by LJ Ross
With a longing look towards the wide, sandy beach, Anna began to make her way along Vale Typping, the ancient road winding up the craggy incline towards the castle gates. Families chattered past her, saturated by historical tours and ready for the cups of tea and jam-loaded scones which awaited them in the village below. Anna smiled and continued upwards, passing through a series of fortified gates until she entered the main castle compound. She went in search of a guide who could direct her to the offices of Professor Jane Freeman, Chief Archaeologist for National Heritage in the North-East.
The woman in question watched Anna from her vantage point in the library, which formed part of the clock tower, one of the smaller towers overlooking the excavation works in the southernmost part of the castle compound. Its central position afforded her an excellent view of anybody entering or leaving the castle and, given that some of the castle workers were also minor members of the Circle, it also gave Freeman the illusion of being mistress of all she surveyed.
Now, she watched Anna walk in the direction of the clock tower with long-legged strides. She reflected that it must have been fate that led her to look out of the mullioned library windows at that moment—no, she corrected, not fate. The Master. It was He who had given the signal that she should rise from her desk and look out to see who had entered her domain.
Anna Taylor had come to find her.
Though the world of local academic history was a small one, their respective specialisms were too polarised for their paths to cross very often. For her part, Freeman remembered teaching Anna from her days as a doctoral student at Durham. She might have forgotten her, were it not for the fulsome praise Bowers had heaped on the girl. Freeman considered it a personal insult, considering that she and Bowers had been burning up the bed sheets at that time. It was hardly an aphrodisiac to hear a man waxing lyrical about another woman—especially a younger one.
“If you’re so enamoured with the girl, get out of my bedroom and go and crawl into hers!” she had screamed, during one particularly heated argument. Bowers had risen from her bed and dressed in complete silence. Even now, Freeman remembered his control, the incredible self discipline he had possessed which had been such a turn on.
Now, the girl who had driven a wedge between them had grown into a woman and she had come to ask questions; questions that Freeman did not want to answer. Various possibilities occurred to her and temptation reared its ugly head. It would be so simple, Freeman thought, to arrange an accident. The winds were strong on the battlements and Anna Taylor would not be the first poor soul to lose her life to the sea.
* * *
The rain started. It fell in fat droplets over the people of Newcastle, casting a shadow over the sky. It drummed against the thin window panes at CID Headquarters and washed away the media throng who retreated to their vans and to their deadlines. It pattered melodically against the single window in the incident room and gave comfort to the people within.
“Telephone company has come back to us.”
MacKenzie looked up at Lowerson.
“About bloody time,” she muttered.
“They’ve managed to triangulate the source of that text message sent to Ryan, the one he says was from Bowers.”
“And?”
Lowerson grinned and swung his chair from side-to-side.
“It couldn’t have been him! Ryan received the message while he was at Anna’s place in Durham on Sunday afternoon but the company say that the text message was sent from a throwaway phone within a range of five hundred metres from a location in Newcastle. Here, let me show you.”
He skipped over to the map on the wall of the incident room and stuck three red pins onto it, indicating the three closest telephone masts.
“These are the closest masts to pick up the text signal, which aren’t far apart since we’re in a built-up area.”
MacKenzie picked up her mug of tea, now stone cold, and made her way across the room. Immediately, she noticed another pin which fell squarely within the area Lowerson had demarcated.
“Interesting coincidence again, Jack. The text directing Ryan to make his way out to Heavenfield on Sunday was sent from a mobile phone within five hundred metres of these telephone masts. Look what else lies within that zone,” she tapped a finger against the map. “17 Haslemere Gardens.”
“You think Gregson might have sent it, to set Ryan up? That he arranged for Bowers to be killed, then set it up so that Ryan would be the first on the scene?” he asked, fiercely.
MacKenzie took her time sipping her tea.
“At this point, nothing would surprise me. One thing I am prepared to do is cross Ryan off the list, once and for all.”
Lowerson did the happy dance.
“If he turns out to be a murdering maniac, I will stand corrected,” MacKenzie tagged on.
* * *
The body count was piling up. They had no killer, no weapon and no real explanation or motive as to why men were dying or being attacked left, right and centre. Ghosts from previous cases visited him with unnerving frequency and his team was stretched to the limit of its capacity.
Ah, God, how he’d missed this.
Phillips glanced across at Ryan, who looked stupidly pleased with himself.
“Don’t know what you’ve got to smile about,” he grumbled. “I’ve had those press hounds up my arse for hours, I’ve got nothing but bad news to tell them and all you can do is sit there grinning like a monkey!”
Ryan’s smile grew wider, until it was almost blinding.
Phillips shook his head and adopted a sympathetic expression.
“It’s the strain, isn’t it? Now, there’s no shame in admitting when things start to get on top of you—”
“Phillips, d’you know something? It feels good to be alive.”
Frank leaned back in his olive green desk chair and linked his fingers across his paunch, settling down for the chat.
“Well, now, that’s just dandy. I’m glad you’re having some sort of spiritual epiphany but we do have quite a few things to do today. Nothing urgent, just investigating three suspicious deaths, grievous bodily harm and a missing person.”
Phillips made a dismissive gesture.
“You know, the usual.”
Ryan linked his hands behind his head and looked at the little framed photograph of Anna which he kept on his desk to remind him of the good things in life.
“D’you know what else?” he said, dreamily, ignoring Phillips’ tirade.
Frank huffed out a breath.
“I have a funny feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“After this is all over, when these people are behind bars, I’m going to marry that girl.”
Phillips’ eyebrows shot into his receding hairline. It wasn’t quite fair to say that Ryan was afraid of commitment, not after he had existed for the last eight months in a co-habiting relationship with a grown woman, but in all the years Phillips had known him, Ryan had never been a man to talk of marriage, or relationships generally for that matter.
“What’s brought this on?”
“I think it’s what they call being ‘happy,’ Frank. I’m unfamiliar with the feeling, in general, but recently I’ve been experiencing this odd sort of contentment. The kind that makes me want to get up in the morning. If I can feel this good when all the world is crumbling around me and I nearly lost my job, I must have Anna to thank for that.”
Phillips’ chest puffed out in pride. His boy was growing up.
“That’s good, lad. That’s really good.”
* * *
Keith Thorbridge watched the news on his ancient television set. He listened intently to the grainy sound of the newscaster who reported that the two Holy Island killers had been found dead in their cells on the same day.
Suicide, it looked like. Suicide and a violent prison attack.
Thorbridge grunted and took a swig of ale.
Neither of those two would ever have ended themselves. Not without a bit of help, at
least. It took a real man to top himself, not that soft-palmed doctor from the island. As for the other one, he didn’t have much sympathy for nonces.
He stubbed a finger on the remote control to turn the screen off, hefted himself out of his armchair and then tramped up the stairs, which creaked underfoot. He turned left along the tiny landing and pushed open the second bedroom in his two up, two down cottage. He flicked on the weak light with its cheap paper shade and eco-friendly bulb, which shone a gloomy white light over the room. Outside, the sun found a gap in the grey clouds and shone beams of light over the hills but Thorbridge didn’t notice.
He took out his special box, a tattered cardboard affair he had found outside the supermarket. First, he selected four sheets of dog-eared white paper, covered in scribbled biro. He laid them out on the mouldy carpet to form a complete diagram, showing a wide black circle with names listed along its circumference. He rummaged in the box and found a biro, then carefully struck a line through two names.
Steven Walker and Daniel Mathieson.
* * *
Anna made her way up the stairwell of the clock tower at Bamburgh Castle to the upper floor, which housed a splendid library and served as an honorary office space for Jane Freeman’s exploits. She tapped on a door bearing a brass plate with the woman’s name and, soon after, it swung open.
“Professor Freeman? I don’t know if you’ll remember me. My name is Anna Taylor.”
“Doctor Taylor?” Freeman nodded kindly. “Do come in. Of course I remember you. You were in one of my classes at Durham, isn’t that right? And, of course, I’ve read your work since. Very impressive.”
Anna was surprised by the warmth of her welcome. Perhaps she had misjudged the woman.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I, ah, this might not be the best time—”
“Not at all. Why don’t we get comfortable?” Freeman suggested, leading the way across to a seating area, which was grandly furnished. “This part of the castle isn’t open to the public. The owners have graciously allowed me to use these rooms as a suite of offices.”
Freeman tried not to let the words choke her. Perhaps in a few years, with a strong army of loyal followers, she would be able to make the owners of this stone fortress an offer they couldn’t refuse. Then, everything would be hers.
Anna accepted a seat beside the fire, which had been lit to offset the draughts which managed to permeate the walls despite the fact they were metres thick.
“It doesn’t feel much like summer anymore, does it?”
Freeman looked out of one of the windows across the choppy sea. She could hear the waves crashing against the rocks below as the winds rolled in from the east.
“It’s powerful,” Freeman said, regally.
She turned back to Anna and crossed one leg over the other, holding court.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you again,” she continued. “As you know, I deal mostly in Roman archaeology which means our paths haven’t crossed too often in the years since we were both at Durham.”
“Yes, I took a different route,” Anna agreed. “But, actually, that’s partly why I came to see you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your doctoral paper, if I may. I’m hoping to explore some similar themes in my next project.”
Freeman adopted a guileless expression.
“By all means, if it interests you, but I haven’t looked at that old paper in many years.”
“Of course, I understand,” Anna assured her. “It’s simply that I believe there may be some crossover between our respective areas of interest. In researching the early religions operating in Northumbria during the first few centuries A.D., I have found myself drawn to more recent examples of similar practices.”
“I’ve always found pagan history very interesting,” Freeman smiled.
“Well, in your doctoral paper, you discussed certain high-profile Roman figures who occupied the region during the construction of Hadrian’s Wall,” Anna said. “You suggested that several commanding officers in the Roman garrison were recorded to have died in what we might call suspicious circumstances, implying some kind of pagan ritual.”
“I’m afraid I can’t recall, off-hand.”
“I have the names here,” Anna tugged her notebook out of her bag and recited them.
“My, you are prepared,” Freeman said. “But the fact is, if you read my more recent publications you will see that I have largely discredited my own findings in that first doctoral paper. It was somewhat speculative of me to imagine that the deaths of those garrison officers amounted to anything other than a local discontented population or a simple dispute.”
“I see,” Anna said slowly, gnawing her inside lip.
Freeman surveyed the young woman sitting across from her, the firelight gleaming on her dark hair. Hatred rose from deep within her belly and she touched a hand to her stomach, to settle it.
“When I was a younger woman, Anna, I was less cautious in my style of writing. Perhaps I was too assertive,” she forced an apologetic smile. “But I made a case for the evidence I thought I had in my possession. As I say, further excavations and research in the years since have convinced me otherwise.”
Anna nodded and decided to try another direction.
“I was very sorry to hear about Mark,” she said softly.
Freeman arranged her face into sad lines.
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing,” she agreed. “Mark was a friend of mine and I know that you two were very…close over the years.”
Anna watched an undefined emotion pass over Freeman’s face.
“Yes, he was like a father to me.”
Freeman held off a snort of disbelief. Had this woman really no idea of how Bowers had felt? No, she thought, it was all part of Anna’s simpering, little girl lost act. She would have to be an imbecile not to have realised the man was in love with her.
Then again, Jane reminded herself, not everyone was as insightful as she.
“It’s a tragic loss,” she said benevolently.
“I wanted to ask whether you’d seen him, recently?”
Freeman’s eyes narrowed.
“No, not for some time, dear,” she replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason,” Anna said quickly. “I’m trying to understand his last movements, whether there was anything troubling him, anybody who had a grudge—”
Freeman almost laughed. She could name numerous people who held a grudge against the late Mark Bowers, starting with herself.
“Surely, that would be best left to the police?”
Anna watched Freeman closely and thought she heard a threat somewhere in her last statement. But when she searched the woman’s face, all she saw was a glossy, youthful-looking woman with big, blue eyes. Outside, the wind howled and whistled through the gaps in the stonework and Anna shivered, as if somebody had walked over her grave.
* * *
DC Lowerson stood at the foot of Gregson’s hospital bed, watching the man’s chest rise and fall. Not so long ago, a vicious crack to the head had consigned Lowerson himself to a hospital bed for six months. As far as anybody knew, he still suffered from amnesia and was unable to remember who had delivered that devastating blow. They probably assumed it had been Steven Walker or Daniel Mathieson.
But Lowerson remembered. Over and over, he replayed the sound of Gregson’s voice conferring with Bowers, the pitiless way he had left him lying on the cold ground, assuming that he would die where he had fallen.
Now, it was Gregson lying in a hospital bed, strapped into place to prevent any movement which might jostle the wound at the back of his head. He was sleeping and the monitors bleeped regularly in time with his heart beat.
It was comforting to know that karma really did exist.
Lowerson continued to watch Gregson, trailing his eyes over the collection of expensive machinery surrounding his body, helping him to recover.
He hoped that t
he superintendent did recover, because he was not done with him yet. Not by a long shot.
Lowerson turned and left the room with a nod of thanks to PC Yates, who waited until he had rounded the corner before entering the visit into her log book.
CHAPTER 21
The smell of oven-baked pizza pervaded Anna’s cottage, where the team congregated after hours to discuss the events of the day. The rain had eased its fall and pattered against the glass with a tuneful rat-a-tat-tat. Night had fallen over the city of Durham and the five members of Ryan’s team shook out their damp hair and stuffed carbohydrates into their mouths with grateful abandon.
Ryan uncorked a bottle of Rioja and told himself it was medicinal as he poured a few generous glasses for the small group.
“Alright, where are we with Bowers? Aside from the news that I didn’t kill him,” he said, irreverently.
MacKenzie leaned forward.
“The telephone company could tell us the location where the text message was sent to within five hundred metres, but they can’t tell us who sent it. The message came from an unregistered, as we know.”
“Gregson’s house is within that five hundred metre radius,” Lowerson couldn’t help blurting out.
Ryan nodded, patiently.
“I can tell you that no mobile phones other than Gregson’s work phone and his wife’s mobile were found at 17 Haslemere Gardens. Cathy Gregson sent three text messages to her husband around lunchtime, asking him to stop by the house to unlock the front door as she’d managed to lock herself out. There’s a reply from Gregson to say that he would be on his way; that was sent around twelve-thirty. Both phones are on a monthly registered contract so they don’t fit the bill for the phone that was used to text you on Sunday.”
“Still, it tells us that Cathy or an unknown third party deliberately lured Gregson home. He didn’t stumble into the house of his own volition,” Ryan observed.
“He could have,” Phillips argued. “Those messages show us why he headed home, but they don’t show us what happened when he got there.”
Ryan nodded.