Eventually Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ Her eyes focused on the hand basin, clearly not wanting to look at him. He watched her pick absently at the skin around her fingernails.
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
She chewed her bottom lip and Cass thought he saw the water in her eyes turn to ice for a moment. ‘There was a time when I thought
you
couldn’t do something like that.’
Cass recoiled, his skin cooling further. ‘How can you equate what I did with this? Jesus, Kate.’
Finally, her eyes met his. ‘I can because you
do
. That’s why you don’t talk about it.’ Her tears rolled again, spilling in large drops from her chin. ‘I don’t know whether Christian did it or not. But do I believe he
could
? Of course I do. I think we’re all capable of terrible things if we’re pushed, or if we’re put into situations out of our control. And sometimes it’s not our fault.’ Her breath hitched in her chest. ‘It was only you that ever thought you were beyond redemption, Cass, no one else. And now look where you are. Look at everything around you. It’s all turned to shit.’
One word cut through the sting of the rest: redemption.
It’s about redemption. That’s the key
. That was what Christian had said to him just before Cass had cut him off. Was that what Christian wanted to talk to him about? Forgiving himself? Even if Jessica had told him about their long-ago affaire, why would he forgive Cass and then shoot her? And if it was for anything else, then why would it be so important to Christian now? There had to be more to what he wanted to talk to Cass about. Maybe Christian had done something and it was redemption for himself he was after . . . but by suicide? There had to be more to it. He banged his head slowly against the cold tiles. Or maybe he was just
wanting
there to be more so he could go on thinking that this wasn’t a crazy gene taking his baby brother over the edge and he hadn’t even noticed.
‘Are you even listening to me?’ Her voice was cold again, all emotion leached out.
‘This isn’t about me.’
‘No.’ She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. ‘No, it isn’t. You’re just making it that way.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘You figure it out.’
Cass put the glass down carefully on the floor, determined not to throw it. ‘My brother just died, Kate. Why are we fighting?’
They stared at each other for a long time across the abyss that separated them.
‘Because it’s all we know what to do any more.’ She crouched beside him. Close up, even under the bright lights and with her face streaked and blotchy, she was still beautiful. ‘Apart from one thing.’ Her fingers ran gently through his hair and her body heat reached for him. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Come upstairs, Cass. Please.’
She kissed his head before getting up and walking away. After a while Cass got up and followed her. He needed warmth, and God help him, whatever love she had for him was all he had left.
This time, however, they were both saved the awkwardness of the quiet time afterwards by the quiet buzz of his mobile ringing. Cass stared at the ceiling for a minute before sitting up to take the call. He knew who it would be. Ramsey. And he knew what he’d want. Someone had to do it and Cass was the only one left. He listened and muttered a quiet ‘yes’, before reaching for his discarded clothes. The car would be coming for him in twenty minutes.
The morgue was cold, and even out in the corridor, Claire shivered. She didn’t have to be here. She could be on her way home, or at the pub with Mat, or even still at the station, but there was no way she’d let Cass Jones do this alone. Mat hadn’t understood why Cass had wanted to go through this procedure at all when photos would have sufficed. But then, she thought, wrapping her arms round her slim body in an effort to fight the chill, Mat would never see how deeply Cass’s still waters ran. Of course, he’d want to identify the bodies himself. It was as close to paying them some respect as he could get straight away. Shoes tapped their way along the corridor and she looked up.
‘Sir,’ she nodded at Ramsey.
‘What are you doing here, Claire?’ Cass said. ‘The fewer dead bodies you see in your life the better for your soul and your sleep, trust me.’
‘This is different.’
‘No it isn’t. Not for you.’
‘I would want a friend with me,’ she answered softly. ‘I’d want you with me.’
Inspector Ramsey had stepped ahead and she was glad. Although their relationship was over and done a long time before, she knew it wouldn’t take a genius to see the strength of feeling she still had for the tall, dark detective. She might fool herself at times, but she wouldn’t fool anyone with half an eye for these things.
‘You ready?’ The DI looked back at them, one hand already pushing the door open. ‘Let’s get this done quickly.’
Claire followed the two men inside. Her mouth dried as she drew level with Cass. She’d done this before; it wasn’t the presence of death that disturbed her, it was these particular deaths which made her stomach flip.
Cass’s family
. A brother he’d rarely spoken about, a wife and a child.
‘You know how this works, Jones.’ Dr Farmer was gripping the handle of the first metal drawer. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Get on with it,’ Cass growled.
Claire wasn’t fooled. She saw the twitch in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. She’d seen that before in the heat of a very different kind of emotion.
The drawer slid open. Even from where she was standing, slightly behind Cass, Claire could see that the space was woefully too large for the small figure inside. Dr Farmer reached in and carefully folded down the sheet from over the boy’s face.
‘Is this your nephew Luke Jones?’ Inspector Ramsey asked.
The child was perfectly still against the metal, his blond hair combed backwards away from his face. Claire wasn’t sure that’s how he would have worn it to school. There would have been gel and spikes by this age, or at least the semblance of a style emerging. His skin was pale and smooth and his eyes shut. He had long eyelashes, she noted, and they were dark. Her heart squeezed tight. This was the third dead boy she’d seen in a month, all blasted by bullets. Somewhere under the sheet would be the cleaned-out mess, all that was left of the slight boy’s torso.
‘Yes.’ Cass didn’t take his eyes from the boy’s face. Even knowing him as she did - or thought she did - Claire wondered how he could stay so self-contained. She watched him as Dr Farmer closed the drawer and opened the second. Another sandy head was revealed, closed eyes, closed mouth. Calm after the storm. Claire tried to imagine the woman animated, maybe calling to the child now lying so still in the darkness on the other side of the metal wall. She shivered again, this time not from the cold, but at the speed at which death could come. Jessica Jones had gone to bed fully expecting to get up and feed her son, ready to send him off to school, to face another ordinary London day. Instead, one blast to the body and she was gone. Claire’s own mortality clung to her for a moment, time and place unknown but there all the same, just waiting for her arrival.
‘That’s my sister-in-law, Jessica Jones.’ Cass’s words were hard but fast. At his side, one hand was clenched. Claire wanted to prise those fingers open and take his hand, for her own comfort as much as his. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe the dead were to be avoided when possible. This wasn’t like seeing the Jackson and Miller boys dead, or any of the other corpses she’d had to deal with in her time on the force. This was something different. These were personal deaths: parts of Cass Jones’ life gone, for ever.
‘You may prefer to provide photographic identification for Christian,’ Dr Farmer said. ‘I’ve done what I can, but given the nature of his—’
‘Is his face recognisable?’ Cass said. ‘If so, then just open the bloody drawer.’
The ME tilted his head in an almost nod. Claire could see he thought Cass was crazy, and now that they were here, so did she. Why would he want to cause himself that extra pain? Surely it would be better to remember his brother whole? It was almost as if he wanted to add to his own suffering.
After the drawer opened there was a moment of silence. Claire glanced only briefly inside. She’d seen this kind of death before, car crash victims and suicides. Despite Dr Farmer’s best efforts to pull Christian’s face back into place, it didn’t quite sit right on what was left of the bones of his skull. The shotgun had destroyed the top of his head, and no doubt taken the back out completely. Someone, either the ME or his assistant, had folded a sheet and placed it beneath the destroyed head, attempting to make it lie at least close to where it should. There was very little left for Christian’s skin to cling to, and even with whatever tricks of his trade Dr Farmer had used, it was clear that this was just a mockery of how the man had looked in life.
Inspector Ramsey turned away, and Claire knew it wasn’t from the sight of the body. It was from the man standing beside it. Did Cass even realise how terrible the expression on his face was? Claire had expected to see pain; but what she was looking at was something else, a whole whirlwind of feelings trapped in brown eyes and clenched fists. He looked haunted. As if there were too many demons fighting to control him.
‘That’s Christian.’
As soon as he’d spoken, Cass turned and walked from the room. Inspector Ramsey went to follow him, but Claire grabbed his arm. ‘Let him go, sir.’
The DI stared at her and almost pulled his arm away, but then he stopped. He must have read the look on Cass’s face too. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘I know him. He just needs some time on his own.’
They walked down the corridor side by side, but quietly. Neither was interested in small talk. Cass’s pace had been fast and angry and he was long gone by the time she walked out into the evening air. Her heart suddenly felt heavy. Despite what she’d just said to Inspector Ramsey, she really wasn’t very sure she knew Cass well at all.
It was raining when Cass paid the cab driver and stepped out onto the pavement a street away from where Christian lived in the chic end of Notting Hill. It was gone midnight, and other than the rhythmic onslaught of the falling water the roads were quiet. He’d gone to the pub and then home briefly, relieved to find Kate sleeping, her passion spent. Arguing and sex, the two went hand in hand down the aisle of their marriage. They were now in the lull before the next fight, a period when they moved around each other like strangers, both wondering what it was about the other that could inspire such negative passion. It wasn’t a good place to be, but at least she’d stopped crying. She’d done enough of that for both of them.
Rain beat at his face as he turned away from the main road and down towards the house where Christian and Jessica had lived for the last decade. Even as a much younger man, Christian had always been so reliable. He’d worked hard all his life, crunching numbers for people who were too busy being out there actually living, spending the money they’d made, to do it for themselves.
When The Bank was formed back in 2010, the one company that had a chance of bringing the world back from the brink of disaster, Christian had been head-hunted, and almost as soon as he’d arrived he’d thrived, with promotion following bonus following promotion. He must have earned three times Cass’s salary, maybe more, but he and Jessica had never wanted to move. They’d had Luke there. It was their home.
It didn’t look much like a home now. It was dark and cold, and the thick yellow ribbon wrapped around it declared it out of bounds. The bodies were out and most of the plastic-suited plod had gone. One van further along the road had its engine running, and Cass presumed some poor sod - either freelance or the new boy - had been left there to see if anything else developed over the course of the night. Looked like most of the press thought they’d got all they could from the scene of this crime; they’d already started the hatchet job on the monster who’d so brutally murdered his wife and son. Between the ongoing story of Jackson and Miller, the murder of yet another young woman and this, even in a city where violent death was becoming more and more frequent, the editors of the red tops would doubtless be rubbing their filthy hands in glee.
A uniformed officer stood in front of the crime scene tape, his reflective yellow jacket shining clearly, even through the rain. There would be another at the back, and perhaps two more in a nearby car. The team had had nearly twenty-four hours inside so the scene had pretty much been processed by now, but there was no shortage of ghouls and freaks who would love to get inside the house before the blood had dried. The police guard would be present until the cleaning team had been in and returned the walls and carpets to some semblance of normality.
Cass crossed the street at the corner and kept in the shadows. Lights shone from several of the houses around him. City crime didn’t normally touch these people. The recession might have forced their children out of the private schools and chichi nurseries that once littered these middle-class streets, but the residents here were not yet touched by the social effects of the global slide. They might know neighbours, friends, even, who had had to move away, selling up cheap if they could, having their houses repossessed if they’d acted too late. Cass wondered if any of this had shocked the good burghers of Notting Hill, if any of them had been quietly peering out from behind their curtains as a bailiff’s van removed someone’s last goods and chattels and wondering what on earth could have happened to cause this tragedy, and how they didn’t spot the signs.
As he pulled his badge out from his back pocket, Cass thought how little he knew about his brother’s life - not just the day-to-day minutiae, but who his friends were, what his dreams were, his ambitions . . . These were just empty spaces in Cass’s memory. He bit back his guilt, but it raked at his insides. It shouldn’t have surprised him; he’d made this situation. He just hadn’t expected Christian to change it. Not like this.