by LJ Ross
Ryan thought immediately of DI Terry Prince, but it could just as easily be his sergeant, Stevie Cribbs. Both men had a reputation for long nights spent at the city’s premier strip clubs and it wouldn’t altogether surprise him that they’d found trouble there, or in the course of their so-called duty. Easy enough for the Smoggies to find out who they were, and whether they had any unusual or illegal predilections.
“And Drugs?”
“More than one of them had money problems, a couple of years back. Gallagher almost went bankrupt while he was still living down in London, but seemed to avoid it, at the last minute. He seemed to move up north on the spur of the moment, which rings alarm bells for me. He’s living on credit, and it’s a cycle that leaves him wide open to bribery. Same goes for Coates,” he added. “His wife’s paraplegic after a bad road accident a few years ago and needs constant care. The NHS doesn’t cover all of that, not after all the cut-backs, and private healthcare is expensive.”
As he listened, Ryan realised how easy it might be. If a person was desperate enough, or messed up enough, they might think it was a way to escape their problems.
Instead, they ended up creating an even bigger problem for themselves.
“There’s a lot more we’ll be looking at,” Blackett said. “But they’re the main ones.”
Ryan looked him in the eye, and asked him the burning question.
“Alright. You’ve told me about the other units. Now, tell me about Major Crimes. Tell me who you’re looking at, on my team.”
“Like I said, Ryan. You already know.”
CHAPTER 15
As Ryan headed back to the car, his mobile phone rang out a tinny rendition of the theme tune from Back to the Future, which caused a couple of heads to turn nearby.
The caller ID told him it was Phillips.
“Frank?” he answered, whilst rummaging for his car keys. “What’s up?”
“Where the heck’ve you been for the past hour? I’ve been running around the building lookin’ for you, like a right muppet,” Phillips burst out. “Listen, we’ve got a hot lead on a man matching Ludo’s description. A couple of those PCs we sent out in the sticks have struck gold. Apparently, there’s a feller who matches Paul Evershed to a tee, living in a holiday rental.”
“Where?” Ryan demanded, as he slid into the driver’s seat and switched to speakerphone.
“Biddlestone,” Phillips replied. “It’s a little place not too far from Rothbury—”
“I know where it is, Frank. It’s a couple of miles away from my house in Elsdon.”
There was a short, pregnant pause while they both considered what such close proximity could mean. Ludo had a lot to hold against Ryan, since he was the man who had demolished life as he knew it and had forced him to go on the run, keeping him away from his home and business connections—at least, until now. He was usually a paid assassin, but whether he also killed just for sport, they didn’t know.
“How d’you want to play it?” Phillips asked.
“We need to bring him in; he’s a danger to life. Get a team together,” Ryan ordered. “We need a firearms unit, the full works, for deployment within the next half hour. Meet at Netherton—we can set up a control unit there, as it’s only a couple of miles away from Biddlestone. I can be there in half an hour.”
If he stepped on it.
“Ludo knows about Anna,” Ryan added, and thought back to what Blackett had said about unscrupulous characters seeking out a person’s weakness in order to exploit it.
If he had a weakness, it was certainly his wife.
“She’s at the university in Durham, today,” he said, with no small amount of relief. “I’ll call her, but can you put a call through to Durham CID and ask them to send somebody round, just until we’re finished in Biddlestone?”
It was unlikely Ludo would target Anna, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
“Consider it done,” Phillips said.
* * *
After putting a call through to Anna, Ryan floored it all the way along the A1 until the turn-off for Rothbury, where he followed the winding road through its Victorian streets until he reached the village of Netherton. He passed an inn on his left, and took the first right along a side road where a number of other police cars had assembled alongside two small vans carrying specialist firearms officers. Bringing the car to a jerky stop beside them, he moved directly around to the boot, where he kept his protective gear.
Pulling on the vest and tucking a helmet under his arm, he moved quickly to join the rest of his team in a huddle with the head of the firearms unit. Phillips wasn’t present, as somebody was needed to collect Samantha from school, so it was MacKenzie who stood kitted out beside Lowerson, Yates and the others.
Before they had time to react, another car pulled up behind them, and DCI Coates and DS Gallagher spilled out, alongside a couple of constables.
Ryan turned to MacKenzie, who lifted a shoulder.
“Information sharing, remember?”
Ryan gritted his teeth, before diving in.
“Right, thanks for such a speedy response. We’ve got an eyewitness telling us that a man fitting Ludo’s description is, at this very moment, in residence at a holiday let in Biddlestone, which is less than two miles north-west of here. According to the local police, there’s a navy-blue, old-style Land Rover Defender parked on the driveway outside.”
“Have you had the go-ahead from Morrison for this?” Coates asked, and Ryan gave him a cursory glance.
“Of course,” he snapped, and turned quickly to planning their approach before any more precious time was wasted. “Alright, listen up. Our target is Paul Evershed, fifty-one years old. Most likely armed, and he may shoot to kill. Our primary objective is to contain and apprehend the target without bloodshed. However, we have been authorised to use lethal force if necessary.”
He paused to let it sink in. No decent officer relished the prospect, or the responsibility, but the Force took a utilitarian approach. If it would serve to prevent more lives being lost, the taking of a single life was acceptable.
“Mac? Give us a bit of detail about the locale.”
MacKenzie stepped forward.
“From what we understand, the holiday let is comprised of a farmhouse and two smaller outhouses a short distance from the main building,” she said. “Biddlestone is largely rural, but there’s still scope for the target to run to a neighbouring house, or make off across the fields. There’s a quarry nearby, with some associated residential housing.”
Ryan consulted his map.
“The farmhouse is located a quarter of a mile east of the quarry, and there’s a mix of open fields and wooded areas. To access, there’s a B-road, from which a single-track lane leads to the farmhouse.”
He looked up.
“Team A will consist of myself and Trainee DC Yates, alongside two firearms officers including DI Uzma Aziz, who will lead the firearms operation. Team B will consist of DI MacKenzie, DC Lowerson and two other firearms officers.”
“Where are we in all this?” Gallagher demanded.
“You’re not kitted out,” Ryan said, eyeing their suits and ties. “We don’t have time to wait while you sort yourselves out, so please remain here and advise us of any material changes that will affect the operation.”
They weren’t happy about it, Ryan thought, but they couldn’t argue with the logic either.
“Team A to circle around and approach from the west,” he said “Team B to approach from the east and take up a defensive position. Local police are under orders to set up a roadblock through Netherton and likewise to the west, towards Clennell. Is all that understood?”
There were nods around the small huddle of police staff.
“Helmets on,” Ryan said, and slotted his radio to its holster. “Let’s go.”
* * *
There were two firearms vehicles, so Teams A and B split themselves between each van. Ryan and Yates were part of the team approaching from
the west, which meant they needed to find a shortcut to help them circle around, before doubling back along the B-road towards the farmhouse. There was an eerie sense of calm, mingled with a healthy dose of fear—the kind that came with any situation that might lead to the discharge of a weapon.
Ryan, alongside MacKenzie and Phillips, had received additional firearms training, but had no desire to use those skills if he could help it. His police-issue Glock was a weapon of last resort he’d rarely been forced to use, especially not to kill, and he wanted things to stay that way.
“ETA one minute,” Ryan spoke into his radio, and an acknowledgment crackled down the line from MacKenzie’s team soon after.
They parked the van off-road, a quarter of a mile away from the turn-off to the farmhouse. Team A followed, half a mile in the other direction, and it was agreed that both teams would approach slowly on foot, taking cover in the outhouses that were located on the perimeter of the farm. Several local response teams were stationed in neighbouring villages and had already gone around the closest dwellings to evacuate any inhabitants, in the event that things went awry.
Ludo was not above taking hostages, as they had learned to their cost two years ago.
“Team B, approaching the south-westerly perimeter of the farmhouse,” Ryan said, lowering his field glasses as he and Yates followed behind DI Aziz and her firearms partner. They held live weapons in their hands aimed at the patchy earth underfoot, and their heads moved this way and that, scanning the woodland as the driveway came into view.
On the other side of the driveway, Team A moved slowly across the far lawn as a couple of ramshackle outbuildings came into view. Ryan spoke again into his radio, and gave a hand signal across the lawn, which was received, and both teams made their way towards the huts.
The firearms team cleared them for entry, and they found an ancient, rusted ride-on lawnmower and some other garden tools inside, but not much else.
As both teams converged again behind the outhouses, Ryan radioed their position back to Control, and Gallagher’s brash voice sounded out along the wires.
“No reports of anyone matching Ludo’s description having made off on foot, or any sign of a Defender attempting to pass through the roadblocks,” Ryan said. “But I can’t see anything parked on the driveway up there, either.”
It was true; there were no cars parked in front of the farmhouse, and no obvious signs of life.
“Could be around the back,” MacKenzie suggested.
Ryan nodded.
“Alright, Team B will approach from the front; Team A take the rear, in case he tries to make a run for it.”
They moved off again, keeping to the edges of the lawn under cover of the trees.
* * *
With every passing footstep, Ryan became more convinced that nobody was inside the farmhouse. He had no justification for the feeling; there was every possibility that Paul Evershed was inside and, at this very moment, preparing himself for their arrival. All the same, he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
They were too late.
As they drew nearer to the farmhouse, MacKenzie’s team peeled away and went around the back, whilst Ryan kept to the front. The curtains were drawn in all the windows, so it was impossible to know whether anybody was at home.
They approached with extreme caution.
“On my mark,” Ryan murmured into the radio, and readied himself for entry. “Three…two…one… ARMED POLICE! ARMED POLICE!”
He raised a small battering ram to the door and broke the lock, following which the firearms officers entered shouting the same warning. With other suspects, at other times, they might have taken a different, softer approach.
But not with Ludo—they could take no chances.
Ryan and Yates followed the firearms unit inside and heard the same warning echoed by their colleagues at the back door. They searched and cleared each room downstairs, while Ryan indicated that MacKenzie’s team should take the upstairs, until they had searched every nook and cranny of the house.
“It’s clear,” one of the firearms officers said, as he traipsed downstairs again.
Ryan had been right; nobody was there. Nothing moved in the house—not even the stale, slightly garlicky air.
After making a brief report back to Control, who would relay the message to the Chief Constable, Ryan instructed his team to complete a search of the perimeter, to be completely sure they had covered the entire complex.
Once that was complete, he returned to the farmhouse and drew on a pair of nitrile gloves so he could take a more detailed survey. It was an old stone house, built sometime during the late nineteenth century, if he was to hazard a guess, although it had been renovated sometime fairly recently. There were new carpets on the floors and the furnishings, whilst basic, were also quite new.
“Look at this,” MacKenzie said, drawing his attention to a laminated fire escape plan mounted on the wall of the kitchen, beside which was an extinguisher.
In one of the kitchen drawers, they found an old folder detailing how the various appliances worked and local areas of interest.
“Holiday let, or ex-holiday let?” Ryan said, and MacKenzie nodded.
“We can check the address against that list DS Tomlinson sent over, from the Fraud Squad.”
Ryan nodded, and walked across to the built-in oven, where the smell of garlic was even stronger.
“Ludo was here,” he said, laconically.
“We can’t be sure it was him,” MacKenzie replied.
Ryan simply opened the oven door to reveal a roasted chicken, still in its juices.
“We interrupted his lunch.”
At that moment, Lowerson entered the kitchen, with Yates in tow.
“D’you think it was a wild goose chase, or maybe the witness got it wrong?”
Ryan closed the oven door again.
“No, I think Ludo was definitely here. In fact, he was here less than half an hour before we arrived.”
“How could he have known we were coming?” Yates asked, of nobody in particular. “He must have been tipped off!”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
There was a heavy silence in the kitchen, and then MacKenzie swore.
“Who’d do such a thing?”
“We can’t prove there was a tip-off,” Ryan muttered.
“It’s the only explanation,” Yates argued, and he smiled at her passion for the job. It would sustain her, in all the years to come.
And through all the disappointments.
“We’ll investigate through the proper channels,” he said. “For now, we’ve got an All Ports Warning out for Paul Evershed and his face has been plastered across every local and national news channel, as well as on posters in every newsagent, library and restaurant from here to Land’s End. We’ve increased foot patrols by fifty percent, so there are officers on the streets. I want to keep the situation as calm as possible, for however long it takes to bring him in.”
Ryan paused, shifting his helmet from one arm to the other.
“Until that time, we keep searching.”
As they filed out, Ryan realised Jack Lowerson had been the only person not to utter a single word during their exchange.
CHAPTER 16
Jack Lowerson felt the burner mobile vibrate four, five…six times in his pocket, on the journey back to Police Headquarters. Bile rose in his throat and he bore down against churning sickness as MacKenzie drove steadily along the dual carriageway, chatting to Yates who was seated beside her in the front passenger seat.
He rubbed a shaking hand through his hair.
“Do you mind if I put the window down?”
“Of course not,” MacKenzie said, and gave him a concerned look in the rear-view mirror. “Not feeling a hundred percent? Would you like me to stop somewhere?”
“No, no. I’ll be fine, thanks. Just needed some fresh air.”
Lowerson raised his face to the wind, letti
ng the air rush over his skin while the mobile burned a hole in his pocket.
“Alright, well, let me know if you change your mind. I really think Ryan was right, you know. Maybe you should take another couple of days off. There’ve been some nasty viruses flying around, lately,” she said.
“Thanks,” he managed.
“Bobby Singh’s PA left a voicemail message, while we were up there,” Yates said, with a deliberate lack of sympathy. “They say he’ll be free anytime until five-thirty, if we want to go to his office in town.”
Much as they would have liked to maintain the element of surprise, Singh’s busy events schedule put paid to the possibility.
“There should be enough time to go along, if we hurry,” Yates continued, consulting the clock on MacKenzie’s dashboard.
Half-past four.
The thought of coming face to face with the man who was behind his present misery almost sent Lowerson over the edge.
“Great,” he muttered.
Once MacKenzie turned the radio on to give them all a break from shoptalk, Lowerson risked bringing the burner mobile out of his pocket. He stole regular glances at the back of their heads, to check their eyes remained on the road ahead, and then he prepared himself for whatever fresh hell awaited him beyond the click of a button.
* * *
She was dead.
Lowerson could see that, very clearly, from the picture messages. He felt faint, as though his body was becoming weightless. He fumbled the phone back into his jacket pocket and turned his head towards the window, sucking in deep gulps of air.
The songstress on the radio sounded far away and distant, as though the music were wafting towards him beneath the weight of an ocean wave and he shook his head to clear the warped sound.
Rochelle, lying naked on the bed, with blood all over the sheets.
He propped his head on his hand and breathed through his teeth until the first wave of shock passed by.
They had pictures.
The images of Rochelle were imprinted on his mind’s eye, never to be forgotten.