Flyte

FLYTE

Cassie had been her usual enraging self, but had known her long enough now to detect a whiff of duplicity.

She knew something. Was it something that might shed further light on the sequence of events that had seen the entire Angelopoulos family die, or narrowly escape death, within a matter of weeks?

Maybe Streaky was right and George simply couldn't face life without his daughter. She of all people could understand that. For more than a year after Poppy's death the idea of suicide had been constantly at her side – the comforting friend who would whisper in her ear, I'm here for you if it all gets too much .

What had stopped her? Poppy herself. Because only by staying alive was able to honour her brief existence, to ensure she was named, commemorated, her life given meaning. It occurred to her for the first time that Matt, who was still many steps behind her in his journey of denial, rage, grief and acceptance, might be tempted by the dark lure of suicide – an idea that horrified her. She made a resolution to call him.

Before going back to the nick, she had phoned Father Michaelides at St Ioannis. He had pretended he couldn't speak English: they'd clearly get nothing out of him.

Back at her desk, she looked again at the email Bronte had received from the Harley Street clinic that appeared to confirm a diagnosis of her Crohn's. What had made her seek a diagnosis for her lifelong digestive problems – just days before she was murdered?

Going out into the corridor, she called the clinic to arrange a call with the doctor Bronte had seen there. She knew she shouldn't be interviewing witnesses without keeping Streaky informed but something told her to fly under the radar until she found out what Cassie Raven was hiding.

*

Dr Abadi was an urbane character with the trace of a Middle Eastern accent. He had seen the coroner's order requiring release of Bronte's confidential medical information and was keen to help. He told that Bronte had presented with lifelong and ongoing digestive issues. ‘My initial diagnosis was Crohn's and the tests we ran confirmed it.'

‘Is there any likely connection to anaphylaxis?' asked . ‘Are Crohn's sufferers more likely to have life-threatening reactions?'

‘No,' he said, before adding, ‘Anecdotally, they are more likely than most to suffer from allergies but I'm not aware of any proven association with anaphylactic episodes.'

‘Did she say why she was consulting you? I mean why now, when she'd suffered these problems all her life?'

He thought for a moment. ‘She didn't say. It can take people years before they address the problem.'

Flaming fishcakes , thought , this was getting her nowhere.

‘I remember she did ask about heritability,' he said. ‘And it's true that Crohn's has a strong genetic component. So it's probable that one of her parents carried the genes that can cause it, even if neither of them ever had symptoms.'

‘OK .?.?.' mentally shrugged.

‘She also asked whether Crohn's became more likely if the parents were related in some way.'

‘Related? Meaning?'

‘Cousins having offspring together are at greater risk of passing on diseases caused by faulty genes. It's why marriage between even third-degree relations is forbidden in some countries. It was the focus of my PhD actually.'

Bronte's interest in the heritability of her disorder, days before her death, got 's brain whirring. The more she thought about it, the more an almost-unthinkable scenario kept presenting itself as the key to the bloody trail of murder and suicide in the Angelopolous family.