‘That must be the case. And if he knows this Mr Bright, then perhaps the information he has is about him – or Cass’ missing nephew?’
‘Do you ever get the feeling that we’re way out of our depth here?’ Ramsey asked. ‘My brain is too tired for all this.’
‘Perhaps we are – but everything comes back to Mr Bright and Cass Jones, doesn’t it?’ He smiled. ‘The good news is that your boss wants me to go and speak to our Angel of Death before he shuffles off this mortal coil. I’m heading over to the hospital now.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ Ramsey hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’ll go and see Armstrong. His family are up there too – they’re devastated, course.’ He stared out at the grey day as he pulled on his coat. ‘It would have been easier for them if the bastard had just been shot – easier for all of us.’
‘Especially Armstrong,’ Hask added. Neither of them spoke after that.
After twice veering into the middle of the road, Cass had pulled into a lay-by to rest his eyes for five minutes. He didn’t think he’d sleep; the combination of adrenalin and fear of being caught should have been enough to keep him this side of consciousness, but as it turned out, it was half past ten when he woke, cold, aching and confused to find himself behind the steering wheel. His shoulder screamed, waking him up fully, and he turned and peered out of the window. He’d been out cold for more than two hours – no dreams, no ghosts, just the sleep of the dead. The once-quiet road was now a stream of traffic.
He lit a cigarette for breakfast and turned the engine on to warm the car. The radio came alive and he flicked away from the music to a news station before grabbing a couple of painkillers from the dashboard and then leaning back in the leather seat and letting his shoulder ease down to a gentle throb. He smiled slightly as he listened to the newscaster talking about the various City companies still righting themselves after being rocked by share troubles. ‘Details are still emerging as to the cause of the momentary loss of confidence in some of the most stable companies on the stock market today,’ she said, and Cass shut his eyes for a moment. Dijan Maric would be smiling, and so would Brian Freeman who, hidden behind a convoluted network, had just made himself a small fortune on the back of the confusion.
‘The officer who was attacked yesterday while capturing the serial killer known in the press as the “Angel of Death” has been named as Sergeant Toby Armstrong, twenty-six, of Paddington Green Police Station. His commanding officer, Detective Chief Inspector Ian Heddings, has commended his officer’s bravery. He has confirmed that Sergeant Armstrong has been admitted to hospital, and his condition has been described as “serious”. The police have not yet confirmed the condition of the suspect – who has been identified only by the name “Craven” – who has also been admitted to hospital. The arrest took place at Moneypenny’s, a nightclub in London’s Piccadilly Circus.
‘The police have confirmed that club owner Mr Arthur Mullins was also present at the time. Mr Mullins, sixty-two, owns a string of businesses across London. He served three years in prison in the 1990s for extortion, but he has always strenuously denied rumoured links with several underworld organisations. Police have confirmed that Mr Mullins has not been charged, nor is he being considered a person of interest in this case.
‘Members of the Opposition are calling for an inquiry into how one officer came to be acting alone when facing a suspect described as “armed and extremely dangerous”. A police source claims Sergeant Armstrong had called for back-up, but moved in before it arrived.’
Cass sat bolt upright and stared at the radio. Despite the heat blasting from the vents, his skin was icy. Armstrong? What the fuck had the stupid fucker done now? The newsreader had said ‘attacked’, not ‘injured’. He was suddenly very wide awake – too awake. If Armstrong had been attacked and was now in hospital, then he’d been infected. Cold prickled his scalp and rippled in a wave of goosebumps over the rest of his skin. The killer had been arrested at Artie’s club – what was he doing there? He tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. Brian Freeman would be waiting for him, but he might have to wait a bit longer. It looked like he needed to see Armstrong before he did anything else. For one thing, the sergeant must have been watching Artie’s place in a bid to try and find Cass, and although he was innocent – of the crimes Armstrong wanted him for at any rate – he felt an ache of guilt that Armstrong was now suffering because of that.
And if this ‘Craven’ had been at Artie’s place, then perhaps the same conclusion might well be drawn. There was no way Freeman would sanction Cass taking a trip to the hospital – there was likely to be a massive police presence there – but Cass was done taking orders. Getting back to Freeman and Dr Cornell could wait; he needed to find out what the Angel of Death had wanted with him and he couldn’t call Artie to find out. The police would be all over his phones, even if they’d been convinced up until now that he had no idea where Cass Jones was. The Angel of Death and the Man of Flies: both serial killers, both perhaps interested in Cass Jones – and both, perhaps, linked to Mr Bright? Or was he seeing a pattern in coincidences that did not exist?
He threw his stub out of the window and pulled onto the road. There was only one way to find out.
There were only two hospitals in London with dedicated Strain II wards, and only one – the same hospital the late Dr Gibbs worked for – was still NHS. It was overcrowded and underfunded, and would hardly be good PR. No, Charing Cross Hospital was where Cass would place his money: that same ward where Mr Solomon had left the body of Hannah West. The dead moved in small circles, it seemed: wheels within wheels.
Arthur ‘Artie’ Mullins had used public transport and taken a circuitous route to get to Brian Freeman’s place. Not that he thought anyone was on his tail; there’d been no one on him on the way back from the club the previous day, and the street outside his house was clear of suspicious vehicles. Either the police truly believed that he didn’t know where Cass was, or they thought he wouldn’t be so stupid as to try and see him immediately after something like this. Either way worked for Mullins.
As it turned out, Jones wasn’t at home, just Brian Freeman and some old academic, surrounded by papers and files and open computers. Their clothes were crumpled and neither looked like they’d slept much, but their eyes were buzzing.
‘I saw the news,’ Dr Cornell said excitedly. ‘I don’t normally watch and I’m behind with the papers.’ Artie Mullins had laughed at that, looking at the mountains of newsprint filling several rooms of Freeman’s otherwise stylish house.
‘The man, Craven, this Angel of Death.’ Dr Cornell scrabbled around on the desk and pulled out a picture. ‘Is this him?’ He shoved it into Artie’s thick hands.
It was a faded newspaper cutting, the picture grainy and worn. How old was it – fifties? A car in the background certainly suggested so. Two men were standing in front of a skyscraper, smiling as they held up a piece of paper that was obviously the subject of the piece. Dr Cornell punched his finger at a figure behind them whose head was turned slightly away from the camera. ‘Him.’
‘They look similar,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s hard to tell. And it can’t be him, can it, because this paper is old. But yeah, the bloke I saw yesterday could be his son or something. Same build, same features – same hair, as it goes.’
‘I told you!’ Dr Cornell’s face had come alive. He grinned and slapped Brian Freeman on the arm. ‘He’s one of them! I told you.’
Artie looked from one man to the other. Whatever was going on here, he didn’t want any part of it. He was happy running his own little empire, living with the small amount of knowledge he had. He was too old for whatever was firing Freeman and the junk collector. It looked too all-consuming for his liking.
‘Well, whoever he is, he wanted to talk to Jones. He also wanted me to give him this.’ He pulled the silver datastick out of his pocket. ‘It’s a token of his goodwill.’ He handed it to Brian Freeman, despite Dr Cornell’s hungry hand reaching out. ‘I
haven’t looked at it.’
‘Did he say what he wanted to talk to Cass about?’ Brian Freeman was already sliding the pen into the side of a MacBook perched on top of a pile of folders.
‘Secrets. He said he had answers for Cass. Some bollocks along those lines.’
Dr Cornell was peering over Freeman’s shoulder and both men frowned simultaneously. ‘What’s happened?’ Dr Cornell asked. ‘Why has the screen gone blank?’
Brian Freeman looked up at Artie. ‘Did he give you any instructions to go with this?’
‘No, mate.’ He paused, suddenly awkward, as they fiddled with the Mac. Was he curious about the datastick? Yes. Could his curiosity wait? Too bloody right it could. Back home, his missus was choosing between three luxury holidays, and once he’d cleared with the coppers that he could leave the country then it would be sangria in the sunshine for him. By the time he got back, all this would have played out, one way or another. He’d get the story then. He didn’t feel any need to be part of this action; he had no desire to get fucked with by the likes of the fabled Mr Bright.
‘Maybe Cass will know what to do with it.’ He sniffed and turned towards the door. ‘Speaking of Jones, I think I’ll be off before he gets back. Just in case.’ He hesitated for a moment. The picture of Craven had thrown him. It had made him think of the few seconds in his office that he’d tried so hard to forget.
‘One more thing,’ he said. Maybe if he gave that moment to these two then he’d be able to bury it completely. He believed in solid earth and blood and grit. He refused to believe in what he’d seen.
‘It’ll probably sound crazy,’ he continued, ‘but Armstrong should have been able to nick him, no problem. He had a gun – Craven shouldn’t have been able to bite him like he did.’ His voice had lowered automatically. This wasn’t something he wanted to speak out loud. He wondered if Armstrong had left it out of his statement, just as Artie himself had. ‘But something happened in there,’ he continued, ‘something fucking weird. It was like, just for a few seconds, Craven was something else. He became something else.’
Both Dr Cornell and Brian Freeman were staring at him, the computer and the datastick completely forgotten for a moment, and it made him feel desperately uncomfortable. He’d hoped that they’d laugh at him, but they weren’t.
‘What?’ Dr Cornell asked quietly. ‘What did he become?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mullins said. It was an honest answer. ‘It was too bright. It made my eyes hurt. But I’m sure I saw metal in there, claws of some kind. And there was a terrible sound, like wings beating.’ A flush ran over his face. It might be the truth, but listening to himself made him feel five kinds of crazy.
‘Anyway, it was probably just my eyes playing tricks.’ He turned to head back out to the hallway and raised a hand in farewell. ‘Give Cass my best. I’m fucking off out of the country for a while. I’ll catch up when I get back.’
He didn’t give them time to ask any more questions. His gut was squirming like a barrel of snakes, and it was telling him to get the fuck out of there. He wasn’t going to ignore it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
There were times in life when only brazening something out could get you where you needed to go. As Cass walked towards the main reception desk of the Charing Cross Hospital, head slightly down but a brisk confidence in his step, he was banking on two things: that the receptionist would be too busy to have her mind on more than the one criminal already in their hospital, and second, that most people never looked beyond the badge. He gave the woman a curt smile and held his police ID up, one finger slightly over the name, but with the picture clearly visible.
‘I’m from Paddington Green,’ he said quietly, ‘here to see Toby Armstrong.’
‘Third floor.’ She barely looked up from her computer. ‘If you see the nurse over there,’ she nodded in the direction of a separate counter, ‘she’ll give you a mask and scrubs and gloves. There’s a toilet just before the stairs that you can use. Please make sure you dispose of them in the clearly marked bins when leaving the ward. The scrubs go in one for washing and the gloves and mask are destroyed. Here.’ She handed him a plastic ID holder. ‘Put your ID in it and make sure it’s clearly displayed. We don’t want you mistaken for a member of staff.’
She smiled politely as Cass took it. ‘Thanks.’
The woman at the second desk looked slightly harder at his ID, but not enough to make Cass think she was in any way suspicious. She smiled tiredly as she gave him the items. ‘Try not to be too loud, will you? The patients are very ill; they really need their rest.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said and smiled back. He didn’t feel the need to point out that they’d all be getting plenty of rest soon enough, so surely they’d want to be awake while they could. But then, what did he know of their hell? Maybe sleep was a pleasant respite – but, no, unlikely; he thought the sleep of Strain II victims would be filled with nightmares of death and the nothing that probably came after.
In the toilet he locked himself into a cubicle and pulled the green scrubs on over his clothes. He adjusted the mask over his face before tugging on the cap and tucking up the longer bits of hair. The ID holder stayed in his pocket. He checked himself in the mirror, slumped his shoulders slightly and softened the expression in his eyes. That would do. He stepped back into the hospital and walked with Dr Cromer’s precise gait that he’d practised the previous night before rescuing Luke. Unless anyone looked right into his eyes he was unlikely to be recognised. He hoped.
He’d expected the third floor to be quiet, but the hush he found was so much more than that: this was the silent second before the last breath, the hanging moment between the final inhale and release, the expectant, trembling quiet that fell in the presence of death. There was a respect in that hush, and more than a modicum of fear.
Two officers talked quietly to each other by the doors as they swiftly peeled off their masks and gloves, eager to be away and back out in the freezing December air. Neither glanced at Cass as he passed them. He peered through the glass window of a door on his left. Inside, a man somewhere in his late fifties had his arm around a woman of a similar age. He was staring vacantly at the wall as she cried quietly into his shoulder. His fingers stroked her arm, but Cass wondered if either of them were aware of the contact. They were lost, facing a future that held no happiness for either of them. Toby Armstrong’s parents looked so very middle class and ordinary that Cass’ heart ached for them. Their son had been delivered a death sentence and they were now caught in that moment between life and death. All they could do was try to find the strength to say their goodbyes. A few seats and a respectful distance away, a young WPC sipped a cup of polystyrene coffee.
Cass left them to their grief. Despite the adrenalin firing through his system he felt slightly numb, and realised that until this moment part of him had been convinced that he wouldn’t find Armstrong in this ward; that the attack launched on him by the Angel of Death hadn’t involved infection. But Armstrong hadn’t been that lucky, had he? An old cynicism gripped him as he moved through the ward. There was no luck. Armstrong’s choices had led him here: his choice to go in without back-up, and a series of choices probably made prior to that. It was always your own choices that fucked you up.
He paused at the end of a bed and pretended to read the chart of the frail man sleeping in it. A nurse passed by without speaking to him and continued to the nurses’ station at the entrance. As he flicked through the paperwork, Cass glanced around. There looked to be more private rooms at the far end of the corridor; he presumed that was where both Armstrong and Craven were being kept.
Two figures in scrubs huddled by a water cooler, though neither looked as if they intended to drink from it, and Cass realised that was likely all the police presence there was. If the Angel of Death had cancer, the ward would be overcrowded with coppers ensuring no one could get in and harm the suspect, but that really wasn’t necessary: who in their right mind would want to come i
nto a Strain II ward, let alone get too close to the killer himself? It looked like not too many of the police did either, and no DCI or Commissioner could force anyone, not in these circumstances.
Unlike its originator, the more docile HIV, Strain II’s ease of contagion – a sneeze, one drip of saliva inhaled, a droplet of blood – had gained almost mythical status. Cass figured if that were true they’d all be riddled with the bug by now, but he couldn’t deny that underneath his fear of getting caught, his nerves were jangling at being in the presence of so much contagious death.
A door opened ahead of him and two immediately recognisable figures emerged, Tim Hask’s physique was quite singular, his obesity so out of place in the midst of the skeletal figures dozing in the beds around them. The tall man he was talking quietly to was Ramsey, of course. They closed the door behind them and nodded to the two officers by the water cooler before going into a second room.
This was Cass’ chance. In the bed in front of him the sleeping patient – whose features were so sunken he couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman – drew laboured breaths through an oxygen mask. Cass picked up a liver tray and a small paper cup of water from the side-table and walked casually towards the room Hask and Ramsey had just left. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was certain the nurses could hear it from behind their desk, and behind his mask his cheeks were damp from his rushing breath.
He didn’t recognise either of the officers who were so casually guarding the two rooms. He gave them a cursory nod. One of them glanced down at the items in Cass’ hand, and then carried on with his idle chatter. Though he’d been shocked to see Hask and Ramsey so close, it was turning out to be a blessing; people invariably relaxed their sense of responsibility around their superiors, and these two were apparently no different.
The small private room was dimly lit, but it was as warm as the rest of the ward. Armstrong’s eyes were shut, and there was a tube attached to his arm. What was that, some kind of sedation? Surely it couldn’t be pain relief already? But now he was closer, Cass could see Toby Armstrong looked deathly pale, even in the golden glow of the sidelights. The sergeant had also lost weight – he knew Strain II was more aggressive than HIV, but surely it couldn’t work this fast? Whatever Craven was passing on to his victims, it was carrying an unholy kick. He remembered the way Solomon had died: there had been nothing natural about that. So was Craven the same as Solomon and Bright? Were they all three of them something strange and ageless?