Seven Bridges

by LJ Ross

  Tebbutt nodded, thinking back to her conversation with Anna earlier that morning.

  “What did you do?”

  “I did a bit of cleaning and tidying ahead of guests arriving.”

  She spared him a disbelieving glance and his anger reached boiling point.

  “Look, Joan. If you’re so jaded that you don’t believe me capable of picking up a vacuum cleaner and a mop, that says more about you than it does about me. Like it or not, that’s what I was doing.”

  Tebbutt pursed her lips.

  “What time did Anna arrive home?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. About six, six-thirty, maybe? She came home, we prepared dinner and then Phillips and MacKenzie arrived around seven-thirty,” he rapped out, staccato style. “At nine o’clock or thereabouts, the doorbell rang. We weren’t expecting anybody else and I answered it to find Jack Lowerson looking shaken—”

  “Is it usual for a murder detective to be so shaken up at having discovered a body? In our line of work, that’s par for the course, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’d say that’s a matter for the individual.”

  “Very diplomatic,” she purred. “But, you were saying you opened the door to find him shaken. Then what?”

  “I noticed he had blood on his clothing and I thought he might have hurt himself, but then he told me he had found DCS Lucas.”

  “Did you question why he would be the one to find DCS Lucas?”

  “I did not.”

  Tebbutt almost sighed.

  “You didn’t find it strange that Lowerson was at DCS Lucas’s house, after hours?”

  “I have no opinion on the matter.”

  There was an awkward pause but, unlike other witnesses, Ryan was impervious to Tebbutt’s usual questioning techniques.

  “Lowerson was obviously shocked,” Ryan did say. “I advised him to telephone the Control Room to report the incident and you know the rest.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, setting her pen aside for a moment. “But, tell me, Ryan. Why do you think Lowerson came to you, rather than calling it in first?”

  “I imagine he had a bad shock and decided to seek out his friends,” Ryan said quietly. “That’s what many of us would do.”

  “But not a trained detective, who should know better,” she remarked.

  Ryan folded his arms across his chest and, when no comment was forthcoming, Tebbutt pressed on.

  “When was the last time you saw DCS Lucas alive, Ryan?”

  His lips firmed.

  “I submitted a report on the progress of several active cases on Saturday morning, before each of us was due to go off-shift. We had a brief conversation in her office and, presumably, her assistant can attest to the fact.”

  “Was DC Lowerson there, too?”

  “No, I believe it was his day off.”

  “Was it awkward to work with DCS Lucas, given your previous relationship?”

  If Ryan was disappointed to find the office rumour mill had been at work, nothing of it showed on his face, which remained entirely impassive.

  “That is none of your business whatsoever.”

  “I disagree,” she said. “I understand that relations between you and the late DCS Lucas were extremely strained, owing in part to an acrimonious relationship you had many years ago.”

  “Ancient history,” he snapped.

  Tebbutt seemed to consider something, then reached for a cardboard folder she’d placed on the empty chair beside her. Ryan frowned as she pulled out a sealed evidence bag, drew on a pair of gloves, then retrieved a series of photographs.

  His face drained of colour as she laid them out on the table in front of him.

  “Do you recognise these photographs, Ryan?”

  His gaze swept over the small collection of images, taken of himself and Lucas over a decade ago. He hardly recognised the tall, black-haired young man together with the petite brunette, smiling together in St. James’ Park on a sunny afternoon. He remembered that day vividly; it was the day she’d first threatened to ruin his career, should he so much as look at any other woman, even in passing. Lucas must have kept the pictures, for posterity.

  “We found these in DCS Lucas’s home,” Tebbutt was saying. “Were you aware that she had these images in her possession?”

  His eyes swirled with emotions when they swept up again to look at her and Tebbutt had the uncomfortable sensation of having gone too far, though she was only doing her job.

  “Ryan—”

  “The interview is over,” Ryan told her.

  A moment later, he was gone.

  CHAPTER 11

  A lesser person might have been intimidated by the sight of Ryan storming down the main corridor of CID with a murderous expression on his face, but Chief Constable Morrison was not one of them.

  “Ryan? A moment, please.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. I need to get down to the Quayside.”

  “Phillips and MacKenzie are more than capable of managing for now. I need a word,” she said, with an edge to her voice that told him the ‘word’ would not be a pleasant one.

  And it wasn’t.

  “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she stormed, as soon as the door shut smartly behind him.

  Ryan planted his feet.

  “I’m afraid you’ll need to elaborate,” he said.

  “Oh, I’ll be happy to.”

  Morrison moved around to the other side of her desk and flung her bag on top of it. To her chagrin, a half-used tissue and a tube of lipstick rolled out, which did not escape Ryan’s notice and spurred her to even greater heights of irritation.

  “I’ve just had the Editor-in-Chief of The Enquirer on the phone, asking me to explain why the media ban hasn’t been lifted despite an obvious threat to public safety. You can imagine my embarrassment at having to find this out from him, rather than from my own DCI.”

  Ryan stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “I was going to update you, but I was accosted by Tebbutt on my way out of the door.”

  Morrison almost chuckled at the thought of Joan Tebbutt hoodwinking one of her best men, but managed to keep herself in check since there were more pressing matters at hand.

  Ryan was impatient.

  “Look, Sandra. I’ve given the EOD Unit half an hour to do a quick risk assessment and a recon of the bridges, in case there’s anything obvious. I don’t expect there to be,” he added, “but we have to look.”

  Morrison lowered herself into her desk chair and Ryan took a couple of steps further into the room.

  “Okay,” she said. “What then? Have you spoken with the local police? What’s being done?”

  Morrison tapped an anxious finger against the edge of her desk.

  “As soon as I hear from EOD that their recon is complete, I’ll lift the media ban,” Ryan told her. “We still have two hours for the press to work their magic and traffic should reduce across all the bridges as soon as word gets out. We can’t risk uniformed officers going anywhere near the river, but I’ve got plain-clothed police officers and specialist firearms officers stationed on foot on both sides of the riverbank with orders to intercept with extreme caution. I’m waiting to hear from my contact at GCHQ to see if they can trace the website or the e-mail server IP and I’ve asked our own tech team to keep working on that angle, too.”

  Morrison rubbed the heel of her hand against her chest while she listened. It all sounded reasonable and, if she were in his position, she might have taken the same action.

  But the desk she occupied required a different approach, one where she needed to consider the politics of a situation, which was something she knew Ryan struggled to understand. In his world, actions and consequence were what mattered most, not spreadsheets and approval ratings.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  “The terms are two million pounds in bitcoins,” she said. “Who knows whether GCHQ will come up with any useful intel before noon? It’s almost ten o’clock, already, Ryan.
There’s no time to waste and, as soon as the motorways, the rail network and the bridges are effectively shut down, that’s going to cost the city millions with every passing hour. We can’t afford it.”

  Ryan frowned.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that we pay the ransom, because it’s cheaper than the alternative?”

  Morrison shuffled in her seat.

  “Look, if we pay this lunatic off, everybody wins and nobody gets hurt.”

  “You don’t know that,” he ground out. “We’re dealing with an unknown quantity and there’s every chance they’ll detonate another bridge even if we meet those terms. There’s a bloody good reason why we don’t negotiate with terrorists. If you pay the ransom, it sends out a clear message to every other maniac that it’s open season. You might as well send personal invitations to each and every one of them, telling them that bomb threats will be paid off under our jurisdiction.”

  “You’d rather see another bridge go up than pay the money to stop it?”

  Ryan didn’t so much as flinch.

  “Sandra, so long as nobody is hurt, I’d rather see every bridge go up, because bridges can be rebuilt. The liberal values we fight every day to uphold, the ones that allow us all to live together side by side with as little animosity as possible, aren’t so easily rebuilt.”

  Morrison looked away as his words hit home.

  “Alright, Ryan, you’ve made your point. You’ve got until eleven o’clock to make the area safe. After then, I can’t make any promises we won’t be overruled from the powers above.”

  Ryan took that as dismissal and turned to leave.

  “Ryan?”

  He paused with his hand on the door.

  “Yes?”

  Morrison opened her mouth and then closed it again, waving him away.

  “Nothing. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  * * *

  Phillips and MacKenzie stood on the rooftop of the mediaeval ‘new’ castle, a stone fortress from which the city of Newcastle took its name. Situated on high ground between the railway station and the cathedral of St. Nicolas, it boasted panoramic views of the river which made it the perfect choice for a temporary base. From their position, they were afforded a birds-eye view of all seven bridges crossing the busiest section of the Tyne, including the Tyne Bridge itself which, although battered and bruised, was still standing tall and proud in the steel-grey of a winter’s morning.

  “You doin’ alright, love?” Phillips enquired of his fiancée.

  There were very few things that frightened Denise MacKenzie, but heights happened to be one of them.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, injecting a bright tone into her voice. “I’m fine. Really.”

  But her stomach shuddered dangerously as she glanced over the edge of the crenellated parapet and caught sight of the ground, eighty-one feet below.

  “Well, just say if you need to take a break. There doesn’t really need to be two of us up here,” he said.

  MacKenzie looked across at Phillips with an affectionate smile. She already knew him to be a kind, thoughtful man, but she’d forgotten about his chivalry. Smiling to herself, she trained her binoculars on the High Level Bridge, which stood directly in front of them. It served as a one-way road for buses crossing from Newcastle to Gateshead as well as a functioning railway bridge. Aside from its larger neighbour, it was arguably the most noteworthy of the seven bridges, having been designed by Robert Stephenson to form a rail link towards Scotland in the early days of railway infrastructure.

  “It hasn’t kept people away, Frank,” she muttered, from behind the binoculars. “I’ve seen plenty of buses and taxis crossing over the High Level, and that doesn’t count the number of pedestrians and rail traffic.” She lowered the glasses and turned to Phillips with worried eyes. “Ryan’s right. As soon as EOD have finished here, we need to lift the press ban and put the fear of God into the people of this city, so they’ll stay away and be safe.”

  Phillips had been thinking the same thing as he watched a mainline train chug slowly across the King Edward bridge, which served as another main railway bridge in and out of the city.

  “The rail companies have reduced their services for today after what happened last night, but they haven’t stopped altogether. Morrison doesn’t want to cause a panic and she doesn’t want the city grinding to a halt,” he said. “But, if I were batty as a box of frogs, where would I go and hide a bomb? Probably on one of those two bridges, because they see the most traffic and stand to make the most impact.”

  They looked between the High Level and the King Edward bridges and MacKenzie shivered as a gust of cold wind took her by surprise.

  “I agree. But then, there’s the Scotswood Bridge, too. It’s not part of the seven main bridges in this stretch, but that sees a lot of traffic. And what about the A1 motorway as it crosses the Tyne?” she continued, as the possibilities began to spiral. “If that went up, you’d cut off the main road link between England and Scotland and grind things to a halt.”

  Phillips heard a note of panic in her voice and turned to give her arms a gentle rub.

  “We’ll do our best not to let that happen. That’s all we can do.”

  MacKenzie thought of all the men, women and children travelling by car or rail, passing through the city and wondered whether they would remain unscathed by the time the morning was out.

  They turned at the sound of the access door opening behind them and watched Ryan step out onto the rooftop, zipping up his all-weather coat against the frosty air.

  “Temperature’s dropped,” he said, with a weather eye on the sky which had turned overcast as the morning progressed. “More snow is the last thing we need.”

  “Been a long winter,” Phillips grumbled, while his keen gaze noted the lines of stress etched on his friend’s face. “How’d it go with Tebbutt?”

  Ryan made a show of turning up his collar and reaching for a pair of binoculars.

  “She has more information than she needs,” he said shortly, then bobbed his head in the direction of the river. “Any word from EOD?”

  They turned back to the water, all business now.

  “Nobel’s team are down there in plain clothes and, since there’s still a fair amount of traffic going over the bridges, they decided it was safe enough to do a quick pass over each of them to see if they could spot anything at a glance,” MacKenzie replied. “Nobel’s already looked over the Swing Bridge and he’s down at the Millennium Bridge now. He’s got two of his team on Redheugh Bridge and the Metro Bridge. Sue Bannerman’s doing a walk over the High Level and Kevin Wilson’s down at the King Edward, although it won’t be easy to see much without making it very obvious that they’re one of ours.”

  Ryan nodded as he fiddled with the lens on his binoculars and watched a couple of pedestrians. It wasn’t until he looked again that he realised one of them belonged to the EOD Unit.

  “They blend in,” he murmured. “But let’s hope nobody recognises any of them.”

  All three turned when the outer door was flung open again, this time to reveal one of the staff belonging to the Castle.

  “Um, sorry, excuse me?”

  A young man of around twenty-five emerged onto the roof wearing a cable-knit jumper emblazoned with the Castle’s logo and a harried expression.

  “I’m sorry, you can’t be up here just now,” Ryan said, and began reaching for his warrant card.

  “I know—I’m sorry, it’s just we need to know if it’s true what they’re saying on the news?”

  Ryan’s eyes turned flinty.

  “What do you mean?”

  The man blew a noisy breath of air between his fingers to warm them, and looked between the three of them with wide eyes.

  “Moira down in reception told me it’s just come on the news about there being another bomb on a bridge, only you don’t know which one. Is it true?”

  Ryan turned away and swore viciously, leaning both hands against the out
er wall while he wondered who he should murder first: members of the news desk at The Enquirer, or the bigwigs in his own constabulary?

  “Don’t panic, son,” Phillips stepped into the breach. “We’ve got it all in hand. But, if you need to get across the river to go home, it might be worth leaving early so your family aren’t worrying about you.”

  The man needed no second bidding and spun around to clatter back down the stone steps in his haste to get away.

  “Bloody brilliant,” MacKenzie said, and put a hasty call through to alert the officers on the ground.

  On the streets below, word began to spread like wildfire amongst the people of Newcastle and Gateshead. They scattered like ants, hurrying back to their homes and loved ones as the minutes ticked by, edging ever closer to midday. Details of the website where The Alchemist demanded payment were released and Ryan’s small team watched with growing frustration as the online counter crept higher and higher as the public made donations to try to prevent another blast.

  And as panic gripped the city, one person watched and felt invincible.

  CHAPTER 12

  Jack Lowerson watched the news report from the sofa in his parents’ living room, with the sound turned low. He heard the words bomb and terror but couldn’t seem to muster the energy to worry about it, or even to wonder what kind of warped personality might be responsible for striking fear into the hearts of his friends and neighbours.

  “Jack?”

  His mother came into the room carrying a tray laden with his favourite things from childhood; jam sandwiches, crisps, even a small pot of jelly. He watched her set it on the coffee table beside him.

  “Aren’t you hungry? You haven’t eaten in hours,” she said, coming to perch beside him on the sofa.

  His head began to ache again, a constant pain at the base of his skull.

  “No, thanks,” he managed.

  Her face fell in disappointment, but she nodded.

  “Do you want some company?”

  It was the last thing he wanted, but he could hardly refuse to have her near him when there was such a pleading tone in her voice, such a desperation to be near him.

  “Yes, that would be nice,” he said, robotically.