by LJ Ross
“Let’s say this detective finally seems to be getting things back on track, when he sees an opportunity to fast-track again.”
“Uh-oh,” Anna murmured, wondering what Jack had gone and done now.
“Indeed,” Ryan said. “Instead of seeking the help of his team, this young detective walks into a situation where he is at the mercy of some very bad men.”
Anna was worried.
“Does he escape?” she asked.
“Yes, he does,” Ryan said, in the same smooth, story-telling voice. “He’s allowed to survive, but he’s now beholden to these men because they have some evidence against him that would look very, very bad for him if they were to send it to his seniors, or to the Professional Standards Department.”
Anna looked across at her husband.
“How bad?” she asked. “Bad enough to be sacked?”
“Worse,” Ryan replied, shortly. “Bad enough to go to prison.”
Anna put her elbow on the edge of the bench and rested her head in her hand, while her mind spiralled with ideas about what Jack Lowerson might have done.
“Now, let’s say this young detective has a good friend who happens to be his boss,” Ryan said, and thought it was an odd sort of exercise describing himself in this hypothetical tale. “This man notices that his protégé hasn’t been himself, lately, but puts it down to illness or something else. He’s had his ups and downs, after all. But then, the young detective contacts him and asks him to come over, late at night, and to be careful that he isn’t seen.”
Anna thought of the night Ryan had been very late coming home, and was glad to know why.
“This older detective is concerned, so he goes to see his young friend,” Ryan said, thinking of how bad Lowerson had looked when he’d first walked through the man’s front door. “He learns about the corner this friend finds himself backed into, and begins to understand why the young man is too worried to sleep, or eat.”
“Poor Jack,” Anna muttered, and Ryan didn’t bother to correct the slip.
“The older detective is faced with a new problem. Unbeknown to anybody, the Professional Standards Department have separately approached him with their theory about there being several moles operating across the different command divisions—”
“Including—” Anna started to say, and Ryan nodded.
“Yes, including Major Crimes.”
There was a moment’s pause, while Anna went through similar emotions to those Ryan had experienced when he’d first heard the words from DCI Blackett.
“This older detective is already concerned about whether there might be a mole operating in his team, working with nefarious criminals, when this young friend tells him that’s precisely what he’s been doing.”
Anna gave him a searching look, and squeezed his hand.
“How did you react?”
“I can tell you how this man reacted,” Ryan said, pausing to brush his lips against hers. “He was shocked and disappointed. He felt all the emotions, and he wanted to know what leverage these people had over his young friend. The leverage was bad—I won’t tell you how bad, Anna. But it would have been enough for him to walk out of the door again and report the young man, there and then.”
“What stopped…him?”
“This young man isn’t capable of doing what he’s being framed for,” Ryan said. “So, together, they concoct a plan, but it requires total secrecy.”
“Not telling their other friends, or their family?” Anna finished for him.
“Exactly. It also requires some doctoring of files and evidence, in the short-term, to make things appear authentic for anybody who happens to be watching.”
Anna didn’t know what to say.
“Both of them are worried about whether their plan will work, and if the rest of their team will forgive them for the subterfuge,” Ryan said.
Anna nodded.
“What about their safety?” she asked. “Are they both safe?”
Ryan raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm.
“I don’t know, Anna. We’re going as fast as we can to put it behind us.”
There was a lot she might have said, words she could have used, but she simply leaned her head against his chest and listened to the strong thud of his heartbeat.
“You’re not alone,” she said. “I’ll always be your friend, Ryan, and the others will too. You know why? Because you’re a good man, and they know that as well as I do.”
To his embarrassment, a lump rose in his throat.
“Thank you,” he said, huskily.
CHAPTER 29
“They said what? I’ll kill the little toe-rags!”
MacKenzie put a finger to her lips and then pointed upstairs, to where Samantha had recently fallen asleep.
“Shh, Frank! Do you want to wake the whole neighbourhood?”
“D’ you think I care about waking up old Albert at Number 22, when my girl’s had to listen to that awful nonsense, all day? They ought to be ashamed…”
“It’s the parents, as much as anything,” MacKenzie murmured. “You might want to tone down the death threats, what with us both being murder detectives. It looks bad.”
His lips twitched at that, and then his face fell back into angry lines, reminding her of a bull preparing to charge.
“It also means I know how to cover one up,” he muttered, darkly, and held up a hand when she would have told him off again. “I know, I know. They’re only kids, too. But there’s no call for that kind of thing.”
“I agree, especially as it’s a very sensitive time in her life,” MacKenzie said, keeping her voice low. “I was going to suggest having a word with her teacher, so she can be aware.”
Phillips took a couple of deep breaths and couldn’t help thinking that, when he was a lad, a couple of short jabs was usually enough to stop any nonsense from a school bully.
“I’m really hoping this was just a one-off,” MacKenzie said, in worried tones. “She’s been through enough…”
Phillips set aside his own anger to comfort his wife.
“There, love. Come and have a sit down,” he said, as they settled on the sofa. “We can’t protect her from all the nasty people in the world, even if we wanted to. It’s a part of living.”
“I know, you’re right. But you hear about young kids who’ve been bullied for years, and end up taking their own life. It’s the stuff of nightmares.”
“It’ll never come to that,” he assured her, and thought he’d sooner go around to the parents’ house and give them a good thump, before it ever got that bad.
MacKenzie sighed.
“She loved visiting Pegasus today,” she said. “I think it really cheered her up. We called in to see Anna and Ryan, since they’re next to the livery, but nobody was home.”
Phillips reached across to start rubbing her feet, which usually ached at the end of the day.
“Ryan’s been a funny bugger today,” he said, with his usual eloquence. “Hardly saw him all day and, when I did, he was cagey. It isn’t like him.”
“I wonder if something’s wrong,” she said. “Is everything alright between him and Anna?”
“Oh, aye, never better,” Phillips said. He’d always had a soft spot for Ryan’s wife, who he’d had the honour of walking down the aisle when she married his friend. “I don’t think it’s that.”
“Something at work, then? He’s got a lot on his plate, managing Operation Watchman, plus this Penshaw case Morrison threw on the pair of you, at the last minute.”
A shadow crossed Phillips’ face.
“I don’t know if that’s what’s been bothering Ryan, but I can tell you the Penshaw case has raked up a few old memories for me.”
She leaned over, to rub his arm.
“What memories, Frank?”
“Alan Watson was a Union man, during the ’84 Miners’ Strike,” he told her. “Well, back then, I was just getting started on the Force and, over the summer of ’84, almost every constable in t
he district was sent in to put on a show of muscle. The brass told us it was about keeping the peace but, I swear, Denise, when we got there, it was peaceful enough.”
She continued to rub his arm in soothing circles.
“There were some rowdier than others, some loudmouths, but there was no need to send in a bloody army of us. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable,” he said. “It made me question whether I’d done the right thing, joining the police.”
“What kept you going?”
“It made my Da’ proud,” he admitted. “And then, later, I was transferred to Major Crimes and I started getting a taste for the job.”
“D’you think Ryan’s having a bit of a crisis like that?” she wondered. “He’s weathered a lot of storms, for a man his age. He’s got a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Do you think he’s feeling it?”
Phillips considered the question, and couldn’t rule out the possibility that she was right.
“I don’t know what it is, love. He’s not talking about it, and I don’t want to keep asking.”
“He’ll tell us when he’s ready,” she said. “When he does, we’ll be there to listen.”
“You’re a good woman, Denise MacKenzie.”
“Too good for the likes of you, Frank Phillips,” she shot back, with a smile.
“Never a truer word spoken, my love.”
With that, he stood up from the sofa and held out a hand to pull her up with him.
“Bedtime?” he said, and wiggled his preposterous eyebrows.
* * *
Jack Lowerson checked into a hotel beside the airport, which he’d selected chiefly for its anonymity and distance from the centre of town. He didn’t kid himself that Ludo or another of Singh’s goons couldn’t find him with a little research, but he could no longer sit inside his own flat and watch the door, night after night.
He needed sleep.
Lowerson passed at least three couples on the way to his room, all of whom carried little or no luggage and appeared to have just finished work, judging by the suits and high heels. He didn’t feel particularly judgemental—how they chose to spend their time was no concern of his—but he would have preferred to know there were other people spending a full night on the same floor, rather than a quick, two-hour romp.
He let himself into a soulless room with beige walls and a stained, maroon headboard that hung halfway from the wall. The carpet had a number of old cigarette burns and a musty odour somewhere between tobacco smoke and mildew. The bed let out a plaintive whine as he perched on the end, its metal springs clearly on their last legs.
It would do.
Anything would do, so long as he could sleep for more than thirty minutes at a time.
He locked the door to his room and pulled up the desk chair, wedging it beneath the handle to provide an extra layer of protection. He’d requested a room on one of the upper floors to make it harder for anybody to access from the outside, and he was reasonably certain nobody would find him, since the room had been booked and paid for under Ryan’s name, for an added layer of protection. His friend had suggested coming to stay with him for a while, but it was too dangerous, and might arouse suspicion. Ryan had suggested putting him up in a hotel much nicer than the one he was presently enjoying, but fancier places drew fancier crowds, like dealers with money to burn in the hotel bars.
No—here would do him just fine.
Lowerson had a long shower, trying and failing to scrub away the grimy layer of guilt that stuck to his skin, and then checked all the windows again. He sank down on the bed with a towel still wrapped around his waist and geared up the courage to complete the final task of the day.
Sure enough, when he checked the burner mobile, another message popped up:
TIME TO REPORT.
Lowerson typed a carefully considered reply:
DEMON EVIDENCE TAKEN CARE OF. PENSHAW CASE LOOKING ACCIDENTAL. JOB DONE.
There was a ten-second delay, and then another message landed:
JOB IS NEVER DONE. REPORT AGAIN TOMORROW.
Jack gave in to frustration and lobbed the plastic phone across the room, where it made a small dent in the wall and then dropped to the floor. Immediately concerned that he’d damaged his only line of communication, he hurried to check it wasn’t broken.
The cheap burner phone was still intact. Much like a cockroach, it could survive most things.
No longer able to contemplate sleep, Lowerson took out his laptop. There was work to be done, the kind that was better taken care of out of the office and away from prying eyes. Since the text had arrived asking him to downplay the death of Simon Watson in Penshaw, he’d been trying to understand what possible connection there could be between Watson and Bobby Singh. There was the fact that the former was a recovering addict, and Singh made much of his income from men and women like that, but Singh was unlikely to sully himself with petty deals.
No, there had to be something else.
As part of his routine enquiries, Phillips had requested the CCTV footage from the main road and surrounding businesses within a radius of Watson’s bungalow, and Lowerson saw that a response had come through already from a local convenience store and service station. There was also some ANPR footage of the motorway within a few miles of Penshaw, all accessible with his passcode. Jack’s eyes were dry, and his vision blurred, but sleep would not come, so he clicked on the first file.
And, unbelievably, managed to hit lucky.
The only camera footage to come through from Penshaw village was taken from the local convenience store, the owner of which had invested in a high spec camera which was positioned to capture the till area, with a second external camera situated outside the door. Both cameras had captured a man Lowerson recognised instantly as Ludo entering the shop at ten fifty-five. He moved directly to the till area, where he was picked up by the other camera, and purchased two packets of cigarettes, a lighter and a chocolate bar. He wore dark jeans and a dark sweatshirt and, when his face turned slightly and Lowerson froze the screen, he could see that Ludo had begun to grow a beard. At first, Lowerson was incredulous at the audacity of the man allowing himself to be captured on CCTV on his way to commit murder, but then he realised that Ludo really had nothing to lose, since he was already wanted for so many other equally serious crimes.
After an exchange lasting no more than a minute, Ludo exited the shop at ten fifty-six and turned right, where Lowerson happened to know there was space on the kerb for parked cars. Two minutes later, long enough for a quick fag, Lowerson caught sight of the bottom half of a Land Rover Defender passing quickly along the top of the image. He paused the video and went back frame by frame until the number plate was clearly visible. It didn’t match the plate they had on file for the Defender last seen outside the farmhouse at Biddlestone, so Lowerson ran it through the DVLA database. The licence plate was registered to an address in Cornwall but had only shown up on Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras in the local area in the last couple of days. That could only mean one thing: Ludo was using false plates.
His pulse quickening, Lowerson searched the ANPR database and found a cluster of matches around Washington Services. None of the footage from the main roads immediately surrounding the village was available, but there were at least five CCTV cameras dotted around Washington Service Station, a major site spread across the A1 motorway in both directions, connected by a high walkway, with food and drink retailers on both sides. If a person planned to drive from Penshaw northbound towards Newcastle or Northumberland, or in the reverse direction, it was a safe bet they would pass those services.
To reach the service station from that direction, a car would have to pass beneath the flyover before entering the car park or the petrol station on either side, and there was an ANPR camera covering both directions of traffic. Lowerson clicked open the file provided to them by Highways England showing the southbound approach into the service station, which started to play automatically from around seven-thirty in the
morning. He decided to fast forward, concentrating his efforts on the times flagged up by the ANPR system, when he caught sight of a Land Rover Defender passing beneath the camera.
It was gone in a flash at around seven-thirty-six a.m., but Lowerson rewound the footage and watched it over again, fiddling with the screen so he could try to zoom in on the number plate or the driver’s face.
Instead, Lowerson found the rolling footage from the service station on the southbound side, and concentrated his efforts on the time Ludo would have been likely to drive in or out after passing beneath the ANPR camera. There was no sign of him entering the car park or the service station, and he was afraid Ludo might have driven past the services to continue his journey on the motorway.
Then, he spotted the edge of the Defender.
It was in the background of camera footage capturing the entrance to the car park, nearest to the service station hotel.
In the footage, Ludo entered the car park and parked in the first available slot, nearest the exit rather than nearest the entrance to the service station and restaurants. The footage was extremely grainy but, after then, it appeared Ludo walked away from the service station and towards a pedestrian pathway, after which he soon dropped out of sight.
Lowerson froze the screen again and leaned back against the sticky maroon headboard to consider what this meant. There were quicker, safer ways to access Washington, a small town located not far from Sunderland and Penshaw, than parking at the service station and entering the area on foot, so why would Ludo choose that route, or that method?
There was always the possibility he was seeking to approach Penshaw via a circuitous method, having left his car at the service station car park, it would be too far to walk from there to Penshaw, and Ludo would have no means of making a quick getaway.
Then, there was the timing.
If Simon Watson died late at night, and the convenience store put Ludo in the vicinity around eleven-fifteen, why then was he captured on the ANPR and service station cameras driving past hours earlier, just after seven-thirty in the morning?
It didn’t make sense.
Lowerson brought up a map of the area to give himself a better understanding of where the pedestrian pathway would lead, if that’s the direction Ludo had taken. Tracing the pathway with the tip of his finger, Jack saw that it passed through a housing estate until it connected with another main road, on the other side of which was a primary school.