‘Not any more,’ Hask said. ‘I think you’re going to find you have far more referrals like Mrs Wheeler.’
‘Who would do such a thing, to infect people on purpose? So callously?’
It was strange to hear her use the word he had just thought of in conjunction with Cass Jones. Well, the ex-DI was a killer, that was a matter of record, but he wasn’t like this one. They were different breeds entirely.
‘I will never be surprised by the actions of men,’ he said. ‘Or women, for that matter.’ He smiled. ‘But sometimes those surprises can be pleasant. Don’t forget that.’
He left her and made his own way out, dumping his gloves and mask in the bins at the door. He emerged from the hospital and, once outside its gates, sucked in the cold London air. It was good to be away from the quietly claustrophobic ward where he could practically taste death in the air. Here on the street, life and energy buzzed.
He watched the passers-by. Too many of them were smart men with neatly cut brown hair. The invisible attacker could be any one of them. A chill that had nothing to do with the crisp December morning settled in his spine. He found the idea of such a man stalking the streets and infecting strangers disconcerting. The media would whip the public up into hysteria when the story broke.
He sighed, his breath a stream of mist that reassured him of his continuing existence, and as he began to walk he tried to keep space between himself and the other pedestrians. God, he wished he were back in Sweden. London, for all the huge fees he was earning, was providing him with far more excitement than he’d ever desired.
Chapter Five
By lunchtime, Cass was walking through Oxford. When he’d told Mac he was going out for the day, he’d expected more of an argument from him and the rest of Artie Mullins’ henchmen, but it looked like they were all happy to have the day off from babysitting him. Tomorrow he’d have his new identity; then he’d be free as a bird, so he figured they were seeing this as practice, maybe something like day release for long-term prisoners. It was one thing minding a bedridden patient who slept most of the day, but trying to tell a fully grown healthy alpha male what to do was too much like hard work, even if Mullins had given them their orders. Mac had put it succinctly just that morning when he’d growled, ‘How am I supposed to keep you inside? Put another bullet in you? That would somewhat defeat the purpose, don’t you think?’
Away from the capital, Cass felt the knots in his back start to loosen and he allowed himself to take in the skyline of the historic city. The freedom was strange: London was his home, and he loved it, but right now the city itself felt like his enemy: the mass of CCTV cameras, the heightened security since 26/09, meaning more police on the streets – not to mention the fact that just about every copper in London wanted to be the one to bring him in, the great DI Cass Jones, the whistle-blower, now wanted on two counts of murder. He couldn’t blame them – he’d probably feel the same in their situation. At least the story of what he’d done undercover hadn’t come out in the papers yet; that was one small mercy. He was quite sure he’d be portrayed as the devil incarnate if it did, but someone was making sure a tight lid was kept on that. He laughed at the irony: it was the only murder of the three he’d been fingered for that he’d actually committed.
He picked up an Oxford A-Z at a newsagent’s and found his way to the address on the piece of paper Father Michael had given him the previous day. He’d been walking for at least an hour, and on top of the train and bus journey all the movement had left his shoulder throbbing. He felt exhausted. He hadn’t done anything more than shuffle around a flat for the best part of two months and he was weak as a kitten. He didn’t like it: if he was going to find Luke and take on Mr Bright and The Bank, he was going to need all his strength.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered as he took in the view. If the exterior of the house was anything to go by, then Father Michael’s ‘he may just be a crackpot’ evaluation of Dr Stuart Cornell was a massive understatement. The building itself was a pleasant enough terraced house with its own small front garden. Unlike those around it, however, there were no pot plants, or stretches of pleasantly coloured gravel tidily filling the gap between the street and the front door. The garden of Number 29 was a mass of waist-high weeds that had forced their way through the cracked paving slabs. At least they went some way to hiding the tyres and battered metal bins that littered the space. Beyond them, the bay window was an equally unprepossessing sight. The filthy paint was peeling off the rotting wood, and the glass was black on both sides, mud outside and what looked like layers of nicotine on the inside. The tattered net curtain was entirely redundant.
He didn’t bother with the grime-coated bell – there wasn’t a hope in hell it would work – but instead rapped loudly on the door. He left it a few moments and then rapped again, and this time he heard a shuffling on the other side, and the sound of paper being moved.
‘If you’re from the council, then you can go away. They came yesterday.’
The voice was well spoken, not the Fagin Cass had been expecting from the wrecked front of the house, but there was a tremble there that he recognised instantly: fear and paranoia. This was someone not used to talking to strangers – or talking much at all.
‘I’m not from the council, Mr Cornell, I wanted to ask you—’
‘Dr Cornell. I have a PhD. I’m a doctor. You can’t keep coming round here. I have important work—’ The fragile voice was becoming more agitated. Cass slowed his own speech right down as he leaned in closer. ‘I’m just a visitor, Dr Cornell. I wanted to ask you some questions about someone.’
‘This is a trick so you can get in and take my things away.’
‘Honestly, I promise you, Dr Cornell, I’m not from the council.’ The outside of the house was a good indicator of the state of the inside. He didn’t envy whoever would eventually get in to clear out the clutter. This one was a hoarder. There was a need in the sharp edge of his voice that suggested someone desperate to make sense of things that they’d overthought. There were plenty like him among the lonely in London, people tucked away with nothing but piles of junk for company. Maybe he’d come a long way for nothing.
‘Who do you want to talk about?’ Dr Cornell asked plaintively. ‘I don’t know anyone around here. They don’t talk to me.’
Cass was willing to bet the neighbours gave this blight on their pleasant landscape a wide berth. They might not speak to him face to face, but they’d sure as hell be on the phone to the council, the police, anyone who would listen, demanding they get something done about him.
‘Alan Jones,’ Cass said. Across the road a young woman pushing a pram along the pavement stared over at him. He kept his face turned towards the door. He didn’t need any unwelcome attention.
‘Hello?’ There was silence on the other side of the door and Cass gritted his teeth in frustration. This negotiation was shaping up to take some time – time that Cass didn’t want to spend standing out on a doorstep with passers-by watching his every move. The last thing he needed was for someone to call the police because the crazy old man at Number 29 was being bullied by some bastard who wouldn’t leave him alone.
‘Go away.’ The aggressive edge was gone; Dr Cornell now sounded like a schoolkid, not sure if his friends were taking the piss or being serious.
Cass leaned in closer, his nostrils filling with the scents of rotting paint and damp wood. Being anonymous wasn’t going to work with Dr Cornell. The man was too paranoid. ‘I’m Alan and Evie Jones’ son,’ he said quietly.
‘Their son’s dead. I read it.’ More shuffling on the other side. ‘I read it in the papers. He’s dead. All of his family.’
‘I’m their other son. Now please let me in – I need your help.’ He didn’t want to think about what state his life had come to if he was begging an old recluse like Dr Cornell for help. He pressed his ear against the door and listened. If Dr Cornell was calling the police then he had about ten minutes to get away. This was a residential area, and his
running wasn’t up to much with his shoulder as damaged as it was – not that running would do him much good against a search helicopter. Basically, if Dr Cornell was ringing the police, then he was well and truly fucked. The only thing he could hope for was that Dr Cornell had a reputation for being a mad old time-waster and whoever took the call wouldn’t pay him any attention.
The seconds ticked by. Finally there was a rasping screech and a bolt was pulled back on the other side, then keys were turned and chains were unhooked and, eventually, the door opened an inch. Cass stared into the suspicious faded blue eye that peered out.
‘You’d better come in then,’ Dr Cornell said after a long moment, and opened the door only just wide enough for Cass to get through, then slammed the door shut on the outside world and set to work resecuring his home. Cass looked down the corridor. The walls were lined with paper-stuffed carrier bags and piles of newspapers.
‘I haven’t sorted those yet.’ Dr Cornell still had his back to Cass as he turned the last of the keys, so he must have expected a reaction.
Cass was surprised to find the lights were on and it was warm inside; somehow he was still paying his utility bills. The man’s appearance was a surprise too; though his clothes were worn, they looked clean enough, and he was clean-shaven. How he managed it amidst all this mess, Cass couldn’t figure out. Maybe the upstairs of the house was normal. He doubted it somehow.
‘Come into my study.’ The old man led him down the corridor. ‘You should be hiding. They’ll all be looking for you, you know.’
Cass didn’t answer. It didn’t surprise him that Dr Cornell knew about his problems, not with this many newspapers filling the hallway.
‘What are you looking for in all this?’ he asked.
‘Information.’ Dr Cornell waved him into a room on the left and busied himself removing papers from a buried armchair before nodding Cass into it. As he started clearing a second for himself Cass looked at the towering piles of books and papers surrounding him: he could see natural history, geography, astronomy, astrology, religion, even the history of Christianity. Some were so old he couldn’t distinguish the titles. There were folders, too, with handwritten labels: New York, Syria, the Middle East, Moscow, and the largest had London printed on a tatty sheet of paper and underlined several times in felt-tip pen. But it was at the wall opposite Cass found himself staring longest. It was covered in photographs and newspaper cuttings, pinned and Sellotaped and Blu-Tacked, with barely a scrap of wallpaper visible beneath the mass of paperwork.
Could that really be—? Cass stood up and took a closer look; it was definitely Mr Bright and Mr Solomon, together in one photograph. The two men were walking side by side across an airstrip. Both had hair slicked back in side partings and their suits had a baggy quality that belonged in the nineteen forties. They were tilting their heads towards each other and talking intently.
He scanned the rest of the clippings. They covered everything from the formation of The Bank to old reports of the Jack the Ripper slayings, an apparently random mix of political, business and criminal news. Surely Dr Cornell couldn’t believe that the Network had been involved in all these things?
He looked back at the newspaper pictures and photographs. There were some of men he didn’t recognise, but one of Mr Bright and another man had been taken in New York, perhaps in the sixties, and there was a very old copy of a photograph from around the start of the twentieth century, of Mr Bright and Mr Solomon standing on either side of a tall, broad, dark-haired man. Cass could see he was strikingly handsome, despite the grainy quality of the image and his ageing face. The three were laughing at the camera as if they had just been told the biggest joke. Cass frowned. Where were they?
‘That was the opening of the London stock exchange in 1854. It had just been rebuilt,’ Dr Cornell said, as if reading Cass’ mind. ‘The one in the middle – I’ve had no sightings of him for years, not much after the turn of the century.’ He stood close enough that Cass could smell the mint on his breath. At least he brushed.
‘He’s the one, though: the key figure – the leader, if they have one. Although Castor Bright seems to have stepped into his shoes. It’s hard to get photos now. I don’t go out, not any more. And they’re more careful.’ Stuart Cornell’s eye twitched and he turned away from the board. He picked up a bottle and found two glasses behind a stack of box-files and poured them both a drink.
‘They want to take my papers. My evidence. They always say they’re from the council, but I know better.’ The old man tapped the side of his nose.
The glass looked clean enough and Cass figured he had enough antibiotics racing round his system to cope with any unwelcome bacteria. He needed the drink – he felt almost breathless. Here was someone else who knew about Mr Bright and the strangeness that surrounded him. He took a long sip of the whisky. What would Dr Cornell have thought if he’d seen how Mr Solomon had died? Most likely that would have completely tipped him into madness …
He looked closely at the old man. There was no glow in his eyes, not even a flicker of silver like he’d seen in Hayley Porter’s mother’s. Whatever the gold and silver lights meant, they were no part of Dr Cornell’s life.
They want to take my papers. Cass was pretty sure he knew who the professor meant by they: the same they his dead brother Christian had been referring to in the note he left Cass: THEY took Luke. They was the Network. Whichever way life twisted and turned, it always came back to Mr Bright and the Network. He smiled grimly to himself. Looking at the mess here, in Dr Cornell’s case, it might well be the council.
‘Why were you so fascinated with my father?’ he asked.
The professor sat in his chair beneath the pictures of the men who held both Cass and him in their thrall and sipped his drink. ‘Why are you so fascinated by my fascination?’
The eyes were sharp. This was going to be trickier than Cass had first expected, when he’d arrived and seen the state of the place. Dr Stuart Cornell was not the nutjob he’d first imagined, nor was he totally delusional. And he was obviously capable of insightful thought. But he was paranoid – though Cass knew he had good reason to be – and what he didn’t want to do was push the man over the edge.
‘Was it because of his association with this man?’ Cass pulled out one of his own pictures, the photograph of his parents with Castor Bright. ‘The man you have all over your wall?’ His photo had been taken in South Africa, before he was even born. Cass had found it in the envelope Christian had left for him at their parents’ house. In the picture, the three were standing under a sign that read THE SOLOMON AND BRIGHT MINING CORPS.
Dr Cornell scrabbled for the picture, but Cass held it firm. A slightly manic light had gone on in the man’s eyes and Cass doubted he would ever give the photo back if he handed it over. He compromised, holding it close to the professor’s face and letting him study it before putting it back in his pocket.
‘Nothing is true,’ Dr Cornell said finally, leaning back in his chair. ‘The world is on its head.’
‘What do you know about Mr Bright and the Network? Why are they so interested in my family?’
‘They’ve really played you, haven’t they?’ Dr Cornell laughed slightly. ‘I’ve been watching.’
‘But who are they?’
Dr Cornell raised his glass, then lowered it without drinking and got to his feet. He started pacing in the small cleared area. The agitations were clearly returning.
‘Things have changed. Since that one disappeared.’ He jabbed a finger at the image of the stranger between Mr Bright and Mr Solomon on his wall. ‘The whole world’s changed, can’t you feel it? So many advances, and yet a sense that it’s all crumbling, don’t you think?’
Cass shrugged slightly as Dr Cornell stared at him for a response.
‘I think they’re starting to come unstuck. They’ve never looked outside of themselves before – not like they did with your father and mother.’
‘And what about my father and mother?’ He
needed to try and follow Dr Cornell’s track.
‘You’re looking at the details.’ Dr Cornell’s head twitched in a rapid shake. ‘All wrong. You need to look at the forest, not the trees.’
Cass wondered how a man who lived like this, who was obsessed with the details, could make a statement like that.
‘The thing is, I don’t really care about the forest – the bigger picture; whatever it is that has brought you to this.’ Cass gestured at the mass of information that surrounded them. ‘Mr Bright took something that belongs with me, and I want it back. And I want to fuck with him and his Bank a little along the way. What I want to know, and I think you can help me here, is why my family is so important to him? You were pretty much stalking my dad for a while, but I’m guessing he wasn’t the real focus of your attention.’ Cass spoke calmly and stared at Dr Cornell, trying to focus him.
It seemed to work.
‘I don’t know why your family exactly. Back then I had two other people researching with me. They’re gone now.’ The professor’s face darkened. ‘We knew they were looking for someone – someone special. They’d been looking for a long time, since that one in the middle disappeared from sight. Others had vanished before, but not like him. They became more active after that.’ He jabbed a finger at Cass. ‘I tried to warn your father, I really did. First of all in the Middle East when I was on a research trip, but they were starting to lure him in by then. I even went to South Africa, but I couldn’t get near them, neither he nor your mother. Bright made sure of that.’
Dr Cornell perched on the arm of his chair. ‘When he moved back to England and settled in Capel-le-Ferne, I knew he must have had some kind of falling-out with Mr Bright and his people. I thought then that maybe he’d join me in trying to get to the truth.’ His jaw clenched. ‘I needed someone like him, someone who’d been on the inside – who could maybe get back inside for me.’ He let out a long, tense sigh. ‘It didn’t happen. He wouldn’t even speak to me – just called the police every time I was within a mile of him.’