by LJ Ross
CHAPTER 5
Joan Tebbutt had been a modest woman.
The ex-miner’s cottage where she’d lived was a basic two-up, two-down affair, and had been immaculately kept. That much was obvious even from the outside, where daffodils bloomed in a box on the window ledge and lined the pathway leading to her front door, which was marred only by the forensics tent that now rippled on the afternoon breeze.
In light of the extraordinary circumstances, Chief Constable Morrison had given her approval for Lowerson and Yates to manage the crime scene and supervise the transfer of Tebbutt’s body to the mortuary in their temporary role as ‘Acting SIOs’, until such time as Ryan or another senior detective was able to take over. Though it was good experience, for his part, Lowerson did not relish the responsibility; not merely because it was unpleasant or that it required him to step—albeit briefly—into Ryan’s shoes, but because of the unique history he’d shared with the dead woman.
Once, during a brief, unhappy time in his life, Jack Lowerson had found himself in the frame for the murder of their former superintendent—a woman he’d been romantically involved with, much to his regret. Protocol had demanded an independent investigation by a detective outside of his constabulary, and Joan Tebbutt had been the woman for the job. Though he’d suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for a while after, and large portions of his memory were still missing from those days, one thing he could recall was Tebbutt’s professionalism and respect for the law. Clearing his name would have been meaningless if it had not been achieved through the proper process, and he would always be grateful to her for that. Now that the situation was reversed, he carried the burden of ensuring her murder was treated with the same level of respect she’d afforded him, and it weighed heavily on his shoulders. Lowerson doubted he would have been allowed to be a part of the investigation at all, were it not for the fact they were severely understaffed and unlikely to find a detective in the whole of the North East who could swear they didn’t have some level of conscious or unconscious bias in finding Tebbutt’s killer.
“Morrison said the local police had secured the scene but not entered the property, or moved the body,” he said, as they slammed out of the car. “She gave the CSIs the go-ahead to make a start, considering Tebbutt’s body has been open to the elements.”
“Not to mention, prying eyes,” Yates replied, and nodded towards a small crowd that was gathering beside the police cordon. “It happens every time. Why don’t they just watch daytime telly to get their jollies, rather than picking over the bones of other people’s misfortune?”
“Human nature,” he replied.
Pointedly ignoring the men and women who jostled for position to get a better view of the goings-on, they made their way over to where two constables lounged inside a squad car, with their windows down and the radio on.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Yates muttered. “What the hell do they think this is?”
She slapped her palm against the top of the vehicle.
“Move your arse!” she snapped, pressing her warrant card to the window screen.
There followed a desperate scramble out of the car.
“Sorry, ma’am, we were just taking a—a call on the radio—”
“Don’t insult my intelligence,” she said. “Why the hell aren’t you manning the crime scene?”
“We—we can see it from here,” one of them argued.
Yates made a show of turning a full circle, and had her worst suspicions confirmed.
“You can’t even see the front door, which means anybody could wander inside. Where’s the log, recording entries and exits?” she demanded.
They produced a clipboard.
“The CSIs are already on site, but there’s no entry here,” she said, furiously, and thrust the clipboard back at them. “First, I want your names, badge numbers and a full report. Then, I want you to plant yourselves over there, where you should have been in the first place.”
Lowerson waited patiently while she put the fear of God into the two young constables, and had to admit she was a fine sight when she was all riled up.
His next thought was to wonder, briefly, what she’d be like if he ever left the toilet seat up.
Some things didn’t bear thinking about.
* * *
Ryan was thinking of Anna, and of the first time they’d met, five years ago.
It had been Christmas on Lindisfarne—a tiny, atmospheric island separated from mainland Northumberland twice a day by a tidal causeway. It was famous the world over as a place of healing and pilgrimage, where Saint Cuthbert had once lived in the priory and communed with his God, over a thousand years before. Though Ryan couldn’t bring himself to believe, he could appreciate the healing properties of seclusion, of peace and quiet away from the rest of the world, and had travelled there to grieve his sister’s death in private.
He’d never expected to be called upon to solve a murder, nor to meet the woman he’d want to share his life with.
Anna had changed all that.
The first time he’d seen her standing there, bundled up against the winter chill, he’d recognised a kindred spirit. There was nobody else with whom he’d want to share the everyday joys and heartaches of life, and the prospect of another forty-something years without her beside him was bleak. She was his greatest teacher; patient, honest and wise, and one of the few people in the world able to make him laugh—truly laugh, until his sides ached—and his heart swelled. With her, he never needed to hide, or pretend; he could unfurl himself and be a better man because of it. He only hoped it was a fair exchange, and that he’d been able to bring her even a fraction of the happiness she’d gifted him.
He reached for the car keys in his jacket pocket and turned over the leather keyring to look at the picture slotted behind a protective piece of clear plastic, beneath which was written, ‘ANNA & RYAN’. It was a snapshot of the pair of them grinning like fools on their wedding day, walking barefoot along the beach at Bamburgh with the sun at their backs.
“Here, lad,” Phillips said, carefully. “Drink this.”
Ryan tore his eyes away from the picture and looked up at his friend, who held out a polystyrene cup.
“It’s muddy sludge, masquerading as coffee—just the way you like it.”
He took the cup between his hands but didn’t drink.
“It’s been two hours, Frank,” he said.
MacKenzie had excused herself shortly before, to collect their daughter Samantha from school, so Phillips sank onto the chair beside his friend and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder.
“It’ll take as long as it takes,” he said. “The doc said it might take a few hours, and that’s normal.”
Ryan said nothing, and Phillips tried again.
“I don’t know much, but I know that Anna’s a born fighter,” he said. “If anyone can come through this, she can.”
Ryan leaned his forearms on his knees and stared at the floor between his feet, every muscle in his body taut and poised for action.
“When I find whoever did this to her, they’re going to wish they’d never been born.”
There was a note to his voice that Phillips hadn’t heard for a very long time—not since his sister’s death.
“We don’t know exactly what happened, yet,” he cautioned.
“A cathedral that’s stood firm for over a thousand years doesn’t suddenly self-combust,” Ryan growled. “This wasn’t an act of God, or bad luck. Somebody had a hand in this—they must have done—and I’m telling you, Frank, there won’t be a hole deep enough, or a corner dark enough for them to hide in, by the time I’m finished.”
Phillips cast a worried glance in his direction, and then up at the clock on the wall, where the minutes continued to tick slowly by.
“Whatever happens, I’m your man,” he said, and meant it.
CHAPTER 6
The stench inside the forensics tent was almost unbearable.
Though it had been less
than three hours since Tebbutt died, the process of decomposition had accelerated thanks to the unseasonably warm weather and the greenhouse effect wrought by layers of plastic sheeting. Consequently, when Lowerson and Yates dipped inside, they were met with a wall of hot, putrid air.
“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered, from behind the protective mask he wore.
Tom Faulkner, the Senior CSI attached to Northumbria Police Constabulary, looked up from where he was crouched beside Tebbutt’s inert body and surveyed them both from behind a pair of safety goggles. Like them, he wore polypropylene overalls and a hood, which did little to reduce the general temperature in the confined space.
“Hello,” he said, in a muffled voice. “I was expecting to see Ryan and Phillips.”
“Ryan’s had some bad news,” Lowerson said. “There was an incident at the cathedral, and Anna was caught up in it. He’s at the hospital with her, now.”
Faulkner’s eyes widened. He’d worked with Northumbria CID for many years, and he considered Ryan a friend.
“That’s terrible,” he said, rising to his feet. “I knew there’d been an explosion—the rest of my team is over there now, waiting for the go-ahead to start sweeping. I had no idea…”
“We’re stepping in, temporarily,” Yates said, bringing them back to the matter in hand. It did no good to dwell on things they couldn’t change, and they had a duty to Joan Tebbutt. “What can you tell us, so far?”
Faulkner gave himself a mental shake, then turned back to the unfortunate soul lying at his feet. She lay in a wide, cruciform position with her arms outstretched, half-in, half-out of the open front doorway so that her legs dangled onto the pathway while her torso remained inside the hallway beyond.
“Ah, well. Let’s see…two shots have been fired. One grazed her neck here”—he stepped carefully around her legs to indicate a drag mark on the greying skin of her neck—”and hit her front door.”
The tent was three-sided, covering the open doorway from public view but leaving the inside of the house accessible to the CSIs, who shuffled around the hallway searching for minute clues. Lowerson and Yates followed the direction of Faulkner’s gaze to see the fresh, bullet-sized hole which now marred the paintwork.
“We’ve recovered that bullet, which we’ll send on for ballistics testing,” he said.
Lowerson hardly needed to enquire about the second bullet, for it was plain to see that it had pierced Joan’s skull directly between her eyes, which remained wide open.
And staring.
He took a couple of long breaths between his teeth, while he fought the sudden wave of nausea. Despite having seen quite a few bodies, by now, they still had the power to affect him.
Yates, on the other hand, continued to look calm and collected.
“Were you able to recover the second bullet?” she asked.
It mattered, because, if the bullets didn’t match, that increased the chances of there having been more than one assailant.
But Faulkner shook his head.
“It’s still lodged in her brain, so that’ll be one for the pathologist,” he replied. “Judging from the way she’s fallen, I can tell you there was sufficient velocity to throw her body backwards following impact, which is why her arms are outstretched. That would be consistent with the size and density of the bullet we’ve recovered. However, judging by the fact there’s no exit wound, whichever weapon caused this wouldn’t have had the same level of impact as, say, a police firearm. Besides, the bullet doesn’t match the standard Glock 17 semi-automatic.”
“The first responders say a couple of the neighbours heard a motorbike, followed by a couple of loud ‘pops’,” Yates said. “There are fresh, single-tyre tracks on the road that corroborate those accounts. That suggests an execution-style killing.”
“You’re thinking this could be gang-related?” Faulkner said, and just stopped himself from rubbing an itch on his nose. “Numbers are generally down after the Smoggies were cleaned out.”
Until Operation Watchman, the Smoggies had been the ruling gang in the North East, and one of the most powerful in the country. Though they’d been able to put an end to much of their operations over the past few months, change didn’t happen overnight. It was possible—more than possible—that Tebbutt had marked herself for murder.
“Numbers might be down, but there are plenty who would want retribution—for loss of business, honour, revenge…or, all of the above,” Lowerson remarked. “Have you found anything else?”
“We found her car keys just there,” Faulkner said, pointing to a small yellow marker inside the hallway. “Probably had them in her hand as she was leaving the house, and they were thrown wide as she fell. We arrived here shortly after the first report was made, so that will make the pathologist’s job a bit easier, in terms of figuring out the post-mortem interval. As for the rest, we’re going over the tarmac to take impressions of the tyre track, and obviously we’ll look over the rest of the lane, too. It’s possible they were waiting around a corner before driving past, or parked up a few doors along, so we’ll see what we see. It’ll be hours, yet, before we’ve finished going over the house.”
“Do you need longer with the body?” Yates asked.
Faulkner had already taken extensive photographs, but a few more wouldn’t hurt.
“I’m ready to turn her over, now. Once we’ve done that, I’ll give you the signal.”
And there, Lowerson thought, you had it. Fifty or more years of living and a career spent in public service, but it all amounted to being moved about like a piece of cattle meat.
“I need some air,” he muttered, and stepped back out into the light.
CHAPTER 7
She was so pale.
Anna lay unmoving on the hospital bed, eyes closed and palms open, as though she was waiting to receive something, or to be received. Her skin was the colour of porcelain, highlighting the shadows beneath her eyes and the bruising which blossomed on one side of her face. They’d shaved the back of her head, robbing it of the long, dark hair she often left loose, leaving yards of surgical bandage in its place. Wires and tubes protruded from her skin and a heart monitor beeped at regular intervals.
Ryan listened to the sound of it, and watched for the slight movement of her chest, to reassure himself that she was still breathing.
Beep…beep…
“Mr Ryan? You can sit beside her, if you like.”
One of the ICU nurses directed him to the single chair arranged near the bed, and he moved slowly, afraid to hurt her or dislodge something vital.
Here, he was no longer Detective Chief Inspector, but a man like any other—one who was afraid for his wife and child and fearful of the future, as yet uncertain.
Four hours after they’d taken her into theatre, Anna had been transferred to the ICU for observation. In the end, they hadn’t needed to induce a coma because she still hadn’t regained consciousness and, though they tried to sugar-coat it, the doctors were worried about the length of time it was taking for her to come around.
And so was he.
“Can she hear me?” Ryan asked.
The nurse looked at the tall, raven-haired man and felt her heart twist.
“Probably,” she said. “Why don’t you try talking to her?”
Ryan waited until the nurse had moved on, then shuffled forward and gently—very gently—rested his hand over Anna’s cold fingers. It was like touching a butterfly’s wing, he thought; too much force, and the skin might crumble.
“I…”
He cleared the constriction in his throat, absently rubbing the pad of his thumb over the wedding band on the third finger of her hand.
“I was worried about you, today,” he said, in a stronger voice. “You know, it’s funny. Every morning, as I leave the house for work, you tell me to be careful. But, today”—he swiped away sudden tears—“today, I was the one who was worried. I wish I’d been the one telling you to be careful, Anna. I wish it was me lying there, not you…”<
br />
His voice broke, as he watched her chest rise and fall.
“The doctors say they’ve stemmed the bleeding in your brain, darling, but they need you to wake up. It’s important that you wake up, so they know if your speech has been affected or…or, anything else. And, I…I need you to wake up because I miss you, Anna. I need to hear your voice, so I know you’re still—you’re still with me.”
The monitor continued to beep, but it was a comforting sound and he sat there for a few minutes listening to it, tracing the lines of his wife’s face, before speaking again.
“You hurt the right side of your body, when you fell,” he said softly. “You might be sore for a while, so there’ll be no more scurrying around trying to do too much. Especially not with the extra pressure from the baby…”
The baby.
He wondered whether to tell her it was a girl. They’d been due to have their twenty-week scan, where the sonographer usually asks whether they’d like to know the sex of the baby, and hadn’t really discussed whether it was something they’d rather keep as a surprise. Yet, it felt wrong to have the answer and not share it with the person who had the most right to know.
“In case you’re worrying about the baby, it’s fine,” he said, and placed his other hand carefully on top of the bump protruding through the hospital bedsheets. “Anna, they told me it’s a little girl. I hope you don’t mind knowing…maybe it’ll help you to imagine what she might look like.”
Tears swam, but he swallowed them and carried on, determined to keep talking for as long as he could.
“I imagine her just like you,” he whispered. “A dark-haired beauty, with big brown eyes. I hope she has your generous heart, your capacity for love and your intelligence—”
Just then, he felt a kick against his hand.
Ryan stared at the bump, holding his breath as he waited, then smiled when the baby kicked again.
“Hello, little one,” he murmured. “We’re so excited to meet you, but your mummy isn’t very well, so I need you to be gentle with her.”