High Force: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 5)

by LJ Ross

  “She could be dead,” Gregory surmised, and Ryan nodded.

  “Ah, we haven’t talked about your fee…” Ryan began, but Gregory simply smiled.

  “This one’s on the house.”

  CHAPTER 22

  By the time Ryan returned to CID Headquarters, the rain had completely dried up. He decided to take that as a good omen, until he was intercepted by Lowerson who was waiting anxiously for him in the foyer.

  “Don’t tell me another Moffa brother has been found dead?”

  “No, sir, but the Chief Constable wants a word.”

  Ryan sighed deeply.

  “Alright, Jack, thanks for the heads-up.”

  Ryan stopped at the gents to splash cold water on his face once, twice and then a third time. Coffee had ceased to work and his body was going through the unpleasant stages of severe sleep deprivation but he would not allow himself to shut down. Not yet.

  The reflection staring back at him from the mirror was of a pale man, blurry-eyed from stress and fatigue and fit to drop. But he scrubbed a hand over his face and went in search of the Chief Constable, hoping that nothing else had arisen to add to their already back-breaking workload.

  He tapped on the appropriate door.

  “Come!”

  Why did they never say ‘in’? Ryan wondered. Every commanding officer he’d ever had spoke like a corporal from the 1940s. He entered the office and came to a shocked standstill as he was faced with a roomful of people and what appeared to be a professional film camera.

  He pointed an accusing finger towards it.

  “What is that?”

  Morrison walked around to the front of her desk and sent him a warning glance.

  “Ryan, this is Lucy Pembleton from BBC Newcastle and Martin Sampson from The Journal. They’re here to do an interview with you.”

  “Was it too much for you to discuss this with me before arranging an ambush?”

  Morrison had the grace to blush.

  “Would you excuse us for a moment?” Smiling genially, she led Ryan back out into the corridor. As soon as they were out of earshot, he rounded on her.

  “This is low, even for you.”

  “I’m sorry if this has taken you by surprise,” she said, in a calming tone. “There wasn’t a lot of room for debate. The Commissioner wants to restore public confidence and the best way to do that is to speak directly to the public.”

  “Send one of your other dancing monkeys in there,” Ryan replied. “I’m sure you can find plenty of people to toe the party line. Count me out.”

  He started to turn away but the tone of her voice stopped him.

  “Please! I don’t like this any more than you do,” she said furiously. “Do you think I want to waste time on media calls? Of course I don’t, but life is full of moments like this. Sometimes, you just have to jump through the damn hoops.”

  “I’ve never jumped through a hoop in my life and I don’t intend to start now,” he said flatly.

  “You’re so bloody superior!” she exclaimed, and he raised an eyebrow. “Too good for televised appeals, too busy for the mundane crap that the rest of us have to deal with?”

  He shuffled his feet.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Isn’t it?” she raged. “Do you think I like having to dance to the Commissioner’s tune? Do you think I like suspending one of my oldest friends? Of course I bloody don’t! But life is full of bitter pills we have to swallow.”

  Ryan folded his arms and waited for her to finish.

  “The fact remains that you’re the SIO heading Operation Ireland. You’ve got the gravitas and experience and, much as you might not like it, much as I might not understand it,” she added, with a short laugh, “the public seem to love you. So, for once, set aside your lofty ideals and bring this home for the department.”

  Ryan stared at her flushed face for a moment and then gave a brief nod.

  “Alright, if you need a show pony, I’ll trot out some tricks.”

  * * *

  Phillips and Anna surrounded themselves with paperwork at the holiday cottage in Blanchland. Rain pattered against the single sash window in a steady fall and the radio played easy-listening music in the background. By mutual consent, Phillips had siphoned off the more explicit imagery relating to Edwards’ past offences so that Anna could concentrate on her portion of the papers in much the same way as a history research project, without any of the trauma.

  “There are hardly any personal records in Edwards’ paperwork,” Anna remarked. “Is that usual?”

  Phillips looked up and scratched the top of his balding head.

  “I wouldn’t say it’s usual, no. We did a thorough search,” he assured her, “but the best we could drum up was Edwards’ birth certificate from the public records office, listing his date of birth and the fact he was born locally in Hexham, his mother’s name and her date of birth. There was a change of name by deed poll, back in the early nineties.”

  Anna shuffled through the papers to find the photocopies.

  “Oh yes, I see it. Why would he change his name completely?”

  “Who knows?” Phillips shrugged. “Perhaps he wanted something fancier. You have to give it to him, ‘Keir’ does have a certain ring to it.”

  “A certain ring of madness,” Anna muttered, as she thumbed through the papers. “How about schooling? I can only see a record of his time at boarding school, which coincides with the same year he changed his name.”

  “There were no nursery or school records before then.”

  “How is that possible?” Anna queried. “Surely he would have attended a local primary school or something?”

  Phillips lifted a shoulder.

  “No doubt he’s educated, so we assume there was either a blip in the records or he was home-schooled to a decent standard. It’s a sorry state of affairs, love, but a lot of kids just fall through the gaps. Social Services aren’t overrun with staff and they weren’t any better resourced twenty-five years ago.”

  Anna tugged at her lower lip.

  “Something feels off,” she murmured. “Shelford School is one of the premier boarding schools in the country. Why the sudden change at sixteen? And who paid for it? Was his mother well off?”

  Phillips abandoned his own work for a moment to talk it through.

  “We don’t know much about Jenny Adams. He’s never once spoken of her, or mentioned a father figure of any kind. Essentially, we know nothing about Keir Edwards until after the age of sixteen. For all the years when he was still little Charlie Adams, your guess is as good as mine. We did a full run on Jenny but we don’t know where they lived or what she did for a living. There aren’t any income tax records or NI contributions since the mid-eighties, when she was living at home with her parents and working as a barmaid. They’re now deceased.”

  Anna wandered across to the kettle in the tiny kitchen, set it to boil, then turned to lean back against the kitchen counter.

  “What about the hospital records, from when Jenny Adams gave birth? Surely they’d have made a note of her circumstances—of a father, of a home address?”

  “If they did, they don’t have it on file anymore. We already checked all those things, when it all blew up the first time around. Like I say, the only thing we could dig up was that birth certificate and then the change of name document because they were both listed as public records. We have his school years at Shelford and all of his life as Keir Edwards the doctor, followed by his life as The Hacker.”

  “Shelford might be able to give us a clue,” Anna thought suddenly. “They might be able to tell us who paid the bills. Maybe they’ll have an address on file?”

  Phillips rubbed his eyes.

  “Ryan called them, back in the day. They refused to give out personal data, even with a warrant. They took it all the way to court, as I remember, and won on the grounds that it wasn’t pertinent to Edwards’ prosecution. In fairness to the judge, it probably wasn’t important then t
o know all about his family history so long as we could prove he killed those five women, but it’s sure as hell important now.”

  Anna stirred instant coffee into two flowery porcelain mugs with a thoughtful expression.

  “Here’s what strikes me as odd,” she said, setting a steaming cup in front of Phillips. “Why would Shelford School fight so hard not to give away the information? Surely, they would want to be seen to be cooperative with the police?”

  Phillips took a sip, swilled the coffee in his mouth.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.”

  The light of battle began to shine in her dark brown eyes.

  “You call Ryan and ask him to get a warrant for the release of records at Shelford. I’m going to ring the school administrator and see if I can’t persuade them in the meantime.”

  “You’re a force to be reckoned with and no mistake.”

  “You’re not wrong, Frank.”

  * * *

  Ryan felt like the Christmas turkey, all trussed up in the shirt and tie he kept hanging in his locker in case of emergency situations such as the one he found himself facing now. He was seated in front of the window in Chief Constable Morrison’s office and somebody had dragged a plant behind him so its half-dead leaves flapped against the back of his neck. A camera assistant fussed over him and tried to fiddle with his hair but one ominous look had put a stop to that.

  The room was full of superfluous staff, nagging him to project an air of quiet authority without seeming too arrogant. Somebody who identified themselves as the new media liaison briefed him about what he could and couldn’t say, as if this was his first time discussing an active investigation, or indeed his first time in front of the camera.

  Just before the cameras began to roll, Morrison requested that he stop glowering.

  Glowering?

  The newscaster for BBC Newcastle pouted, massaged her cheeks and made wide ‘o’ shapes with her mouth before she tossed her hair and made a little rolling signal to the cameraman. It was her first real break reporting on the biggest serial killer case for a decade, talking to a famously private detective who looked like he had just walked off a Hollywood film set. As far as ratings were concerned, it was gold dust.

  “Ready?”

  She didn’t wait for Ryan’s response but immediately dived into her pre-rehearsed introduction to the segment that would be shown on every news programme available.

  “Two years ago, the people of the North East lived through a summer of terror while former doctor Keir Edwards unleashed a brutal killing spree claiming the lives of five young, innocent women, before he was eventually stopped by one man, Chief Inspector Maxwell Finley-Ryan. In a tragic twist of fate, his own sister was The Hacker’s final victim—”

  “Stop.”

  Ryan’s voice cracked like a whip.

  “I won’t have my sister’s memory used as a cheap way to boost your ratings,” he ground out. His anger was cold and quiet. “And you have an entire task force to thank for bringing Edwards to justice, not just me. I won’t be party to this.”

  The newscaster flushed an embarrassed shade of red and bristled in her chair. Morrison could see the situation becoming nuclear very quickly, so she stepped into the breach.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash old news,” she said firmly. “Our agreement was to issue an appeal about the present investigation.”

  The woman shot Ryan a look that was both wary and resentful, before firming her glossy lips and giving the motion to start rolling the camera again. It was remarkable, Ryan thought, how her face transformed into a caring façade, for all the world as if she gave two hoots about the lives of those who were lost. She began again, in the same serious, haunted tone as before whilst looking directly into the camera.

  “Two years ago, in the summer of 2014, the North East was terrorized by a series of brutal killings, all perpetrated by the same man. Formerly a doctor, Keir Edwards became known as The Hacker thanks to the particularly vicious methods he used to torture, maim and kill five women before his killing spree was brought to an end by a task force headed by Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Ryan, who joins us now.”

  Ryan could have laughed. It all sounded so neat, so packaged, so far removed from the memories he carried of that last day.

  She turned in her seat and faced him.

  “Chief inspector, thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us today.”

  She waited for some sort of polite rejoinder but when none was forthcoming she gritted her teeth and carried on.

  “The Hacker was imprisoned following his trial back in 2014 and the North has been preoccupied with other sensational crimes while he was incarcerated at HMP Frankland, the maximum-security prison where he was supposed to spend the rest of his life. Little did any of us know that he had been hatching a plan to escape. Did you have any inkling that The Hacker was capable of such a coup?”

  Ryan detested her choice of words, but he answered the question.

  “Anything is possible, with enough money and connections,” he said. “There have been several high-profile helicopter escapes around the world, so he hasn’t broken new ground there. Durham Police have the investigation into his escape fully in hand.”

  Morrison closed her eyes and was grateful that his nonchalance managed to project the impression that the Prison Service weren’t at fault. It was a good start.

  From Ryan’s perspective, his words were chosen in the full knowledge that Keir Edwards might be listening, whether on the radio or television. If that was the case, Ryan wanted him to know that he wasn’t special; he was just another commonplace killer.

  “That is reassuring to know,” the newscaster flicked a glance towards the camera again, entranced by her own reflection in the lens. “But these are worrying times, I’m sure you’ll agree. Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie is still missing and presumed dead—”

  “Nobody presumes she is dead,” Ryan interrupted. “We assume that DI MacKenzie is still very much alive. We are searching for her, night and day.”

  His voice softened just in case, by some miracle, MacKenzie should be listening too. He wanted her to know that she was not alone and she was not forgotten.

  “But, with The Hacker’s history,” the newscaster persisted, “it’s surely becoming less and less likely that your colleague will be found alive?”

  “Keir Edwards is a functioning psychopath,” Ryan said simply. “He acts according to a specific plan, not in frenzy. He is intelligent and methodical, and I know he understands the value of keeping DI MacKenzie alive in order to bargain with us.”

  Clever, Doctor Gregory thought later, when he saw the interview running on the evening news. Ryan managed to flatter Edwards’ ego at the same time as issuing a warning.

  “But, how do you explain the deaths of Bethany Finnegan, a mere girl of fifteen, and James Moffa, a well-known restauranteur and local businessman?”

  Sticky ground, Ryan thought.

  “The death of Bethany Finnegan not only shattered her family and friends, but every member of Northumbria CID and all the police men and women of the neighbouring forces who are working tirelessly to find her killer. My heartfelt condolences go out to her mother, whom I’ve spoken to personally. I want to reiterate my promise to her and to tell her that Beth was and is important to all of us. It is my strong belief that her death followed a specific plan and that was to mimic the death of one of Edwards’ previous victims, Natalie Ryan.”

  He would not say ‘my sister.’ He wouldn’t be able to continue, if he did.

  “Edwards killed Bethany Finnegan to strike out at the officers who originally brought him to justice in 2014, and in particular…me.”

  The newscaster turned shocked eyes to the camera, then back to Ryan with excitement.

  “You believe The Hacker’s recent killings represent an elaborate vendetta against you and the task force who incarcerated him the first time around?”

  “Yes, that�
�s what I believe.”

  “How do you explain the death of James Moffa?”

  Ryan ran his tongue across his lower lip.

  “We are still in the process of investigating his murder and I cannot say for certain at this stage that Keir Edwards is responsible for his death. That being the case, I do not plan to comment further.”

  The newscaster gave him a petulant look.

  “I understand that you would like to make a very personal appeal to The Hacker, if he is listening?”

  Ryan turned his flinty grey stare fully at the camera.

  “If Edwards happens to be listening to this interview, I want to give him one, very important message. You’ve won. I’ll say it again: you’ve won. I speak on behalf of all the constabularies in this region, in fact across the country, as well as myself, when I say that you have demonstrated your superiority.”

  Once again, Gregory smiled as he watched him play the right notes.

  “You could have fled the country at any time. You could have killed Denise, our friend, whenever you wished. We know that and we respect it.”

  Ryan leaned forward in his chair, speaking earnestly to the camera and whoever might hear him.

  “I understand that your actions over the past week have been a demonstration of your power and we have failed to apprehend you. But now is the time to claim your prize,” Ryan’s voice became more persuasive, dripping like honey. “Your anger is towards me, personally, as the man who put you in prison. I stopped you…I nearly killed you, as you nearly killed me. That gives us a connection and I understand that I am no better than you.”

  Ryan thought the words would choke him but he forced them out.

  “Let’s stop wasting time and cut to the real fight, the real reason you’re still hiding out in the North East. If it’s me you want, Keir, then I invite you to call me directly on the number for the Incident Room and I will meet you at any place of your choosing, on the condition that you do not harm another person until then. You remain unvanquished,” Ryan said, “but for how long? Call me to find out.”