The Chosen Seed: The Dog-Faced Gods Book Three

by Sarah Pinborough

  ‘Then it must be what shall come to pass.’ His voice was agitated, filled with a rising excitement. ‘It means that we find a way home!’

  She smiled, glad that he was happy. She would have to go soon, taking her aching body out into the cold to continue her search for Jarrod Pretorius, and she never liked to leave him when he was maudlin. So far, her search had been fruitless; she had found nothing using the search engines of the local library computers – nothing of any use, at any rate. But it was unlikely he had kept his own name … She knew that at some point she was going to have to look for him in the ways that belonged to her other body, but right now she didn’t have the energy – and she needed to be careful. She was in no condition to draw unwanted attention to herself.

  The old man got up and started his exercises, shuffling his thin body around the flat. She picked up her coffee and went through their small sitting room to the window – it had the best view, and she liked to look out over the uneven lines of the tops of the buildings, some old and some new and all full of life and activity. Lights flickered in houses and flats, and on the pavements below people scurried here, there and everywhere. She allowed herself to get lost in it all for a few minutes. They had so much energy, so much life – and though there was little Glow, and at first she’d found that hard to bear, she’d adjusted. She was learning to understand them – the rejects – and how ferociously they burned during their short lives. They fought until the last.

  A brass band had stopped in the middle of the street and now it burst into loud song. She tilted her head to catch the words, watching as people shook buckets at passers-by and thanked them for their small donations and wished them a very merry Christmas. In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan. Earth was hard as iron, water like a stone. The music and words worked together, and although it was a coarse sound compared to that made by the trumpeters of home, it had its own honest beauty. She thought for a moment that perhaps he had judged them too harshly all that time ago. Perhaps when he saw …

  She stopped that thought: he wouldn’t see, not when his mind had already been made up. This would always be treachery to him, and forgiveness wasn’t in his nature.

  She felt the warmth of the old man at her back. The music had drawn him to the window too, and for a few minutes they stood together and stared out at this fascinating world. Reflections of themselves that they didn’t recognise stared back like ghosts trapped in the glass. She looked past them as the sun cut shadows through the rooftops and onto the street below.

  ‘Why do I feel sad at the thought of its destruction?’ he asked eventually. Her reflection smiled back at him. She didn’t answer, choosing silence to do it for her. The sadness – and she felt it too – was neither here nor there; what must be done must be done; it was His will. At least the two of them had seen it in all its glory.

  Mr Craven had given up spreading his word, not because he’d had an epiphany regarding the terrible wrongness of his actions and was now plagued with guilt. If anything his feelings on the matter were quite the opposite; if he could, he would love to infect every single one of them. He had started to hate them for their continued ability to survive. As for his own kind, in his fevered dreams he’d imagined them all suffering like he did as he rose, glorious, above them and returned home. Any joy to be found in the dream was always shattered on waking, when he found himself back in his ever-more-obviously-failing little body.

  He had given up spreading his word because he could no longer move among people unnoticed. The sickness had taken hold and now it was beating him quickly. His clothes hung too loosely on his wasted frame, and he’d had to make extra notches in his belt. He had tried to order new clothes – in smaller sizes, so he could try to look halfway respectable – but the tailors of Savile Row had closed their doors on him, muttering distastefully. He’d considered fighting his way through the Christmas shoppers swamping the cheap retail outlets that filled the city, but everywhere he went people squeezed themselves out of his way, backing into overcrowded aisles and scurrying out into the streets to avoid sharing the same air that he breathed. No one recognised him as the ‘Angel of Death’ – not the one in the newspapers, anyway – but they all saw death’s mark upon him, and the disease that was destroying him.

  He’d soon given up: new clothes would no longer have disguised the ravages of the bug, though at least he would have been spared the indignity of seeing it each time he dressed. Not that he had much intention of getting undressed again. His five-star hotel had asked him to leave the previous evening, after he’d been racked with a terrible, bloody cough just as the room-service waiter was serving his dinner. He’d seen the terror in the young man’s face, and had smiled at him through his stained teeth, despite the agony ripping through his body as his lungs fought for air.

  Surprisingly, the waiter hadn’t hung around for a tip, and five minutes later the manager had rung Mr Craven. He understood the gentleman was sick and had taken the liberty of calling an ambulance for him. There would be no charge for the room, naturally, but if sir could collect his things together …?

  Mr Craven had listened in silence, and then he had walked out past the untouched tray of food. He hadn’t been hungry anyway.

  But he was surprisingly hungry now, despite the ulcers that had sprung up all over his gums and throat at some point in the night. He’d ended up in a filthy little bed and breakfast up by King’s Cross which rented out rooms not only by the hour, but by subdivisions of that. He’d paid extra so they could buy new sheets and get the room deep-cleaned once he’d left. He was so exhausted he hadn’t even tried to argue. The springs in the ancient mattress had dug into his emaciated body and he’d managed no more than a few hours of fitful sleep, waking well before dawn. He was no longer running out of time, he’d decided: time had run out. His hour glass was empty. Every watery breath told him that any successful scheme to get home would come too late for him.

  He’d cried a bit after that, tears that were bitter and full of rage and self-pity. He should have stayed; he should never have rebelled. He could have quietly risen through the ranks at home instead of letting his ambition and impatience get the better of him.

  When daylight broke he left the noisome little room and wandered the freezing streets, pausing to buy hot coffee now and then. He wasn’t the only one up so early, and he watched as people hurried about their business, collars turned up against the cold, hats pulled low over frozen ears, some with those ridiculous dust masks on. He kept walking despite his exhaustion. He had this terrible feeling that if he stopped moving he would die, right there on the spot. His breath was icy, but his skin burned with fever and sweat prickled in the gap between his shirt collar and his scrawny neck. He was so used to the thing hanging around his neck that he’d never noticed its weight before; now it felt like a millstone – or an albatross. It was time to give it up. It was time to speak to Cassius Jones.

  He had admitted defeat. He found he was crying again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sergeant Armstrong was a professional, so he hadn’t been openly rude to Dr Hask, or at all insubordinate to Detective Inspector Ramsey – he was too clever for that – but it didn’t take anyone with even half of Tim Hask’s copious qualifications to know that the young police officer was seriously pissed off.

  After Fletcher had produced the photograph of Cass, DCI Heddings had spoken to Neil Morgan, Cass’ old DCI, to find out why the Mr Bright line of inquiry had been shut down. Morgan told him it had come from the top: all questions in that direction were to desist immediately, and if they didn’t, then heads would roll, starting with Morgan’s own.

  Hask had been surprised that Ian Heddings had been so candid with them, but the exchange had clearly piqued his own interest. He might be stuck behind a desk these days, but he was obviously still a detective at heart. The public emphasis was still on finding Cassius Jones and bringing him in, but Heddings had quietly told Ramsey that if they wanted to make some discreet
inquiries regarding this elusive Mr Bright, then to go ahead – but they were to be subtle, careful, no careering around like bulls in a china shop, making a mess that he’d have to clear up.

  That hadn’t gone down at all well with young Armstrong, and since then he’d concentrated on the Angel of Death case, searching through Draper’s history to see if he could find any link to the man he’d been procuring children for. Allegedly. Despite the tense atmosphere when they were all in the incident room together, Hask thought it might just work out. Armstrong was a sharp cookie, and if anyone could find the Angel of Death it was as likely to be him as many of the older and more experienced coppers on the case. He was already out chasing up some lead he’d found. It’d been a good move, giving him something to do where he could actively make a difference. It was making the sergeant even more tenacious than usual.

  Finally Hask found the small meeting room Ramsey had summoned him to and he let himself in. Ramsey wasn’t alone. David Fletcher was standing next to the round table.

  ‘To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?’ Hask asked, beaming at the head of the ATD. ‘Have you got some more information for us?’

  ‘Finding Cassius Jones has just become part of my remit too,’ Fletcher said quietly. ‘I’m not going to interfere with what you’re doing, but I need to make sure you keep me in the loop.’ He looked tired. ‘Trust me, I’ve got quite enough work of my own at the moment; I’m happy to let you run the show. If you need any of my men at any time, just let me know. The only rule is: you don’t hold anything back.’

  ‘So why are you so keen to find him?’ Ramsey asked. ‘Is this to do with Abigail Porter’s death?’

  ‘No – the shares fiasco that’s apparently taking down some of The Bank’s most stable subsidiary companies?’

  ‘Yes, I caught something about it,’ Ramsey said, ‘but to be honest, I didn’t pay it much attention – I don’t deal much in stocks and shares myself.’

  ‘Well,’ Fletcher said, ‘you should have done. A hacker’s caused untold damage – God only knows the true extent of what they’ve done. I guess only time will tell. But right now the country – if not the whole world – depends on The Bank to maintain whatever minuscule amount of confidence there might be in the idea of economic recovery, so hacking into its systems and causing chaos is considered an act of terrorism.’

  ‘And what’s this got to do with our investigation?’ Hask asked, beginning to put the pieces together.

  ‘The Bank was hacked approximately twenty-four hours after Cassius Jones was caught on camera standing in the street staring at the building.’

  ‘You think Cass hacked The Bank?’ Ramsey was incredulous. ‘Why?’

  ‘I have no idea – I was hoping you could tell me. But the proximity of the two events is too much to be coincidence.’

  ‘I agree,’ Hask said. ‘Jones isn’t stupid, and in the main he’s not hot-headed, and he certainly wouldn’t risk being caught for no reason. Something drew him to The Bank that night. The tape shows him doing nothing but standing and smoking and staring at the place, for fifteen minutes or more, so my guess is that he was there to clear his thinking somehow. He must see The Bank as the root of his problems – a puzzle, maybe.’ He looked at Fletcher. ‘Let’s just presume for a moment that Jones is innocent. Someone has maliciously kidnapped his nephew, and murdered anyone who could lead to the boy, and then set him up for those same murders.’

  ‘But Jones ran,’ Fletcher started.

  ‘Tut, tut.’ Hask smiled. ‘I expect better thinking than that from you. It’s a common misconception that only the guilty run from justice and it’s just not true. Lots of innocent people run – people who are afraid, people who think they have no chance of being believed – they run just as much as the guilty. And I think I’d have run if I were Jones, guilty or innocent.’ Hask was enjoying himself. The police might get a thrill from the actual chase, but his buzz came from digging into people’s minds. Getting paid so much for it was just a bonus.

  ‘Okay, so for the moment I’m presuming he’s innocent. What next?’

  ‘Cass must think that The Bank – or someone inside it – is at the root of his problems. It’s the only thing that makes sense.’

  ‘But why the financial mess? Is he sending a message? Maybe a “fuck you” signal?’ Ramsey asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Hask said, ‘or maybe the financial stuff is just a smokescreen to hide his real intention. If I know Cass Jones, the only thing he actually wants is information. Right now everyone at The Bank will be so busy trying to stabilise their problems that they won’t be looking to see what files were accessed or copied – if such a thing is even traceable. I’m an expert on the human computer’ – he tapped the side of his head – ‘not the mechanical ones. And there’s something positive in all this: if Cass got what he was looking for, then he’s going to surface, and for more than just a middle-of-the-night think.

  ‘And the sooner he surfaces, the sooner we can catch him and figure out what the hell is going on.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to take Jones’ nephew and then go to such lengths to stop anyone finding him? And why The Bank?’ Fletcher didn’t look convinced. ‘It all sounds too much like a crazy conspiracy theory.’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ Hask said. He looked at Ramsey, who gestured at him to continue. ‘This Mr Bright—’

  ‘—Mr Castor Bright,’ Ramsey cut in.

  ‘—the man Cass was told not to investigate during the Man of Flies investigation? We think he didn’t stop.’

  ‘We need you,’ Ramsey leaned forward, ‘to find out what you can about him for us. On the quiet. If you make too much noise—’

  ‘—any noise,’ Hask added.

  ‘—you’ll find all manner of shit will come down on your head,’ Ramsey finished. ‘Jones got his sergeant to do a simple employment enquiry for that name at The Bank, and the headshed immediately put the kybosh on it. He’s a massive no-go area.’

  ‘If he’s traceable, my people will dig him out. No one can stay that well hidden these days, trust me. It’s not just a carbon footprint we have now, it’s an electronic one too; everyone leaves a trace.’ The commander stared at them both. ‘You find Cass Jones and I’ll find your Mr Bright. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’ Ramsey grinned. Fletcher didn’t return the smile. From where Hask was standing the man didn’t look as if he had the energy. He couldn’t help but wonder what drove anyone to do the job Fletcher did. There couldn’t be much glory in it, and he was certain that the pay cheque wouldn’t be anywhere near as rewarding as his own. People were strange, he concluded as they said their polite goodbyes. Strange and fascinating.

  ‘Back to the office, sir?’

  David Fletcher nodded and rested his head against the leather seat as they left Paddington Green Police Station behind. The driver was one of the very few perks of his job, but Fletcher normally preferred to drive himself. It normally concentrated his thinking; you couldn’t drift while you were driving. Over the past few days, however, all he’d wanted to do in between one interminable meeting and the next was to drift off into a haze of jumbled thoughts. He was definitely too damned tired for driving.

  Until the launch, his main concern – that being something of an understatement – had been SkyCall 1, that the project’s true purpose would be detected and bring Armageddon, both political and quite likely otherwise, down upon them all. He found that he rather missed that fear; if it happened now, it would be someone else’s problem. As it was, they’d hugely underestimated the sheer volume of information that now needed to be sifted and sorted and examined and made into some kind of sense.

  The geeks working under the supervision of the virtually autistic South African liaising from Harwell were trying to process the information into some kind of filing system, but there was so much visual data that it was making it tricky. They’d pulled in more staff from MI6, but still there were nowhere near enough people – and that was without the constant calls from Arno
ld James demanding updates on the movements of the Chinese and Koreans and just about every other nation on the planet with any kind of nuclear capability. The one thing he had discovered was that constantly spying on others could make you paranoid … Meaning could be read into everything if you tried hard enough, and most meanings could very easily be misinterpreted.

  He wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps they’d created a monster. It wouldn’t be the satellite that gave away what they were doing; it would be the paranoid behaviour of the nation’s politicians. He never thought he’d find himself thinking it but he was fast coming to the conclusion that people – countries – should be allowed their secrets. He thought of the old saying, repeated by politicians endlessly to justify their spying, Knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous. It always made him smile. If there was one thing he’d learned through the years, it was that too much knowledge in any hands was dangerous.

  Maybe the rest of them would catch up when the world was reduced to burned-out remains. Probably not though. The politicians would be holed up in the bunkers that would also serve as their coffins, consoling each other with the thought that they had had no choice. It was all bollocks, of course. There was always a choice, even if no human being was ever able to make the right one.

  SkyCall 1 was supposed to create security, but Fletcher believed it would have the opposite effect: they’d be looking for plots behind every message, and nothing would be seen in context. It would be WikiLeaks a million times over, but this time only one small nation would be getting the information. He sighed and closed his eyes as the car moved slowly through the London traffic, letting his mind drift until it came to rest on Cass Jones and this mysterious Mr Bright. It wasn’t a name he’d come across before. He’d put out some discreet feelers when he got back to the office – if nothing else, it would delay his return to the underground level he’d started to think of as hell.