Heavenfield: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 3)

by LJ Ross

  No, he was honest with himself, in the privacy of his luxury car. But then, Ryan had been blessed with all the things that Arthur Gregson had never had. A comfortable, upper-middle-class background, where doors opened without you ever needing to ask. Brains, which ensured that those doors stayed open. Looks, which meant he was never short of women throwing themselves at him if he crooked a finger. Easy to have high ideals, if you’ve never known what it was to need something, to want something so badly, without the means to get it. Easy to lord it over the rest of us mere mortals, Gregson thought waspishly, when you’d been blessed with every worldly advantage by an accident of birth.

  Gregson remembered all too clearly his own evolution from a stuttering, introverted loner. The Circle had changed his life, giving him all that he had dreamed of. After a while, the stutter had disappeared, replaced by a tone of command. He couldn’t make himself taller or change his face, but he made himself stronger and fitter. He learned how to exude charm and exert influence, which was just as good.

  There was one thing that the Circle had never been able to change; he had never been a father. At one time, it had bothered him, the lack of an heir to continue his name. There had been an atavistic desire to procreate but it hadn’t happened. After a few years, it became obvious that he might be the one to blame. After all, it wasn’t just his wife who had failed to conceive; none of his other women had fallen pregnant either.

  He hadn’t taken a test. He didn’t need some know-it-all doctor telling him that he was a failure. He’d spent his life making sure that nobody ever made him feel a failure ever again. Cathy had gently suggested that they adopt but the idea was anathema to him and he’d given her a couple of good slaps, just to be clear on the subject.

  But every now and then, he remembered that he would have liked to be a father.

  Gregson shook himself and made the turn to the west of the city.

  CHAPTER 9

  MacKenzie stood at the front of the incident room pinning a photograph of Mark Bowers in the centre of the display wall. Tables were arranged in a rough semicircle facing it, partially occupied by a measly gathering of indifferent detective constables assigned to Bowers’ murder inquiry. Lowerson provided a welcome relief from the sea of unfamiliar faces and he had seated himself at a table in the front row so that he could listen attentively to her briefing.

  MacKenzie knew that there was a giant elephant sitting in the corner of the room and his name was ‘Ryan.’ Usually, it was he who headed these meetings, prowling the front of the room like a jungle cat while he laid out his plans. His restless energy was infectious, demanding that they approached their task with the same dynamic fervour that he did. Instead, it was she who stood at the front, her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and a pencil stuffed into the back of it. Five pairs of eyes watched her, waiting for her to begin.

  She squared her shoulders.

  “Look, before I get started, I just want to say that I know this feels different. We all want to help Ryan the best way that we can, and that’s by doing our jobs.”

  Lowerson nodded encouragingly.

  “Alright, I guess we’ll get started.”

  Before she could, the door opened and several more members of CID piled into the room, chattering like magpies. They raised a hand in greeting and settled themselves on the scattered chairs. MacKenzie watched in surprise as the canteen staff poked their heads around the door, meandered into the room and huddled together in a corner. Staff from every corner of CID were making themselves at home—a motley crew ranging from the lowliest caretaker to several higher-ranking inspectors.

  MacKenzie was about to say something when she saw Phillips amble towards her. She gestured him to one side.

  “Frank, you can’t be in here. In fact, none of these people can, I’m in the middle of a briefing. What the hell is going on?”

  “Didn’t you check your e-mails?”

  “In the past ten minutes? No, Frank, I’ve been trying to investigate a murder.”

  “Now, now,” he polished off the last of his cheese and onion pasty and crumpled the greasy brown paper in one hand, while he fished out a paper napkin with the other. “I didn’t know you were about to start a briefing.”

  MacKenzie massaged the tension at the back of her neck.

  “Whatever you have planned, is it going to take long?”

  Just then, a sudden hush fell amongst the gathering and they both turned to see Ryan enter the room wearing a disgruntled, slightly confused expression on his face. He stopped dead as he surveyed the gathering of people and sent a swift ‘what the fuck?’ at Phillips, who shrugged blithely.

  They never knew afterwards who started it, but people started to clap. One-by-one, they rose from their chairs and clapped, strong and hard. There were a few playful wolf whistles too.

  Ryan stood on the threshold of the dingy conference room and felt his throat burn. They were clapping for him, he realised, while his heart hammered. They were clapping because they had heard he had been cleared by the disciplinary panel. Slowly, he looked at the faces of those around him who smiled their approval that the wheels of justice had turned in his favour.

  Overwhelmed, honoured, he took a step forward, then another until he stood amongst them once again. The sound of applause dimmed, allowing him to speak.

  “I don’t go in for speeches,” he began, and emotion made his voice harder than he intended. “But let me say thank you. Thanks to all of you who kept a bit of faith these last few weeks, and for shirking off to come and give me a warm welcome. Now, get back to work!”

  There was laughter, as he had intended.

  There was more back-slapping, firm handshaking and murmured words of encouragement as they filed out again, back to their day jobs as if nothing had happened.

  He moved across to clasp Phillips by the hand and plant a grateful kiss on MacKenzie.

  “Better not make that a habit,” Phillips grumbled, good-naturedly.

  “Have to take the opportunity when I can. Jack? What the hell are you doing lurking over there? Get over here so I can slobber all over you, too.”

  Lowerson practically skipped across the room and ignored the outstretched hand, enveloping Ryan in a rib-cracking hug instead.

  “Alright,” Ryan tapped Lowerson’s back. “Alright.”

  Releasing him, Lowerson grinned.

  “Looks like the Chief Constable made the right decision then?”

  “She said the accusations appeared to be unfounded and that Donovan’s death was an unfortunate circumstance which would be handled in a separate inquiry. It will, she suspects, lead to recommendations that internal procedures be updated and CCTV cameras replaced, which is what usually happens. ‘Lessons learned,’ or something like that.”

  “Where does that leave you?” Phillips asked.

  Ryan shrugged.

  “I’m back on the job,” he answered.

  MacKenzie turned away and started to gather up the paperwork relating to Bowers’ death, until a gentle hand stilled her arm.

  “This is still your baby,” Ryan assured her, though he would have liked to see the reports. “The Chief Constable wants me back to full duty but not working on this, for obvious reasons. I’m too involved and I knew the man before he died. Aside from the fact you can’t clear me from your list—”

  “Ryan, I—” MacKenzie started to protest but he shook his head.

  “Mac, I don’t want to hear any apologies from you. You’re doing your job and that’s precisely what I want you to do. I don’t want anybody to say there was a stitch up. Clear me through the proper process.”

  MacKenzie just nodded and let the papers fall back onto the desk.

  “Besides,” Ryan continued. “I’m sure that the usual roster of manslaughter and rape will keep Phillips and me occupied for the time being.”

  MacKenzie nodded, searching his impassive face but finding it unreadable.

  “You don’t want to, ah, discuss anything?”


  Ryan’s eyes twinkled.

  “That would be against the rules, Mac, and I’m nothing if not a stickler for the letter of the law.”

  * * *

  Gregson pulled his car onto the driveway beside his wife’s silver Audi and turned off the engine. He couldn’t see her anywhere around the front of their impressive home, with its creeping ivy and faux Tudor façade. She was probably hiding beside the patio doors at the back of the house, he reasoned, since it would be less likely that the neighbours would catch a glimpse of her there. Avoiding social embarrassment was of paramount importance in Cathy Gregson’s insular world.

  He paused for a moment longer to stare at the cushioned leather steering wheel as he thought of his wife. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so uptight, so damn proper…

  Arthur sighed deeply. There was no use trying to lie to himself. To others, maybe, but never to himself. Cathy had been a vibrant young woman when her father had introduced her to a young Arthur Gregson. She wasn’t to know that the meeting had been carefully engineered, or that her family fed him titbits so that he would be better equipped to woo her from the start. She had fallen for the sweetly romantic Arthur, with the shy smile and vulnerable exterior. He made her believe that, in marrying him, she was rebelling against her family’s cocoon.

  How wrong Cathy had been, he thought, to trust him all those years ago.

  To his surprise, he had fallen in love with her—after a fashion. She had been bubbly and pretty as a picture, not to mention a catch for a man from the rough end of Newcastle. He had been proud to have her on his arm. Look, people would remark, isn’t that Teddy Smyth’s daughter, married to that young policeman? It made people stand up and take notice of him.

  Over the years, things had slipped. There came promotion after promotion, while Cathy took care of the social side of life. The barbeques, the parties, the events with local people of influence and standing had come in quick succession and she had smiled and laughed at each of them. That was breeding, he supposed.

  Arthur wasn’t moulded the same way. He liked a wife at home, with all the airs and graces, but he also liked a little something on the side to remind him of where he had come from. He liked a bit of attention from the kind of woman to appreciate his success, not the kind of woman he had at home, who expected it. Those side dishes had come a little too frequently for Cathy’s liking and her love had frozen into a kind of cynical acceptance. They’d discussed it, of course, calmly over dinner. He knew that she had wept afterwards, in the privacy of her own room, but she had still come down to breakfast the next morning and carried on just as before.

  Now, they found themselves stranded in a kind of seventies time warp, she with her ladies and he with his work; both kinds of work. If Cathy presumed that he was visiting a woman for long hours into the night, rather than imagining him atop windy hillsides surrounded by people in dark cloaks, perhaps it was better that way. It was often true.

  He sighed again and heaved himself out of the car. He was still in shape, thanks to regular tennis matches and a careful diet, but he couldn’t prevent the march of time leaving its mark on his thickening middle or from turning his dark hair to grey. He felt it, as his knees creaked out of the car and he stretched out the aches in his legs.

  One of the neighbours waved to him from across the road and they agreed to a round of golf the following weekend.

  He had always hated golf. Damn boring game, wandering around hitting a ball with a stick. But his neighbour owned a chain of successful restaurants in the North-East and if he wanted a table in any of them, he had better toe the line.

  Gregson headed around to the back of the house and was mildly surprised not to find Cathy sitting on one of the outdoor trestle chairs, tapping her toe in agitation. The patio was empty. Everything was quiet, except for the sprinklers fanning the rear lawn with a gentle spray so that the grass didn’t dry out over the summer months. Another ridiculous notion, he mused, given that summertime in the North of England hardly equated to the baking heat of the African desert.

  He tried the patio doors and found them unlocked. Rage, quickly suppressed, washed over him. Was this a ruse to try to control him, to curb his movements and bring him to heel? Obviously, she was not locked out of the house. Why, then, tell him to come home in the middle of the working day, except to frustrate him?

  Stepping through the patio doors, he could hear the sound of the radio in the kitchen. Some chatty drivel, he thought with misogynist peeve, designed for bored housewives. He trailed across the pristine rose-coloured carpet in the lounge, eyeing the china figurines with disgust as he made his way to the kitchen.

  “Cathy?” he called out, angrily. “Cathy!”

  The call died on his lips as he approached the kitchen and he drew a strangled breath, sucking air into his lungs like a dying man.

  Cathy hadn’t heard him. She hadn’t been capable of hearing anything, not since earlier that morning.

  She lay crumpled on the expensive Mediterranean tile floor, pooled in her own blood. The brassy smell of it filled the air, oozing from the deep knife wound running across her belly. There was a smaller cut on her chin, where she must have banged her head on the edge of the sink as she fell. Her eyes were wide and staring, glazed over and empty. One of the silly velvet pink slippers she liked to wear had fallen from her foot and lay a short distance away, its material stained and beginning to crust with blood from the floor.

  Tears fell but he didn’t feel them. Motionless, he stood there, his body shaking.

  Cathy, he thought.

  A sob escaped him, guttural and fierce. This was not part of the agreement, he thought wildly. He had made vows and he accepted the consequences of betrayal, but Cathy had not. She hadn’t drunk the blood of a baby goat and howled at the moon. She had stayed at home, watching Strictly Come Dancing.

  Anger warred with panic. Was this a punishment? Was it a message from the Circle? He didn’t have long to find out. His trained eye could see that she had already been lying there for hours and, on a hot day, he couldn’t leave her much longer. There was no use trying to drive away and pretend that he hadn’t found her, since he had already spoken with his neighbour and others might have seen him.

  Gregson raised wide, frightened eyes to the countertop and caught sight of a cheap mobile phone that did not belong to his wife. His heart plummeted to the floor and his stomach rolled at the certain knowledge that the pay-as-you-go mobile was one of his own, which he used for Circle business. He wanted to grab it up, to destroy it, but there was a river of blood between the countertop and where he stood. He could not risk leaving prints on the floor—things were sticky enough already.

  He turned away and started to fumble for his other mobile when a thought struck him. The previous day, Ryan claimed to have received a text message from an unknown number claiming to be Bowers, leading him to Heavenfield Church. It was too much of a coincidence.

  Sick and afraid, he knew that it was only a matter of time before MacKenzie’s team triangulated the source of the text messages sent to Ryan. They could only trace an unregistered to within a certain radius but they would connect the dots and make a permanent connection between him and Bowers. After that, they would delve into his private life, uncovering all manner of things not intended for public consumption.

  He needed to think fast.

  CHAPTER 10

  Miles away, Ryan took a hefty bite of prime beef burger and washed it down with a slug of Irn Bru. Beside him, Phillips flipped his tie over one shoulder and dug into fish and chips caked in salt and vinegar, while Anna looked on in despair.

  “Given this healthy lifestyle, I don’t know how you’ve managed to dodge a heart attack, or diabetes,” she remarked, watching as Ryan loaded his burger with extra sauce.

  “It’s all those hours chasing down the bad guys,” he supplied, taking another bite.

  “I’m naturally athletic,” Phillips said, laughing in the face of his growing belly and sagging chin. “No
use in being jealous,” he added, with a wink.

  Anna couldn’t help but giggle. They made a fine pair, the two of them.

  “It’s wonderful that you don’t have the inquiry hanging over your head any more,” she turned to more serious matters. “But what happens now? Do you carry on as if nothing has happened? Surely Gregson will come in for some flak?”

  Ryan licked ketchup from the side of his mouth and pushed his empty plate aside.

  “The fact is that we need something concrete against him. At the minute, we’re rolling on instinct, and the Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t give too much weight to that.”

  “It’s like he’s got the bloody eye of Sauron all over you,” Phillips muttered and then looked up into the ensuing silence. “What? Haven’t you ever read Tolkien? You know, the baddie with the black eye who wants his ring of power back…”

  There was a short pause.

  “Anyway,” Ryan continued blandly, shaking his head, “since I don’t have a ring of power to tempt him out of hiding, I’m going to have to rely on normal methods of investigation. I want to know more about Gregson’s private business. Let’s start with his finances. If he’s dirty, there’ll be money changing hands somewhere.”

  “Need a warrant for that,” Phillips commented.

  “Usually, yes.”

  Phillips tutted.

  “That’s another risk, lad. If you go poking into his private affairs without the proper paperwork, anything you find won’t be admissible. Added to which, it’d be illegal. Added to which, if you get caught, you’d lose your job.”

  “It might throw up some useful lines of enquiry,” Ryan said. “Besides, I won’t get caught.”

  “Oh, you’re a technological whiz now?”

  Ryan just smiled.

  “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Has there been any progress finding Mark’s killer?” Anna said it lightly but her voice trembled. For her, it was their number one priority.

  “MacKenzie has it in hand,” Phillips said reassuringly. “She’s got our best people looking into it. Pinter, Faulkner…they’re working their socks off.”