The constable couldn’t look Cass in the eye, and he wondered if maybe they’d met before in the canteen, or perhaps over paperwork processing. It was possible. They walked in silence from the gate to the path, and when they reached the front door, Cass ducked under the tape.
‘Thanks for this.’
The constable nodded. He looked very young. ‘There are gloves in a box just inside the door. If you could put some on . . .’
Cass nodded.
‘The SOCOs are done here now. The case being, well—’ His voice stumbled. ‘I don’t think they’re looking for anyone else. But it’s best to be careful.’
‘I won’t be long.’ He pushed open the broken door and stepped inside.
It was cold - that was the first thing he noticed, and the air inside already smelled damp. When the team arrived on the scene they would have turned off the central heating as a matter of course. For most of the day the front door would have been left open as people trudged in and out, bagging and photographing and scraping. It hadn’t taken long for the March weather to chase out any hint of human scent and replace it with this chill emptiness.
He flicked the light on. At the bottom of the stairs a pair of scruffy trainers sat beside some polished brogues, black lace-ups, looking as if they’d been kicked off in haste. They were all small: Luke’s shoes. A knife ran its serrated edge through his heart and he forced his feet forward. He needed to
see
. The stairwell rose upwards into blackness. Cass didn’t turn the hall light on. Christian wouldn’t have done. The light might have woken Jessica or Luke, and that would have made things messy. As he climbed, Cass imagined the weight of the gun in his hand, primed and ready to fire. Did Christian have spare shells tucked into a pocket, just in case he didn’t kill his family cleanly? His mouth dried as the darkness of the landing reached out for him. Had his brother’s mouth felt the same? Had the weapon slid about in sweaty hands?
Luke’s bedroom was at the end of the corridor. He’d go there first, just as Christian had. The floorboards creaked as he walked. Ahead, the door was wide open and the lights were off. Cass saw it differently. The door would have been a little ajar, revealing the small glow of a plug-in night-light. That was probably enough for Christian to aim properly. He wondered if Christian had made sure Luke had left it on last night so that he would make no mistakes.
When had Christian learned to shoot?
Cass reached the doorway and took two steps inside. Even in the dark, the black stain across the bed shone out, as if the child’s unreleased scream had been trapped in his warm blood and soaked into the shredded soft flesh of the mattress. He tried to imagine Christian standing over the sleeping form of his sick eight-year-old son and blasting a hole into him. His breathing quickened. He couldn’t look at the football posters on the wall and the school books scattered over the small desk that would never be written in again. Luke was dead. Killed by his father. It was true.
He turned and almost stumbled, gripping the door to keep his balance, half-expecting to feel Luke’s small bloody fingers pulling him back, squeezing in alongside those others that already tugged at him . . .
There was nothing. In the hallway he took three long breaths. He wanted to run. He wanted to stay. The conflicting urges waged silent war as he leaned against the wall. Somewhere downstairs a clock ticked loudly and he concentrated on the sound until he’d regained his equilibrium before slowly taking the two extra stairs up to the next landing, where the master bedroom was.
It was pitch-black away from the glow of light at the bottom of the house, but it wouldn’t have been by the time Christian reached it the previous night. Jessica had woken up at the sound of the first gunshot. She’d have turned on the bedside light straight away. Cass flicked the switch at his side, illuminating the short passageway, and stared into the open bedroom. He could almost see Jessica sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes widening as she realised that the sound hadn’t just been in her dream. Maybe maternal instinct had told her that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Perhaps she called out Christian’s name as she finally got her legs to move so she could run to check on her child.
She’d died in the doorway. Her blood had soaked into the cream carpet, a foot or more on either side of the door. Christian must have shot her from the first step, otherwise the blast would have flung her backwards. What was running through her head in those last moments between seeing the gun and the shell hitting her chest? Did she see the madness in her husband’s eyes? Did she wonder, after all these years, if somehow he
knew
? Or would there have just been blind terror?
His head filled with the half-forgotten scent of oatmeal shampoo, and he remembered how he’d wrapped his hands in that thick, blonde hair and buried his face in that clean smell. He remembered how she’d hated herself for it, and then hated him. Blood smeared the skirting boards, as if perhaps she’d tried to hold on to life by grabbing at them. He hoped she hadn’t died hating herself. She didn’t deserve any of it.
He turned the light out and went downstairs. The large living/dining room was open plan, with an occasional step up or down to ring the changes. The reclaimed hardwood floorboards shone, and he could see the indentions in the two huge sofas where his brother’s family had sat in front of the plasma TV the previous evening. The
TV Times
was open on the coffee table, next to a small ring on the surface where a mug had recently sat and was now probably bagged and tagged and removed. Was that Christian’s last cup of coffee? Had he sat there and drunk it before heading upstairs?
Cass moved up to the dining area. He swallowed hard as heat flushed through his system. One chair was turned out from the table, and behind it the wall was tie-dye-splattered with blood. There was more than blood there, even if his blurring eyes didn’t want to see it. There would be skull fragments and grey clumps of his brother’s brain clinging to the paint and plaster. The knife that had been toying with his heart made its final incision and cut deep, tearing the organ in two. His baby brother had died here. He’d killed his family, come downstairs and carefully tucked the shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.
Water trickled over Cass’s own chin and as he wiped it away he was surprised to find it tasted salty. It wasn’t rainwater dripping down from his hair but tears. He gritted his teeth, trying to contain his grief, because he needed to
see
. There was more blood around the chair itself, but it had none of the angry energy of the spray on the wall. This blood had dripped slowly, like his tears, ticking away the minutes until the neighbours had called the police and outside life had invaded the house. He couldn’t picture his baby brother here. Why hadn’t he shot himself upstairs, where he could lie with Jessica or Luke? What could possibly have made him want to do this - and this way?
Look, we really need to talk, Cass. I mean it
. Cass remembered his own impatient reaction to Christian’s words and the way he’d shaken him off like an irritating puppy. His baby brother had needed him, and once again, Cass hadn’t been there. Emotion pressed into his chest like a rock, suffocating him.
The chair fell out of focus and as grief, anger and guilt raged through him Cass let his head hang and the tears come. Heaving sobs racked his body; his shoulders shook and, oblivious to the blood, he sank to his knees as if he were praying. For a while the world around him was lost.
When Cass finally came to, his legs were numb and he felt cried out. He was about to pull himself to his feet when the clear sound of footsteps on the wooden floor cut through his pain and dragged him back to the here and now. The footsteps stopped behind him. He sniffed hard and wiped his eyes, dragging the back of his hand across his face like a child. This was all he needed: to be found curled up on the floor sobbing his eyes out by some constable barely out of Hendon. It would be all round the nick by the morning. He hated that it mattered to him, but it did. Reputation was everything. He’d learned that the hard way.
‘I said I’d be out in a minute.’
The figure behind him stayed silent. Cass frowned and lifted his head. His eyes widened. Below the seat in front of him, the pulled-out seat on which Christian had died, was a shiny pair of black lace-ups under dark trouser hems. Fresh blood dripped beside them. He watched a solid crimson drop tumble and break against the wood. A tiny particle landed on the highly polished expensive leather of the left shoe.
Christian’s shoes
.
His breath trapped in his chest, Cass scuttled backwards and blinked. The feet were gone. He spun onto his knees to face the intruder behind him, but the room was empty. Trying not to panic, he forced himself upwards, his joints stiff, complaining, and started turning this way and that, looking for whichever bastard was stupid enough to play games with him, here, at this time.
His body trembled. The house was empty. There was no dying brother in the dining room chair. He let out a laugh that was almost a cough and a sob. Of course there wasn’t. Christian was on a slab in the morgue; dead and gone. His lace-up shoes and black suit trousers would be in an evidence locker somewhere until the case was formally closed, when they’d be burned in the incinerator. It was just his mind playing tricks. That was all. Too much cocaine and too little sleep and too much death, all catching up with him.
His legs felt unsteady and he reached clumsily for the chair at Christian’s desk. It had been built neatly into the alcove under the stairs so he could be part of the family while he worked. The family that he’d one day murder as they slept.
Cass slumped into the chair and let out a low moan. Fucking drugs. He hadn’t taken any that night, despite the almost overwhelming temptation, but whatever was still in his system from the night before had obviously kicked in again, taking him on a little bonus trip. His eyes felt like they were burning in the corners. He ran one hand through his thick dark hair, then rubbed his face. He was cold.
His heart thudded back to something resembling a normal pace and he finally turned back to the dining room chair. It was empty. Of course it was. What he’d seen had just been a figment of his imagination. It had been a moment of madness, that was all. It wasn’t real. For one thing, why would Christian still be wearing his office clothes at midnight? He came home and got changed, just like every other nine-to-fiver in the city. Two uniforms: suited and booted for work, smartly creased chinos and Lauren polo shirts for play.
He looked at the desk and frowned again. Christian was nothing if not anal; it was part of what made him so good with numbers. So what was his laptop bag doing sitting on the desk with the tiny, top-of-the-range computer sitting on top of it, unopened? He tilted his head. It looked like Christian had been about to start work, or was putting it away, and neither scenario made sense. He wouldn’t have got it out for a suicide note; those were virtually always handwritten.
He lifted the machine carefully and peered into the bag. The lead was still inside, tucked into one of the holders. The strange vision temporarily forgotten, he looked back at the mug ring on the table and the discarded magazine. Those didn’t make sense either. Christian would have tidied up. It was his nature. Even if doing something as terrible as this, he would have made sure everything was in its place first. He would need to feel ordered. Cass chewed his bottom lip. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it in the pulse of his blood. Working entirely on instinct, he slid the laptop carefully into its case and tucked the slim bag into his jacket. He folded his arms across his chest, holding it in place. It was dark outside and the constable was young. If he hunched over and looked upset enough, he might just get away with it.
Luckily, the rain was coming down heavier than ever and the duty policeman had to squint in the downpour to see him as he nodded his thanks. As he headed towards the main road and the hope of a taxi, Cass guessed that was the last time that copper would come out on night duty without an umbrella. That was the thing with policing; the only way you really learned anything was the hard way.
Kate was still asleep when he got in, breathing in long, exhausted sighs as she twitched restlessly, the sheets snarled up around her legs. Cass watched her for a moment and then pulled the door quietly shut before going downstairs. After a moment of thought he squeezed the black case into the tiny gap behind the TV where it was fixed to the wall. It held steadily. That would do for now. He wasn’t really sure why he’d taken the laptop. He doubted it even belonged to his brother; it was probably the property of The Bank - but if it came down to it, so was pretty much everything else in the world. It just felt right to take it. If he hadn’t thought he’d seen those feet, he probably wouldn’t even have spotted it. Maybe his mind was trying to tell him something - or maybe, he thought as he headed to the kitchen, subconsciously he just wanted to have something personal of his brother’s. And he knew Christian well enough to know his laptop was probably the most personal item in the house.
After grabbing a beer from the fridge he called the station, then the mobile number the duty sergeant gave him. It rang out several times before a sleepy voice answered, ‘Ramsey!’
‘It’s Jones.’
There was a pause as the other DI came to slightly. Sheets rustled, then he said, ‘Do you know what time it is?’ He groaned and then answered his own question. ‘God, half-past two.’
‘Sorry. I just wanted to ask you a question about my brother.’
‘Go on.’
‘What was he wearing when he was found?’
‘Why do you want to know that?’ Despite being obviously sleepy, Ramsey sounded curious.
‘I just need to know. For my head.’ It was the best he could come up with, and it was the truth, in its own way.
Ramsey sighed. ‘Okay. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and black Armani suit trousers. His jacket wasn’t on and his tie was loosened.’