by LJ Ross
PENSHAW
– A DCI RYAN MYSTERY
LJ Ross
Copyright © LJ Ross 2019
The right of LJ Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or transmitted into any retrieval system, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design copyright © LJ Ross
DCI RYAN MYSTERIES IN ORDER
1. Holy Island
2. Sycamore Gap
3. Heavenfield
4. Angel
5. High Force
6. Cragside
7. Dark Skies
8. Seven Bridges
9. The Hermitage
10. Longstone
11. The Infirmary (prequel)
12. The Moor
13. Penshaw
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
—Winston Churchill
PROLOGUE
21st August 1984
Penshaw Village, County Durham
Anger was ripe on the air that day.
It sat like a heavy cloud, blanketing the village of Penshaw with a noxious blend of fear and fury, hope and despair. It had been months since the pitmen had walked out of the colliery and dug their heels in for the duration of the strike. Free cafes had been set up by the miners’ wives and flying picket lines were drawn up as the community rallied around. Across the country, other union men did the same and, under Arthur Scargill’s leadership, the British coal industry came to a shuddering halt in one of the largest industrial actions the country had ever known.
But spring turned into a long, hot summer, where tempers frayed and resolve wavered with every sticky day. The Union was divided, with some continuing to work while the rest watched the news reports on boxy television sets in their front rooms, hoping to learn that the battle had been won but finding no radio broadcast from the Queen, nor any quivering message of regret from the Prime Minister.
Oh, no.
Like them, Maggie Thatcher had settled in for the duration. She might have been the daughter of a greengrocer, but any affinity with the working classes she’d once been a part of ended there. The enemy within, she called them now. They, the people who had built the country she governed.
And so, turbulent days stretched out into months as people fought for their heritage; to be heard and to be valued. They saw the future stretching out before them, one they were not part of, and grieved.
And, while their hearts quietly shattered, the bus arrived.
A sleek, blue-painted thing put on by the government, designed to carry dissenting miners back to work, promising cash bonuses for those who broke with their comrades and stepped on board. For three days it crawled through the streets, empty but for a sinister, ski-masked driver, while Alan Watson watched from the steps of the Colliery Club.
Scab, he thought.
The bastard was right to wear a mask, to cover his cowardly face.
“Mornin’, Al.”
He didn’t bother to turn but gave a distracted grunt when his son-in-law came to stand beside him and leaned against the charred, red-brick wall.
“Bus been through, yet?”
“No,” Alan replied shortly.
After a brief internal debate, he reached for the pack of cigarettes he kept in his back pocket. The way things were, he needed to ration himself, but a man couldn’t be expected to live without the bare necessities in life. After another debate, he offered the pack to Michael, who snatched one up with muttered thanks.
“They’re wasting their time, here,” the lad declared, once they’d set the nicotine fizzing. “No man in Penshaw’ll get on that bus.”
Alan said nothing but took a long drag of his cigarette as he glanced at his friends and neighbours who had gathered on the pavement nearby, banners resting in the crooks of their arms.
United we stand!
Coal not dole!
He knew the majority of the men were down at the colliery entrance half a mile away, their picket line forming a human barrier to prevent any wayward union men from entering the colliery grounds. So much depended on faith and solidarity.
Without it, the strike would fold.
“I heard there was a bloke on the bus yesterday, over at Easington,” Mike continued, and Alan gave him a sharp look.
“Keep your bloody voice down,” he growled.
He’d heard the news too, of course. A man over in Easington Colliery had boarded the bus, becoming the first in the area to break with the Union. Unless they were careful, he wouldn’t be the last. People over in Easington were growing restless, with a heavy police presence on the streets only making things worse, and an emergency meeting had been convened the night before to discuss the best way forward.
There’d been a lot of big talk, a lot of hard words and bravado, but not a lot in the way of fresh ideas. The truth was, all they really had was the hope that strike action would lead to a national fuel shortage. Without fuel to power homes and businesses, the government would surely see sense and reverse its present course, working to preserve the industry that fed and clothed communities rather than smashing them apart.
Alan took another fortifying drag.
Men like him were expendable, he thought. Just part of the so-called masses, the bloody proletariat, whose worst crime had been to try to retain the dignity of a profession, the only one they knew. He ground the cigarette beneath the heel of his boot and turned to look at the younger man standing beside him.
Mike Emerson was what he would have described as a gobshite, always looking for the quickest, easiest way to get a job done, rather than the best way. Always the loudest mouth in the pub, full of the blarney. He’d married his daughter, Sally, the previous month—in a ha
stily-arranged affair. As far as he could tell, Mike spent an unnatural amount of time preening himself in the bathroom mirror and considerably less time tending his wife but, for all that, he was an easy-going lad who could stomach a few pints and was always eager to please.
“Here it comes,” he muttered, and nodded towards the vehicle turning into the village with a full police escort.
The sun was high in the sky that morning, its rays bouncing off the windows so they could hardly see inside but, as the bus rolled by flanked by four police cars, a collective gasp rippled through the crowd.
No!
I don’t believe it! they whispered.
There, on the bus, was a single passenger.
Angry shouts rose up in a crescendo and the crowd charged forward, uncaring of the police armed with batons and shields. More people spilled out of their houses and joined those on the streets, the treachery of a single man almost too great to bear. There followed grunts and cries as they met the blunt force of the law, then the twist and groan of metal as cars were overturned.
Through it all, Alan watched with a heavy heart, tears rolling unchecked down his proud, working-man’s face.
CHAPTER 1
Friday, 8th June 2019
Thirty-five years later
Joan Watson’s nightgown was soaked with sweat.
It covered her from neck to ankle and clung to her body, which was comfortably rounded after eighty years of living. Her hands plucked at the cotton material, but nothing helped; the air in the bedroom was as thick and hot as a desert summer, despite it being June in the north of England.
With a sigh, she swung her feet off the bed, wincing as her bad hip protested at the movement.
“Alan?” she called out to her husband, but there was no answer.
Typical.
“Alan!”
Joan began to cough, eyes watering as her fingers groped for the bedside light. A weak glow illuminated the room, with its peeling floral wallpaper and elm wood furniture they’d bought on finance years ago and never found the money to replace. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the haze that was clouding her vision, so she could read the time on the carriage clock.
Two-fifteen.
Or was that three-fifteen?
It was still dark outside; she knew that much.
Coughing harder now, Joan felt around for her slippers and heaved herself off the bed. The springs gave a protesting whine and she reached for her dressing gown before padding towards the door in search of water. Her throat felt parched, and her head was throbbing so badly it was almost crackling, like twigs snapping in the undergrowth.
The air was even hotter when she opened the bedroom door, and she threw up an involuntary hand, as though the action would help her to wade through the heat. She began to worry as the crackling grew louder, like log fires in winter…
Fire!
She clung to the bannister and peered downstairs.
“Alan!” she croaked.
Through the stifling darkness, she saw the first lick of flames.
Fear coursed through her body and she stood frozen at the top of the stairs. The crackling became a roar as the fire took hold and black smoke oozed beneath the living room door, pumping through the narrow hallway and rising to where she cowered against the wood-chipped wall.
Alan!
Her husband rarely made it past the sofa these days; not once he’d settled in for the night with a bottle in his hand. Joan’s eyes closed, a single tear escaping as she imagined him fumbling with his cigarette lighter and being too drunk to care.
Suddenly galvanised, she staggered across the landing to the bathroom, hands shaking as she ran a flannel beneath the cold tap. She caught sight of an old woman with wild, frightened eyes in the cabinet mirror, but there was no time to stop and stare.
She hurried back onto the landing, clutching the flannel to her face as she made her way downstairs. Her legs felt stiff, but she forced herself to move, and by the time she reached the bottom step she was coughing uncontrollably, lungs bursting as the smoke grew heavier.
Helplessly, her eyes strayed to the front door, where freedom and fresh air beckoned.
Not without Alan.
Trembling, heart racing with terror, she burst into the living room and into the very mouth of hell.
CHAPTER 2
Monday, 11th June 2019
Newcastle upon Tyne
The morning sky was a perfect canvas of cornflower blue, unbroken except for the wispy trail of an aeroplane making its way to the Mediterranean. Detective Constable Jack Lowerson watched its progress from his bedroom window, eyes narrowed against the blazing sunlight which broke through the unwashed glass. He thought of all the people inside that metal bird and wondered what might be occupying their minds.
Sand and sea; suntans and sangria.
He might have laughed, if he could remember how.
Instead, he reached for a pale blue shirt hanging on the back of the door and eased his arms into the sleeves with slow, painful movements. Next came the suit trousers, which took longer since he was forced to bend over. He considered knocking back another paracetamol to take the edge off, but he’d come to rely too heavily on those little white pills over the past few days and didn’t want to become dependent; he’d seen what happened to people like that.
Jack turned to look at his reflection in a mirrored wardrobe. The man who faced him was of medium height, slimly-built with light brown hair and shadowed, bloodshot eyes.
Purplish-yellow bruises covered his ribs and torso.
A tremor ran through his body, like an echo, reminding him of how they’d come to be there. He wished he could run; far away, where nobody knew him, and nobody would find him. There would be no talk of the man who’d once been Jack, and of what he’d seen and done. The thought was seductive, and he allowed himself to wallow in it for a moment before reality crept back in.
There was nowhere to run, and nowhere far enough, or dark enough, to hide.
He buttoned his shirt with shaking fingers, drawing the material over the bruises until they were completely hidden. Then, he touched a hand to the back of his head, feeling for the wound beneath his hairline. Thankfully, the bleeding had stopped days ago, and the swelling had reduced so it was unlikely anyone would notice. His suit trousers concealed more fading bruises, but his gait had returned to normal. If he was careful, nobody would notice.
Jack schooled his features this way and that; practising the normal, everyday expressions people would expect to see when he returned to the office. Squaring his shoulders, he found he could manage a pleasant sort of neutrality, but the effort left him grey and clammy. Staring into his own eyes, he saw stress and fear writ large across his face and wondered how he was ever going to pull it off. The men and women he knew, the people he called friends, were no fools. They were trained observers of human behaviour, experienced in picking up the tell-tale signs of when something was badly wrong.
When somebody was lying to them.
His eyes strayed to a chest of drawers, on top of which sat a small burner mobile phone, next to his regular smartphone, his keys and wallet.
And his warrant card.
Jack sank down onto the edge of the bed and held his head in his hands.
* * *
Thirty miles further north, Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Finlay-Ryan covered the ground at speed, long legs eating up the worn pavement as he jogged around the picturesque village of Elsdon, in Northumberland. It was early yet, and mist from the surrounding hills curled its way through the valley and around his pounding footsteps as he passed through the quiet streets.
He sucked in a deep breath ahead of the final uphill leg that would lead him through the fields to the house he and his wife had built. There was a dewy, earthy scent of wild garlic on the air and the hedgerows on either side of the single-track lane had grown tall, providing shelter for the rabbits who’d made their burrows beneath. He dodged their scampering bodies and won
dered, not for the first time, how he had come to be so lucky.
Soon enough, the house came into view at the top of the hill. Ryan had chosen the spot himself, having fallen in love with the panoramic views across the valley, and gifted the land as a wedding present to Anna. He could remember the first time he’d brought her here and asked her to put roots down with him, just as he remembered every happy memory they’d shared together. He hoarded them, tucking them inside a special corner of his mind to sustain him during the darker moments of his daily grind. The job of a murder detective was a far cry from bunny rabbits and pretty views; it was the province of death and destruction, the very worst side to humanity that most people could only imagine.
As if she had read his mind, Anna stepped out of the house and onto the veranda overlooking the garden, where she could follow his progress along the lane. She raised a steaming cup of coffee and fanned it in the air, like an aircraft marshal steering a plane on the runway, and Ryan grinned, quickening his pace.
“I thought I’d have to send out a search party,” she called out, as he rounded the corner. “Did you run all the way to Scotland?”
“Har har,” Ryan said, and leaned down to bestow a thorough kiss. “I had a bit of energy to burn off.”
“I can think of other ways to help you with that,” she said, with a glint in her eye.
“Oh?” he said, recovering himself in record time. “Like what, for example?”
She leaned back against the patio table and took a leisurely sip of coffee, pretending to think about it.
“Well, for starters, there’s plenty of weeding to do in the garden,” she replied. “And then, there’s that mirror to go up, in the spare room…”
She trailed off as Ryan walked slowly towards her and set his palms on the table, leaning down until his mouth was inches away from her own.
“Anything else?” he whispered.
Anna raised a hand to his chest and took a fistful of the damp material, drawing him closer before looking up to meet his silver-blue gaze.
“Now that you mention it…”