‘Did she say anything before she died?’
‘No. So, what
are
you looking for a week after she died? It seems a bit odd.’
She looked clever. Cass closed the lid of the first box. ‘Just anything unusual. Something she might have said, or written down.’
‘Something unusual?’ Rachel’s eyes narrowed and the widened slightly. ‘There was something. We found it when we were clearing out her locker on campus. Amanda was with me. She found it.’
Amanda swayed backwards and forwards a little on the sofa, sniffing into a tissue. Beside her, Rachel Honey was a rock of calm; Cass was very glad Sergeant Armstrong had had the good sense to let the girl bring her friend. Amanda was too wrapped up in her own shock to have remembered by herself.
‘She had a mirror on the inside of her locker door,’ Amanda said, looking up nervously. ‘She sometimes went out straight from Uni, so it was handy for her to just quickly put some make-up on if she was changing her clothes. The toilets there can be pretty grim, and they stink.’
Cass nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, there isn’t that much to tell, really. When Rachel came to help me pack up her stuff we remembered her
locker. I found her key and when we opened it up we saw it written on the mirror in her lipstick.’
‘What was written there?’
‘Chaos in the darkness,’ Amanda whispered, as if somehow the phrase could hurt her.
‘You didn’t tell anyone?’ Cass kept his face impassive.
‘To be honest,’ Rachel cut in, ‘we thought it might be some kind of sick joke.’
‘Why?’
‘I work on the Uni news site. It’s one of the best in the city – we think
the
best actually, we don’t just run stories from South Bank but from across London. Everyone’s heard the stories of the girl who died a couple of weeks ago, the one who wrote that phrase on the wall. And the kid who texted his mum. It’s becoming a bit like one of those urban legends around all the campuses.’
‘They say,’ Amanda’s eyes widened, ‘that if you see those words somewhere then you’ll kill yourself within the week.’ She picked at her tissue. ‘I should never have come to London,’ she muttered. ‘I should have stayed in Guildford. I don’t want to kill myself. I don’t want to die.’
‘They’ – Rachel rolled her eyes – ‘are just a bunch of dumb boys wanting to scare girls into getting their knickers off. I’ve got no intention of topping myself in the next few days, and neither do you. That story’s just a pile of shit.’ Her grin froze and she looked back up at Cass. ‘Is that why you’re here? Have there been more suicides like these?’
For once Cass was lost for words. He hadn’t for a second thought that the stories of the deaths would spread like Chinese whispers through the student community. Where the police hadn’t bothered even looking for links, the kids had grabbed hold of them and run with it.
He ignored her question. ‘Has anyone asked you about
her locker? Any students who might have been playing a prank like you thought?’
Rachel’s smile fell and Amanda’s shoulders curved further inwards as she sniffed into her tissue. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘no one’s said anything. I don’t think it was a joke.’
‘Is the writing still there?’ Cass leaned forward.
‘We cleaned it off,’ Rachel said. ‘Sorry. We didn’t think it mattered.’
‘It probably doesn’t.’ Cass smiled, but he could feel those sharp eyes digging in to him. Rachel Honey wasn’t stupid. ‘What was her social life like? You said she went out sometimes straight from college?’
‘Sometimes. She was out two or three evenings a week. Sometimes at weekends we’d go to the Union together.’ Amanda twisted the tissue between her thin fingers. She was talking, but Cass knew her mind was on the words she’d found in the locker and thinking about the newly born urban myth, and whether she would be next. What she was feeling wasn’t grief. It was fear.
‘She was quite a private person. We didn’t really talk about boyfriends or stuff like that. I don’t think she was seeing anyone, though.’
‘I think she had a job,’ Rachel cut in. ‘She had one last year, waitressing somewhere. She was pretty good with money. I mean, I know you’d expect that from someone on her course, but that’s not always the case.’ She smiled. ‘I’m doing accountancy too, but my overdraft is shocking.’
‘You don’t know where she worked, do you?’
Both girls shook their heads, before Amanda’s red eyes focused slightly. ‘I know she worked at Pizza Express last year. Maybe she got a job there again. The one right down on the river.’
‘Thanks.’ Cass stood up. ‘Do you girls need a lift back to Uni?’
‘No, we’ll walk,’ Rachel said. ‘Bit of fresh air will do us good.’
Armstrong folded his notebook and tucked it back in his pocket. ‘If we need you, we’ll be in touch.’
Cass wondered how long it would take for the news of the police visit to spread across the student network. Their youth made him feel like a dinosaur; they were an alien race he really didn’t understand. He was angry at himself for not having realised Katie Dodds’ death would have been texted, tweeted, messaged and however else these teenagers communicated all across the city and beyond, probably within a few hours of her being found. He wasn’t sure what bothered him most: the fact that he hadn’t thought about it, or that he was so out of touch with the way young people behaved.
‘You want to what?’ The DCI didn’t look happy, but then Hugo Heddings always looked like a man with a bad case of haemorrhoids who had sat down too heavily. Cass had never thought he’d miss Morgan, but since the old DCI had been shipped out he’d started to look like a dream boss.
‘I think we need to look into this, sir.’ Cass spread the files out on Heddings’ desk. ‘That’s five students who have killed themselves, all linked by this one phrase.’
‘“Chaos in the darkness”?’ Heddings spat the words out as if he didn’t want them in his mouth any longer than possible. ‘It doesn’t even mean anything.’
‘To be fair, sir,’ Armstrong cut in, ‘we don’t know what it means. It must mean
something
.’
Cass glanced up, surprised. He’d filled Armstrong in briefly before coming up to see the boss, but they hadn’t
discussed the deaths at all. He’d expected the younger man just to stay quiet at the back and pretend he wasn’t there, but maybe his curiosity had been engaged too.
‘Five young people dead in just over two weeks is a lot,’ Cass said. ‘Don’t you think we should at least check it out? If Eagleton could examine the bodies, then perhaps we’ll find some physical evidence to link them.’
‘Examine the bodies?’ The DCI’s gaze hardened. ‘That means exhuming at least two of them, surely?’
Cass didn’t answer. His silence spoke for him.
‘You want to dig up the bodies of two dead students?’ Heddings was determined to drag the words out of Cass.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me, Jones’ – the DCI rested his arms on the ignored files and laced his fingers – ‘did these kids commit suicide or not?’
‘It’s not as simple as—’
‘Yes, it is. Did they commit suicide?’
‘Yes.’ Cass’s jaw tightened as he spoke. He’d thought the DCI would be a bastard about this, and it was turning out he’d been right.
‘And have you got any evidence at all, from any of the crime scenes, that they might be anything other than suicide? Any suspicion of murder?’
‘Not in the traditional sense, no. But there
is
something linking them.’
‘Lots of people have crazy suicide pacts. We don’t look into all of those. For all you know that phrase is a lyric from some current pop song that all the teenagers in Britain are singing.’
The suggestion gave Cass pause, and for the second time that morning he felt old and out of touch.
‘It isn’t,’ Armstrong said. ‘I did a search on the Internet.
There was nothing listed for that exact phrase.’
For the first time since they’d been partnered together, Cass felt glad to have Armstrong on his side. He kept his eyes on Heddings. ‘There’s something very odd going on with these deaths, sir. And yes, technically these kids all killed themselves, but none of them had any suicidal traits prior. They were all good students, and relatively popular. I think something or someone prompted them to take their own lives, and whatever it is, it’s linked to this phrase. They deserve a little of our time to see if we can figure out why.’ He paused. ‘If these five have died in so short a time, then there might be more.’
‘That’s very noble.’ Heddings glanced at each of the files and then piled them up again. ‘But such sentiments don’t pay the bills.’ As he peered over the top of his glasses, the balding man looked like a headmaster, telling Cass and Armstrong off as if they were children. ‘We don’t have the money to start digging up bodies and investigating perfectly clear-cut cases of suicide, however tragic you might feel them to be. This station is virtually on its knees, Jones—’ He jabbed a finger into the air between them. ‘You know this better than most. We barely have the money to work on the criminal cases, without acting on a’ – he gestured at the files – ‘fanciful whim.’
‘It’s not a whim, sir.’ Cass raised the whip to flog the dead horse once more.
‘It is. There’s too much shit going on around here at the moment—’
A knock on the door interrupted him, and a constable poked his head cautiously into the office, as if even from the outside he’d been aware that he might be walking into cross-fire.
‘What is it?’ Heddings snapped.
‘Sorry, sir. There’s a lawyer here to see DI Jones. He says it’s urgent and can’t wait. Desk Sergeant’s rung up twice now, sir.’
Cass felt whatever slim chance he’d had of changing his boss’s mind crumble into dust.
‘And that’ – Heddings leaned back in his chair – ‘is the kind of shit I’m talking about. You’ve got enough to be contending with putting our own lot behind bars without chasing suicides.’
Cass refused to bite, but he felt the barb in the remark.
‘Just for the record,’ Armstrong spoke softly as he followed Cass over to the door, ‘I think the DI is right. There’s something odd about these cases. We should be looking into them.’
‘Your point is noted.’ The contempt in Heddings’ voice was clear. ‘But when I want your opinion, Sergeant, I’ll ask for it. And I’m pretty sure that I didn’t. Now shut the door on your way out.’
Cass had already gone, afraid he might growl something that he would technically regret if he stayed in his new boss’s earshot for much longer. And he wasn’t ready to thank Armstrong for his support just yet. The sergeant had said what anyone with half a brain would have said after seeing the files and hearing what Amanda Kemble and Rachel Honey had said earlier. But Cass had to admit Armstrong had risen dramatically in his estimation; if he carried on like this, then maybe one day they would be going for a beer after work. Not yet, but one day.
He found the lawyer sipping a polystyrene cup of coffee in a small office on the first floor usually allocated to duty solicitors when they needed to quickly catch up on some notes before being given a client.
‘Be careful with that stuff,’ Cass said, nodding at the cup. ‘It’ll kill you.’
He regretted his words the moment the man turned around. His skin was almost yellow, and had the waxy, leather appearance of a body that was already embalmed despite the beating heart inside.
‘I’m DI Jones.’ He nodded at the man to take a seat. ‘I presume this is about one of the trials. Surely whatever you need is in one of the countless statements I’ve made over the months?’
‘My name is Edgar Marlowe, from Marlowe and Beale. I’ve left a few messages on your answerphone at home.’
The message on his phone that morning. That was this man. Cass recognised his voice. ‘Don’t call me at home and then come here looking for ways to help your corrupt clients.’ His voice was cold. He didn’t have time for this shit. It had fucked up enough of his life already.
‘I think you misunderstand.’ Marlowe raised his hands. ‘I’m not here about the police cases. I’m here about your brother.’
‘What?’ The sentence was completely unexpected, and Cass felt the world tilt sideways in a way he hadn’t in months. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This is a slightly unusual situation.’ Marlowe finally pulled a chair out and carefully sat down. Cass did the same on the opposite side of the table.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Marlowe and Beale mainly work exclusively for The Bank and some of its …’ Marlowe hesitated, his sickly eyes shifting slightly away from Cass’s. ‘Shall we say, investors.’
Cass felt as if he were heading into an invisible game of chess. He’d been here before, but now at least he was aware of some of the pieces. The Bank. The Network. The
Glow
.
And of course, Mr Bright and his dead partner Mr Solomon, the Man of Flies.
‘Go on.’
‘Your brother was in contact with me on several occasions regarding some legal matters for various of The Bank’s subsidiary companies. He was very highly regarded, it would seem. For a long time I’d dealt mainly with a man called Asher Red …’
‘I’ve met him.’
‘Well, then, you’ll know he’s not the easiest man to get to know, or to get along with.’ Marlowe smiled and Cass could see where his gums were whitening. There was nothing healthy about the lawyer, despite the lack of grey in his thick brown hair. How old was he? Forty-five? Maybe fifty at most.