by LJ Ross
If he chose to, he could still remember the taste of that water.
The small scar on his abdomen throbbed—a phantom pain to remind him of the time he’d suffered a knife attack, and had been thrown into the river to die.
Ah, memories.
“Might be easier to walk from here,” Phillips said, providing a timely interruption as they approached a multi-storey car park not far from the train station. “Traffic cops must have set up a diversion away from the centre.”
Ryan agreed, and a few minutes later they parked up and made their way along the path beside the river until they reached the Silver Street Bridge. It was another fine day, and the many small shops and restaurants on either side of the bridge were brimming with customers, who seemed frankly undeterred by the news of a suspected terror attack.
“It must be nearly time for the students’ Easter break,” Phillips remarked, as they crossed the bridge. It was common knowledge that relations between the transient but lucrative student population, and the permanent residents of the city and its surrounding villages, was not always frictionless. Middle-class students brought deeper pockets, which had driven housing and retail prices higher for their working-class neighbours. Moreover, theirs was a different tribe of so-called intelligentsia—thus far, lacking in basic sensibilities and understanding of what constituted real life—and when a large number of residents were so wholly tone-deaf to the situation of their fellows, there was bound to be social tension.
“That’ll come as a relief to some,” Ryan said, acknowledging the problem, whilst privately admitting he’d been a part of it, in his earlier years.
Before joining the Police Training College, he’d completed an undergraduate degree at Cambridge, much to his father’s chagrin—four generations of Ryan men had studied at Oxford, and it represented a break in tradition, such as it was. With the folly of youth, he’d believed himself to be a pioneer of sorts; a renegade, black sheep of the family, who’d made it on merit alone.
The arrogance of his former self was, to this day, a source of shameful embarrassment.
Looking back with the wisdom that came with age, he saw how blind he had been, living inside that privileged bubble. He wondered how many times he’d walked past a person in need of food or shelter, who’d been surviving on the cold outskirts while he’d enjoyed a charmed existence. He thought of all the times he and his friends had punted on the river or picnicked on the college lawn, their minds free of trivial concerns such as where their next meal might be coming from.
It made him cringe to think of it.
It might have taken time, Ryan thought, but he’d found his way in the end. Slowly, the veil had lifted. He’d seen inequality so stark, the food on his tongue became ash; division so wide, the clothes on his back felt like chains. Offers of respectable careers in the City had poured in, but he’d turned to a life of public service and, despite all he had seen and all that he’d lost, Ryan had never once regretted his decision.
“You look miles away,” Phillips said, and they paused to stand overlooking the water, resting their arms on the warm stone walls of the bridge. “Penny for them?”
Ryan raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the mid-morning sun.
“I was thinking about when I was their age,” he said quietly. “What were you doing, when you were nineteen, Frank?”
Phillips ran a thoughtful hand over his jaw, and tried to cast his mind back over thirty years.
“I joined the Force when I was eighteen,” he said, with a light shrug. “We were dealing with the Miners’ Strikes around then, and the riots. I’d met Laura, and we were courtin’.”
Ryan smiled at the old-fashioned turn of phrase Phillips used to describe his first wife, who’d sadly passed away from cancer several years ago.
“You know what I was doing, Frank?” he murmured. “Larking about on a river, somewhere, getting pissed.”
“Well, there used to be a boat down on the Tyne,” Phillips recalled. “The Tuxedo something-or-other, which they made over into a nightclub. We had a few laughs on there, so it’s not all that different.”
Ryan turned to look at his friend, a man he considered his better in so many ways. He couldn’t count the times Frank had taught him humility with no more than a look, or a word, over the years they’d known one another, and he decided to chalk this one up on the tally.
“Come on,” he said. “This case isn’t going to solve itself.”
“Lead on, Macduff.”
* * *
A cordon had been set up in a wide perimeter around the cathedral, blocking the entrances from all sides, as well as access to Palace Green from the north, restricting access to the cathedral, castle, library and college buildings belonging to the university. Smaller businesses which fell within the designated area had also been forced to close for the day, which made for a number of disgruntled proprietors as well as several disappointed tour guides. A significant police presence had been drafted in to guard the cordon and repel any unauthorised visitors, including the press hounds who’d been there since first light, sniffing for an update in time for the late morning news.
“People just go on that whatdoyercall it, these days,” Phillips said.
Ryan waited for further elucidation, but none was forthcoming.
“The ‘whatdoyercall it’?” he asked, as they hiked up Saddler Street towards the summit upon which the cathedral had been built.
“Aye, you know. That…Twatter, or whatever it’s called.”
Ryan’s lips twitched.
“Twatter?” he repeated.
“That’s the one. People don’t bother watching proper news, these days. They just go online to see all the videos people have recorded. How can a proper journalist compete with that, if you’ve got Mr and Mrs Nosy Parker filming everything in real time?”
Ryan was still reeling from Phillips’ mispronunciation, but didn’t bother to correct it because he had a damn good point.
“They can’t compete,” he said quietly. “People can film what they want and upload it, without any thought or feeling, and the damage is done. Politicians can say anything and be believed, because nobody’s doing the fact-checking or, if they are, it comes too late. It’s harder to claw words back, once they’re out there, circulating in the world.”
In their profession, Ryan and Phillips took a cautious approach to the press, having met several reporters over the years who employed a laissez-faire attitude towards rigorous, investigative journalism. Quick, easy and factually-questionable soundbites might be de rigeur, but that wasn’t how things worked in Northumbria CID. All the same, they retained a healthy respect for a free press and what it could sometimes offer during the course of a long-running investigation, and they had no wish to create enemies.
Consequently, they skirted around the pack of reporters baying at the edge of Palace Green and dipped beneath the police line before they were spotted.
“Hey! You two, stay back, please—”
One of the constables ran over to reprimand them but, luckily—or, unluckily, depending on the point of view—Ryan’s face and reputation preceded him.
“Sorry, chief inspector, I didn’t recognise you, at first.”
They showed him their warrant cards, always keen to observe the proprieties.
“I’m looking for DS Carter?” Ryan said, slipping the card back into his pocket.
“He’s inside, sir,” the constable said, and pointed towards the north door. “You can go through there.”
“Do we need any safety gear?” Phillips asked. As they’d approached the cordon, he’d been surprised by the lack of hard hats on display, considering the level of threat less than twenty-four hours before.
But the constable shook his head.
“The structural engineers have already given the all-clear,” he said. “Once the CSIs have finished going over the place, we’ll be reopening to the public.”
“We’ll have to see about that,” Ryan s
aid, delicately emphasising the fact that there was a new SIO in charge, now. “You’re doing a good job here. Keep it up.”
“Thank you, sir,” the young man beamed.
There came shouts from the other side of the line, as they were spotted by a reporter.
“DCI Ryan! What can you tell us about the explosion, yesterday? Do you believe there’s a link to the bridge explosions in Newcastle, last year? DCI Ryan!”
Last year seemed like a lifetime ago, he thought, as they turned away and made swiftly for the north door.
* * *
Not being a man disposed to any religious bent, Ryan had only been inside Durham Cathedral a few times before—mostly, to accompany Anna. If his mind was not so frequently occupied by the faces of all the dead he’d failed to avenge, or cluttered with the day-to-day responsibilities of running the Major Crimes Unit, he might have taken a keen interest in local history. He’d never be able to match his wife’s obsession with pagan folklore, nor her delight in uncovering fresh clues to the past, but he appreciated history for its uncanny ability to inform the present.
After all, there was very little that was new under the sun.
Likewise, he was no artist, but Ryan could recognise artistry when he saw it and it was plain, even to the most untrained eye, that the lines and columns of the cathedral constituted a significant work of art. The temperature was cool inside its stone walls, which acted as an echo chamber and created a spiritual hush for those who came to lose themselves in prayer. The reverent atmosphere couldn’t fail to impress.
“Gets me every time, this place,” Phillips whispered, as they were admitted inside by another earnest constable. “They don’t make ‘em like this, anymore.”
Ryan thought immediately of their new police headquarters and had to agree.
“Why are you whispering?” he whispered.
“Why are you?” Phillips returned.
Ryan huffed out a laugh.
“The design reminds me of Notre-Dame,” he said, in his normal tone. “It’s awe-inspiring architecture, which is obviously part of its purpose. All the same, I can’t help but wonder how much it cost to build this edifice, while people in the surrounding villages starved.”
“That’s organised religion, for you,” Phillips said, cheerfully. “The Church was mighty powerful round these parts, especially back in the olden days.”
“I can see that,” Ryan said, eyeing the buttresses and stained glass. Though he was more concerned with human life than any bricks and mortar, Anna would be relieved to know that the building she loved so much had remained intact—at least, from what they could see.
Which begged the question—how?
They left the central nave and made for the exhibition galleries, where they’d been told they’d find DS Carter, who’d been managing the investigation pending Ryan’s arrival. They’d protected their feet with shoe coverings, donned nitrile gloves and were pleased to find the CSIs had created a plastic walkway through the display rooms, to preserve any trace evidence that might otherwise be lost. They followed the walkway—and a lingering smell of smoke—through a warren of rooms in the Open Galleries until they reached the Great Kitchen, which was where Anna had been found.
The Great Kitchen was a grand, imposing space with a high, rib-vaulted ceiling dating back to the fourteenth century. Where once it had been used to feed its Christian community, the room now formed part of an impressive exhibition space, devoted to the relics of St Cuthbert. In the centre of the room stood a large display case housing the wooden coffin used to transport Cuthbert’s remains hundreds of years earlier, before they were eventually laid to rest in another part of the cathedral that had come to be known as ‘Cuthbert’s Shrine’. Several other large display cases had been arranged at intervals around the room, and Ryan’s eye was drawn to one in particular, which appeared to have been damaged during the explosions. One of its sides lay in pieces on the floor, and whatever had once lain inside was long gone. There remained a faint cloudiness to the air inside the room despite its high ceilings, and Ryan experienced a surge of emotion as he imagined his wife lying there on the hard stone floor until the Bomb Squad found her.
If they’d arrived a few minutes later…
Shoving the thought aside, he scanned the area, noting a cluster of white-suited CSIs who worked with quiet focus, while another group of people had congregated near the exit. They consisted of three men and a woman and, whether it was the way they held themselves or the general cut of their jib, the younger two members of the group seemed to bear an invisible brand proclaiming them to be ‘POLICE’. One of them—a man somewhere in his late twenties—noticed their arrival and stepped forward.
“DCI Ryan? DS Phillips? I’m DS Ben Carter,” he said. “We were all so sorry to hear about what happened to your wife.”
Ryan managed a brisk nod of thanks and then gestured towards the other people hovering in the doorway.
“Why don’t you make the introductions?” he suggested.
“Of course,” Carter said, quickly. “This is DC Justine Winter, my colleague from Durham CID.”
She was young, no more than twenty-two or three, but had the serious and watchful expression they’d come to recognise in their fellow officers.
“Anything you need, chief inspector, Durham Major Crimes is at your disposal.”
Carter turned to the remaining two members of the group.
“We were just speaking with Derek Pettigrew, who is the Chief Operating Officer, with day-to-day oversight of the cathedral.”
Pettigrew was a man in his late forties who looked as though he hadn’t slept well the night before, which was hardly surprising in the circumstances.
“Pleased to meet you, chief inspector,” he said. “Dreadful news about your wife—may we ask how she’s faring?”
The question might have been kindly meant but it was poorly timed, and had been delivered in the kind of snivelling tone that set Ryan’s teeth on edge.
“As well as can be expected in the circumstances, thank you,” he said shortly, turning his attention to the final member of the group.
“This is Mike Nevis, the cathedral’s head of security,” Carter said. “Mr Nevis is in the process of collating the CCTV footage from yesterday.”
Nevis was, contrary to stereotype, a thin wisp of a man. In days gone by, security personnel might have relied on brawn over brains, but they were living in a new world nowadays; one where cybercrime could be more dangerous than the average snatch and grab.
“Pull together the footage from the last four weeks, if you can,” Ryan said. “An incident of this magnitude doesn’t happen on the fly—it takes weeks of planning. We’ll be looking for the same face, or faces, reappearing periodically.”
“We have many thousands of visitors at this time of year,” Pettigrew said. “It won’t be easy—”
“Leave us to worry about that,” Ryan replied, in a deceptively calm tone.
He didn’t care how long it took, nor how many times he needed to watch the footage. He’d find whoever had been the one to hurt his wife and child, and they would pay.
“Ah, I believe the cathedral only keeps footage for a couple of weeks, isn’t that right, Mr Nevis?” Carter said.
Nevis scratched his balding head.
“Actually, we installed a new system not so long ago, which is linked to cloud storage. We should be able to go back as far as you need.”
Ryan smiled.
“What happened over there?” Phillips asked, bobbing his head in the direction of the broken display case.
“Of course, you won’t have heard,” Winter said quietly. “The explosions were dummies—just smoke bombs, to create confusion.”
He’d known it, Ryan thought. The minute he’d learned the cathedral was intact, he’d known there must have been another reason.
“What’s been stolen?” he asked simply.
“The cross,” Pettigrew said, miserably. “They’ve taken Cuthbert’s cro
ss.”
CHAPTER 10
Ryan and Phillips stood a safe distance away from a modern display unit that had once housed the gold and garnet cross belonging to Saint Cuthbert. A placard gave some facts about the artefact, and featured a smaller image of the cross.
“It’s priceless,” Pettigrew said. “Irreplaceable.”
Ryan’s jaw clenched, and he was forced to look away while he battled to keep his anger in check. The man spoke of an inanimate object as priceless and irreplaceable, yet all Ryan saw was the catalyst for what could have been his wife’s death and, with it, the death of the future they had planned together.
That, and only that, was irreplaceable.
“Why this piece?” he wondered aloud, casting his eye over the remaining treasures suspended in airtight cases. “Why take the cross, and not the…what’s that?”
He pointed at a sword, its dull metal blade gleaming beneath a subtle spotlight.
“The Conyers falchion,” Pettigrew told him. “Legend has it, Sir John Conyers slew the terrible Sockburn Worm, or dragon, with it. It’s thirteenth century, engraved with the arms of the Holy Roman Empire on one side, and the arms of England on the other. Some historians believe it might have belonged to Richard Earl of Cornwall, who was Henry III’s younger brother, and who became King of Germany and King of the Romans in the mid-thirteenth century. It’s presented to a new bishop of Durham when he first crosses the River Tees from the south and enters his new diocese, and is a symbolic commitment of Durham to its faith.”
“You mean they take this out of the case every time?” Phillips asked.
Pettigrew shook his head.
“No, they use a replica, just like the replica of the Sanctuary Knocker,” he explained. “The real one is in the case, over there.”
They all turned to see the iconic knocker, designed to ward off evil spirits in the shape of a ‘hell mouth’.