by LJ Ross
Morrison’s eyes crinkled at the corners.
“What’s the second?”
He held out his hand, and Morrison took it gladly.
* * *
Half an hour later, Ryan crossed the foyer on his way to the staff car park. The place was empty except for the duty sergeant at the desk and the reclined figure of a local homeless person whose rumbling snores were oddly comforting.
As he passed the stairwell that led down to the basement, Ryan’s footsteps slowed.
“Bugger it,” he muttered, and changed direction.
He took the stairs two at a time and emerged into the corridor leading towards lock-up. There was a constable on duty, as always, and Ryan hesitated. As much as he wanted to see his friend and offer his support, it would not serve Lowerson’s best interests if his case were scuppered because of police meddling.
He borrowed a piece of paper and a pen, instead.
“If Tebbutt gives her permission, can you pass Lowerson this note?”
The constable looked down at the note and nodded. It read, ‘Keep your chin up. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition’, on account of their shared appreciation of Monty Python.
“I’ll ask.”
Ryan raised his voice a notch, on the off-chance it might carry down to whichever room Lowerson was occupying.
“Thanks. Just tell him we’re thinking of him, alright?”
As his footsteps retreated down the corridor, Lowerson put his head back on the pillow and was finally able to sleep.
* * *
Elsewhere in the city, another person lay wide awake.
Memories of the moment kept replaying in slow motion, showing every perfect detail. It had been so exquisite, so powerful.
There had been a momentary doubt, a slight hesitation when the clock struck midnight. But with all the people cheering and counting down the seconds, it seemed right not to disappoint them.
The colours, the sound of metal splintering, the cries from those too stupid or too stubborn to heed the warning—it had exceeded even the wildest fantasy.
There was no guilt or shame, nothing but a potent sense of release, as if a caged animal had been set free into the wild. It was remarkable to think that, all this time, the feeling had lain hidden beneath the surface, trampled upon and repressed for so long. The animal had lain dormant, waiting to strike forth and become its true self. There was no better time than the present.
What could be built, could be destroyed.
And what was once born must also die.
Nothing was meant to last forever.
CHAPTER 6
Sunday, 11th February
Ryan didn’t return home until the early hours of the morning, when the sky was already beginning to lighten to a deep shade of mauve, heralding the start of a new day. There would be little chance of sleep, but he needed the comfort of home and to be with the woman he loved. He was bone-weary after spending hours on his feet speaking to colleagues across three command divisions, overseeing the aftermath of the explosion and totting up the human cost. Luckily, nobody had lost their life, but the injury list ran to at least thirty reported cases of minor burns and cuts caused by falling debris. He supposed he should be grateful the damage was no worse.
As he suspected, the media had started a feeding frenzy, reporting every detail through the night and replaying the moment the bridge had gone up in a constant loop. Each time another news outlet picked up the story it served as a fresh reminder, rubbing salt into a wound that was already bleeding and raw.
The EOD team had deployed one of their robots to enter the blast zone and complete a thorough check of the site, but the smog and lack of natural light were both barriers to finding out anything meaningful about what had caused the explosion. The decision had been taken to complete a full inspection of the site in the morning and, until then, roadblocks remained in place throughout the night, causing further havoc with the city’s infrastructure.
Still, it was better than the alternative.
The passing landscape changed dramatically as Ryan left the city lights behind and drove north along the A1 motorway towards the outer reaches of Northumberland, where houses and offices gave way to fields and trees coated in a light frosting of snow that had fallen sometime amid all the chaos. Soon, he followed the turning for Elsdon and wound his way into the heart of the countryside, passing through smaller hamlets and the elegant town of Rothbury until he reached the scenic little village where he and Anna had chosen to put down roots.
Anna.
He smiled, just at the thought of her. Who could have thought a murder detective and a historian would build a life—a good life—together? He never imagined the happiness that awaited him, ten years after he had sworn never again to place too much of himself into the hands of another person. His eye caught the shiny gold band on the ring finger of his left hand. It was starting to scuff a bit with wear and tear, and he liked that just fine.
Presently, he drove up a small incline, following a narrow country road that would lead him to the spot where they’d built their home. The tightness in his chest began to ease as its stonework came into view, just visible against the purplish-blue sky. He spotted the porch light and the glow of a lamp inside the hallway which had been left burning for him. Her love was there in that small gesture, and in her every act of kindness each day. Anna asked nothing of him that he was not prepared to give, nor did he ask it of her. Theirs was a partnership of equals; of two souls that had found one another in the wide expanse of the world. She understood his mind just as he understood hers and they were bonded by their shared experience.
They were both survivors of a different kind.
Yes, he thought. He could say that now. Anna had given him the strength to say the word aloud and feel no shame.
He was a survivor.
Ryan’s thoughts strayed back to Jack Lowerson and he leaned back against the leather headrest. They, too, were bonded by a shared experience with the same woman who lay on a metal trolley down at the mortuary. Had Lowerson been pushed once too often, once too hard?
Or had he been the one to do the pushing?
Time would tell.
* * *
“Ryan?”
Anna’s sleepy voice sounded across the shadows of the bedroom.
“Shh, go back to sleep,” he murmured, shrugging out of his jacket. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was only dozing,” she said. It was always hard to fall into a deep sleep when she knew he was out there somewhere, facing untold dangers.
In the twilight, she watched him strip off his shirt and jeans, and then the bed dipped beside her. It was as natural as breathing for his arm to curve around her, for her head to rest on his chest.
“I saw the news,” she said. “It all happened so fast, I can hardly believe it.”
Ryan brushed his lips against her hair and tugged her a little closer.
“There was no time to prevent it,” he said, softly. “We barely had enough time to clear the streets. The blast could have been a lot worse; there was no way of knowing.”
“Do you think it was a terror attack?”
Ryan rubbed his cheek against the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her.
“Whoever did this is a terrorist, but not in the way you mean. I don’t think they’re fighting for any holy cause, any ideology except one that promotes their own ends.”
“You’ll find them,” she said, with conviction. “You always do.”
Ryan thought back to a recent case at Kielder Water and his jaw clenched.
“They don’t always get the justice they deserve,” he said. “Or, at least, not straight away.”
She looked up at his profile in the darkness.
“Do you still want to take a leave of absence?”
Ryan thought of his plans to hunt Nathan Armstrong, the man he knew to be a killer. He was out there, somewhere, probably hurting somebody else’s child, somebody else�
��s mother or brother, and it was a constant ache to know it.
“I’ve been in touch with my counterparts in Paris and Vienna,” he said. “They tell me there’s no evidence to support an investigation and, besides, he’s a celebrity. Apparently, that means he can’t be a killer. I’d be going out there without the approval of those police departments, without the full force of the law backing me.”
All the same, he was ready to do it. He’d been ready to hand in his notice, if that’s what it took to get the job done.
“You can’t leave now that this has happened,” Anna said. He would never leave his team in a moment of need.
“No, I can’t. We’re no closer to finding out what happened to Lucas and, until we do, Lowerson will have a question mark over his head. Tebbutt seems like a decent woman but I’m not going anywhere until I see his name cleared.”
“You’re certain, then, that he couldn’t have done it?”
Ryan had thought of little else. As the Tyne Bridge had gone up in flames and he’d gone through all the necessary motions, he’d still been thinking of Jack’s character and of how far he might have gone.
“It isn’t in his nature,” he said, simply.
Anna nodded her agreement.
“Tebbutt rang me, earlier,” she told him. “I need to go in and give a statement later today.”
Ryan stared up at the skylight overhead, watching the passing clouds.
“We all need to,” he said. “I was granted a reprieve owing to extenuating circumstances, but I can’t put it off much longer.”
“Do you think she’ll want to talk about how you knew Lucas from before?”
“Probably.”
Anna thought of how to ask the question that was uppermost in her mind.
“Ryan, how did you feel when you saw her? I mean, when you knew she was dead?”
He closed his eyes, unwilling to relive the shameful memory of how relieved he had felt; as if somehow the cosmos had decided there were enough bad people in the world and had removed one of them, to even the score. Whatever her past, Lucas had not deserved to die prematurely, and it was unlike him to feel such little compassion.
“I felt…” He took a shaky breath and decided honesty was always the best policy. “I felt happy, Anna. I’m ashamed to say it.”
There was a small pause and he wondered if she was disappointed.
“Then we can be ashamed together, because I felt happy too.”
He looked down into her eyes, then bent his head to bestow a lingering kiss.
“There’s nothing to worry about any more. She’s gone, Anna. She can’t hurt anyone, ever again.”
CHAPTER 7
The new day dawned crisp and clear. Long, watery rays of amber sunshine trailed across the hills and valleys, brushing warm fingers of light against the houses scattered in between. The wintry air was cold, nipping at their cheeks when Ryan and Anna left shortly after seven and made their way back into the city, she to give her statement to DCI Tebbutt and he to hold the first briefing of what had been aptly named, ‘OPERATION ALCHEMY.’
There seemed to be an unnatural hush as they drew closer to the city, as if its people were in mourning. With road closures still in place, people had taken to the streets to make their way into town and see for themselves what had happened to one of the most famous monuments to their industrial heritage. The morning news had been unrelenting in its coverage of the disaster and had, by now, amassed numerous quasi-intellectuals who were on hand to give an ‘expert’ view of the situation, ranging from former Metropolitan police officers to retired army personnel. Opinion was divided, with most believing ISIS would come forward and claim responsibility before the morning was over, and a few outliers believing it would be the IRA who would claim that dubious honour instead.
Yet there had been no statement from either party.
Northumbria Police Headquarters rested on the eastern fringes of the city, in an area known as Wallsend. It took its name from the Roman wall which began within striking distance of their new offices and ended eighty-four miles away on the western coast of Cumbria.
“Strange to think of how different the landscape must have looked when the wall was built,” Anna remarked, as they stopped at a set of traffic lights just outside the gates to the archaeological site. “I must go back and visit the heritage centre sometime.”
Ryan smiled at her, then put the car into gear as the lights changed.
“I’ve never known anybody love history as much as you,” he said. “I worry, sometimes, that my work gets in the way of your career. I know you’re writing a book and there’s your teaching at the university, but is there anything you really want to do? My work can be…” He tried to find a delicate word for ‘all-consuming’ and settled on, “Cumbersome.”
Anna thought of the regular offers she received to lecture at universities around the world. Sometimes, she took them up; other times, she didn’t.
“Your work doesn’t get in the way,” she replied. “And I don’t feel held back. My specialism is in North-Eastern early-religious history and practices. I’m in the very best place to keep learning about that. If I want to gallivant abroad, nobody’s stopping me.”
“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I only hope you need a groupie to carry your bags.”
He wriggled his eyebrows at her, and she laughed.
“You’ll tell me, if the situation ever changes?”
Anna nodded.
“Shy bairns get nowt, as my granny always used to say.”
Now, it was Ryan’s turn to laugh.
* * *
Ryan stepped into one of the larger conference rooms in CID just before eight o’clock and was pleased to see it already had a handwritten sign declaring it to be the Major Incident Room. He found it half-full of staff ranging from data analysts to specialist technical support personnel, as well as some of the usual suspects. In the corner, a television had been tuned to the news channel with its sound muted and the subtitles enabled.
“Mornin’ lad,” Phillips was the first to greet him.
Ryan presented his sergeant with a takeaway cup.
“Ah, you’re a goodun’,” the other man declared, taking a delicate sip to check its contents had been sweetened to his taste.
“How’d you sleep?” Ryan asked.
Phillips made a rocking motion with his hand.
“So-so,” he replied. “What with Jack…and then the bridge?” He shook his head, sagely. “No chance of me getting any shut-eye.”
“You could’ve fooled me, Frank.”
Phillips turned to find his fiancée sauntering towards them with a disbelieving look on her face.
“Morning,” she said, and waggled her thumb in Phillips’ general direction. “This one’s snoring probably kept the whole neighbourhood awake last night. That, or a rhino broke loose from the zoo and went on a rampage through the streets.”
Ryan snorted a laugh while Phillips butted out his chin.
“I’ll have you know, I never snore,” he said, with some dignity.
“In that case, somebody better call the zoo,” MacKenzie replied, deadpan. “Where’s Yates?”
“She’s down at The Enquirer, taking a statement from the bloke manning the news desk, or whoever picked up the incoming messages last night,” Ryan said.
Further conversation was forestalled by the arrival of Captain Gary Nobel from the EOD Unit, who framed himself inside the doorway with the kind of practised air that drew all eyes in the room. Although it wasn’t strictly necessary, he had chosen to wear slim-fitting khaki trousers and a skin-tight, long-sleeved jersey that clung in a manner that made Phillips regret the bacon butty he’d wolfed down earlier that morning.
“Thanks for joining us.” Ryan gestured him forward. “You’ve already met my sergeant, but I don’t think you’ve met DI MacKenzie?”
Without his safety gear, they could see that Nobel was a little under six feet tall, with lightly tanned skin, bright blue eye
s, blond hair going grey at the temples, and an athletic build. In other words, Phillips thought, he looked like Brad Pitt’s less famous brother.
Damn him.
“No, I don’t think I have. It’s a pleasure,” Nobel reached a muscular arm across Phillips’ face to extend his hand, which MacKenzie shook as a matter of politeness. “I’m only sorry I stayed on the north side of the bridge, last night. Clearly, I should have opted for the south.”
He flashed a winning smile.
MacKenzie raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow, while Phillips bristled. Sensing an altercation might not be far off, Ryan stepped in.
“Are the rest of your team still down at the bridge?”
Nobel dragged his eyes away from the attractive redhead and folded his arms across his chest, which had the added benefit of drawing attention to his pectorals. Women loved that, didn’t they?
“Yes, Bannerman and Wilson are down there with the other two lads. They’ll head up and join us as soon as they can, but I thought you’d want to have an update in the meantime.”
Ryan nodded.
“Thanks. We’ll make a start.”
When Nobel headed towards the front of the room to take a seat, Phillips turned to MacKenzie.
“I don’t trust him,” he growled.
MacKenzie stuck her tongue in her cheek and tried to stifle a laugh.
“Now, Frank…”
“I mean it. I don’t care if he’s GI Joe, I don’t like the cut of that bloke’s jib.”
* * *
Ryan walked to the front of the room to stand in front of a long whiteboard he’d set up with a series of significant times and events from the previous day. There were no names or faces tacked to the board other than the pseudonym of their unknown quarry, The Alchemist.
He waited for the room to settle, which didn’t take long. Chairs scraped, chatter died, and they awaited his instructions.
Ryan swept his gaze around the room.
“For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past twelve hours, let me remind you that we are tasked with uncovering the identity and whereabouts of the person or persons unknown, calling themselves The Alchemist. This person or organisation sent a warning e-mail to The Enquirer at approximately eleven o’clock last night, which they did not report to us until twenty-past eleven. The contents of the e-mail were straightforward; we were told that the Tyne Bridge would burn at midnight and that it would be the first.”