Page 111 of Reinventing Cato
“Don’t be facetious. I just want you to be with someone who’s your intellectual equal.”
You are such a snob.“Devan is very happy with Jonty. I’m happy with Vigge. You should be happy for us.”
She sighed. “I do want you to be happy. I just want you to be sure you know what you’re doing.”
Cato started to count to ten. Reached four. “I like Vigge.”
“Good.”
“He’s bright and funny and he plays the violin. I really like him.”
“Well…”
“We’re not little kids anymore.”
“Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. Tell me about these threats. Why would anyone not want you to have this job?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. I’ve decided you should tell Griff, Ellen and Venice. I don’t want to scare them, but I’d feel happier if they just took extra care for a while, didn’t let the kids out on their own, didn’t park in dark places…”
“Oh.”
She sounded more shocked than he’d expected.
“If an offer’s made and this hasn’t been resolved, I won’t take the job. I’m not putting the family at risk. I know that car coming at you could have been a careless driver and have nothing to do with this, but what if that’s not the case?”
“You should tell NASA.”
“No. I’m not supposed to be telling anyone.”
“But we’re your family.”
“Think about it. You tell Ellen all of it and she’d talk to the kids and make more of an effort to be there to pick them up from school, then she tells a friend that a stranger might try to abduct them, and all hell will break loose. Or she decides to tell the head, who tells the deputy, who tells the class teacher, who tells her best friend. It will just snowball. All you need to say to Ellen, Venice and Griff is that someone is trying to blackmail me into not taking a job and I want them to be conscious of their personal security for the time being.”
He bit his lip. “And even that sounds fu… sounds scary. Tell them I’ve bought this other phone because it’s possible my iPhone’s been hacked. Nothing out of the ordinary has to happen. I don’t talk much to anyone but Devan and he knows all of it, but I want the others to be careful. Okay?”
“All right.”
“You be careful too.”
“Oh Cato. What a mess.”
“Yeah. Bye Mum. Love to you and Dad.”
By the time he ended the call, he felt terrible. Maybe it would just be better if he called the NASA guys and told them he was no longer interested.And when you get another call telling you not to take a different job or someone will be hurt? Or to dump Vigge or someone will be hurt?
Cato made himself a coffee and switched on the TV. He didn’t watch much television. He did most of his violin practice between five and seven, so he rarely saw the news. He flicked onto the end of a programme called Bargain Hunt. The news followed after. Gloom and doom. Look East came after that, the regional news report. Cato wasn’t really paying much attention, not until he saw a face he recognised. He smiled when he saw Vigge. Then stopped smiling when he took in what he was saying. The next face that appeared was a photo, and the contents of Cato’s stomach surged up his throat. He rushed to the toilet with his hand over his mouth and threw up.
Chapter Seventeen
Once Cato was sure his stomach was empty, he swilled out his mouth, made his way back to the living room and pressed rewind on the remote. He took a deep breath, touched play, then sat and listened with his fists clenched.
Drew—he of the coffee-throwing incident in December—was dead. Murdered.Except his name wasn’t Drew but Dan Frayn. Cato shivered. That was terrible, but even worse he recognised the guy on the second photo. Inigo Dewitt. The two murders were suspected to have been committed by the same person, and Vigge was asking the public for help.
These had to be the two with the constellations stabbed into their backs. Knowing one murdered guy could be a coincidence, but two? That, on top of the texts, and the astronomy link, suddenly felt very personal.I’m the connection.His throat closed up.
Cato switched off the TV, went back into the kitchen, grabbed an apple to take the taste from his mouth, and opened up his laptop. He typedInigo Dewitt murderinto Google and started to read. The guy hadn’t called himself Inigo when Cato had met him in Brighton. It wasn’t uncommon for guys hooking up not to use their actual names. Cato sometimes didn’t. He’d been at a two-day conference at theGrand Hotelin September and Dewitt had been a waiter who’d served him dinner. More than dinner. Once the guy had finished work, he’d come up to Cato’s room and… They’d had a good time. He was a fun guy and he’d left after an hour or so and there’d been no suggestion of meeting up again. Cato checked the date of the conference, and when Dewitt had been killed.What was I doing that day?
A further check confirmed what he thought he’d remembered. The Saturday following, he’d been with Aaron Decker, the Premiership footballer. The chances of Aaron corroborating that Cato had been with him in London weren’t high. Maybe there was CCTV of them but Aaron had been paranoid about not being seen. They’d even left the club separately, gone into the hotel several minutes apart.
