by LJ Ross
He was going to have to make some house calls.
* * *
Phillips was nowhere to be seen when Ryan called his final briefing of the day at seven-thirty. His core staff were all present and even Anna had been smuggled into a seat in the corner of the Incident Room under heavy camouflage, in deference to the fact that Chief Constable Morrison was liable to pay them an unexpected visit at any time and would not be impressed if she found a civilian among their number.
“Jack? Have you seen Phillips?”
Lowerson shook his head.
“Not for the last half-hour. I think he mentioned something about getting a bit of fresh air.”
Ryan thought it was unusual that his sergeant hadn’t informed him of his movements, considering the mountain they still had to climb, but he supposed he shouldn’t begrudge the man a break. He was going through hell and was handling it in a more dignified fashion than most.
“Fair enough,” he said, to the room at large. “Let’s crack on.”
Ryan rolled up his shirtsleeves and folded his arms while he collected his thoughts.
“Alright, here’s the round-up. As of this morning, we have Edwards’ second vehicle impounded and the CSIs have gone over it already. We’re waiting for the lab results to confirm a DNA match, but it’s looking very likely that the Toyota Rav 4 was left at the Styford Roundabout—we don’t know when or by whom—and picked up by Edwards in the early hours of last Tuesday after he dumped MacKenzie’s Fiesta. They drove to an unknown destination, where Edwards has been holing up until finally rearing his ugly head again last night.”
Ryan paused to take a swig of coffee, buying himself enough time to prepare for the next part of his round-up.
“As you can see, there’s a new photograph on the wall,” he said quietly, and watched their heads turn to look at the colour photograph of Bethany Finnegan, provided by her mother when she thought her daughter was merely missing.
“This is Beth, and she was a week away from her sixteenth birthday when she died sometime around midnight last night.”
He let his gaze travel around the room, burning them.
“Beth was decapitated and her body mutilated, but not in any kind of frenzy attack. Her injuries were inflicted with the steady, knowledgeable hand of someone with advanced anatomical knowledge, using something like a common bread knife.”
There were quiet gasps around the room as some of his staff flipped the pages in their printed packs and stumbled across images taken from the crime scene earlier that day.
“The pathologist is performing a post-mortem this evening and will get a report to us as soon as possible but it will likely be days before the CSIs have completed a full sweep of the crime scene.”
It would take them that long to wade through the blood.
“Incidentally, Edwards chose to use my old apartment as his first kill site after unleashing himself back into society.”
There were some who already knew about it, but for those who hadn’t yet heard it on the police grapevine, their faces registered shock.
There was also a healthy degree of curiosity, as Ryan had anticipated.
“Needless to say, his choice of location was a meaningful one,” he kept his voice firm and was relieved that it didn’t waver. “I don’t need to go over old ground, but this is the second time Keir Edwards has chosen my digs for his dirty work. After we’ve kicked the prison door shut on him for the second time, remind me to forward him the cleaning bill,” he added, dryly.
The unexpected touch of dark humour came as a welcome relief to his staff, who were glad to find something to laugh about, if only briefly. As for Ryan, he was tired of feeling like a victim and didn’t need or want their pity.
“Our working theory is that Edwards drove into Durham to attack my fiancée at her cottage. Since we have temporarily relocated to a safe house, he found the place empty and had to settle for ransacking it instead. There were no signs of forced entry at my apartment at Wharf Square, so we have to assume he found the spare set of keys whilst he was rummaging through drawers at the cottage and was able to let himself in later on. After he finished looting, Edwards started a fire at the cottage at ten o’clock or thereabouts and took a drive into Newcastle. When he arrived, he parked obstructively across the entrance to the Copthorne Hotel on the Quayside and we have CCTV footage of him exiting the Toyota at 22:24. He then proceeded to walk the short distance to Eddie’s Beach Club, where he met Beth Finnegan and lured her away from her friends by eleven o’clock. We have footage of them walking along the Quayside heading east, arriving at the front entrance to my apartment building at Wharf Square at quarter past eleven.”
Ryan felt his stomach muscles tense and he reached across to pick up a paperclip, to give himself something to cling to while he covered the necessary ground.
“There are several points to note. Firstly, Edwards is unconcerned by the fact that we now have an updated image of his physical appearance, which clearly shows he is feeling brazen, not to mention opportunistic.”
Ryan pointed to another photograph tacked to the wall, which showed Edwards clean-shaven, wearing what looked to be dark clothing. He felt the breath catch in his throat as another thought struck him, and he wandered across to the murder board to take a closer look at the man’s clothes.
Oh, please, no.
He turned back to his audience with a face like thunder.
“A detailed description of the crime scene, including Beth’s injuries, has been included in your packs. For now, let’s just say he acted with extreme violence, as with all his previous victims. Furthermore, her body was deliberately staged to resemble the death of Natalie Finlay-Ryan—my sister.”
Nobody spoke, and the air seemed suddenly so still that he couldn’t breathe.
“Ah, can I ask a question?”
His grateful eyes sought out the source and when he found it, he smiled into Anna’s eyes, drawing strength from their strength.
“Go ahead, we’ll say you’re an honorary member of the team for the duration.”
“In that case, can you tell me how Edwards managed to get back out of the city? Wouldn’t he have been covered in blood?”
Ryan felt the constriction in his chest begin to abate.
“We don’t actually know for sure that he has left the city,” Ryan pointed out, and his voice carried a warning. “Likewise, he might have stolen a change of clothes whilst he was at our house in Durham. However, it’s likely that he either found somewhere nearby to hide out, or he managed to procure another vehicle.”
“We’re checking for vehicles reported stolen in the area,” Lowerson put in. “I’ll let you know when we have something.”
Ryan nodded.
“Start with the residents,” he said. “The CCTV beside the entrance to Wharf Square captured Edwards coming inside with Beth, but there’s no record of him leaving again. If he was covered in blood and wanted to keep a low profile, it would make sense for him not to wander too far. I noticed today that there was a camera overlooking the residents’ car park at the rear of the building, so I want to know why I don’t have that footage on my desk.”
Some of the support staff exchanged worried looks.
“It’s been vandalized,” Lowerson explained. “So we don’t have any footage of the car park for the relevant period.”
“Of course it has,” Ryan said darkly. “Find out when that camera was broken, because I’ll take odds that it went down sometime around midnight last night. I want to see any remaining footage prior to the breakage—see which cars were parked outside and check them all to see if they’re still with their respective owners.”
Lowerson wrote a hasty note.
“On it.”
“Like many killers with narcissistic tendencies, Edwards has chosen to leave a calling card with his latest victim. The word ‘INVICTUS’ was written in black marker pen on Beth’s left palm. Translated from the Latin, it means ‘I remain’. We can only assume that Ed
wards intended it to be a defiant gesture, once again part of the staging of his victim.”
There were murmurs of disgust around the room.
“Trace his mode of transport and we’ll be able to trace him,” Ryan reminded them, and waited a beat before clapping his hands together. “Let’s go.”
As they were galvanised into action, Ryan checked the time on the clock on the wall against his watch. Both read eight-fifteen and there was still no sign of Phillips.
CHAPTER 13
The streets were dark and soaked with rain when Phillips returned to Buddle’s Boxing Gym. Unlike Ryan, he didn’t have any trouble finding it among the rows of identical streets on the borders of Benwell and Elswick, in Newcastle’s West End. It had been many years since he’d played on these streets as a boy, and perhaps too many since he had been back to pay them a visit, but there was still a sense of homecoming. There was nowhere else in the world he could be himself, or at least the version of himself he used to be when he’d been a scrapper, a stocky kid with no direction and plenty of time on his hands.
Nowadays, he had no family to bring him back to Benwell. His father died years ago and by the time his mother passed away, he’d already moved out of the area with his late wife, Laura. He’d been on the way to passing his detective’s exam and they’d moved so that he could be closer to work. They never had any children but life became busier all the same, and there had been less time to drive across town for an early morning sparring session at Buddle’s. When Laura had become ill with the cancer that eventually killed her, he hadn’t wanted to be away from her any longer than necessary and he had no time for boxing matches and pints down at the Pig and Whistle.
But his body remembered the old feeling of being in the ring, even if he was a bit out of condition. It had felt good to come back yesterday, not only to rid himself of some of the grief and frustration of his present nightmare but simply to feel alive.
This time, though, he hadn’t come to fight.
Phillips walked through the main entrance into the gymnasium and shook hands with some of the boxers stretching on mats or training with pads. He didn’t stop to chat but continued past the ring where he and Ryan had recently gone a round, to a small office area bearing a plaque that said ‘MANAG-R’. The letter ‘E’ had been missing for as long as he could remember and he’d been coming on and off since it first opened in the early seventies.
The door had been left open to reveal a group of four men sitting in front of a high-end flat screen television, watching the recording of a recent fight. He glanced at the screen and recognised both fighters as local champions.
“Knock knock,” he said, stepping into the room.
“Y’alreet, Frank,” one of them replied, without turning around. Phillips waited patiently until the fight was over and the recording came to an end. These men took their boxing seriously and the presence of a detective sergeant from Northumbria CID wasn’t enough to divert their attention.
Only when it had finished did they turn and greet him properly, faces creasing into smiles.
“Frank! Y’old bugger, where’ve you been?”
They exchanged hard, back-slapping hugs and handshakes, some token words of sympathy about Denise and then three of the men left following a swift jerk of the manager’s head, closing the door behind them.
“Frank. I was sorry to hear about Denise.”
Harry Donnelly Jr was a man of diminutive height but enormous local stature. He owned several investment properties in upmarket areas of Newcastle but preferred to live in the same house he had grown up in, not far from the gym. He was in his mid-fifties, like Frank, but instead of a dark grey suit, he wore a pair of straight-legged jeans and a tight white t-shirt which stretched over a muscular beer belly. His arms were hairy and tanned almost to leather from his twice-yearly holidays to a timeshare in Marbella and there were deep crow’s feet around his astute blue eyes. His father, Harry Sr, had founded Buddle’s sometime in the early seventies after the closure of Manors Hall, a legendary boxing venue which had been open since the 1920s right up until its demolition to make way for a new Metro station in the late 1960s. In his heyday, Harry Snr had trained some of the local boxing greats and had even sparred with Cassius Clay.
Harry Snr had gone on to found the new Buddle’s Boxing Gym in a notoriously downtrodden area of town, to give the men who had lost their livelihoods a healthy escape. It had since become an institution in its own right under his son’s careful management and its doors stood open to men—and women—from all walks of life. But its main clientele was, and always would be, men and boys from the local community.
And, as Phillips was aware, some of them made their living operating on the wrong side of the law. What he intended to find out was whether any of them were involved in Edwards’ escape.
“Evening, Harry.” He accepted one of the worn oak chairs sitting at right-angles to a basic desk pushed against one wall. Behind it, there was a long window looking out into the gym area, so that Harry could keep an eye on things.
“Heard you went a round or two, yesterday,” Harry said, reaching for a cup of herbal tea resting on the edge of the desk. He held it up and grunted, which Phillips understood to be an invitation to have a cup himself.
He waved it away.
“Aye, I came in on Monday morning,” Phillips replied, not wanting to rehash it. “Felt better after.”
Harry grunted again and took another slurp of his lemon and ginger tea.
“What brings you back so soon, if it’s not to put a pair of gloves on?”
Phillips swiped a hand across his face and looked away, then back again.
“Look, Harry. We’ve known each other for—what? Fifty years?”
“Must be something like that,” the other agreed, waiting to see where the conversation was headed. “Used to spark you out, even back then.”
He grinned, showing a mouthful of bright white caps.
“In all that time, you know I’ve never bothered with the odd bit of funny business going on in this place—”
“Wait a minute—”
“Hear me out, Harry,” Phillips overrode the automatic defence because they both knew the score. “I loved coming here when it was your da’ at the helm, and I’ve missed coming back more often. You’ve got a good, solid thing going here and some of the lads have gone on to do great things.”
Harry smiled proudly because it was true. Ryan had worried about a lack of safety measures when he’d seen Phillips punching the living daylights out of the punters, but that wasn’t the norm under Harry’s watch. He’d made an exception for his boyhood friend, but anybody else who had stormed into his gym demanding a fight without headwear or mouth guards would have been kicked out.
“For all that, we both know that a lot of traffic comes through these doors and not all of it is law-abiding.”
Harry said nothing but lifted the mug to his lips again.
“I pick my battles,” Phillips went on, looking him dead in the eye. “And, God knows, I’ve no wish to start a battle with you. But, so help me, I mean to find out who financed the man who’s taken Denise.”
Harry listened with a sinking heart, hearing the note of desperation in Frank’s voice. A desperate man would stop at nothing until he got what he wanted, but there were other things to consider. Important things that could cost lives. He looked out into the gym, watched a pair of young lads sparring, and when he looked back into Frank’s tired brown eyes, he remembered when they had been youngsters together, picking fights on street corners just for the fun of it.
“Alright Frank,” he said, and reached across to flip the blind down. It fell in a heap of clattering plastic against the window frame and they were enclosed for a moment, just two old friends. “But this didn’t come from me. Understand?”
Phillips nodded.
“One of my lads sometimes trains the blokes who come in for a white-collar fight. Makes them feel better about themselves when they’re stuck
behind a desk playing with spreadsheets.” He let out a short, rumbling laugh. “Takes all sorts. Anyway, they stick with the same trainer for six months ahead of the fight but, about a week ago, some chump comes into the gym asking for a new trainer because his old one has buggered off. My lad agreed to step in, and that’s how they got chatting.”
“Go on,” Phillips urged.
“As I say, these two got chatting over the past week and it turns out this toff’s old training partner disappeared without so much as a by your leave. I thought nothing of it,” Harry shrugged. “Until, the very next day, I hear one of the other lads talking about a job opening down at the All American Diner. That’s Moffa’s place—”
“I know it,” Phillips growled, as the pieces began to fall neatly into place. The Moffa family was one of the notorious gangland families written in bold blue ink on his notepad. Originally from Manchester, the three brothers had migrated further north to claim their own patch of turf. Considering there were older, more established claims to the lucrative drugs industry in Newcastle, it was a testament to their innovative methods that they had been able to muscle their way in.
The All American Diner was a trendy, all-day hotspot near the railway station in Newcastle, decked out to look like the set of Pulp Fiction with a long bar, red leather booths, a chequered dance floor and an enormous Cadillac in the middle of it all. Behind all that, Jimmy ‘The Manc’ Moffa kept his office, both literally and figuratively.
Phillips turned his attention back to Harry, who continued his story.
“Aye, well you probably know the lad wasn’t talking about a job opening as a waiter. One of Moffa’s best men has gone AWOL and that means there’s an opening in the firm.”
“Who’s left—and is he still alive?”