Angel: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 4)

by LJ Ross

  “I spoke to my neighbours this morning,” MacKenzie added. “Nobody saw anything because they were out for most of the day and some are away for the weekend. No CCTV on my street, either.”

  Ryan nodded, thinking quickly.

  “Although I don’t think it’s the same man, we can’t be certain. I want you to exercise extreme caution, Denise. Keep Lowerson beside you at all times, that’s an order.”

  * * *

  A short while later, Ryan and Phillips stepped to one side and spoke in hushed tones.

  “I want you to move me across to the Hewitt investigation,” Phillips demanded. “I need to be with her.”

  Ryan sighed.

  “I understand how you’re feeling, Frank, but I can’t do that. Not right now.”

  Phillips stuck a finger in Ryan’s chest, which was met with a single raised eyebrow.

  “You better transfer me now, lad.”

  “Phillips, get a grip on yourself. MacKenzie is a big girl and she has a mean left hook. Besides, she has Lowerson with her and you know as well as I do that he’d sooner throw himself in front of moving traffic than let anybody harm her.”

  Phillips retracted his finger and Ryan carried on in the same comforting voice.

  “Look at the facts. I admit it isn’t pleasant but The Graveyard Killer doesn’t issue warnings before he takes a victim, he just takes them. He leaves a note with their bodies after he’s finished, that’s his signature.”

  Phillips grudgingly conceded that point.

  “I’m not downplaying the threat, Frank. Killers sometimes change their MO to avoid detection. MacKenzie matters to all of us and we won’t allow anything to happen to her. I’m going to order surveillance of her home for the next forty-eight hours, day and night. You and I both know she won’t thank me for going behind her back, not after the little chat you two just had.”

  “Aye, she won’t thank you, but I will.”

  Ryan gave Phillips a bolstering slap on the back.

  “Thought that would put the smile back on your face.”

  “Just so we’re clear, if she asks me about it I’ll deny all knowledge and say that you acted alone.”

  “Perfectly reasonable,” Ryan said. “I’d do the same thing myself.”

  * * *

  To distract herself from the alarming possibility that she had become a target, MacKenzie did what she did best and knuckled down to the serious business of finding whoever had murdered Barbara Hewitt. She supposed one of the few positive aspects of the Hewitt case was that no ritual or religion seemed to be involved. She remembered the good old days when people killed other people to inherit their money or to see off an unwanted spouse.

  With no family to inherit her comfortable nest egg and no husband to covet, MacKenzie was forced to acknowledge that neither of those old fashioned motivations seemed to apply to the murder of Barbara Hewitt.

  More’s the pity.

  With that in mind, MacKenzie spent the best part of her morning piecing together disjointed CCTV footage that had come through from the various cameras positioned around Newcastle and Rothbury. Although there were none around the cul-de-sac where Barbara Hewitt had lived, the Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras and city centre cameras had come up trumps. She put Lowerson to work and they ran through the grainy footage covering the hours between ten-thirty and five p.m. on Friday 18th, which was the last day anybody had seen Barbara Hewitt alive.

  “This is sapping my will to live,” Lowerson complained.

  “I’ve spent better mornings,” she agreed, then clicked the pause button to take another look at an image which had popped up.

  Lowerson peeked around the side of his screen.

  “Hey, Mac? I, ah, heard about the note and I just wanted to say I’ve got your back. It was probably sent by some sad case who lives with his mother and spends too much time playing video games—” He started to laugh and then broke off, abruptly realising that he had just described his own present life circumstances.

  “But anyway,” he continued hastily, “You don’t ever have to worry that some crank is going to hurt you.”

  MacKenzie looked into his earnest brown eyes and felt warmed from the inside out. She was about to tell him that she was really more than capable of looking out for herself and had done so, very successfully, for forty-three years. Instead, she let her heart lead her head.

  “I appreciate that, Jack. I really do.”

  He gave her a ludicrous wink and returned to his screen. She turned back to the slow-moving images rolling across her own desktop computer and propped her head in her hands. Then, she caught an image of Barbara.

  “I think I’ve got her, over here.”

  Lowerson paused his own reel and moved around to look over MacKenzie’s shoulder. She zoomed into a blurred image of Barbara Hewitt walking past the Tyneside Cinema on Pilgrim Street.

  “I agree, that looks like her. She’s carrying her Marks and Spencer bag and the timing says 11:28 which fits her movements. She bought her knickers at M&S at 11:09 and took twenty minutes to wander down Northumberland Street, popping in and out of a few shops and then wandered past Grey’s Monument. Now, the cameras have her here on Pilgrim Street on her way to the cinema.”

  “That doesn’t fit,” MacKenzie disagreed. “She was due to be at The Lobster Pot on Grey Street for lunch at one o’clock and she wasn’t at the Tyneside Cinema until nearer two o’clock, in time for the afternoon showing. This footage shows her strolling past the cinema much earlier, at 11:28. That’s over two hours before she was due to be there. Where was she going?”

  “She had time to spare,” Lowerson thought aloud. “Maybe she fancied a walk.”

  MacKenzie swung back and forth in her chair for a few seconds and then tapped a fingernail against her computer screen.

  “Do you see that, Jack? It was raining on Friday 18th.”

  “So?”

  “Why would she want to take a leisurely stroll in the rain without an umbrella? Especially since she’d had her hair done and we already know she was a pernickety sort of woman.”

  Lowerson pursed his lips and had to admit it didn’t fit their existing profile.

  “Yeah, I can’t see her as the sort of woman who liked drinking pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.”

  MacKenzie grinned.

  “You know what this tells me, Jack? It tells me that Barbara was heading to her next destination, which could be of great interest to us. Carry on going through the footage covering this quadrant—”

  She marked out a radius surrounding the Tyneside Cinema.

  “All of the other places we know she visited are within a five minute walk of the cinema, the New Bridge Street car park and The Lobster Pot. She must have made another stop which hasn’t shown up in our search so far.”

  “I’ll chase the bank for Barbara’s transaction history,” Lowerson offered. “But it’s Easter Sunday so I won’t get my hopes up.”

  MacKenzie nodded.

  “You do that. I’m going to look at the map again and see what’s in the immediate area. Who knows? She might have been on her way to meet somebody and that somebody might have been the person who killed her.”

  * * *

  To alleviate the distinct sense of cabin fever which was working its way through their central nervous systems, Ryan and Phillips made a break for it and headed out into the field. Riding high on adrenaline and righteous indignation at the prospect of another serial killer running amok in their city, they decided to put their energy to good use at the All American Diner.

  Phillips remembered the garish, fifties-themed bar-cum-restaurant from his last visit, when they had been investigating the murder of a young waitress who had worked there. But it wasn’t the employees that concerned him now, it was the man in charge. Jimmy ‘the Manc’ Moffa was the youngest of three brothers who had migrated to Newcastle seeking to establish their own empire when life in Manchester had become too heated, even for them. The Moffa br
others had fingers in every pie, from drugs and money laundering to prostitution. There were several ongoing investigations into Jimmy Moffa’s ‘legitimate’ businesses but witnesses had a strange tendency to disappear or to change their stories.

  But it was Jimmy’s personal dealings with their former Detective Chief Superintendent, Arthur Gregson, which offended them the most. It was generally believed that he had aided and abetted the murder of Gregson’s wife and had carried out countless illegal business transactions. No trace of Cathy Gregson had ever been found and, unfortunately, no trace of Jimmy Moffa had been found at the crime scene either.

  As Ryan and Phillips entered The Diner through the brushed aluminium double doors, they were met by a team of burly security staff dressed in black.

  “Can we help you boys?”

  Ryan rocked back on his heels.

  “Maybe you can. I quite fancy a milkshake, now you mention it. How about you, Phillips?”

  “I could murder an Irn Bru,” the other smiled toothily.

  The bouncers looked uncertainly amongst themselves and one spoke hastily into a tiny microphone attached to the lapel of his suit.

  “You need a reservation,” he replied.

  “Aww, that’s a real shame. I guess we’ll have to make do with speaking to your boss. Tell him we’re here,” Ryan stared down the bouncer who seemed to be doing all the talking.

  “Mr Moffa isn’t available.”

  Ryan sighed.

  “That’s a pity. We were looking forward to catching up, weren’t we, Phillips?”

  “Aye, it’s been too long.”

  “Guess we’ll have to go and get ourselves a court order, maybe even arrest warrants for these gentlemen who seem to be obstructing our lawful investigation.”

  Phillips tutted.

  “Doesn’t look good, that sort of thing, when you’re renewing your door supervision licence. Not good for business either, when we put up our neon barriers and close the street outside, slowing up all the traffic. Probably around rush hour, too,” Phillips scratched his chin while he thought aloud. “There’d be a lot of talk. Oh, yes, a lot of talk.”

  “Wait a minute, now, wait a minute,” one of the bouncers said nervously. He could do without another pop on his record. “I’ll have another word with Mr Moffa.”

  Less than a minute later, they were ushered through a side door and along a darkened corridor leading to Moffa’s plush office at the end. A heavyset man with a pock-marked face and shoulders the size of small planets sat on a chair outside the varnished oak door and seemed to be playing Candy Crush. He looked up as they approached and drew himself up to his full height, which was anywhere in the region of ten feet in Phillips’ conservative estimation.

  “These are the ones, Ludo,” one of the bouncers said and Ryan guessed that the nickname came from an excessive use of hard drugs at some point in the man’s life, judging by the slightly unfocused look in his eyes.

  The bodyguard said nothing but turned and led them inside Moffa’s office before closing the door behind them. He settled back against it, barring their exit with his wide bulk.

  Moffa’s office hadn’t changed in the past year, Phillips thought. It was still ultramodern and monochrome with its highly polished surfaces, black tiled floor, white leather sofas and mirrored desk which looked like it belonged in a Las Vegas hotel.

  “Detectives.” Moffa gave them what could reasonably pass for a smile, but he didn’t bother to get up, nor did he offer them a seat. His pale blue eyes moved between Ryan and Phillips before coming to rest permanently on the taller of the two.

  Ryan preferred to stand and, in any case, it didn’t take Moffa long to realise that by remaining seated he gave Ryan the feeling of having the upper hand.

  Hastily, he stood up.

  “Now that you’ve threatened your way in here, why don’t you tell me what you want?”

  “We’re investigating the murder of a woman who was last seen exiting The Diner on Thursday night, at around nine-fifteen. We would like you to provide us with the relevant CCTV footage to assist our investigation.”

  Ryan kept his eyes trained on Moffa and watched him walk slowly around the desk, like a leopard on the prowl.

  “And why would I want to do that?”

  “Let’s call it a sense of civic duty,” Phillips put in, with one of his affable smiles.

  Moffa let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a snarl.

  “I already do a lot for this city,” he said, without any sense of irony. “I provide jobs, pensions…why should I stick my neck out again? The last time I helped any of you fuckers out, I ended up having to close this place down for a month after you accused me of covering up a murder. Do I look like the sort of person who would be stupid enough to get involved with something like that?”

  Ryan decided to take the question literally and swept his eyes around the room, taking in the expensive furnishings, then back to the man himself who wore a sharply tailored suit complete with heavy gold cufflinks and matching watch. A fat diamond stud twinkled in one of his ear lobes.

  Finally, he looked into Moffa’s eyes, which were like empty pools of glacier water. Deadly and numb from the cold.

  “Yes,” he replied eventually. “Actually, you do.”

  A muscle twitched near Moffa’s left eye and Ryan had the distinct impression he was about to snap, but suddenly he stepped away and returned to his desk chair.

  “I’m afraid I have a very busy day, gentlemen, so I’ll ask you to leave.”

  Behind them, Ludo shifted, ready to propel them out of the door.

  “I’m not finished yet.” Ryan didn’t move an inch. “I meant what I said to your little gang of T-Birds in the foyer. If you refuse to hand over the CCTV voluntarily, I will get a court order.”

  He paused and flashed a self-deprecating smile.

  “I don’t mind telling you that the magistrate has a soft spot for me, so I doubt there’ll be a problem. Then, before you know it, Phillips and I will be back here to pay you a visit. It’s remarkable what our tech team can do to recover deleted files, isn’t it?” He turned briefly to Phillips. “Who knows what else they might come across while they’re seizing the footage?”

  Moffa stared at Ryan for a full minute in complete silence while neither of them moved. Phillips felt a trickle of sweat down the back of his neck as the tension mounted.

  “You’re bluffing,” Jimmy said eventually.

  “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Ryan turned his back and made for the door, with Phillips following closely behind him. Ludo hesitated for an instant and then stepped aside to let them pass.

  When the door was firmly closed behind them, Moffa leaned back in his chair and smiled like a cat.

  “What do you want me to do, boss?” Ludo asked.

  “Give them the footage,” he replied. “I couldn’t give a shit.”

  “But, I thought—”

  Ludo hulked his way across the room when Moffa pulled a small, heavyweight cream note out of one of the locked drawers in his desk and tapped it against his nose.

  “Ryan has more to worry about than some dead ginger bitch. I received a very interesting proposition today, my friend, which means that you’re going to be kept busy over the next few days.”

  He passed the note to Ludo, who squinted down at the writing and then looked up again with comical surprise writ large on his simian face.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ryan and Phillips emerged from The Diner onto the rain-washed pavement. Instead of heading straight back to his car, Ryan steered them in a southerly direction towards Newcastle Central Station. They walked in a comfortable silence while each man tried to divest himself of the discomfiting, grimy residue left over from their visit. They made a pit stop for coffee but neither had any appetite for food and they passed several cafés and restaurants without interest.

  “We need somebody to give us a steer on the religious side of things,” Ryan declared, once the caffeine h
ad begun its miraculous work.

  “I already did a full background check on the priests who were due to conduct the funerals up at West Road and Heaton. Both of them are fully alibied,” Phillips put in.

  “That doesn’t rule out any of the others. If the killer has some affiliation with, or follows the Roman Catholic faith, then we need to speak to somebody inside its fold and try to get a handle on it. Besides, I’d rather we were seen to be working together.”

  Phillips nodded and stirred a couple of sachets of sugar into his coffee.

  “My memory of the brief time I spent as a Catholic schoolboy is limited to freezing cold Sunday mornings chasing Amy Gallacher around the pews,” he recalled with fondness.

  Ryan smiled and downed the remnants of his espresso before scrunching the paper cup in his hand and lobbing it into a nearby recycling bin.

  “Well, all of my information comes from the internet so I’m no better off. I’ve got Morrison nagging at me to ‘build bridges’—whatever the hell that means—and I haven’t got a clue where to start.”

  Ryan threw him a baffled look and Phillips had to smile.

  “There’s been a lot of daft talk on the news. The press are running all the old stories about abuse within the church and trying to make connections. No doubt Morrison’s had the Bishop on the phone mouthing off about it.”

  “I know. People are clutching at straws wherever they can find them. The sooner we put this to bed, the better.”

  Phillips stopped and looked around to get his bearings.

  “If you want to start building those bridges, we’re just around the corner from somewhere you could start,” he said. “St Mary’s. That’s the Catholic cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.”

  “Talk about throwing me in at the deep end,” Ryan grumbled. “You know the holy water starts to fizz whenever I come near it.”

  With a bark of laughter, Phillips prodded him forward.

  * * *

  The Cathedral Church of Saint Mary occupied an imposing position overlooking the mainline station into Newcastle. Its grand nineteenth century architecture was ‘Gothic-revival’, so the placard told him, but as Ryan stood at the bottom of a short bank of steps leading up to the cathedral’s entrance he saw only a tower of expensive stones paid for by the poorest inhabitants of industrial Newcastle.