by LJ Ross
But he didn’t.
His feet pounded the pavement, echoing against the concrete surrounds until he crossed the river again and made his way through the town. He counted off the college buildings as he followed the loop back around the underside of the city. Eventually, he came full circle and the Cathedral, which dominated the landscape like a beacon, told him that he was almost home.
Home.
The thought of making a home with another person, someone who understood the vagaries of his life and could handle his shifting, mercurial moods, had been little more than a pipe dream. Until, under the most unlikely circumstances, he had met Anna.
She, with her deceptively quiet temperament that made a man think of silky garments and mood music, had stormed into his life with the force of a typhoon, sweeping away any silly notions he might have had about protecting her from the darker sides to life.
She needed no advice from him about how to handle herself.
And wasn’t that a breath of fresh air?
For the first time in many months, he recalled the only other relationship he could reasonably describe as such. A girl six…no, dear God, eight years ago. A woman he’d met in police training and spent a couple of years casually dating while he was working at the Met. Emma, he remembered, thinking that it seemed like a lifetime ago and he felt like a different person.
A better one, he hoped.
He sprinted the rest of the distance back to their front door and let himself be enveloped by the distinctive scent of fresh coffee and something meaty. Bacon, he thought, while his mouth watered.
He found her in the little breakfast nook off the kitchen, sitting at the fairy-sized table with copper pots and pans hanging precariously around her. She was bundled into an oversized tartan dressing gown and her long legs were bare, one foot swaying in time to the morning radio while she read a broadsheet paper.
She turned and met the look in his eyes.
“Ready for breakfast?”
“It can wait.”
* * *
The time was still shy of seven-thirty when their visitors began to arrive. Lowerson was early, true to form, followed by Phillips and MacKenzie. Phillips’ choice of tie was an embroidered masterpiece in shades of purple, reflecting his own unique interpretation of professional attire.
“Welcome to New Scotland Yard,” Ryan quipped, as they divested themselves of their coats.
“It’s a lot more comfortable,” Phillips replied, topping off a mug of steaming coffee. “Do we get code names?” His button-brown eyes lit up at the thought. “I already know what mine would be.”
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“Golden Eagle,” Phillips supplied.
Ryan rubbed a hand across his chin to hide his smile.
“I was thinking more along the lines of, ‘plastic chicken.’ ”
“You’ve got no respect for your elders.”
Amid hoots of laughter, they made their way up to Anna’s first floor office, which had been converted into something they could loosely call an incident room.
Inside, the two walls not already covered in bookshelves had been cleared of any paraphernalia and presented a blank, pale green canvas. Anna’s desk remained but was clear of distractions. Ryan hitched a hip onto the edge, grateful that it wasn’t a self-assembly job and liable to collapse under his weight.
He picked up a squeezy plastic oddment in the shape of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which Anna used as stress-relief when she was working to a deadline. He tried it out and then flipped it from hand to hand while he began to order things in his mind.
“Alright, let’s just get everything out in the open,” he began, skipping the pleasantries. “We all feel bad sneaking around like this—”
“I don’t,” Phillips threw in, and then shrugged when heads swivelled in his direction.
“With the exception of Phillips,” Ryan continued, “the rest of us are probably feeling awkward.”
The silence that followed told him he wasn’t far off the mark.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “This may not be the way we normally do things, but the situation is important enough to justify deviation from our usual methods. If anyone’s got a problem with that, there’ll be no hard feelings, but it would be better for all concerned if you speak up now.”
He waited, but the silence stretched. This time, it was a comfortable one.
“In that case, let’s crack on. Consider this a ‘safe space.’ What we discuss here goes no further. Agreed?”
There was murmured assent.
“We’ve got three cases running concurrently,” he dived straight in. “MacKenzie and Lowerson are still investigating Bowers’ death. Meanwhile, Phillips and I are looking into the attack on Gregson and the apparent disappearance of his wife sometime yesterday afternoon. Finally, we’re all looking into the Circle. Who they are, what they are and to what extent they connect with current and past investigations.”
“This is going to rack up some overtime,” Phillips joked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ryan waved it away. “It’s going to be a gigantic motherfucking bitch of a job, for no extra pay, but somebody’s got to do it.”
“You’re not selling it very well,” Anna said.
Ryan flashed her a brief smile, then his face fell into grim lines, eyes dark and compelling as he scanned the faces of his friends and colleagues.
“I don’t know what we will uncover, not for certain. That being the case, things could get hard and they could get personal. We should all be prepared for that. The people we’re dealing with are likely to be in positions of relative power. How else have they avoided discovery? They’ll be desperate to stay hidden and they’ll fight dirty. If anybody has a skeleton or two rattling around in their closet, you might as well be prepared for it to jump out and bite you on the arse.” He paused, adding, “I’m currently a suspect for murder and I barely dodged being dismissed from my job. On the upside, I’ve had an unexpected holiday, so life ain’t all bad.”
They smiled in solidarity but none of them were fooled into thinking that the past six weeks had been anything but a living nightmare for him.
“MacKenzie tells me that the investigation into Bowers’ death is heating up. Analyses of blood samples found around the body point to historic crimes chalked up to Patrick Donovan. That man died six weeks ago, which is too damn close a connection for it to be accidental.”
“The lab team are working around the clock to get through the rest of the samples,” MacKenzie put in. “It will take longer to match them with the right missing person because the database didn’t store DNA data before 2010—too expensive. We can always cross-match with the relatives of the women on Donovan’s list, see if we get lucky and find a familial match.”
Ryan nodded. It was exactly what he would have done.
“Good stuff,” was all he said. “What about the telephone records?”
MacKenzie understood that if it could be proven that Ryan did not send any messages to himself, it would go a long way towards clearing him.
“The telephone company confirmed that you made the calls to Bowers’ home and place of work at the times you stated. The outgoing calls were made from the mobile phone you turned over to us, which has been verified as your primary phone—”
“I bet that’s been a pain in the arse having to turn in your phone,” Phillips interjected. “I keep all my games on mine.”
MacKenzie threw him a look that could only be described as loving despair.
“When do you ever have time to play video games?”
“On the netty,” he replied, with a wink.
“They’re still working to triangulate the source of the text message you received purporting to be from Mark Bowers,” she continued, turning to address Ryan once again. “Which is trickier since it was sent from a prepaid mobile phone rather than something on a monthly contract. We still haven’t found Bowers’ mobile, although he did have one, but in any case the message you
received didn’t come from there. The minute I hear anything further, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I appreciate that, Mac,” Ryan said quietly. He looked away for a second, formulating what he wanted to say next. “I, ah, want you to know I appreciate you—all of you—being here now. I know what it means, and what it could cost you.”
Before they had a chance to answer, he was off the desk, rising to pick up a marker pen. Anna opened her mouth to object to the use of permanent marker on her walls, but closed it again as she watched him draw a long black line along the length of one side. She supposed her study was due a fresh lick of paint.
“This represents Bowers’ timeline,” he explained, adding in Bowers’ movements from Friday and Saturday, leading up to his death on the Sunday. “This is what I’m aware of, so we’ll leave it at that. MacKenzie, Lowerson, carry on with your own board back at CID, it’s important to keep things looking normal.”
“You mean in case somebody checks up?” Lowerson asked.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Ryan agreed. “Anything you find relating to previous victims, previous cases, bring it here. That might relate to the Circle. Everything else, keep it at the office.”
“Understood,” MacKenzie said.
“What about ballistics? Have you found a murder weapon?” Anna chimed in, feeling a sense of camaraderie as she was drawn into their work.
MacKenzie reached into her wide leather bag and pulled out a black file, retrieving a couple of printed copies of the ballistics report summary. She handed one to Ryan and referred to the other while she spoke.
“I had a report waiting in my inbox this morning, which tells me that Jepson was working through the night to complete it.” She thought of George Jepson, their go-to ballistics expert. What he didn’t know about hand-held machine weaponry wasn’t worth knowing.
“Upshot is, we still have no weapon but at least we have a better idea of what we’re looking for.”
“Which is?”
“Jepson assessed the lead ball, the black powder, the size and extent of the injuries,” she explained. “There were small powder burns on Bowers’ face, which suggests there was a spark of some kind. Putting it all together, Jepson tells me the weapon we’re looking for is likely to have a flintlock mechanism. That’s what Pinter thought, too.”
“A flintlock mechanism?”
MacKenzie held up a finger while she rifled through her notes.
“It was developed in the seventeenth century in France. Basically, it’s a type of lock belonging to pistols and rifles during that era. You get a piece of flint which is held in place by these miniature jaws, on the end of a short hammer. You pull the hammer back into a ‘cocked’ position,” she used thumb and index finger on her left hand to illustrate. “When it’s released by the trigger being pulled, the spring-loaded hammer moves forward, which causes the flint to strike a bit of steel called the…” she checked her notes, “…the ‘frizzen.’
“The motion pushes the frizzen back and opens the cover of the pan containing the gunpowder. As the flint strikes the frizzen, it creates a spark, which falls into the pan and lights up the powder.”
“Then everything goes ‘boom’?” Phillips finished for her.
“Indeed,” MacKenzie’s lips twitched. “The flame burns through a tiny hole in the barrel of the gun, ignites the main powder and causes the weapon to fire.”
“That would explain the smell of sulphur,” Anna commented. “Up at the church. There was a lingering smell of sulphur.”
MacKenzie raised an eyebrow but was perfectly capable of putting two and two together and producing the correct number.
“I take it you went on a little expedition?” she asked sweetly.
Anna lifted her chin.
“Mark was my friend.”
MacKenzie rolled her eyes heavenward.
“We’ve thrown out the rule book, remember?” Ryan reminded her.
“Well? You might as well tell us if there’s anything we missed.”
“It wasn’t like that, Denise,” Anna replied. “I’m not trying to tread on your toes, I’m trying to make myself useful.”
“She saw someone, up there,” Ryan added, overriding any smart comment on the tip of MacKenzie’s tongue.
Four pairs of flat, cop eyes turned to Anna expectantly.
“I went up there around eight-thirty last night. The sun had set and the place was pretty dark. I couldn’t see any other cars parked nearby, so I thought I was alone.” She took a sip of coffee to warm her lips. “I made my way up the hill.”
She remembered how insignificant she had felt atop that secluded hillside.
“When I reached the entrance, I noticed that a couple of the gas lamps were burning inside. At first, I wondered if there might be a police presence to guard the scene—”
“Faulkner completed his sweep of the immediate area on Tuesday,” MacKenzie supplied.
“Ah. Well, I figured if your guys were still around I would have seen a police vehicle parked at the bottom of the hill.” She lifted a shoulder and let it fall again. “I decided to go inside.”
She heard Ryan’s irritable sigh from across the room.
“I know it was dangerous. I guess I wanted to see where he had died, just to be able to visualise the space.”
“And?”
“I took some pictures—”
“Which you will hand over,” MacKenzie interjected firmly.
Anna smiled serenely and continued to recount her story.
“I became…aware of someone else in the church. I didn’t see anyone when I first entered.”
“Do you think they came in via the vestry?” Ryan prodded her. “Or were they concealed elsewhere?”
“There are very few hiding places in a church that size and there isn’t a vestry,” Anna said. “I hid in one of the shadowed corners. Even then, I anticipated being discovered sooner or later. I would have to say they came in through the main door, quietly.”
“Which is also blocked by a police line,” MacKenzie clarified, just for the record.
“What did they look like? Male? Female?”
“I really tried to get a good look but I didn’t want to give away my position, just in case,” Anna replied, apologetically. “Everything about this person was average: height, gait...although the way they stroked the wall almost made me think of a feminine caress.”
Anna laughed at herself.
“It sounds silly.”
“Not necessarily,” MacKenzie averred. “Can you describe his actions?”
“They seemed to be looking for something on the floor beside the altar. Then, when they stood up, they seemed focussed on this one bit of wall. They stared at it for a couple of minutes and ran a hand across it, tenderly, if you like. It just somehow seemed like a feminine action.”
“Mm hmm,” MacKenzie’s eyes were sharp. “Then what?”
“I must have made some small sound because they whirled around and seemed to see me. I just ran. I didn’t stop, I just ran out of the church back to my car.”
“Did they give chase?”
“I didn’t see anyone when I made it to my car but I didn’t stop to check. I just lit out of there like a bat out of hell.”
“They saw you,” Ryan said flatly.
Anna nodded, just once, while the other members of the room worried for her.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It was impossible for them to miss me, and I wasn’t wearing clothing designed to conceal my face.”
“Which means that somebody knows that we’re checking up, going behind the lines.”
“Not necessarily,” Phillips interjected, his voice a model of calm reason. “Anybody who knew Bowers would know Anna was like a daughter to him. Only natural that she would want to know what happened to him. There’s a chance they’ll leave it at that.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Anna was hopeful.
“What did I just say about desperate men resorting to desperate meas
ures? If they think you saw their face…” Ryan’s jaw snapped shut and he looked away, giving the Tower of Pisa a vicious squeeze.
MacKenzie turned back to Ryan, who was working very hard not to imagine Anna streaking over blackened fields, filled with fear.
“I’m going to ask Faulkner to go over the area around the altar again,” MacKenzie said. “See if our mystery person left any prints.”
“Gloves,” Anna said with a flash of inspiration. “They were wearing gloves. Dark, black probably but could have been a dark brown. They looked dirty. Dark hat pulled over their head, all-weather coat with the collar up. Some kind of dark riding boots.”
“Alright,” MacKenzie nodded. “We might be able to work with a police artist, come up with a visual if you’re willing?”
Anna nodded.
“I’ll ask Faulkner anyway, see what we see.”
“What did he want with the wall?” Lowerson looked up from his task of recording the notes of their meeting. He flushed slightly when attention turned to him. “I just mean—why was he so impressed with the wall?”
Ryan pointed a finger at him.
“It’s that kind of clear-sighted thinking that makes you a detective, Jack. Damn good question. Why was he…or she, so taken with the wall?”
“You said it was beside the altar but on which side?” MacKenzie asked Anna.
Anna reached across for her phone and brought up the images she had taken last night, scrolling through until she found the right one.
“Here,” she handed it over. “It’s the eastern wall, to the right of the altar.”
MacKenzie studied the image, before handing it around to the others.
“That wall lies directly behind where Bowers was found, nearest to his head.”
She didn’t need to spell out the fact that it would have been covered in bloodstains.
“Perhaps he was interested in the blood,” Anna said, tonelessly, her skin turning pale. Ryan frowned and poised to go to her, but she shook her head, warding him off.
“Or it could be something else,” Ryan suggested. “We need to check it out in person. For now, we know that the church has been used as a kill site. We know Bowers is the most recent victim to die there. We know the kind of weapon we are looking for—is Jepson doing a run on weapons recently sold or acquired matching his description?”