Cuthbert's Way: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 17)

by LJ Ross

Still nothing.

  With a shrug, he climbed back into his van and drove away, remaining in character for the benefit of anybody within.

  “B’s a go,” came another crackling voice, which Yates acknowledged.

  They kept their glasses trained on the moat that wrapped around the old limestone Hall, until they spotted the shadowy figures of their colleagues advancing around the perimeter wall, where they forced entry through a side gate.

  Lowerson and Yates listened through their earpieces as the team moved through an inner courtyard and into the Hall, shouting warnings as they went. They moved from room to room, until eventually the team leader spoke to them on his radio.

  “The place is clear, over.”

  Lowerson and Yates couldn’t prevent the wave of disappointment because, if Anna wasn’t being held there, it meant they were right back to square one, and the responsibility now rested with Ryan to procure the bones of a saint from an unknown location, which had been a closely guarded secret for hundreds of years.

  Less than eight hours until the deadline.

  The clock was ticking.

  * * *

  Anna lay perfectly still in the boot of the car, just as she’d been told to.

  Not that she could have moved very far; her ankles and wrists were bound together with hard wire cord, the uncomfortable position forcing her spine to curve, pulling the skin on her stomach painfully taut across the Caesarean scar.

  How long had she been here?

  It was impossible to say. Three, maybe four hours?

  Inside, the air was cold but stifling, heavy with the stench of dried mud and something worse; something like dried blood, and faeces. She didn’t think about what it could be.

  She would not break.

  She would not break.

  She closed her eyes against the oppressive darkness of her surroundings and retreated to a place of safety, where men in black masks could not hurt her. Shivering uncontrollably, she listened to the crashing of the sea outside and wondered if she had been left there to die, never to watch her daughter grow into a woman.

  Silent tears leaked from her eyes, but she kept saying the words.

  I will not break.

  I will not break.

  Somewhere out there, she knew Ryan would be looking for her, and it gave her comfort. But, if their time was up and there would be no more tomorrows, she told herself to be grateful for all the time they’d spent together, and for all they had meant to one another.

  It had been so much more than most.

  “I love you,” she whispered into the confined space, and hoped her message would carry on the wind to find him.

  * * *

  I love you.

  Ryan spun around, certain he’d heard Anna’s voice just behind him, but there was nothing there except open countryside and the solitary outline of his car.

  “Going mad,” he muttered, and it wasn’t far off the truth.

  He felt wild with anger that was barely contained; but the anger was directed at himself, for he had known, one day, that something like this would happen. You couldn’t work as he did, facing the darker side of humanity each day, and not bring any of that darkness home with you.

  Today, the darkness had a name, but, next week, it would have another one.

  Edwards, Walker, Moffa, Gregson, Freeman, Lucas, Singh, Chatterley…

  So many names that swirled around the recesses of his mind, filtering to the surface from time to time, to remind him that evil would find him again, whether he looked for it or not.

  It seemed poetic that he was seeking a sanctuary.

  ‘Seek out the sanctuary of sandstone, held aloft by a single pillar…’

  It had taken less time to decipher the location referred to in that part of the Code, because St. Cuthbert’s Cave was a well-known local landmark. It nestled in the Kyloe Hills of North Northumberland, and was little more than an overhanging outcrop of flattened rock, framed by trees on all sides, with a limestone roof supported by a single stone pillar. ‘Cuddy’s Cave’ was reputed to have given shelter to the monks of Lindisfarne, who carried Cuthbert’s body there in 875 AD whilst fleeing the Vikings, and formed part of a modern-day walking route known as ‘Cuthbert’s Way’, which ran for sixty-two miles between the Borders town of Melrose to the west and the island of Lindisfarne to the east.

  It was unremarkable, Ryan supposed, as caves went; he’d seen far more impressive rock formations on his travels, over the years. However, there was a certain quiet feel to the place…what some might have called, a spirituality. He wasn’t sure whether the atmosphere was projected by those who visited, or whether it was a quality inherent in the landscape, but he could understand why a person seeking solace would take themselves off to spend time at Cuddy’s Cave to commune with themselves, their god and nature.

  After parking his car, Ryan made his way to the top of a gentle hill, where he crossed over a gate and stile and then turned right, following a grassy pathway lined with gorse bushes with a forest on one side. Reaching the corner of the wood, he spied a gate and made his way towards it, keeping his head bowed to the wind, which whipped through the trees and sent the branches swaying, howling like a woman in torment.

  He stopped again, closing his eyes as the breeze rushed against his face and, for a moment, it might have been Anna’s fingers trailing through his hair; her voice calling to him across the valley.

  Heart heavy with grief, Ryan hurried onward, ever conscious of the passage of time and of how every wasted moment could mean the difference between life and death.

  Spotting Cuthbert’s Cave to his left, Ryan broke into a jog, eager now to find the ‘tribute’ to the man hailed as God’s most faithful servant, according to the message inscribed on top of the Bishop’s Throne.

  The sun had already begun its long descent towards the edge of the world, and the light was beginning to fade, but he’d come prepared with a high-powered torch, which he used to guide his way as he approached the opening to the cave, and the pitch blackness within.

  He stepped into the abyss, and went in search of a tribute.

  * * *

  Ryan stared at the wall, hands shaking slightly with an excess of adrenaline, which caused the bright light of the torch to flicker in the darkness.

  Was this it?

  Aside from the usual lovers’ hearts and other graffiti left by those with very little concern for future generations, or indeed the laws of the land, there was only one other wall marking that could possibly be relevant to the message.

  It was a tiny, intricate carving of what looked to be a coat of arms, above which read:

  In deepest gratitude to our brother, who rests forevermore by St Mary’s of Wooler, where once he used to play.

  The frustration was acute.

  There was no time for a wild goose chase, he thought, while his mind was flooded with nightmarish images of what Anna might be suffering, whilst he crouched inside an old cave, deep in the heart of Northumberland.

  He lived his life by reference to logic and reason. He had no patience for conspiracy theories or fairy tales about castles in the sky; not when there were real problems in the world that required real solutions. Mostly, he kept his counsel, and let others live as they chose, so long as their flights of fancy weren’t dangerous. But now, given the situation he found himself in, Ryan was forced to ask himself whether all those years of polite silence had indeed been a mark of tolerance, or whether he’d been one of the many enablers in the world. For, if fantasies were left uncorrected, they became fact to the person that made them and allowed them to fester and grow. Worse still, they could take on new life.

  When others were endangered because of another’s fantasy, that was something Ryan could not forgive.

  He took a photo of the coat of arms and sent it to Phillips, with a question mark. He sent another message to Lowerson, asking for any information about St Mary’s Church in Wooler. Then, he rose to his feet and took a final look around at the
cave’s basic surroundings, imagining a group of monks transporting their most famous saint over hill and vale, taking refuge on the land where they could.

  It took all sorts.

  CHAPTER 40

  Inevitably, it was not long before news of Anna’s abduction was leaked to the press.

  They had hoped to maintain the press embargo for a few more hours—just long enough to give Ryan the time to do what he needed to do, without outside interference. Unfortunately, at the same moment he’d been photographing the coat of arms he’d found on the wall of St. Cuthbert’s Cave, local news outlets had flung open the flood gates, unleashing their prized scoops upon the world, including the man they called “crazy”.

  When Morrison heard of it, she stormed into CID and laid down a marker.

  “Everybody, stop.”

  She didn’t need to raise her voice; she’d learned that a measured tone could strike plenty of fear into the hearts of any young, foolish officer who thought they could leak a story in the course of a highly sensitive investigation, where the perp would just as soon kill you as look at you—and he’d do it in the name of miracles.

  “Listen to me, very carefully,” she said, looking at each of them in turn, trying to sniff out the rat. “If I find out the name of the person who leaked the details of this investigation to the press, without my authorisation, thereby endangering the whole operation, I won’t suspend that person. They will be summarily dismissed, without pay, and without references.

  She paused to let that threat sink in.

  “If, however, that person is brave enough to come and tell me what they did, I will settle for a reprimand. It’s up to you,” she told them. “But I want one thing to be understood. Within these walls, we are a team. We support one another’s triumphs and commiserate with any failures. At no point do we endanger the lives of our colleagues with loose talk—and especially, not to the press.”

  Morrison’s eye came to rest on a young PC from a different department, who looked as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

  “My door is open,” she said. “I hope you’ll do the right thing.”

  Reprimands were all very well, but the deed was done, and none of them knew how Chatterley would react, considering he’d expressly said that police were not to be involved. Reading an article about himself that cited ‘police sources’ could be incendiary.

  She only hoped Anna would not end up paying the price for another person’s folly.

  * * *

  Ryan had just returned to his car when his phone began to ring. He expected it to be one of his team, telling him who the coat of arms belonged to, or some background information about St. Mary’s Church in Wooler, but he did not recognise the number.

  He prepared himself, and hoped the terms had not changed—or worse, that Chatterley had decided not to follow through on his side of the bargain.

  “This is Ryan.”

  “Quite the little birdie, aren’t you?”

  Ryan was taken aback by the tone, which was markedly aggressive in comparison with how cordial Chatterley had been earlier in the day.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, coming straight to the point.

  “You broke our agreement!” Chatterley shouted. “Did you seriously think I wouldn’t be monitoring the news? I told you, clearly, there was to be no police involvement, and I explained what the consequences would be, should you choose to ignore that condition.”

  “I haven’t ignored it,” Ryan said, in a voice raw with emotion. “Please—I don’t know what’s happened, because I’ve been up in Holburn, following the next part of the Code, which is what you wanted. If the press has run a story about you, they haven’t had it from me. I give you my word.”

  Chatterley was silent for a few seconds, and Ryan closed his eyes, swallowing hard.

  “Five hours left, Ryan,” he said, and the line went dead.

  * * *

  “Is there any news, Frank?”

  Phillips heard the desperation in his friend’s voice, and was sorry for it.

  Sorrier still, that he didn’t have good news to impart.

  “No, lad, nothing yet. We’ve got Chatterley’s house under surveillance, but he’s not shown up and there’s no car in the driveway. We ran a vehicle check against his address and there’s nothing registered, which seems unlikely.”

  “But not unexpected,” Ryan said, raising a hand to massage a throbbing headache in the base of his neck. “He’s well connected, so it wouldn’t be difficult for him to get an unregistered car from somewhere.”

  “Aye, and as for where he’s hiding himself, Chatterley could have a second home, a rental place, or many a thing,” Phillips said. “But, after he’s got hold of what he wants, I don’t think he’s planning on coming back. He left everything at his house—clothes, paintings, the lot, but there’s no sign of the artefacts, so he may have those with him.”

  “They’re the last things he would leave behind,” Ryan agreed.

  Phillips thought about mentioning the basement area they’d uncovered during an initial search of Houghall Hall, but decided against it, on compassionate grounds. The place had been kitted out as a kind of fantasy dungeon devoted to Cuthbert; a replica of Inner Farne, with giant murals of the sea, speakers and even a tiny stone hut, built to resemble Cuthbert’s hermitage. There’d been wigs and masks—horrifying masks, made especially to resemble the face of the dead saint—and stacks of notebooks containing information about people he planned to ‘convert’.

  Ryan didn’t need to know about any of that, or the extent of Chatterley’s obsession; not when he was doing all he could to hold himself together and stay strong.

  “What can you tell me about the coat of arms I found on the wall of the cave?”

  “It belongs to the De Villiers family,” Phillips said. “It’s one of the most ancient names in the UK, dating back to Norman times, so I had a look at the College of Arms website and managed to find it in the ‘Old and Illustrious’ section.”

  At another time, he might have joked about there being no ‘Phillips’ listed in that section, but not today.

  “What does the De Villiers family have to do with Cuthbert?” Ryan asked.

  “I had a look through that folder Anna put together for you, and there was a link to a website about the monastic history of Britain. On there, you can see a list of all the names of the monks recorded as being a member of each monastery, the dates of their deaths and whatnot. It’s a bit hit and miss, at times, but—”

  “Was De Villiers on there?”

  “He was,” Phillips was pleased to say. “Edward De Villiers was a monk at the monastery in Durham his whole life. He died there in December 1537, which is also when King Henry VIII’s Commissioners were said to have paid a visit to the Cathedral, and…”

  “When, according to Cuthbert’s Code, the saint’s body was switched with that of a recently deceased monk.”

  “Bingo.”

  “What’s the connection with Wooler?” Ryan wondered.

  “From what I can gather, Edward De Villiers came from an aristocratic family and there’s an old listing for a manor house owned by the family near to Wooler. St. Mary’s Church would have been nearby—perhaps the De Villiers used it as their family chapel.”

  “So, if the legend is to be believed, rather than sending Edward De Villiers home to be buried with his family in Wooler, they may have switched the bodies, which means that it could be Cuthbert’s remains buried in the De Villiers family crypt, and not Edward’s?”

  “It seems that way,” Phillips said. “What are we going to do about it?”

  Ryan was already on the road to Wooler, to see the grave site for himself.

  “Chatterley wants the remains by nine o’clock,” he said. “If it means getting my wife back, then I’ll do whatever it takes, Frank.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Wooler was a small town on the edge of the Northumberland National Park, often referred to as the “Gateway t
o the Cheviots” given its close proximity to the Cheviot Hills, which were a walkers’ paradise with their waterfalls and gorges, peaks and troughs. The town itself was another calling point on the ‘Cuthbert’s Way’ walking route, and attracted plenty of tourists who shared an appreciation of the Great Outdoors and of ancient landscapes. On another day, Ryan might have enjoyed the sight of the hills rising up towards the darkening sky, which was a melting pot of deep blues and lilacs as day turned into night. He might have smiled at the Christmas lights, which spanned the High Street of the town, or admired the tall Christmas tree that held pride of place in the town square.

  But he thought none of these things—he thought only of Anna.

  St. Mary’s Church was situated in the centre of the town and, though a supermarket chain and other shops might not have been there when its foundation stone was laid, it retained a quaint charm, especially at that time of year. Phillips had told him that although the present church was built in 1764, the remains of stonework from the twelfth century had been uncovered some years earlier, and the churchyard contained a number of graves dating from the same time period.

  It was almost six-thirty, by the time Ryan made his way into the churchyard, armed once again with a powerful torch to help him see in the velvety darkness. There had been no time to try to source a map of the graveyard, so Ryan scanned the area for the oldest looking stones and made a start there.

  Unfortunately, the stonework was so old, it was impossible to read the wording, the facing having eroded over the centuries.

  As he walked the rows, Ryan’s foot met with something firmer than fertile grass. It was a rectangular slab of black marble, noticeably different in quality to some of the other corroded stones around it, and it caught Ryan’s attention. Trailing plants and tufts of grass had grown between its cracks, and he propped the torch on the ground nearby, so he could kneel down and clear away the detritus to see the carving beneath, which read:

  “Here lieth the remains of our most esteemed brother, Edward, whose sacrifice hath made him the most glorious of God’s servants.”