by LJ Ross
* * *
Anna checked the time again and grimaced. She had to deliver a lecture to some summer students at the university at nine-thirty and she was going to be horribly late.
Where was Ryan?
It was well after nine and there was still no sign of him. She presumed he had gone out for a run, because his gym clothes were missing alongside his trainers. His mobile phone, wallet and warrant card still rested on the bedside table upstairs and she knew that he would not leave for work without them.
Automatically, she checked her watch again, but less than a minute had passed.
She had taken her time getting ready, tidying the house and the kitchen, hoping to be able to share breakfast with him before their day began. A creeping, sickly feeling began to spread in her stomach. Something had happened to him, she knew it. She could feel it.
She walked to the window overlooking the river and watched the ordinary hustle and bustle of pedestrians making their way to work or catching an early morning view of the city before the crowds swelled through its cobbled streets.
“Come on, Ryan,” she muttered aloud, while her insides churned with worry.
She heard the sound of a car engine arriving along the lane at the back of the house and her heart began to hammer so loudly she thought it might break through her chest. She hurried to the front door and opened it before Phillips had completed the short walk from his car to her front door.
One look at his face told her something was very, very wrong.
She reached out and blindly grasped the doorframe to hold herself upright.
Phillips watched the blood drain from her face and leaned over quickly to take her arm.
“Come on, love,” he led her back into the house.
Inside, the living room faced west and away from the sun, so the room was dimly lit by a couple of lamps on small Moroccan side tables. Phillips helped her into a chair and sat across from her, taking one of her hands between his rough palms.
“Is he alive?” The words were barely audible but he caught them.
“Aye, he’s still alive.”
Anna closed her eyes and a single tear spilled out. Air rushed back into her chest and the blood began to pump again, coursing through her veins like wildfire.
“What happened?”
“He was shanked—knifed in his side while he was out jogging. Whoever it was pushed him in the river, about half a mile down the road.”
“Did they catch him?”
“No, but we’ve got a good description from an eyewitness. A woman,” he elaborated. “She heard the splash from the top of the bridge, shouted for help and luckily there was a student wandering past. He dived in.”
“Thank God,” Anna said, shakily. “What if nobody had been there? What if nobody had seen—”
“Ah, now,” Phillips tugged her across for a bear hug. “Doesn’t do any good to think about all the ‘what ifs.’ What matters is that they got him out in time.”
Phillips didn’t bother to tell her that Ryan hadn’t been breathing when the student had struggled to drag him out of the water, or that several agonising moments had passed before he finally coughed up a gutful of river water and slipped back into unconsciousness.
“Where have they taken him?” She sat up again, ready to pounce off the sofa. “I need to be with him.”
“He’s at the University Hospital,” Phillips answered.
“Let’s go.” Anna stood up.
Phillips stayed her arm.
“They’ve taken him straight into surgery,” he told her. “He’ll be in there a while.”
Anna nodded and grabbed up her things. Once they were inside the car, she turned to him again.
“Frank, I don’t care what you have to do, but find whoever did this. Just find them.”
“Aye, lass, you can count on it.”
* * *
The waiting went on forever. Hours spent in the depressing environment of the family waiting room with its empty water dispenser and strategically-placed leaflets on bereavement, drinking endless cups of coffee until their stomachs revolted and their hands jittered. MacKenzie and Lowerson came and went, and their false cheer for Anna’s benefit did a better job of conveying their deep concern than tears ever could.
Anna made the difficult call to Ryan’s parents and spoke with his mother, who had already lost one child and whose heart couldn’t stand to lose another. They would be making their way north on the earliest flight from Devon to Newcastle.
Three hours trickled by in a haze of whispered trepidation until the surgeon eventually stepped inside the room, still in his scrubs.
“Mrs Ryan?”
Anna stood up on shaky legs and swallowed the weak tears in her throat.
“No, I—um, I’m Ryan’s girlfriend. His mother and father will be here as soon as they can.”
The surgeon nodded, then looked across at Phillips, whom he had already spoken to in an official capacity.
“Please, take a seat,” he urged them both. “Maxwell has come through the surgery well. There was a laceration to his right side but by some stroke of very good luck the knife managed to miss his major organs. It’s small comfort to you but from a medical perspective it was fortunate that he was recovered from the water with the blade still entrenched in his abdomen. That has allowed us to remove it safely, to stem the blood loss and seal the wound. He was suffering from advanced shock when he first came to us and his heart rate was very erratic, but it’s stabilised since then and I’m optimistic.”
Anna let the happy tears flow and Phillips barely held them off himself.
“When can we see him?”
“He’s in recovery, under sedation. It’ll be another couple of hours before he’ll be ready to see anyone.”
Anna stood up and reached for the surgeon’s hand. As a naturally reserved man, he flushed at the gesture.
“Thank you,” she managed.
* * *
Ryan heard her voice first, the gentle sound of it rubbing over his senses like a balm.
“Ryan? Love, it’s me.”
She watched his eyelashes sweep upwards and she found herself looking into a pair of silver-grey pools, foggy with pain.
“Anna.”
His fingers groped for hers and she clasped them firmly. He was so pale. His skin held a greyish tinge and his lips lacked their usual healthy pink bloom. It was an affront to see this man in a hospital; his strong face with its hard planes and angles was so drastically out of place here, amongst people who were weak and dying.
“You’ll be out of here in no time,” she said briskly, giving his fingers another quick squeeze. “Your mum and dad are coming up to see you. They’ll be here any minute, now.”
Ryan watched her putting on a strong front and smiled faintly. She leaned over and fussed with the blanket, careful to avoid his bandages.
“Anna?”
“Mm hmm?”
“Would you do something for me?”
“Anything,” she said.
“Marry me.”
Her hands froze on either side of his chest.
“What?”
Ryan smiled, the fine lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. His head felt fuzzy and his body was numb but he was thinking clearly. Near death experiences tended to clear out the mental junk, leaving only what mattered most.
“I know it isn’t the most romantic of settings.”
Anna looked at him for a full minute. He was serious, she realised, as warmth began to spread through her body.
She eased onto the edge of the bed and took his hand again.
“Is this the morphine talking?”
“I think they injected me with a love potion,” he said. “Bloody medics.”
Anna’s smile spread.
“Seems wrong to take advantage when you’re weak and vulnerable.”
He tilted his head to one side and gave her the ‘look.’
“Oh God,” she moaned. “Don’t look at me like that
, you know I can’t stand it.”
“Like what?” he said innocently. “Here am I, an injured man. My only request is that you agree to spend the rest of your life with me, and you’re stalling.”
Anna pursed her lips.
“There’d be a big dress,” she said, eventually.
“I’d expect no less.”
“And a fancy party, with lots of people we barely know getting drunk at our expense.”
“It’s only right and proper.”
She leaned across to press the gentlest of kisses to his pale lips.
“It’s a deal.”
Phillips rapped on the door to the recovery room and a moment later his face appeared.
“Any room for a little one?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but stomped inside, coming to a hasty standstill when his antenna picked up the unusual atmosphere.
“What’s going on here?”
“Anna’s just agreed to make an honest man of me,” Ryan said.
It took a few seconds but, after the initial surprise, the worry lines cleared from Phillips’ brow and a gigantic grin broke across his face.
“Well, pet, I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for,” he said, walking across to plant an affectionate kiss on her upturned forehead. He reached across and took one of Ryan’s limp hands in his broad palm and pumped it briefly.
“I’m happy for you, mate. You’ve got one in a million sitting here. ‘Course, the only reason she’s marrying you is because I was already taken.”
“Naturally,” Ryan agreed.
* * *
Ryan’s parents arrived and there were tears of distress at the sight of him wounded, followed expeditiously by tears of sheer maternal joy at the thought of a wedding in the near future. Eve Finlay-Ryan reserved a very special place in her heart for Anna. She, who had lost a daughter, opened her arms to the girl who had lost all the family she had ever known. From that first telephone call, Eve had warmed to the softly spoken woman with enough backbone to stand up to her son who, she admitted, could be remote and stubborn at the best of times.
After some none-too-gentle cajoling from the nurse, they were ushered outside. Loath as he was to admit it, Ryan was tired. His body was broken and needed time to heal. Nothing would be gained from pushing himself too hard too quickly, except a stunted recovery.
Phillips lingered at the end, the frivolity draining from his watchful brown eyes now that the others had left.
“Anything I can get for you, lad?”
Ryan felt his eyelids drooping and forced them open again.
“It was one of ours,” he whispered. “One of the new PCs. I don’t remember his name.”
Phillips listened to Ryan as he recounted his ordeal, heard the catch in his breath as he described the sensation of falling backwards into the cold water of the river and it did not take much to imagine the horror. It was there in the man’s eyes, where the shock of it all replayed like a film reel. Ryan’s tone never faltered as he gave his statement with the kind of cold precision he was famous for. If there was fear, it was banked down beneath the surface. To acknowledge it would be to acknowledge how close the Circle had come to succeeding.
“They’re escalating, Frank,” Ryan was saying. Gratefully, he accepted a sip of water from the cup Phillips held to his lips. Collapsing back against the pillows, he turned grave eyes to his sergeant.
“Whoever is in charge now doesn’t take any prisoners. They’re not afraid of making a try for me,” he wheezed out an incensed breath of laughter. “They’re obliterating any potential threats and they don’t seem to care about showing their hand.”
Phillips cleared his throat and felt emotion overwhelm him.
“You’re a pain in my arse most days,” he looked away, then back again. “But God knows you scared me today, boy.”
A small muscle in Ryan’s jaw ticked as he held his own emotions in check.
“It’ll take more than a piddling little flick blade to see me off, Frank.”
“Aye, and what if they pull something bigger, next time? They want you gone.”
“Well, we can’t always have what we want, can we?”
Phillips bellowed out a laugh and waved away the nurse who tapped her watch and pointed at the door.
“Get some rest,” he said, then gave in to the temptation to ruffle Ryan’s black hair. It was probably the only opportunity he would get. “We’re watching out for you, son.”
“Thanks, Frank.”
CHAPTER 23
Arthur Gregson had been terrified before but now he was almost paralysed by fear.
Ryan’s attack dominated the late morning news as the latest in a long line of strange and violent incidents to happen within a matter of days. Freeman had reached too far, Gregson thought, in her quest to stamp out any threat to her authority. Too many deaths, too many high profile attacks to be overlooked. The Circle was coming out of the shadows and into the light.
Gregson did not know why they allowed him to live. Day by day, his body regained its strength. All that he knew about Freeman told him that she did not tolerate outsiders to their cause, and she considered him an outsider now. Years of loyal service meant nothing in the face of her indomitable leadership.
Gregson’s lip quivered, self-pityingly.
It could only be a matter of time before they came for him. The silent stab of a syringe while he slept his drug-induced sleep. The painless overdose of intravenous sedative to ensure that he never woke to tell the sorry tale of a life spent worshipping the Master.
It sounded unbelievable, like a fantasy story. But he had seen the power of the Circle first hand. He had lived while others had paid the ultimate price for betrayal. Complacently, he had looked on and said nothing, done nothing to prevent it. Stupidly, he had believed he had risen too high for them to touch him. He believed he was untouchable.
Gregson’s head throbbed against the bandage and he knew that a hospital attendant would be arriving shortly to wheel him along the corridor for another MRI scan. Nobody was invincible, he thought, not he, not even the mighty DCI Ryan.
Gregson wondered if Ryan was lying in his bed feeling the same brand of terror. Did he worry that the Circle would find him again and finish the job?
If he wasn’t, then he should.
* * *
Jane Freeman blamed herself. Like a field marshal, she took responsibility for the failure of one of her infantrymen. She should not have entrusted such an important task to a young police constable who had not yet been initiated but had seemed so eager to prove himself and be accepted into their circle.
Uncharacteristic sentimentality led to poor decision-making, she concluded.
But what to do about it?
Her sources told her that Ryan was now fortified behind a barrier of police staff, hand-picked by his sergeant and under constant supervision by the snivelling Detective Constable Lowerson. There was another one on her list, she thought venomously, but he would be for another day. The problem of how to infiltrate remained.
They would be searching for the young constable who had turned on his own chief inspector, but she didn’t worry too much about that. She might have been sentimental but she wasn’t stupid. That young man had already been dealt with, punished swiftly for his failure.
She would not tolerate damp squibs.
Freeman allowed herself to imagine briefly what life might be like with a man like Ryan by her side, a worthy partner to walk beside her…well, perhaps a pace behind. With his strength and her charisma, they would be unstoppable.
Desire fluttered at the prospect. She thought of how it would feel to bring him to heel and convert him to their way of life. He would be a good lover, too. Better than the usual fare, she was sure of that. Perhaps she had been short-sighted in giving the order. She had not fully considered the possibility that he might convert and in doing so, she had not given adequate weight to her own extensive skills in the art of manipulation.
B
ut then, modesty had always been her failing.
* * *
Phillips strode along the corridors of CID Headquarters like an angry bull, fit to tear into the first unsuspecting detective constable who so much as looked at him cockeyed. This wasn’t his city anymore, he thought bitterly. This was not his heartland, the land of industry, of ship-building craftsmen to the east and land-lovers to the west. The people of that landscape were, for the most part, an honest and open tribe. They did not sneak around the hills and groves dressed in black capes, flapping around like a poor man’s Batman. They did not worship the devil, chanting nonsense in front of bonfires. And if they killed, or injured, or stole, or lied, they had the decency to be upfront about it afterwards. It was a sorry state of affairs, Phillips thought, when the character of his own people came under threat from a band of fanatics who fancied themselves above everybody else. Well, he would be happy to bring their feet back down to solid ground with a vengeance.
The truth was that he was frightened. Easy enough to face your foe when they came at you head on but how could he fight against the Circle if he didn’t know a thing about their origins or their number?
With these gloomy thoughts circulating, he turned towards the main bank of desks in CID and bumped straight into MacKenzie.
“Frank! I was just looking for you,” she said. “How’s Ryan?”
Phillips’ agitation slowly melted away. It was impossible to keep hold of a good bout of anger when faced with the dulcet tones of Denise MacKenzie.
“He’ll do,” he said shortly.
MacKenzie gave him a lopsided smile of understanding.
“I’m worried sick,” he tugged at his ear, self-consciously. “I know he’s got his family there, and Anna—”
“But you still worry,” MacKenzie finished for him.
“Aye, I do. He said himself they’re turning up the heat. Never in a month of Sundays did I think they’d take a shot at him, but here we are.”
MacKenzie’s lips firmed.
“Pinter rang me while you were at the hospital. The remaining analysis has come back on Bowers and it turns out there was glue residue on his right hand.”