The Shadow of the Soul by Sarah Pinborough Page A

sipped his coffee. ‘You seem a little more enthusiastic about working with me today.’
    ‘It’s good to have a proper case.’
    ‘I know that feeling.’ Cass looked down at the newspaper. ‘What was your degree in before you joined the force?’
    ‘Politics and journalism. Why?’
    Cass had half-expected the young man to lie, but he’d hoped he wouldn’t. At least it showed he didn’t take Cass for an idiot.
    ‘This article has a lot of valid information. It surprised me to see Cory Denter’s story in there. Even his parents weren’t aware that he’d scribbled “Chaos in the darkness” in his work file. Didn’t that stand out to you? I’ve just got off the phone to them. It probably would have been better for them to hear from us that there may be something dodgy about their son’s death before reading it in the papers.’
    ‘They knew. You were there yesterday. They might not have
known
, but the fact that you turned up? They’d have realised something wasn’t quite right.’
    Cass looked at the paper again. He wasn’t letting his enthusiastic young sergeant get off that lightly. ‘It’s a clever piece. There’s enough there to make it interesting, but not so much that it causes us any major problems in any investigation. It also says some overly kind things about me.’ Cass watched his sergeant thoughtfully. ‘You got friends at that paper?’
    Armstrong met Cass’s eyes. ‘It was a case that neededinvestigating, sir. And now we’re investigating it.’
    ‘So the ends justify the means?’
    ‘I couldn’t comment on the means.’ Armstrong glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better get the team ready for briefing if I’m going to see both sets of parents today. Anything else, sir?’
    ‘No.’ Cass leaned back in his chair. ‘Just don’t ever go to the papers without my say-so again. You’ll end up getting fired for a stunt like that.’
    ‘No, I won’t.’ Armstrong was on his way out the door. ‘Trust me.’
    The ambiguity of the answer wasn’t lost on Cass; there was obviously more to his new sergeant than he’d at first thought. He could live with that, he reflected, looking back at the screen filled with short messages mainly written in some Internet version of teenage textspeak. A little ruthlessness could take you a long way in the force. But he’d be keeping an eye on Armstrong from now on. The young man might think he was clever, but the stupidity of youth stopped them all realising they were never as clever as they thought.

Chapter Nine
     
    A s the car pulled in through the barricades and onto Leicester Square, Abigail was glad that David Fletcher was back at the ATD and not with them on this public outing. He unsettled her. He was too straightforward. Where Andrew Dunne and the Prime Minister had believed her change of heart about the fat man and accepted that she had just been mistaken, Fletcher had not. He’d seen her initial reaction, and no matter what she’d said in the interview afterwards, he hadn’t let go of that. She could read his face as well as he had read hers in that moment. They’d spent the afternoon locked in a wary battle, and however many times he had smiled at her politely, they both knew he
knew
.
    Still, knowing and being able to do something about it were two different things. Fletcher had his hands full, and he could run as many searches on her as he liked, they’d always come back as clean. She
was
clean.
    Through the tinted glass of the window she could see the memorial that was going up for all those who’d lost their lives, not only in 26/09, but in all the acts of terrorism that had taken place over the past decade. It was supposed to be modern art. Abigail wondered if anyone else thought the sculpted metal looked like the twisted wreck of a train carriage. She guessed not – or if they did, they weren’t saying.
    The surrounding roads had been temporarily closed off, but within the pedestrianised square a large group of grieving