Page 67 of Dead Fall

What had Babcia said Chrysanthi told her? That God had taken Bronte as some kind of ‘payment for sin’.

Hamartia. Cassie suddenly remembered the grief-stricken Chrysanthi using the word when she first saw her dead daughter. Opening her Greek dictionary app, she looked it up.

Hamartia was ancient Greek for sin – and also for sin offering.

Sacrifice.

Why didn’t the devout churchgoer Chrysanthi take communion?

Cassie went online to read up on Orthodox theology, which appeared identical to traditionalist Catholic thinking on this topic. You must not take communion if you were guilty of a mortal sin, unless you had confessed it to your priest and made amends. There was a cheery little injunction she could just imagine that bleak old patriarch Father Michaelides intoning: ‘Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.’

In other words, you’d be killing Jesus all over again. Heavy.

The list of mortal sins was a long one and included masturbation, suicide, abortion, ‘invalid marriage’, such as remarrying after divorce, rape, and, of course, murder.

Cassie started to pace the cabin. Food was the recurring theme in the relationship between Bronte and her mother: from the specially prepared school lunch boxes that had continued into adulthood in the form of ‘food parcels’ – home-made dishes delivered to the flat. Then she recalled Althea Knowles, their school nurse, saying Bronte got sick in the afternoons: in other words, after lunch.

Were Chrysanthi’s attempts to control her daughter’s diet designed to avert her lifelong stomach problems? Or to cause them?

Then there was Bronte’s little brother, the twin who didn’t live to see his third birthday. Chrysanthi had always struck her as a disturbed soul, full of hatred for her ex-husband, and obsessed with exerting control over her daughter’s life.

What if Chrysanthi had channelled all that hatred against her innocent children?

FLYTE

In the ambulance service’s canteen there were half a dozen green-uniformed paramedics sitting around various tables.

They recognised Gary and Yasmin from the employment record images that Holly had shown them: Gary, a bear of a man in his late forties with dark stubble who loomed over the tiny, much younger Yasmin sitting next to him.

After introducing themselves, Streaky showed them an image of Bronte – the one her mother had given police at the start of the investigation. It was a snap of her striking a jokey pose in the market, looking like any other young woman, rather than one of the paparazzi specials.

‘Sophia Angelopoulos. Breathing difficulties? It was a Category 1 call to one of the warehouse apartments by the canal in Camden last September?’

Shrugging, Gary shook his head, and after studying the shot so did Yasmin. ‘People can look totally different when they’re sick.’

He stirred sugar into his tea before adding, ‘We get twenty-plus calls a night. We’ve probably been on a few thousand since then.’

‘You might also know her as Bronte?’ Flyte prompted, making an effort to suppress the impatience in her voice. ‘The dance music celebrity?’

Blank looks from both of them. Gary said, ‘Music-wise, I’m more of a Dusty fan.’

‘This was an allergic reaction, a serious one,’ Flyte tried.

‘That’s become a pretty common call-out over the last five, ten years,’ Yasmin said.

Flyte was losing hope. ‘What would the treatment be in a case like that?’ Hoping to jog their memories.

‘Adrenaline, intra-muscular,’ said Gary. ‘Works like a charm.’

‘But you’d still take them to A & E?’ This from Streaky.

‘Oh, no question. You can get a biphasic reaction a few hours later. And they need to get referred to the allergy clinic, find out what caused the initial reaction.’

‘You didn’t take this young woman to A & E, but then I guess not everyone listens to your advice, am I right?’ asked Streaky.

‘Exactly,’ said Gary, nodding sagely. ‘It’s their funeral.’

Literally, sometimes.

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