by LJ Ross
“Do you know anything else about the man? His profession, perhaps?”
“I can tell you what he looked like but that’s about it. He looked like a right poser,” she spat. “Must’ve been forty if he was a day but walking around in those skinny jeans like he was some sort of pop star. I’m sure his hair had been highlighted, too.”
“What about build, eye colour?”
“Bit above average height,” she said, thinking back. “Can’t remember his eyes and I never found out what he did for a living; the little weasel scuttled off as soon as Kayleigh spotted someone she knew. Typical rat.”
“Okay. Let’s turn to Kayleigh’s general lifestyle,” Ryan said, steering her gently away from what was obviously a sore spot. “She worked for the Courts Service?”
“Mm-hmm. She worked as a receptionist, although the way she put on airs, you’d think she was one of the bloody judges.”
Ryan looked at her for a long moment and her eyes dropped to the floor, filling with tears again. He had seen behaviour like hers before; relatives who would rather focus on anger than sadness, would rather pretend they’d hated their loved one than face up to the reality they would never be coming back.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Kayleigh, Mrs Dobson? Did she ever mention being frightened of anyone, or of seeing anyone strange?”
Cilla’s eyes strayed to a small frame hidden amongst a hoard of other trinkets on the bookshelves behind the television. It was old and faded now, but it was an image of herself and Mark with Kayleigh sitting on her lap. She couldn’t have been more than a year old and was dressed in a pretty pink dress and matching sun hat.
All three of them were smiling for the camera.
Never again, she thought. They would never be together again and now she was the only one left.
“She didn’t tell me anything,” she said, tiredly. “We hardly spoke.”
“Did Kayleigh keep in touch with her father?”
Cilla heaved a sigh.
“No, neither of us had seen him in twenty years,” she said. “I hear he’s onto his fourth, now.”
Ryan and Phillips let themselves out a short while later and headed back to the car with stony faces.
Once they were inside, Ryan turned on the heater to thaw the frosted windshield but didn’t start the engine.
“We see all kinds of people in this job, don’t we, Frank?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Ryan gave a short laugh, then sobered again.
“The fact is, we’re getting nowhere fast. Any one of the victims today could be connected to the bomber and, since we don’t know what kind of nut-job we’re dealing with, it could be something completely innocuous that set him off.”
“If it was a ‘him’,” Phillips was bound to say.
“Indeed,” Ryan said, thoughtfully. “The phone companies are sending through their data first thing in the morning and we’ve still got a team going over the CCTV—and more keeps rolling in.”
“I’ve told the analysts to focus on footage around the entrances to the Millennium Bridge from yesterday afternoon all the way through to the explosion this morning. Surely one of the cameras will have captured the bomb being planted.”
Ryan nodded.
“There’s always a chink, somewhere, Frank. We just have to find it.”
“Well, if anyone can…”
“MacKenzie can,” Ryan finished for him, with a grin.
“You’re not wrong, son. What that woman doesn’t know about policing isn’t worth knowing.”
Ryan smiled and started the car.
“Which reminds me. After all this is over, we need to have a serious discussion about your stag do.”
Phillips had been afraid of that.
“No rush,” he said, casually. “I’d be happy with a few drinks down at my local—”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ryan said, with a roguish smile. “After all the trouble you went to for my send-off, the least I can do is to return the favour.”
Phillips could already feel his liver wincing in anticipation.
“Now, you know I’m getting on a bit,” he said. “I’m not as young as—”
“Don’t think the geriatric card will work with me,” Ryan said. “I’ve seen you in the boxing ring, remember?”
Phillips twiddled his thumbs.
“Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t have me in any unitards or onesies. Think of the general public, if you won’t think of me.”
Ryan sucked in a deep breath and pretended to consider it as they joined the motorway.
“Sorry, mate. I can’t rule it out.”
CHAPTER 32
Ryan pulled up outside the entrance to Police Headquarters so that Phillips could collect his own car. He was about to drive off again when he spotted a van parked near to the custody entrance at the side of the building. With a muttered expletive, he left the car where it was and jogged across the tarmac to confirm what he already suspected.
Tebbutt was moving Lowerson into general custody, at one of the prisons nearby.
He rounded the side of the van and saw two of his colleagues having a quick smoke while they waited for the paperwork to be completed.
They stood up a bit straighter when they heard his footsteps approaching.
“What’s going on here? Who’s your transfer?”
“Lowerson,” one of them answered. “He should be coming up any minute now.”
Ryan was rarely one to use any kind of physical advantage or to pull rank, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
“You don’t leave this car park until I come back down. Is that understood?”
“But, sir, we have orders from DCI Tebbutt,” they argued.
“And now you have orders from me,” he ground out. “I repeat: if you take DC Jack Lowerson so much as a metre off these premises, there’ll be hell to pay. Understood?”
They nodded vigorously, and Ryan stalked back around the van and down to the custody entrance to find his opposite number from Durham CID. He didn’t have to search for too long; he found Tebbutt filling out the paperwork for Lowerson’s transfer on a desk inside one of the smaller conference rooms at the end of the hall.
“I want a word with you, please,” Ryan said, closing the door behind him.
If she’d been a younger woman, or a more impressionable one, Joan Tebbutt might have been impressed by the sight of Maxwell Finlay-Ryan spitting with anger. As it was…
Oh, to hell with it. She was still impressed, but she’d have sooner cut off her own arm than admit to any such thing.
“Can I help you?” she said, placidly. “It’s late and I’m hoping to finish here before nine.”
Her tone was enough to tip him over the edge and he pointed an angry finger towards the door he’d just walked through.
“You’ve got a detective constable of good standing in there and you’re planning to move him into general custody, with half the riff-raff he’s helped to put away? Are you trying to get him beaten up, or worse? Why not shaft him in the back now, and be done with it?” he practically roared. “Where’s your sense of loyalty, or fair play?”
Tebbutt stood up and put both hands on the table, facing him down.
“At this point, Lowerson is just like any other person facing a murder charge—”
“You better be joking,” Ryan snarled.
“No, I’m not. I’m playing by the rules. You should try it sometime,” she said.
“Those rules don’t apply to a man who is a target for half the people already incarcerated,” Ryan said, more softly now. “Joan, where’s your pity?”
She looked away as his words niggled beneath her skin, then lifted her chin.
“Lowerson is—”
“A danger to himself,” Ryan interjected. “He’s at risk, not only from others but from himself. You saw how traumatised he was.”
She b
lew out a frustrated breath.
“That’s because you still think he didn’t kill Lucas,” she said. “What if you’re wrong?”
“What if you are?”
An awkward silence fell.
“Please, Joan. I’m asking as a favour. Keep him here for another night—just one more night, where we can watch out for him and by the time tomorrow night rolls around you may know even more.”
Tebbutt knew she would be kicking herself in the morning, but he’d made her think twice about the whole thing.
Damn the man.
“Fine. He gets one more day.”
Ryan let out the air he’d been holding in his chest.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
* * *
When he was informed that he’d be spending another night at Police Headquarters rather than in custody elsewhere, Lowerson sank back down on the bed in his cell and stared at the ceiling tiles. It hadn’t taken long for damp brown patches to develop there and it reminded him of their last office space; the walls might be different but little else changed.
He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t dreamed of being a policeman. Even as a child, his mother had kept photographs of him dressed up in a miniature polyester uniform and a plastic hat. He’d pretended to search for clues to find hidden treasures around his bedroom, using the magnifying glass he’d found inside a Christmas cracker.
He remembered the day he’d first joined the force from the academy, and the first time he’d met Ryan. As a rookie police constable, he’d been posted as a sentry on the door of a crime scene which, at first, appeared to be a case of death by accidental overdose. It had been springtime and he’d stood there wondering whether he’d made the right career choices, wondering whether he’d be standing on the other side of the door forever. But slowly, by watching and learning, he’d started to move up. Soon after, he was no longer a sentry but a reader-receiver; then, after that, Ryan had helped him to join the training pathway towards becoming a detective.
He probably still had that little plastic magnifying glass, somewhere.
He smiled at the memory, then his vision clouded as tears sprang to his eyes. Perhaps he’d look back on those days as a fond and distant memory from the past, as something he could think of through the long years he’d be spending in prison. He had no doubt that was how things would pan out; his DNA was all over Jennifer’s house and probably all over her body.
She’d kissed him on the morning she died—in anger, but a kiss, nonetheless—and their bodies had touched. His hair, her hair. His saliva and hers. His fingerprints everywhere, in every room.
It was a foregone conclusion.
His solicitor said his story fitted the bill for self-defence and that he’d been pushed to his absolute limits. She talked about getting an expert in to support a clear case of coercive control and he had gone along with it, so that he didn’t need to keep going over and over his story.
The truth was, he didn’t care what happened to him.
The Jack that he used to be was gone; gone far away, disappearing into the sands of time like the little boy who’d enjoyed playing dressy-up.
CHAPTER 33
Tuesday 13th February
Ryan’s task force reconvened the next morning, on the dot of seven. It was a full hour before most of their shifts were due to start but there had been no complaints, only a willingness to do whatever was necessary to get the job done, and it made him proud. For all the wind-bagging he heard from senior officials, politicians and pundits about police incompetency, Ryan was yet to meet a more dedicated and able workforce than the men and women he was privileged to lead.
A little well-timed injection of sugar certainly helped, mind you, and a tray of freshly-baked croissants was being handed around the room to set them all up for the day. Everyone was in attendance other than Tom Faulkner, who was at his lab, and Captain Nobel, who they assumed had been held up owing to the ongoing transport difficulties.
“We’ll make a start,” Ryan decided. “First order of business is to look at the CCTV around the Millennium Bridge. Frank? Tell me some good news.”
Phillips hastily swallowed a mouthful of pain au chocolat.
“We’ve got something,” he said, coming straight to the point. “One of the cameras positioned on the corner overlooking the traffic lights, beside the courthouse, has a partial view of the north side of the Millennium Bridge. It captured somebody entering at three-oh-nine on Monday morning. It’s dark and it’s grainy, but it looks like they were wearing a backpack. When they doubled back a couple of minutes later, it looks like they’re not carrying anything.”
“That must be our guy,” Ryan agreed, trying not to get too excited. “Can we enhance the footage? Who are we looking for?”
One of the support staff handed him a printed version of the blown-up image from the CCTV footage and his heart sank again. Given the angle of the frame, all he could see was the side of their suspect’s jaw.
“Whoever this is knew what they were doing,” he said. “They’re wearing dark clothing, nothing too tight to give away build or even gender, and dark shoes to blend in. That looks like a dark woollen hat, too.”
“Somebody five-eight or above, maybe,” MacKenzie said, scrutinizing the copy she held. “How did they get on to the bridge if it was manned all night?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Ryan said. “Who was stationed on the north side?”
Phillips consulted his notebook.
“Couple of locals from Tyne and Wear Command. I’ve asked to speak to them as soon as they get in, so we can get to the bottom of it but, according to their sergeant, the shift was due to change at three.”
Ryan looked up at that.
“Really? Now, that’s very interesting, don’t you think?”
Phillips gave him a quizzical look.
“Why?”
Ryan opened his mouth to explain, then thought better of it.
“Never mind. Have the phone records come through?”
MacKenzie had taken charge of that side of things and had spent most of the night cross-checking the numbers listed as the victims’ most recent calls or texts against their internal database of people and addresses.
“They’re still coming in,” she said. “We had three of the victims’ mobile phones because they were found on their person, which makes life a bit easier. It was a case of marrying up ‘unknown’ callers and I’ve included these in a separate list.”
Ryan nodded, and held up the list she’d produced that very morning. It was good, efficient work but then he expected no less.
“Thanks. What about the fourth victim—Kayleigh-Ann?”
He watched their eyes flick somewhere over his head to look at her picture, which was still tacked to the wall behind him.
“Only came through this morning, so I haven’t had a chance to check all the numbers yet. However, there was one that stood out.”
Ryan’s eyes grew sharp.
“Oh?”
MacKenzie nodded.
“I’ve highlighted it several times,” she said. “The victim has been receiving calls from that number—although not making very many—and texting regularly.”
“For a couple of months?” Ryan guessed.
“You’ve got it.”
“That’s our man,” he said to Phillips, then turned back to the room to explain. “Last night, we spoke to Kayleigh-Ann’s mother, who said she believed her daughter had been conducting an affair with a married man. Taking but not making calls? That seems consistent. What times of day?”
MacKenzie gave a half-smile.
“Only during the day,” she said. “When our Lothario is out of the marital home and at work, I’d imagine.”
“You’re such a cynical woman,” Phillips said, with admiration. “Don’t ever change.”
She flashed him a toothy smile, then got back to the business at hand.
“I haven’t had a chance to look at any of the
victims’ social media or e-mail accounts yet,” she continued. “I thought the priority was to find out the owner of that mobile number.”
“Could just call it,” Wilson suggested, taking a bite out of his croissant. “Pretend it’s a wrong number.”
“That’s not really how it works,” Ryan said, as he took a marker pen and wrote the number on the board, beneath the image of Kayleigh-Ann. “If we do that, we put the owner of that number on notice that they’re under scrutiny. We lose the element of surprise.”
“You don’t need to,” Phillips said, in a serious tone. “I think I recognise it.”
* * *
The room recovered itself quickly.
“Whose is it?” Ryan asked.
“I recognise the last three digits,” Phillips explained. “You don’t often see ‘999’ at the end of a phone number, do you?”
They waited while he hurriedly took out his phone and began scrolling through his contacts but, in the end, he didn’t need to.
“I recognise it too,” Wilson said, turning to his colleague with a worried expression. “That’s Gary’s number.”
“That can’t be right,” Bannerman whispered, and checked her messages until she found Nobel’s number. “There, you, see…”
Her eyes flicked between the large numbers written on the board and the number saved on her phone, then her face fell into slack lines of dismay.
“It’s the same,” she said quietly.
“Aye, it’s the same number I’ve got too,” Wilson muttered, and looked up with a worried expression. “Honestly, I had no idea Gaz knew the victim. He never said—”
“He never breathed a word to me, either,” Bannerman confirmed, then added hastily, “Look, I’m sure there’s some explanation. Gary can be…he can be a bit full of himself, at times, but he’s not a killer. I’m sure he couldn’t have done this.”
“Aye, there’s got to be some reason why he never said he knew the lass,” Wilson was quick to add. “He’s a decent bloke, when you get down to it.”
Ryan’s face was hard. The stakes were too high to make allowances for professional acquaintances.