Dark Skies: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 7)

by LJ Ross

  “Sick. Bastard.” She spat the words, punctuating them with a fresh blow.

  MacKenzie was so far gone that she didn’t hear Phillips call for her and was only vaguely aware of his presence when the door burst open.

  But when she turned, half-distracted, the anger drained away at the sight of him standing there like an avenging angel brandishing the kettle—its cord flapped against the side of his leg and he looked as if he could easily have strangled somebody with it.

  “Where—Denise?” He looked around the garage as if he were expecting to find an intruder lurking in the shadows behind the boxes of junk. “Are you alright? What’re you doing?”

  She sucked in a deep breath and then let it whoosh out again, feeling her pulse rate gradually return to normal.

  “What does it look like? I’m letting off a bit of steam,” she said. “Remember, you promised to teach me to box.”

  “Aye, I know, but—”

  “Now’s as good a time as any, Frank.”

  Phillips looked on in admiration. She was one hell of a woman standing there challenging him to box, given that he’d been knocking around since he was seven years old.

  “Unless you’re too tired, that is,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

  Phillips set the kettle back down on the kitchen bench and grinned.

  “Never heard you complain about me being too tired before,” he said.

  “You’re not as young as you used to be,” she sniffed, enjoying herself wholeheartedly. “I would hate you to put your back out.”

  “Worry about that later,” he said, and rolled up his shirtsleeves to the sound of her delighted laughter.

  * * *

  After the briefing concluded and Ryan waved off the staff attached to ‘OPERATION STARGAZER’ until the next morning, he became acutely aware of how isolated it was for those who called Kielder their home. Unlike the cities which suffered from light pollution, the skies above the forest and water were so clear they had been awarded the gold standard for stargazing. Professional astronomers gathered alongside photographers and curious amateurs to witness the infinite cosmos on a nightly basis at the nearby observatory, but where Ryan stood on the banks of the reservoir it was eerily quiet and devoid of any human life, let alone astronomical enthusiasts.

  Quickly, he jogged along to the holiday lodge where he knew there was at least one other living person to be found; the one whose company he preferred above all others.

  “Anna?”

  There was work to be done ahead of lectures the following week but it lay untouched next to the small stack of undergraduate essays she needed to mark on the plain pine table in the kitchen. Her mind would not allow Anna to focus, not when she thought of how Guy Sullivan would never again turn up to tutorials ten minutes late, as had been his habit. He would never live to fulfil his dreams or travel to see the historical artefacts he’d only read about in textbooks. He’d never fall in love or have his heart broken. He would never experience life in all its wonderful glory.

  Ryan said her name again and she looked up from where she’d been staring at the fruit bowl. He understood the situation immediately.

  “Why don’t we go out and see the stars?”

  Her eyebrows shot up and she looked out of the window.

  “I can already see them,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, but not like this,” he said softly. “Come on, wrap up warm. Our lives are about to be put into perspective.”

  She gave a half laugh.

  “Are you going to show me Uranus?”

  “Only if you ask nicely.”

  This time, her laugh was genuine.

  * * *

  The observatory was situated on a stretch of high ground known as ‘Black Fell’ and, though it was only a ten-minute drive from the small complex at Kielder Waterside, it perched on a remote outcrop of land without any other visible signs of civilisation. The building was of ecologically-friendly wood; a long, low futuristic design built on a series of reinforced stilts that made Ryan think incongruously of beach piers on the east coast of America, although the terrain couldn’t have been more different. During the daytime, the panorama of the valley below would be incomparable, but those who came to the observatory after dark had more celestial views in mind.

  They had not passed any other vehicles on their short journey from the lodge but they found several cars and campervans parked outside the observatory.

  “This is obviously where the cool kids hang out,” Ryan said, with a rakish grin for his wife.

  “I think I can understand why,” Anna murmured.

  Ryan turned his face upward and felt the breath catch in his throat.

  Meteors burst and shattered across the night sky like fireballs, five or six at a time, flashing like the bulb of an old-fashioned camera from the twenties or thirties. He hadn’t thought it possible to be so enthralled, but then, he’d never seen anything like it in his life.

  “It would have always been like this before the Industrial Revolution,” Anna whispered. “No matter where you lived, you could look up at the sky and wonder.”

  Ryan reached across to take her hand.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said, eyes dancing with excitement. “We’ll get an even better view from the telescope.”

  As if it had heard them, the observatory’s timber frame began to rotate and long shutters slid open to provide a clear viewing platform for the two telescopes housed within. They hurried up a long, accessible ramp to the entrance of the building and followed the crowd into a warm room with a projector screen and seating set out for a welcome presentation.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Ryan muttered. “Grab us a couple of seats in the back.”

  He flashed a smile and then went off in search of the facilities, leaving Anna to settle near the end of a row as the lights dimmed. A woman introduced herself as one of the astronomers attached to the observatory and Anna was drawn in by the easy, conversational style that appealed to the children in the audience as much as the adults. A girl of around twelve stuck her hand up to ask the first question and when Anna spotted Mitch Fenwick sitting in front of her, she assumed correctly that the girl was his daughter. Further along, there were younger children sitting on their parent’s knees and they, too, were familiar faces from around Kielder Waterside.

  When the screen filled with live-stream video images of the meteor shower outside, Anna was hypnotised.

  * * *

  He’d seen her as soon as she entered the room.

  Of course he had; she stood out like a precious, botanical flower amid a garden of overgrown weeds. Tall and slender, with long dark hair falling in waves down her back, half-concealed by a ridiculous green woollen bobble hat. Her face was like fine bone china, all cheekbones and big brown eyes.

  He’d watched her hands when her gloves came off and felt a shiver in response.

  Perfect.

  Long and shapely; artistic but without artifice. It was impossible not to imagine them trailing over his skin.

  A man hovered behind her, exuding the subtle, proprietary air that developed between couples. Usually, that didn’t concern him overmuch, but there was something about the man’s face that struck a chord, reminding him of someone, like an actor or a musician he’d seen on the television sometime. He moved unhurriedly but his eyes tracked the room as if it were a habit, scoping out the exits and the level of threat. For a moment, their eyes locked, then the man’s silvery-grey gaze passed on, dismissing him.

  That was just as well. It might have been novel to be recognised—truly recognised—for what he was; for everything he had seen and done, for the power he wielded and could use whenever he chose. But that would be vainglorious and short-sighted. He’d cultivated exceptional levels of self-denial over the years, delaying the instant gratification so the pleasure would be all the sweeter when it came.

  His eyes strayed back to the woman.

  * * *

  “Quite some
thing, isn’t it? Just like you.”

  Anna heard the deep timbre of a man’s well-spoken voice whisper in her ear and assumed it was Ryan, so she turned with a smile automatically in place.

  “You took your time—oh! Sorry, I thought you were somebody else.”

  The man who had spoken stood just behind her chair alongside a few other stragglers who’d arrived late to the astronomy session. He was tall and blonde, somewhere in his late forties, but it was his eyes that made her shiver. They were very dark and trained directly on her rather than the projector screen.

  He smiled at her astonished face.

  “Shh,” he joked, tapping a finger to his lips. “You’re distracting me.”

  Anna spun back to the screen, feeling irritated. He’d made her feel, well, as if she’d been flirting, whereas she’d only mistaken him for her husband when he’d loomed over her shoulder. What did he mean by telling her she was ‘quite something’ and practically nuzzling her neck?

  Arrogant so-and-so.

  Anna sat stiffly for the remainder of the talk feeling oddly vulnerable and increasingly annoyed by the fact Ryan hadn’t returned. What on earth could be keeping him? She could sense that man was still standing somewhere nearby and it made her hair stand on end.

  Ryan finally snuck into the room as the lights went up and the talk ended, sliding into the chair beside her.

  “Did I miss much?”

  Anna kept her voice lowered.

  “Only the whole talk,” she said, testily. “Did you get lost or something?”

  “I had to take a call from the office. Is everything alright?”

  He knew his wife well enough to know when something was bothering her.

  “It’s nothing really, just a man—”

  Ryan’s brows drew together and he eyeballed the man sitting on Anna’s other side, who happened to be at least eighty.

  “Not him,” Anna couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t look now, but he’s standing behind us.”

  Ryan ignored her edict and looked openly around the room, finding it half empty now that people were moving through to one of the observation turrets to try out the telescope.

  “He must have gone.”

  Anna shrugged it off.

  “I’m sure it was nothing. He probably didn’t notice I was with someone and thought he’d try his luck.”

  “Can’t blame him, I suppose,” Ryan said, but even the thought of it brought a surprising rush of jealousy flooding through his veins. “All the same, he’d better watch himself.”

  Anna laughed and gave him a playful nudge in the ribs.

  “Let’s go and find out some more about these Orionid meteors.”

  “What’s that?”

  She merely smiled and tugged him through to the next room.

  * * *

  “The Orionid meteor shower happens every October, when Earth’s orbit intersects with the stream of debris left by Halley’s Comet. It burns up inside our atmosphere, usually at a speed of around sixty-six kilometres per second.”

  Ryan was the last to take his turn peering through the enormous telescope in the larger turret room of the observatory while the rest of the group began to make their way out, and found he could hardly tear himself away from the lens.

  So much to see.

  “What kind of telescope is this?” Ryan found himself asking the enthusiastic astronomer currently guiding the machine to the best position.

  “This is a manual twenty-inch, split-ring equatorial telescope.”

  “Right.”

  “There’s a computer-operated Meade twenty-four-inch in the smaller turret room,” she continued, mistaking his silence for comprehension. “We hold events in both areas, so you could come back and see how that works another time, if you’re staying in the area.”

  Ryan straightened up again.

  “Thank you for a very informative evening,” he said, and meant every word. It was a fine, rare thing to be able to read the stars and he was disposed to admire anyone who devoted themselves to a subject until it became second nature. He supposed he could make the same claim around the subject matter of murder and serious crimes, but that was nothing to brag about.

  When the lights came up, the astronomer moved across to some sort of rack and piston device, winding it quickly so that the slatted wooden shutters began to close again for the evening. Anna waited patiently and he decided to make a few off-balance-sheet enquiries, since he was there.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

  The astronomer looked up from her task, pushing thick curly brown hair away from a rounded face that gave the impression of a jovial personality.

  “Michaela Collingwood,” she replied. “Most people call me, ‘Mikey’. Are you and your wife here for a day trip?”

  Anna smiled politely but guessed that Ryan was trying to wheedle information, so left him to do the talking.

  “No, we’re staying over the weekend,” he told her. “Unfortunately, I’m here on business.”

  “Oh? What kind of business are you in?”

  “I’m with the police,” he replied.

  Her face fell instantly.

  “Oh, my goodness. You must be investigating the death of that poor lad down at Adderburn,” she said, looking between them with over-bright eyes. Ryan wasn’t sure whether to attribute that to excitement, or tiredness.

  “Do you live in the area?”

  “All my life,” she said. “I went to university in Newcastle but I just didn’t like living in the city. I think all this big sky gets into your veins and makes it hard to settle for less.”

  Ryan smiled.

  “Understandable,” he said, then brought the conversation gently back around to recent events. “Ms Collingwood, it’s likely that one of my colleagues will be knocking at your door to take down a statement but, since you grew up here, may I ask whether you knew a boy called Duncan Gray?”

  “Poor, poor Dunc,” she whispered.

  “So you knew him?”

  She nodded.

  “Duncan was a friend,” she explained. “There’s only one school in the area, so all the kids knew one another. My parents only lived a couple of doors down from where Duncan used to live and where his mum, Angela, still lives in Kielder Village.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “You and Duncan were the same age, then?”

  “No, he was a couple of years older than me but they often mixed children of the same ability together since the school was so small. I was in the same group as Duncan for Maths and English.”

  “Then you must remember the events surrounding his disappearance?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Although, at the time, people thought he’d run away. I don’t think things were great at home and he talked about running away a few times. When the search parties couldn’t find anything of him and considering he’d taken a bag and some clothes with him, people naturally assumed…” She trailed off, with a helpless shrug. “It’s terrible to think he’s been lying down there, all these years, and we never knew.”

  Over her shoulder, Anna made a discreet gesture to let Ryan know the place would be closing soon, and he gave an imperceptible nod.

  “Thanks for your time, Ms Collingwood. This must be an incredible place to work.”

  Ryan and Anna smiled their farewells and turned to leave.

  “It was the same time of year,” Mikey murmured, almost to herself. “I remember, the Orionids were falling around the same time Duncan went missing. They can last for weeks, you know, all the way through October and sometimes into November, but they’re at their brightest every year around 21st October.”

  Ryan tried to put himself into the mind of a killer and wondered how he could be sure that people would not stumble across a murder in progress. How perfect it would have been if the residents of Kielder had gathered in some regular spot to view the meteors, leaving him free to act without fear of discovery.

  “Before the observatory was
built, where would people have gathered to see a meteor show like that?”

  She turned to look at him with a dazed expression, her mind far away.

  “It used to be an old tradition to hike up to Deadwater Fell,” she said. “It’s the highest summit around these parts and you get some of the best views of the valley. It’s about six miles north-west of Kielder Village, a three-hour walk if you know the trail. People would often trek up there with a picnic around dusk to watch the stars, then use torches to hike back down again later, after dark. Still do, sometimes.”

  “Sounds a bit hairy,” Anna couldn’t help but remark.

  Mikey smiled.

  “Not if you know the land like we do. You get to know its nooks and crannies like the back of your hand.”

  She turned back to Ryan with sad eyes.

  “I hope you find whoever you’re looking for, chief inspector.”

  * * *

  Fifty miles away in central Newcastle, Jack Lowerson polished off his fourth glass of expensive white wine and realised he was starting to feel a bit woozy. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up embarrassing himself in front of his new boss, which was the last thing he needed.

  Time to go home.

  Except, he was now over the legal alcohol limit and unable to drive himself home. He was wondering how he could get himself out of that sticky situation when his companion broke into his thoughts over the rim of the glass of soda water she’d told him was vodka-tonic.

  “I think you may need to walk me home, Jack,” she said, slurring slightly for effect. “My house is just around the corner but I don’t think I should drive.”

  They were seated in a cosy wine bar in Jesmond, off the main road along a residential side street flanked by upscale restaurants, delis and posh barbershops. It was an upmarket area Jack aspired to live in one day but, for the moment, he had a little two-bed conversion half a mile further south, in an area called Heaton which was what his mother would have called ‘perfectly respectable’.

  “What about your car?” he asked, yawning widely.

  “It’ll be safe—so will yours,” she added. “It’s all free parking around here.”