and as Mr Craven followed him out, his irritation rose. It appeared that everyone was aware that he continued the practices of his youth, even the bloody lackeys. Were there no secrets? Was nothing sacred?

Mr Bellew and Mr Dublin were already there when Mr Craven arrived. His bare feet slapped against the marble floor and the sound echoed slightly against the curved walls and ceiling of the old tunnel.

‘Just the four of us again?’ he asked. ‘How sweet.’

‘Glad you made an effort.’ Mr Dublin was, as ever, impeccably but casually dressed, the tan of his trousers and the off-cream of his soft shirt making him almost a ghost under his ash-blond hair.

‘Someone else is in there with him,’ Mr Bellew said. He
looked Mr Craven up and down and didn’t disguise his distaste.

‘So we’ve been left outside to wait?’ Mr Craven’s lips tightened as he sneered, ‘Is Mr Bright the First or have I missed something?’

‘Just because your fun has clearly been interrupted, there’s no need to throw your toys out of your pram.’ Mr Bellew leaned against one of the pillars in front of the carved double doors, but he kept his eyes on Mr Craven. None of the three sat down on any of the variety of sofas and wing-back chairs in the atrium.

‘It’s not like you to take Mr Bright’s side,’ Mr Craven said.

‘Oh, both of you, please just be quiet. This bickering is sounding like the old days.’ Mr Dublin looked at Mr Craven. ‘We’ve only just arrived ourselves; he doesn’t even know we’re here. We thought we might as well wait for you. So now that we’re all here, gentlemen, shall we go in?’

As they took their respective places at the compass points of the table, a small man made the back of the room untidy as he paced up and down, worrying at his hands.

‘What’s he doing here?’ Mr Craven directed the question at Mr Bright. ‘He’s not one of the Inner Cohort.’

‘We appear to have a problem.’ Mr Bright poured four brandies as he spoke. He didn’t offer a drink to the worried man at the back. He clicked a silver remote control and a canvas hanging behind him slid up the wall to reveal a large flat-screen monitor.

‘These are some of the images that Special Branch and the ATD discovered while looking through CCTV footage of the London bombs.’ Pictures flashed across the screen. Mr Bright clicked again. ‘And these are from the Moscow bombs.’

The men around the table stared at the screen. After a few moments, Mr Bright turned it off.

‘I would say our problem is obvious.’ He sat down, resting his hands on the table.

‘But that’s—’ Mr Craven looked over at the chubby, pacing man who had moved further towards the corner of the large room. ‘How did this happen, Mr DeVore?’ There was a sharp accusation in the question. ‘How did it get out?’

‘I don’t know.’ The man called Mr DeVore visibly shivered. ‘I don’t understand it.’

‘How it got out is almost irrelevant,’ Mr Bellew cut in. ‘What is it doing?’

‘And stop trembling like that.’ Mr Dublin looked at DeVore. ‘We’re better than that kind of fear. You’re shaming yourself. Pull yourself together and sit down.’

DeVore did as he was told, taking his own regular seat between the south and west points of the table, with Mr Bellew at the south and Mr Dublin at the east. He sank into the chair.

‘How could you not have known it was gone?’ Mr Craven asked.

DeVore’s forehead shone with sweat despite the coolness of the room.

‘To be fair,’ Mr Bright answered in his place, ‘being in several places at once is what they do. We know this. We use it all the time. DeVore didn’t realise he didn’t have the real one until the Reflection disappeared this lunchtime. The Interventionist itself died under a tube train at the same time.’

‘And that’s when it disappeared from the thought chamber,’ DeVore repeated Mr Bright’s point.

‘Don’t you check them?’ Mr Craven wasn’t letting go.

‘Yes,’ DeVore answered helplessly, ‘of course we do.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Mr Dublin sighed. ‘I’m missing something. If you
check
them, how could you not have known it was a Reflection?’

‘They’ve developed a new skill,’ Mr Bright said.

‘What?’

‘We all know they’ve been evolving since they came through the walkways with us.’

‘Evolving isn’t perhaps a word I’d choose,’ Mr Craven muttered.

‘Mainly those changes have worked in our favour.’ Mr Bright ignored the other man and continued, ‘As their other skills have grown, they’ve lost their individual personalities—’

‘— and their looks.’

‘And they’ve become empty vessels for their abilities. Their reclusive natures make them harmless. The House of Intervention has served us well.’

‘But the Reflections they use to see the world have always been insubstantial,’ Mr Dublin’s voice was eternally soft. ‘Like holograms.’

‘That would appear to have changed.’

‘The Reflections are now
solid
?’

‘That’s why DeVore’s team didn’t realise the one in the Chamber wasn’t real.’

There was a thoughtful pause before DeVore started babbling, as if to fill it. ‘And I have other responsibilities to take care of. There is the constant stream of data coming from them to check. I have to oversee the analysis and make sure we’re reading them properly. I can’t do everything!’

‘So, if all the Reflections are now solid,’ Mr Craven asked, ‘how did you know which was the real one in this case? Surely the Reflection could have been what we saw on that footage?’

‘Because of this.’ Mr Bright started the film again. The silent film lasted only a few moments. ‘As this one went under the train, so the one in the House simply disappeared.’

‘Where did you get all this footage?’ Mr Bellew asked.

‘Luckily, DeVore acted fast.’ Mr Bright’s eyes hardened on Mr Bellew, ignoring the question as if it were a slight on his power. ‘When the Reflection disappeared, he contacted me straight away.’

‘Of course he did,’ Mr Craven sneered. ‘Everyone runs to the First’s right-hand man.’

‘We now have the body – at least what they could scrape up of it from the tracks. We’ll feed them back some regular results – something anonymous. We need to keep this away from
Them
as much as possible. Even those who know need to think we have complete control.’

‘Why did it go under the track? I don’t see a gunshot.’ Mr Dublin frowned, delicate lines furrowing his perfect skin.

‘It was wearing a dummy bomb – I presume to create the impression that it was going to commit an act of terror, like the others. There was no apparent reason for it to take such an extreme measure. The only conclusion I can draw is that this was suicide.’ Mr Bright paused. ‘And a very public one, although for whose benefit I’m not yet sure.’

There was a long silence.

‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ Mr Bellew said at last. ‘Why would one of them kill itself? If it could create a hard Reflection, why not send that instead? And on top of that, they don’t
think
– not like us, or even
Them
, for that matter. They don’t even like being out in the world, otherwise they wouldn’t just sit like vegetables in the House of Intervention.’

‘Look at the gums.’ Mr Bright magnified the image. ‘They’re bleeding quite badly. I think it was dying anyway.’

‘So death has come to them too?’ Mr Craven’s voice was low.

‘Is this your
ennui
too, Mr Bright?’ Mr Dublin leaned back in his chair.

‘I doubt it. Perhaps the centuries spent inside have made the world intolerable to them. Who knows?’ Mr Bright smiled, calmly. ‘What’s happening to them and what’s happening with us is unlikely to be related.’

‘We all travelled,’ Mr Dublin said softly.

‘But they were never
us
. They were lower.’

‘They were fucking servants, and now they’re fucking freaks,’ Mr Craven exploded. ‘We should have left them behind.’

‘I’m surprised by your vehemence,’ Mr Dublin said. ‘I didn’t think you would care one way or another, women having never been to your particular taste.’

Mr Craven downed his brandy. ‘Well done, Mr Dublin. You’ve discovered your sense of humour.’

‘This is all relatively irrelevant.’ Mr Bright took a careful sip of his own drink. ‘The Interventionist itself isn’t the problem. Perhaps they’re dying. It would be unfortunate, but we could manage without them and their abilities.’

DeVore opened his mouth to comment, but one look from Mr Bright closed it.

‘But this footage confirms the suspicions I aired the last time we met. The Interventionists don’t care about the machinations of this world. I don’t think they even care about us. They have become something of their own – we just tap into that. Someone in the Network – maybe one of us, even – is using them. To create an imbalance, perhaps. Whatever the reason, I can assure you it’s not for the greater good. Wouldn’t you agree, causing devastation in two major cities is hardly to our current benefit?’

‘London is your city. Your base,’ Mr Craven said.

‘It’s the
first
city, as well as mine. Perhaps this is an attack on me.’

‘You never were short of ego, Mr Bright.’ Mr Dublin’s laughter was shards of diamonds on a mirror. ‘Maybe someone’s tired of following the lead of the puppet rather than the sleeping puppet-master.’

‘Then they should bring it to the full Cohort. I have no problem with that.
This
,’ he said as he pointed back at the screen, ‘I have a problem with.’

‘I never thought I’d be the one to say this,’ Mr Bellew started, ‘but this is no time for us four to fight. We led them here, and they’ve let us lead since.’ His dark eyes moved around the table. ‘We have to keep our hold now, or we’re in danger of losing everything.’

‘But what about the others?’ Mr Craven turned to DeVore. ‘Is there any way we can tell if they’re Reflections or not? How many others are out?’

‘I can’t tell,’ DeVore answered, a little of his composure returning. ‘They all seem to be exactly as they normally are. We’re trying various tests.’

‘Things are unravelling,’ Mr Dublin mused in the silence that followed.

Mr Bright ignored him. ‘Go back to your cities and meet with your sections. If anyone doesn’t turn up, or is acting suspiciously, then I want to know. We have to spy on our own, now, unpleasant though that may be. I fear this
ennui
is causing cracks in our unity.’

‘You’ll have a long list,’ Mr Craven said. ‘Everyone’s acting strangely. This fear of death is definitely spreading – and on top of that I don’t meet with my section often. As long as the accounts are maintained, everyone puts their share in, business is going well and the rules are being followed, then
I don’t really see why I should nursemaid them. They don’t need it.’

‘Mr Craven—,’ Mr Bright lowered his voice, and the first hint of menace crept out, ‘—you were included in this council only when the First started to sleep. You can easily be replaced if you’re not up to it.’

Mr Craven said nothing.

‘From now on you I will expect you to do as I say.’

‘It’s dying,’ Mr Dublin continued, as if the others weren’t there. ‘The world is dying and so are the Interventionists, and so are we. Interesting, isn’t it?’

‘You sound like Mr Solomon,’ Mr Bright said, ‘and he, brother that he was, was quite, quite mad.’

‘We’ll see, Mr Bright. Until then, let’s play this farce out.’ Mr Dublin smiled. ‘And there’s no need to look at me like that. I for one have no intention of dying or giving up yet.’

After they had left, Mr Bright replayed the final film several times. Eventually, he froze it on the tall, dark-haired woman pointing her gun so ineffectually at the fat creature as it reached forward and touched her.

‘Why you?’ he muttered, drumming his perfect fingernails on the table. ‘What did it want with you?’

C
ass had to give Dr Marsden and Eagleton their due: they’d pulled an all-nighter, or as near as damn it, to get their work finished for first thing in the morning. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but beneath the clinical, chemical smell of the morgue lingered the earthy scent of a fresh grave. The bodies were lying on several stainless steel slabs behind the two pathologists, covered by regulation green sheets. Cass had no desire to see the mutilated bodies; he didn’t need to – he could feel their hold on him inside. They weren’t people any more, merely physical evidence.

‘Jasmine Green wasn’t alone with her brain injuries.’ Eagleton rummaged on his desk and then held up some slides. ‘You want to see?’

‘Will I understand them?’ Cass asked.

‘Probably not.’

‘Then let’s not bother. The others have the same lesions?’

‘Yes. There’s no sign of any disease that I can find, but they all share similar damage. Angie Lane was harder to match because she banged her head on the corner of the work surface on the way down, so she’d already sustained some head trauma.’

‘Did you find anything else that links them? Drugs maybe?’ Armstrong asked.

‘Not that I can tell. We’ve run all the tests we can, but
nothing’s leaping out. Even the chemicals we’d expect them to share vary in quantity, because they all died on different days, at different times. Even after death our bodies still strive to retain their individuality.’

The young doctor leaned back against the desk and stretched one leg out, wincing. Cass didn’t comment. Eagleton had recovered well, and being left with the odd ache or pain wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: everyone should have a reminder that the world couldn’t be trusted. Cass had his memories, but Eagleton was younger – emotionally he’d bounce back and the memories would fade. It was good that his body would serve to remind him that a little caution is sometimes a good thing.

The assistant ME got back to his feet. ‘So now you’ve got a physical link as well.’

‘These six students have all been through
something
together,’ Dr Marsden said, browsing through the slides Cass hadn’t declined to see. ‘Something caused these lesions – but to be honest, I’ve never seen anything like them.’ He looked up. ‘Which I know isn’t something you lot like to hear. My gut instinct would be to tell you to look for something chemical. Apart from Angie, they have no physical trauma other than the fatal wounds at their wrists. And yet—’ He frowned. ‘It’s almost like small lines have been seared into their brain tissue.’

‘Like a computer that’s burnt out?’ Armstrong asked.

‘Could the damage have caused suicidal tendencies in them?’ Cass cut across his sergeant.

‘Any form of brain injury can have any number of effects, so it’s hard to tell. There are some side-effects we would expect to see from various areas of damage. Armstrong’s a little out of date with his medical knowledge.’ Dr Marsden smiled. ‘The myth of the brain being one large computer is
pretty much defunct now; we prefer to think of it as more like an orchestra – every part has a function and has to work in co-ordination with the other parts for us to behave properly. The spinal column is the information highway. When you touch, taste or feel something, the spinal column decides which part of the brain is required to process it and then sends it there – for example, these kids have all got some damage at the rear right side of their brains. The right side deals with organising information, but the rear part deals specifically with vision. Might have led them to have a “denial syndrome” side-effect. Impaired vision but unaware of it.’

‘Can that happen?’ Cass asked.

‘You’d be surprised at the weirdness the brain is capable of. I knew of a patient with a brain injury who was blind in his right eye and didn’t realise because his brain refused to acknowledge it.’ Dr Marsden looked at the sheets in front of him again. ‘Most of these also have some slight damage to the left side. Did any of these kids show signs of confusion, strange speech patterns, something like that?’

‘Yes,’ Cass said, ‘Hayley Porter’s flatmate said she’d been behaving oddly for days, and Jasmine Green’s boyfriend said she’d been strange for most of the day.’

‘This could be a contributing cause. The left side of our brain deals with language and analysis. Damage there can also cause depression.’ He put the sheets down. ‘They all have damage to the frontal lobe too – I’ll presume it in Angie Lane’s case, as the haematoma makes it hard to tell without further investigation. That area controls our emotions. It houses the stop switch when we get angry.’

Cass thought back to six months ago, in his dead brother’s house. It had taken a lot of willpower on top of the ‘stop switch’ to stop him blowing Bowman’s head off.

‘However,’ Eagleton cut in, ‘despite how interesting everything the boss is saying is, there is no way a side-effect of any of these lesions would be to commit suicide in exactly the same way as several other people, let alone make them leave the same message behind.’ He looked over to Dr Marsden for confirmation. ‘Right?’

‘This is true,’ he agreed, ‘although it might have made them far more susceptible to the suggestion of it.’

‘So these kids have all been to the same place, and been exposed to something that has caused this damage?’ Cass wanted to hear someone say it out loud.

‘Yes,’ Dr Marsden said, ‘without a doubt they’ve had a shared experience – but not necessarily at the same time.’

‘
Great
.’ Cass frowned, thinking of the dead and their puzzle. ‘Hold on, you said
six
students. We’ve got seven.’

‘Gotcha.’ Eagleton grinned. ‘We have an anomaly.’

‘What?’

‘Allow me my dramatic pause!’ Eagleton’s face had lit up with childish enthusiasm.

‘What’s the anomaly?’ Cass growled.

‘Not what, but who,’ Eagleton said. ‘Joe Lidster. He has no lesions on his brain at all.’

‘What?’ This time it was Armstrong interrupting.

‘His brain looks fine.’ The Assistant ME sounded almost cheerful. ‘Apart from being dead, of course.’

Back at the office, Cass had taken a few minutes to pull in a favour and get a current address for Adele Stratham, the midwife who’d been working at the Portman on the night Luke was born. At least it was a London address, so if the day got too busy he’d still be able to visit her that evening and get home by a reasonable hour. He’d been
awake most of the night – the drugs had kept his heart pumping fast long after any trace of the buzz had faded, and he’d been unable to turn his brain off. Now all traces of the coke had faded and he was just dog-tired and irritated. He’d left the remainder of the baggie at home, and although a big part of him wished he’d not, so he could just perk himself up with a quick snifter, his wiser self – what was left of it – was glad he couldn’t. Getting caught with white powder around his nose in the current climate at Paddington Green wouldn’t be good. He was drinking strong coffee instead, though it wasn’t really cutting it. It was going to be a long day, he concluded. He might as well get on with it.

He found Armstrong working on the case board, rearranging photos and notes.

‘Have we got the kids’ mobiles back from their families yet?’

‘Just, I think.’

‘Good. I want all their numbers cross-referenced and call records checked straight away.’

‘How far back do you want to go? A couple of months?’

‘No,’ Cass said, ‘as far back as we can. I don’t want to miss anything. There must be a computer here somewhere that can do it.’

‘Anything else?’

Yeah, I want their bank statements, for the past six months at least.’ He frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Moving Lidster over away from the rest until we figure out why he had no lesions.’

Cass stared at the dark-haired young man’s picture – a ghost smiling from the wall – and suddenly it was clear. He railed at his own tiredness for making him so fucking slow.
Lidster didn’t have the lesions
. Of course he didn’t.

‘Armstrong.’

‘Sir?’

‘If you wanted to murder a student in London and get away with it, what would you do?’

Armstrong looked at him.

Cass jabbed a finger at the board.

‘You’d give us a scenario we wouldn’t look beyond.’

‘You think?’ Armstrong’s eyes widened slightly as he caught up.

‘It’s got to be worth a second look.’ Cass smiled. ‘Grab your coat. There’s a sex shop in Soho demanding our immediate attention.’

‘That’s not a line I thought I’d ever hear when I joined the force.’

Cass laughed. It was beginning to look like Armstrong might just turn out to be all right.

Despite the door being wedged open, there was a distinct tang of sweat filling ‘Loving It’ that probably went some way to explain the lack of custom. As Cass drew closer to the chubby man behind the counter, the smell grew stronger. It didn’t come as any surprise; Neil Newton was wearing the same shirt as the previous day, and even if it had been fresh on, it was too tight and too nylon for a man with an odour problem. Cass tried to keep the grimace from his face as the warm sweat and overpowering cheap cologne fought for supremacy.

‘Mr Newton?’

Newton, who had been staring at a catalogue page of over-large dildos, looked up, surprised. Dark circles had formed around his eyes and fresh spots were breaking out on his chin. He looked very much like a man who hadn’t slept in some time. It was a look Cass recognised; it had
been staring out at him from his bathroom mirror that morning.

‘I didn’t expect to see you back here,’ Newton said. ‘What can I do for you?’ The nasal quality of his voice grated, and as much as Cass tried to sympathise with Newton, he found it hard. He was just too damned oily.

‘We’d like to take another look at Joe’s room,’ Armstrong said.

‘Not a problem; just let me lock up down here.’ Newton fluttered his cheap-jewellery-laden hands as he hunted down his keys.

‘It’s fine; we can go up by ourselves.’

‘No, no – I can’t concentrate anyway,’ Newton sighed. ‘I don’t know why I bothered opening up really. Just didn’t want to sit in the flat.’ He moved in small, precise steps as he ushered them out. ‘You know how it is.’

Cass said nothing, but waited for Newton to lock up and then followed him up the side stairs to the flat. Luckily the smell was less invasive there; maybe it had settled into the fabric and furniture rather than hovering in the air as it did below.

‘I haven’t been in his room,’ Newton said, the rings on his fingers glinting as he worried at his hands. ‘I can’t bring myself to. And your lot said they’d send someone to deal with all the—’ He struggled for a word, settling finally on, ‘—mess.’

Inside Lidster’s room, the two policemen started searching the young man’s drawers and cupboards for anything that might give them an insight into his life.

‘You were at your sister’s when he died, is that right?’ Cass glanced back at the shop owner. His pudgy hands paused in their constant finger-picking.

‘Yes, yes I was. Why do you ask?’

‘Just routine.’ Lidster’s drawers were as neat as the rest of his room; even his socks were paired up and folded on the opposite side to his boxer shorts. ‘When did you get home?’

‘Late. I had to get a taxi because of all this awful business with the tubes. I probably wasn’t home until after 2 a.m.’

‘And can your sister verify that?’

‘Of course – of course, she can. It was her husband’s birthday. We had a lovely dinner.’

‘I don’t need all the details.’ Cass closed the drawer. There was nothing in there. ‘Just your sister’s phone numbers and address. Did you use a minicab?’

‘No, a black cab.’

‘You’ll need to buy yourself a new mattress.’ Armstrong lifted a pillow and looked underneath. ‘Maybe your insurance will cover it. Our lot will clean the carpet, but this mattress is wrecked.’

Newton flinched. ‘Well, perhaps they will dispose of it for me.’

‘I’m sure they will.’ Armstrong smiled.

Cass watched the interplay between the two. His sergeant clearly disliked Neil Newton as much as he did. He crouched down and peered under the bed. He grinned to himself before pulling out the laptop bag.

‘I knew there’d be one around here somewhere. A media student with no computer or Internet wouldn’t get very far.’

‘I didn’t know he had that.’ Newton frowned. ‘I don’t have the Internet up here – only in the shop. I find that serves my uses.’

The sleek model was exactly the kind Cass would have expected a student to have, stylish but inexpensive. A thin silver dongle sat in one of the many holders on the inside of the case.

He pulled it out.

‘Pay as you go Internet,’ he announced, satisfied.

Back on the street, and thankfully away from any lingering scents Neil Newton might have wanted to share with them, Cass handed Armstrong the laptop.

‘Get that back to the tech boys and let them dig around in it. Shouldn’t take long to get an idea of Mr Lidster’s life. And while they’re doing that, I want you to check out that smarmy twat’s alibi. I’ll see you back at the office in a couple of hours.’ He flagged down a taxi.