by LJ Ross
Ryan’s laughed at that.
“Frank, I’m not sure there’s a man alive who likes bacon stotties as much as you,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want you fainting on me, so we’ll make a pit-stop on the way.”
Phillips perked up immediately.
“You know it makes sense,” he said, wisely, and then turned his mind to the task ahead. “Nice little village, Penshaw. Used to be, all the miners lived there and worked in the colliery nearby. That all changed after the strike, of course.”
He fell quiet, thinking back to when he’d been a young police constable, and the job he’d been asked to do.
“—close?”
Phillips tuned back in, and realised he’d missed half of Ryan’s question.
“What’s that?”
“I said, from what I understand, many people who live in the village are ex-miners or the children of mining families,” Ryan repeated. “When did the colliery close?”
“Must’ve been back in ’85,” Phillips murmured. “After the strike failed.”
Ryan heard a note in his friend’s voice and told himself to tread carefully. His had been a privileged upbringing, for which he was both grateful and embarrassed, in equal measure. He had never experienced the fear and uncertainty some families had lived. He had never worried about where his next meal would come from, so he would not pretend to know how difficult it would have been for thousands of men and their families to lose their livelihoods in such a way.
All he could do was use the opportunities and advantages he’d been given to be a decent person; or, at least, a better one than he was yesterday.
“I was only four or five at the time,” he said, into the quiet car. “I learned about what happened, later.”
In a politics class, at his boarding school, Ryan thought, with a measure of self-loathing.
“A lot of people are still feeling the effects of what happened back then,” Phillips said. “You get these academic types talking about economic policy and how fossil fuels were on the way out…”
He gave an irritable shrug.
“All that might be true,” he continued. “But, if changes needed to be made, they didn’t have to happen the way they did. The speed they did. Now, all the old steel and mining towns have generations of families on the dole…there were some who bounced back and re-trained or moved on. Some people could do that, but plenty couldn’t.”
“It still hurts,” Ryan said, softly.
“Yeah, lad,” Phillips sighed. “It still hurts.”
* * *
Melanie Yates watched Lowerson surreptitiously over the top of her desktop monitor at Police Headquarters. They worked from a bank of six desks, with his directly opposite her own, whilst MacKenzie was seated to Lowerson’s right. He’d avoided speaking to her since the briefing and was, she suspected, relying on a certain amount of British reserve in the hope she wouldn’t raise anything too awkward in the company of their colleagues. Well, much as she would have preferred it to remain that way, she had a job to do.
Pushing back from her chair, she squared her shoulders and stood up.
“DC Lowerson? I’d like ten minutes to discuss our strategy in respect of the informant,” she said, coolly.
Lowerson flushed, and shot an embarrassed glance towards MacKenzie, who was studying her monitor with sudden and complete intensity.
“Of course,” he muttered, rising from his chair. “We can find an empty meeting room.”
“Fine,” she said.
As the pair of them stalked out of the room, MacKenzie risked lifting her head above the parapet, and gave an indulgent shake of her head. One week, they were Love’s Young Dream, the next, it was a wasteland.
Ah, to be young again.
* * *
“Rochelle isn’t answering any calls,” Yates said, as soon as the meeting room door clicked shut. “The last time I tried, I got an automated message saying the number was no longer in use.”
Lowerson walked over to the water fountain in the corner of the room, where he filled and re-filled three cups in quick succession.
“Did you hear what I said?” Yates demanded, watching him with narrowed eyes. “Something might have happened to her. She was worried Singh would find out about her relationship with Hepple, or that he’d find out she’d been talking to us. What if he did? What if he found out?”
“We don’t know that,” Lowerson said, crushing the paper cup in his hand.
Yates looked at him as though he was a stranger.
“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered the prospect she might be missing, or worse.”
Lowerson deposited the cup into the recycling bin, and composed himself.
“Have you considered the possibility that Rochelle doesn’t want anything to do with us?” he said. “She never actually agreed to work with us, did she?”
Yates opened her mouth, then shut it again.
“Not in as many words,” she admitted. “But why would she meet with us, if she wasn’t open to the prospect? All we needed was another opportunity to talk, to convince her she’d be safe…”
Lowerson let out a mirthless laugh.
“Yeah? And how do you know we’d be able to keep her safe, Mel? Can we say for certain that he wouldn’t be able to find her, and hurt her?” His eyes blazed across the room, and then he looked away, out of the window and across the car park.
“We have witness protection programmes,” she said, a bit shaken by his tone. “We could have offered her immunity, in exchange for testifying against him, if she was willing. She was a link to Singh’s inner circle, and now we’ve lost her.”
Lowerson looked away again, feeling nauseous. He remembered, all too clearly, the impossible deal he’d offered Rochelle only a few days before.
“Has she turned up to work?” he asked, in a dull tone.
“I rang Rochelle White Interiors on Friday,” Yates replied. “I posed as a potential customer looking to have my office re-designed, and asked to speak to the lady in charge. The receptionist said that she hadn’t been in that day, but she’d return my call once she was back. I still haven’t heard.”
She paced the meeting room, thinking of what more could be done without arousing suspicion.
“Anything reported to Missing Persons?” Lowerson found himself asking, but Yates shook her head.
“Nothing,” she said, curtly. “Although I haven’t checked the alerts this morning.”
Lowerson waited with a fatalistic, sinking feeling in his belly, while Melanie scrolled through the automatic e-mail alert she’d received from their colleagues in the Missing Persons team. Seconds ticked by, then he heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Rochelle White, reported missing first thing this morning. Last seen leaving the office last Wednesday afternoon.”
Yates raised her eyes, and it was as though she looked straight through him.
“Who reported it?” he asked.
“Somebody from her office,” Yates replied. “It wasn’t Singh, which is unusual, considering she lives with him.”
Lowerson blinked, seeing dark spots floating in his vision.
“It’ll be one for our team,” he said. “We need to discuss this with Ryan.”
“He told me to investigate the asset and bring Rochelle in,” Yates replied. “If she’s been reported missing, I can go around, ask some questions—”
“No!” The word burst from his lips before he could prevent it. “I don’t want you going in there alone.”
There was an infinitesimal pause.
“Come with me, then,” she said, and couldn’t have known what she was asking of him. “We can go together, and find out why he hasn’t reported his girlfriend missing.”
“Anything to do with Bobby Singh falls under Operation Watchman, now,” he insisted. “It isn’t up to us to decide what action to take, and an officer of DI level or above needs to determine whether to treat her disappearance as suspicious, if she’s
disappeared at all.”
Her jaw dropped.
“So, that’s it? We just sit around here, twiddling our thumbs?”
“We’ve both got plenty to be getting on with,” Lowerson said.
“Jack—”
“Mel, let me tell you something,” he interrupted her. “I admire your dedication and your drive, but you have a lot to learn. You’re a trainee detective constable, not the bloody superintendent. You can’t just go barging into a volatile situation without getting the go-ahead from your superiors.”
Yates could barely swallow the hypocrisy, and said as much.
“Really, Jack? You mean, like the time you went barging into a dangerous situation without waiting for back-up on Holy Island, and ended up in a coma for six months?”
“Mel—” he said, in a warning tone.
“Or, how about the time you jumped head-first into a relationship with your boss, who also happened to be a certified nut-job? You’d been promised a nice little promotion to detective sergeant, without having to put in the work…or, at least, not the same kind of work,” she raged on, letting all the anger and hurt finally spill out. “Did you get the go-ahead from Ryan for that? No, you bloody didn’t, so don’t lecture me about police hierarchies and respect for authority, Jack. Not until you’ve taken a good, hard look at yourself in the mirror.”
On that note, she scooped up her notepad and prepared to leave, but not without a final, parting shot.
“One last thing. Don’t think I didn’t notice how evasive you were at the briefing,” she said, in a voice trembling with anger. “I don’t know why you’re behaving the way you are, but I’ll find out, sooner or later. And, when I do, you’d better have a good reason. If I have to go around you, I will.”
When the door slammed shut, Lowerson closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, hoping for a miracle.
CHAPTER 8
Penshaw village was bathed in sunshine by the time Ryan and Phillips polished off the last of a Lunchtime Special at the farm shop, which nestled at the foot of Penshaw Hill and boasted prime views of the monument at the top. An equestrian centre occupied the neighbouring plot of land, and horses grazed beneath its classical columns while daytime tourists climbed the steep pathway to enjoy panoramic views of Durham Cathedral, to the south-west; the coast to the east; Herrington County Park to the immediate west and, on a clear day, the Cheviot Hills on the far northern horizon.
“See the park over there?” Phillips nodded across the main road, where mature trees and parkland now grew. “That’s where the colliery used to be.”
Ryan followed his line of sight as they walked from the farm shop along the main road, towards the centre of the village.
“Looks lovely,” he was bound to say. “I seem to recognise the name?”
“They have concerts at Herrington Park, and the Olympic torch passed through it back in 2012,” Phillips replied.
“I’m glad they put the old site to good use.”
Phillips nodded.
“There’s a memorial in the park, dedicated to all the miners who lost their lives over the years,” he said, and Ryan made a mental note to seek it out. “There’s an amphitheatre, play park, and all that.”
Ryan listened, and then frowned.
“There’ll be a tight community around here, Frank. People who look out for one another, especially the elderly. Who would want to hurt Alan Watson, an old man of eighty?”
Phillips merely shook his head.
“You’re always the first to tell me that age isn’t a barrier to somebody being a wrong ‘un,” he said, matter-of-factly. “We’ve seen plenty of old thieves and vagabonds during our time. Plenty of wives who suffocate their husbands, or the other way around.”
Ryan had to admit it was true.
“That line of thinking won’t go down well with his daughter, Sally Emerson,” he remarked. “Wouldn’t look good for her next election campaign, for one thing.”
“I never knew you were so cynical,” Phillips joked.
“Really? Must’ve been living under a rock, all these years,” Ryan grinned, and then sobered quickly as he spotted an incongruous black van parked up ahead.
“Faulkner’s here,” he said, referring to the Senior CSI in charge of the forensics unit. “Maybe he can give us a clue.”
* * *
Alan and Joan Watson lived in a two-up, two-down, red-brick cottage at the end of a terrace on Penshaw Lane, a road running parallel to the farm shop and equestrian facility, with direct and unspoilt views of the monument. It ran from the former colliery site to the west, all the way to the epicentre of the old village to the east, with its quaint pubs and church, although Ryan and Phillips never made it that far.
“Hell’s bells,” the latter declared, as they spotted the charred exterior of the miner’s cottage Alan Watson had lived in since he was a boy. “Must’ve been a real blaze.”
Ryan made a small sound of agreement, while his eyes scanned the immediate vicinity. Behind them, the monument loomed over the village like a miniature Acropolis, a silent sentinel as the villagers went about the business of living and, in this case, dying. The cottage was almost at the junction to the main road, nearest the old colliery site, with an alleyway running behind it which gave access to the back yard.
In front of the house, two constables were stationed beside a police line, which had been set up to prevent a small but determined crowd of villagers from despoiling what may be a crime scene. A white forensic tent had been set up at the doorway, to afford a degree of privacy for the CSIs who went about the business of sweeping the shell for evidence.
“It’s accessible from the front or the rear, with plenty of scope to make a quick getaway,” Ryan concluded. “The house is a ten-second walk from the main road heading north or south—less, if they were running.”
“Surely, somebody would have seen them.”
Ryan was doubtful.
“The fire started sometime in the early hours,” he said. “It was a weekday, not a Saturday night, and this is hardly a party capital so most people would have been tucked up in bed. I doubt anybody would have seen anything amiss until it was too late, especially under cover of darkness.”
“Fire spread to the neighbour’s house, too,” Phillips said, noting the empty windows and dark wash of smoke and char that stained the brickwork across the terraces.
“Hard to know if there was forced entry, since the doors are completely gone,” Ryan muttered to himself.
“Eh? Nobody locks their doors around here, son. If somebody wanted inside, they could’ve walked straight in.”
Ryan refrained from entering into a debate about home safety, and simply nodded. It was another mark of a good community, that people didn’t feel the need to bar their doors, even at night. He wondered if they would feel the same way, after all was said and done.
“We can check with the family, when we speak to them,” he said, raising a hand as Faulkner emerged from the tented entrance. “For now, let’s see where it all started.”
With a quick look in either direction, Ryan crossed the road to greet the CSI, who was dressed in his usual overalls and hair net. In deference to the sunshine, he’d removed the mask and hood, revealing a man with a shiny face and matted, mid-brown hair sticking to the temples.
“Good to see you, Tom.”
“Ryan, Phillips,” he smiled warmly. “Bit of a change to our usual grisly lot, isn’t it? Quite nice, not having a body to deal with.”
“Don’t say I never do anything for you,” Ryan quipped. “How’s it looking in there?”
Faulkner scratched the top of his head, and blew out a breath.
“We’ve given it a good once-over, but there isn’t much to play with; no leftover blood stains or anything like that, and the interior is still a bit soggy after being hosed down on Friday. The Fire Investigator’s still in there, if you want to have a word with her, but I can tell you what she told me: the origin of the fire seems to h
ave been in the living room,” he dipped his head towards the blown-out window at the front of the house, now protected by plastic sheeting. “Apparently, the old feller was a lifelong smoker, and they found the remains of an ashtray on the floor, next to what’s left of a sofa and a bottle of some kind. We’ll test them both.”
“Easy enough for someone to set a fire and make it look accidental,” Phillips mused. “They could’ve lit a cigarette and let it catch on the sofa after bashing his head in, or many a thing.”
“That’s what I love about you, Frank—your optimistic outlook!” Faulkner grinned. “You’ll be telling me it was the Russians, next.”
Phillips started to deny it, then began to wonder whether the old boy had been mixed up in any espionage.
“Pinter will let us know whether there was a fracture to Alan’s skull,” Ryan cut across any wild theories his sergeant might have been concocting. “He’s still looking at the body to get beyond the fire damage. In the meantime, I’d like to know how Joan Watson found her husband, and where he was lying.”
“The son stopped by here, earlier,” Faulkner told him. “Asking a lot of questions, wanting to know if we’d found anything suspicious.”
“Was he, now? That would be…” Ryan paused to check the name of Alan’s son. “Simon?”
But Faulkner frowned.
“No, not that one. He introduced himself as Mike.”
“Mike Emerson,” Ryan provided. “Alan’s son-in-law.”
“That’s the one. He left pretty soon after, but he said he was visiting with his mother-in-law, who was getting out of hospital this morning. If you want to have a word with the widow, she’s staying with the other son, Simon, who lives just up the street.”
Ryan looked towards the village and nodded.
“Thanks, Tom.”
* * *
A potent smell of smoke, char and burnt plastic clung to the material of their clothes when Ryan and Phillips emerged from the cottage some time later. It was a pitiful sight, to see an old couple’s worldly possessions reduced to blackened sludge, and Ryan knew only too well the heartache of losing small, meaningful things; all the photographs and trinkets collected over the course of many years. It had been a couple of years since Anna’s cottage in Durham had gone up in flames, but they had been devastated to lose what they had worked so hard to build.