‘I’m sorry it’s come to this.’
Mr Craven thought he probably was, and that truly made him a fool. If it wasn’t for the Dying, it would be Mr Craven kicking Mr Dublin from the Inner Cohort, and he and Mr Bright would be strapped into the Experiment. Mr Dublin had had a lucky escape.
‘So am I, Mr Dublin. So am I.’
By the time he was back out on the street, cut loose from everything he had always known, Mr Craven’s rage was calming slightly. Mr Dublin was no match for Mr Bright, and neither of them, old as they were, would be a match for him were he healthy. Did they really think he was stupid? He’d known this was coming. This care they had for
them
and what
they
thought was laughable. The Network should never have hidden in the shadows; they should have ruled as the gods they were. He managed a bitter smile and thought of the small item he’d left under that Zen desk of Mr Dublin’s. Whatever that one was planning, at least he’d hear about it first.
T
he first thing Cass did when he came round was to throw up, and given the small confines of the boot, that wasn’t the best fun in the world. His head still felt woozy and his stomach roiled with every bump in the road. After ten minutes the stench of the vomit mixed in with the other smells of petrol and cheap carpet fibres made him pretty sure he was going to be sick again. He shifted himself as far back as the space would allow and lifted his head, trying to get whatever tiny amounts of fresh air were seeping in through the gaps.
He didn’t bang or shout; there was no point. All that would do was alert whoever had grabbed him that he was awake and angry, and if they stopped at all it would just be to knock him out again, and he could live without that. Instead, he tried to ignore the pain in his cramped shoulder and wondered who the fuck was behind this. He ruled out the police: if they’d caught him, they’d have been screaming it from the rooftops – and they wouldn’t have made it look so easy. It would have been the full team of armed officers, and there would have been a camera around catching it all for the news. Plus, they’d have nicked the forger too.
The forger. That smug bastard. It had to be him who was behind the set-up. It was all too tidy. The car hit another bump and his teeth rattled as his stomach lurched. He
swallowed hard. Who had he been set up
for
, though? Someone in the forger’s line of work couldn’t get away with crossing the likes of Artie Mullins and still have his kneecaps, let alone a career.
Could it be Fletcher? He was certainly curious about Cass after Hayley Porter died while covering his escape, and he had no real idea how the ATD operated. It didn’t feel like their style, though; he thought they’d be more likely to sling him in the back of an unmarked van than the boot of a car.
Maybe all the bent coppers he’d inadvertently brought down had clubbed together to find him and put him in a ditch somewhere. They certainly had enough underworld connections. That wasn’t a pleasant thought. The final option, and the one that he had the most ambivalent feelings about, was that this was the work of Mr Bright. He had a feeling that man didn’t have a typical modus operandi; he probably used whatever methods he felt were required in differing situations. Having seen the pictures in Dr Cornell’s house, he knew for sure that Mr Bright’d been around long enough to try them all. The one conclusion Cass did reach was that none of the options were good. All things considered, he wasn’t the most popular man in London.
When they finally hauled him out of the car, he saw only flashes of burly arms before his mouth was taped up and a bag tugged down over his head, plunging him back into darkness before his eyes had even adjusted. Gruff voices swore about the vomit, and then they dragged him away. He didn’t think for a second that he had a chance of breaking away. His whole body ached from being stuck in the boot, and his shoulder was on fire. Whatever was happening, he was just going to have to go with it for now.
Over the next few hours, he wondered if maybe he should have at least tried. The situation had gone from bad to
worse: after being hauled from the car he’d been dragged somewhere, then tied to a chair. Someone had thrown a bucket of icy-cold water over him and by the time he’d recovered from the shock, the voices were gone and he was pretty sure he was alone – though for how long, he had no idea. It was hard to keep track of time in the pitch-black, and with every inch of your body aching from the freezing cold. He was in a garage or a warehouse, he was pretty sure about that. The men’s feet had echoed slightly and the ground had felt rough through his shoes as they’d pulled him along. And even before they’d soaked him, the air had felt unheated.
His toes and fingers grew numb and he drifted in and out of something close to sleep before the men came back. The first punch came out of the blue. He was so surprised that he almost didn’t feel it as his head whipped sideways. The second fist went straight to his stomach and he felt that one all too much, and as he desperately tried to suck in air through his nose, he thought he might pass out all over again. By the sixth or seventh punch, he wished he would. He couldn’t see a thing, so there was no way he could even attempt to protect himself, not even to roll his head with each blow, when he didn’t know when they were coming. It was a world of darkness and pain, and he was lost in it.
He’s been expecting them to beat him up ever since they’d tied him into the chair, so that came as no surprise. But he’d been expecting a point to it: questions needing answers; information wanted. At the very least he thought that someone would want to hear him scream or cry or whatever. But thus far, there seemed to be no purpose to this, and if this wasn’t about information, then he was seriously fucked. Could this be Bowman’s contacts? Were they just going to beat the crap out of him until he was dead?
Eventually the punches stopped. Cass’ head rolled forward, but snapped straight up again when one of the bastards threw another bucket of cold water over him. He screamed behind the gaffer tape long after they’d closed the door and left him alone. This time he did drift off into blissful unconsciousness … but just as he did so, a thought tried to get his attention: they’d stayed away from his shoulder. Why would they have done that? Surely if they wanted to hurt him properly, then that would be the way to do it? It wouldn’t stop them keeping him alive as long as they wanted, but it would have put him in agony … Always questions, he mused as the darkness took him. Why the fuck was his life so full of questions?
He must have been out cold when they came back, and everything happened so quickly that he didn’t know
who
he was, let alone
where
he was as the lights went on, the bag was pulled off his head and someone tore the tape from his mouth, leaving his face stinging. He gasped in lungfuls of cold air, his heart racing so hard that his eyes burned in the corners. For a few moments, as the golden warmth from his eyes turned inwards, his body felt no pain at all, as if he had healed, or become something bigger and better than he had been. With renewed vigour he tugged at the ropes binding his hands and feet until the chair tilted sharply, threatening to capsize.
‘You always were an angry bastard. Just calm the fuck down; you’re not going anywhere.’
Cass froze with the first word and whatever glow he’d been producing vanished instantly, letting every ache and pain flood back into his bruised and battered body. It couldn’t be – it couldn’t
possibly
be him. He forced his blurry
eyes open despite the bruises, squinting against the light. He had to
see
…
An old man stood in an open doorway between the vast tiled garage and what must be the rest of the house. He wore a cashmere sweater and casual trousers, and an expensive watch glinted at his wrist. Those were just frills, though. What Cass saw, what couldn’t be changed by money or circumstance, was the man’s battered nose, broken four times by the time he was seventeen. Cass could remember him laughing when he told that story. He stared, aware that as he panted for breath a long line of spit was dribbling from the corner of his mouth and hanging off his chin. He no longer knew how he felt. Afraid, probably. Shocked, definitely.
‘Your shoulder’s healing fast. You’re lucky. Mine took the best part of a year. I was a lot older than you are, though. But still. You heal fast.’
Cass sat and stared like a dumb idiot as inside his head memories that he’d spent a decade fighting came at him like juggernauts, each one hitting him with more power than the earlier punches.
You’ve got to look up, Charlie
.
Well, what are you waiting for, Charlie?
Run, Charlie! Run, Charlie!
And always, always, those dark terrified eyes and the barrel of a gun. He could almost feel how his hands had been sweating. Time was folding in on itself. He was back where he started. Wheels within wheels.
‘Your face, however, is a right fucking mess.’ The voice was still all grit and growl but there was a touch of respectability in it that hadn’t been there before. Cass wasn’t the only one who had changed over the past ten years. ‘The boys did a good job on you.’ The old man didn’t move
but nodded at the two heavies on either side of Cass, who stepped forward and began to untie him.
‘But you deserved it. You lied to me. You betrayed me. I needed to get that off my chest. You’ve come off lightly, all things considered. The boys’ll take you to get showered and cleaned up now.’ He paused and stared for a second, and Cass knew it wasn’t only him who was being assaulted by the memories.
‘And then you and me, Charlie,’ Brian Freeman said, ‘we need to talk.’
Even from the limited amount Cass could see, he knew the house was big. More than big. Brian Freeman, one-time Birmingham gangland boss, now lived in one of those modern mansions TV stars always inhabited in their endless reality TV shows. The en-suite bathroom Cass was shown to was bigger than the double bedroom of his own flat. Freeman had been doing well for himself when Cass – or Charlie, as he was then – had known him, but he hadn’t lived anywhere like this.
The shower was powerful and the heat a godsend to his frozen, aching body, and he could have stayed under it all day, but Cass forced himself to keep it short. He had too many questions that needed answering – not least of which was how did a man who should have been behind bars come to be living in such an openly opulent house? If this was Freeman’s house, of course: he didn’t think they’d driven him that far – definitely not as far as Birmingham – so he must still be somewhere in the London area. So what was Brian Freeman doing here?
Fresh clothes were laid out on the bed – a good enough fit – and there was also a glass of water and a packet of co-codamol. Cass almost smiled. They beat him up, then give
him something to ease the pain. Brian Freeman always had been on the unusual side. As he followed the silent henchmen back downstairs, he was surprised by a sudden pang of guilt, for once not because of the poor kid he’d shot, but because of his betrayal of Brian Freeman all those years ago.
The young man Cass Jones had once been had liked Brian Freeman, even if he was just a job. The old man had been a father figure to him: a tough character Cass could relate to, so different from his own born-again ever-forgiving dad – and yet for all his softness, it was Cass’ own father who’d betrayed them all by giving Luke away. As far as Cass was concerned, Brian Freeman’s soul was a lot cleaner than Alan Jones’ had ever been. Good and bad were only really grey, as far as he could tell. It was only the holier-than-thou police bosses who didn’t see that, or didn’t want to see it.
In the lounge, Brian Freeman had already poured them both brandy. They sat on leather sofas facing each other, studying each other, and for a moment neither spoke. Brian Freeman looked better in his seventies than he had in his sixties, Cass concluded. He’d lost weight and his face was still a craggy mess of old broken bones, but it was tanned and healthy. His eyes were just as hard as they’d ever been. Nothing had changed too much in there.
‘Not a boy any more, are you, Charlie?’ Freeman took a sip of his drink. ‘Or should I call you Cass?’
‘It’s my name.’
‘Cass it is, then. What are you now, nearly forty? It’s showing on you. Those wrinkles don’t look fresh to me.’
‘If you know anything about my life, then you know I’ve earned them.’ Cass took a mouthful of brandy and it burned the cuts in his lip. ‘How did you find me?’
‘Wasn’t difficult. You weren’t dead, that was clear, so eventually you were going to have to resurface, and you could
hardly move around under your real name. There’re only so many quality forgers in London, so I made it clear it would be worth their while in lots of ways to let me know when you showed up.’
‘I’m still surprised. The man who was looking after me isn’t normally messed with.’
‘Mullins? I’ve made some phone calls, taken care of him.’
Cass’ bruised face must have managed some kind of expression of alarm because Freeman barked out a short laugh. ‘Don’t worry, he’s not dead – I just squared it with him. Explained a few things.’
‘I didn’t hear that you were out,’ Cass said. ‘I’d have thought someone would have told me.’
‘Some people are very good at keeping things quiet, Cass. You should know that. I was out after two years, as it happens.’
‘How?’ After the initial shock, Cass had a feeling he knew the answer. What was it Mr Bright had alluded to back in the Covent Garden church all those months ago? He’d somehow protected Cass from Freeman?
‘It was part of my deal, not sending anyone after you: out in two. I couldn’t stay in my old manor, of course.’ He spread his hands wide. ‘But the world is a big place. And I had plenty of money and investments. That was the other part of the deal.’
‘By the looks of things it’s all paid off.’
‘You could say that. I’ve been playing the markets. Got some good insider info here and there, made myself some respectable money.’ He grinned and nodded over at the thugs standing at a polite distance from their conversation. ‘I’ve always kept my hand in the old business, here and there, but I’ve been a bit more discreet. I quite like my new-found respectability.’ He picked up his glass and tilted it at
Cass. ‘But don’t make any mistake: for a long time I wanted to fucking kill you – and I don’t mean just fucking
kill
you; I wanted to rip your skin off strip by strip and then let the boys break every bone in your body. But you were lucky: what I wanted more was to spend my life free and with a few quid in my pocket.’ He sniffed. ‘It still sticks in my throat though. Guess that’s why I’ve always kept an eye on you.’