by LJ Ross
But Ryan walked towards these people. He actively sought to uncover them, placing himself in danger voluntarily. She didn’t know if she could ever understand that impetus and she worried for their future together.
Phillips stepped into the room and moved to take a seat beside her. Silently, he offered her a cup of coffee, which she accepted with murmured thanks but didn’t drink.
“It’s who he is,” Phillips didn’t bother with the small talk. Not when something important was at stake. “You knew that when you met him.”
“He didn’t even call me, to warn me. He never told me he was putting himself in so much danger, discharging himself from the hospital…”
“He probably didn’t want to worry you.”
“I would rather worry about something real, something concrete, than spend hours imagining the hundreds of awful ways he might have died.”
Phillips looked down at the cup in his hands and could understand her pain.
“If MacKenzie wasn’t one of us, she’d probably feel the same,” he said quietly. “Hell, if the tables were turned and I was the civilian, I would worry myself sick.”
Phillips smiled across at her.
“It’s a double-edged sword. The risk-taking, the focus, it’s what makes him brilliant. It’s also what makes him a gigantic arsehole, most days.”
Anna was silent for a couple of beats, then she visibly relaxed.
“You’re not wrong.”
“I rarely am,” Phillips agreed, with a wink, then slurped the rest of his coffee and stood up to offer her a hand. “Come on, lass. He needs us.”
Anna held out her hand.
CHAPTER 29
Two weeks later
There was an expectant hush along the corridors of Northumbria CID, the kind of sensation one would expect from a crowd awaiting the arrival of a matinee idol from the 1920’s. Outside, the weather was glorious, a blistering August day which the people of Northumberland enjoyed to its fullest before Autumn set in and they donned thicker coats and wellington boots to kick at the falling leaves.
Ryan and Phillips’ footsteps echoed along the tiled corridor which led to the interview suite. A small crowd was gathered outside Interview Room A and in the viewing area, Chief Constable Sandra Morrison, Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie, Detective Constable Lowerson and inspectors from neighbouring districts gathered to watch. There would be nobody to say that things had not been conducted appropriately; Ryan had been clear on that. He wanted the procedure airtight, with no room for their fish to wriggle off the hook.
With Phillips directly behind him, Ryan stepped into the interview room and started the tape recorder before facing Arthur Gregson for the first time in two weeks. He had recovered, Ryan noted, enough to don a smart suit and instruct a fancy lawyer.
Not that it would help him.
“DCI Ryan and DS Phillips, entering Interview Room A. Also present are Arthur Gregson and his counsel, Amelia Duggan, of Price and Company, alongside constables Yates and Wickham.”
He went on to state the standard caution, was assured that it was understood and took a seat opposite Gregson, who didn’t so much as flinch.
Ballsy bastard, Ryan thought.
“Well,” he said in friendly tones. “You’re looking a lot better than the last time I saw you, Arthur, it has to be said.”
Ryan wouldn’t refer to him by his professional title. He deserved no such distinction.
Gregson did not respond, as his counsel had instructed.
“We’ve been looking forward to catching up with you,” Ryan continued, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. “Haven’t we, Phillips?”
“Oh, indubitably,” Phillips replied, with a broad smile.
“Now, just so we understand one another, you’re sitting here because you’ve been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Professor Jane Freeman, and on suspicion of aiding and abetting the murder of Doctor Mark Bowers and of your wife, Catherine Gregson. You are also suspected of aiding and abetting the murders of eleven women murdered by the late Patrick Donovan, of Lucy Mathieson who was killed by her father the late Daniel Mathieson, and of Robert Fowler and Megan Taylor who were killed by the late Steven Walker.” Ryan sucked in a deep breath. “That’s just for starters. As you can see, there’s quite a list.”
Ryan glanced down at it and shook his head theatrically.
“Tut tut, Arthur,” he scolded. “I see there’s also a charge of fraud and conspiracy to defraud, and of perverting the course of justice.”
“If you are not planning to ask my client any questions—” the lawyer interjected, in snooty tones, “we’ll be making a complaint about police intimidation.”
Phillips waved that away with one broad hand.
“You’d know a thing or two about intimidating people, wouldn’t you, Arthur?” Ryan’s eyes turned flat as he fixed them on the older man’s face. “Let’s start with that text you sent me on Sunday 4th August.”
Gregson’s lips firmed, but he maintained his silence while Ryan read out the details of the text message.
“We have evidence to show that the message was sent to my personal number from a pre-paid mobile phone triangulated to within five hundred feet of your home. Can you explain that?”
“No comment.”
“You see, the thing is, you’re the only common link within that radius, Arthur. You’re the only one who knows me personally and, believe me, we’ve interviewed all the other residents.”
Ryan slapped a hand on a brown file which was filled with statements.
“What do you say to that?”
“No comment.”
Ryan shrugged.
“Alright, Arthur, let’s move on to the next piece of telephonic evidence. We have evidence to show that you telephoned the late Professor Jane Freeman from your mobile phone at one-seventeen on Tuesday 4th August, triangulated to your home address. That’s the same day that your wife died. Do you remember that?”
“No comment.”
Ryan cocked his head towards Phillips.
“I’m wondering, Phillips, why an innocent man who had just found his dead wife, would choose to call a woman he claims he hardly knew, instead of the police.”
“I’m certainly drawing adverse inferences from his silence,” Phillips replied, with another broad grin.
Ryan clasped his hands together and tapped his thumbs while he regarded Gregson with endless patience.
“We’re tracing the money,” he mused. “It’s interesting, because during the process of unravelling your ill-gotten gains, a name popped up that we’ve heard before, didn’t it, Frank?”
“It certainly did,” Phillips said, leaning forward to pick up the rhythm. “A certain James Moffa, more commonly known as Jimmy ‘the Manc.’ D’you know him?”
“My client became aware of Mr Moffa during the course of his professional career, which has spanned over thirty years of dedicated service—”
“Blah blah blahdy blah,” Ryan overrode the rehearsed speech. “You called him, didn’t you?”
Gregson’s eyes flickered and sweat began to pearl on his nose and forehead.
“You see, there’s another call listed here as outgoing on your mobile, not long after your chat with Jane Freeman,” Ryan continued, scanning the print out in front of him. “To an unregistered number.”
“Why didn’t you call the police, Arthur?” Phillips asked again. “That’s two separate calls, neither of which were to the Control Room. If you were under threat, or if you’d found Cathy dead, why didn’t you call the police?”
“My client wishes to make a statement,” the lawyer said smoothly, drawing out a pre-prepared speech.
“Come on, then, I’d like a good laugh,” Phillips said, giving her the ‘come forward’ gesture with his hand.
Gregson took the piece of paper and began to read the story he had cobbled together during his time back inside the Royal Victoria Infirmary.
“After receiving three text mess
ages from my wife, Catherine Gregson, on the aforementioned date, I proceeded to drive home with all speed, understanding her to have been locked out of the family home. Upon my arrival, I was set upon by two aggressors and whilst fleeing the house via the patio doors, I was attacked by one of them from behind. I cannot account for any telephone calls made from my personal telephone during the time I was unconscious, but I presume they were made by either or both of my attackers. It is also my understanding that evidence has come to light suggesting that my beloved wife, Cathy, may have died at their hands without my knowledge. I can offer no insight except to mourn her loss and hope that the true culprits are brought to justice.”
There was a short pause, then Ryan began to clap slowly.
“That was very moving, wasn’t it, Phillips?”
“Oh, aye, fair brought a tear to my eye.”
“Now, cutting through all that crap, what we neglected to tell you was that we had a very cosy chat with a few of your old comrades inside the Circle. And guess what?”
Ryan wriggled his eyebrows.
“It was very illuminating,” he said icily, all of the cajolery gone. “They rolled on you, Arthur. They sang like fucking canaries, a sweet tune about all the things you’ve been up to over the years. All about how Freeman threw you to the wolves, as soon as she became the new leader.”
Gregson’s face drained of colour and Ryan’s lips twisted.
“You called Freeman, who refused to help you, didn’t she?” he continued. “So you called your old mate, Jimmy, to come and give you a hand.”
Gregson’s eyes watered, but he said nothing.
“Is that why you killed Freeman? We know that you sent her that package, Arthur, and we know it was poisoned. Why did you do it? Because she cut you out? It isn’t nice to be out in the cold, is it, Arthur?”
“This evidence is purely circumstantial”, the lawyer interjected. “No jury is going to accept the hearsay evidence of your alleged criminal informants set against the unblemished career—”
“Well, I guess this might help to convince the jury otherwise,” Ryan tapped a finger on his pile of paperwork, which was a fraction of the paper trail generated so far. “Copies of which are already in your possession,” he reminded her.
“Setting aside the money stuff,” Phillips moved the conversation on, “I’m really interested to know how you managed to get your hands on that botulinum.”
“My client has no knowledge—”
“Let your client speak for himself,” Phillips said mildly. “Jane Freeman licked the glue along an envelope you had sent to her that had been laced with a fatal cocktail of cyanide and a noxious protein called botulinum.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Gregson muttered.
“Sorry?” Ryan held his hand to his ear. “You’ll have to speak up for the recorder, Arthur, because that sounded like a load of bullshit.”
“I didn’t fucking do it!” Gregson shouted, then subsided at a horrified glance from his counsel.
“We’ve got documentary evidence from the couriers to say otherwise,” Ryan averred.
“It wasn’t me.”
“What about Steven Walker? There’s a nurse at Rampton Hospital who swears that the lives of her children were under threat if she didn’t leave Steven Walker a fatal dose of pills, arranged into the shape of an inverted pentagram. What do you make of that?”
Gregson’s eyes closed and he shook his head.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dully.
“So, tell us!” Ryan exclaimed. “Tell us why you ran from the hospital, Arthur.”
Gregson surveyed the two men who had served under his command and felt his life slipping away from him. For a while, hope had bloomed again that he might yet walk away from this nightmare. The Circle was finished; he knew that much. First, the junior members amongst its ranks had succumbed to the threat of imprisonment and, once one person deviated, the rest followed. Soon, Ryan’s team had uncovered the underground tunnels, the old papers stashed at Freeman’s home and they were starting to understand the breadth of the Circle’s reach in terms of financing. They had barely scratched the surface there.
And yet, he could tell from the speculative lines of questioning that they still did not understand who had really killed the Circle’s most recent leaders; who had toppled the dominoes until everything they had built together lay wasted in front of them.
Gregson huffed out a laugh. It was all so devastatingly simple.
“I didn’t kill any of them,” he repeated.
* * *
During a break, Ryan sipped at a can of Diet Coke while he surveyed Gregson and his lawyer through the viewing panel next door.
“He’s obstinate,” Morrison commented.
Ryan nodded.
“It’s surprising,” he was forced to admit. “I pressed him on his behaviour at Bamburgh and the admissions he made up there but he’s completely clammed up. It’s like he’s accepted his fate and isn’t bothering to argue any longer. The information we have so far suggests that the murders of Walker and Mathieson were ordered by Freeman rather than Gregson. The same probably applies to Cathy Gregson too but I wanted to see his reaction to the accusation all the same. We already have more than enough evidence to secure convictions based on his involvement in numerous historic crimes, all helpfully recorded in the old papers we have uncovered.”
“A jury is bound to find him guilty of some, if not all, of those charges,” Morrison stated. “He’s going to spend the rest of his life behind bars whether or not he admits any involvement in the more recent killings.” She looked through the glass partition and watched a man she had known for years about to be stripped of his identity and felt no qualms about it. Like Ryan, she believed in justice for the dead.
“I’d like to know where Donovan buried the bodies of those girls,” MacKenzie said, from across the room. “They’re still missing.”
“We can ask, but he’s unlikely to tell us even if he knows,” Phillips said, sadly.
There was another pause, while they collectively grieved for the loss of eleven young women who had hardly lived at all.
“It’s frustrating that he keeps denying any involvement in the deaths of Bowers and Freeman,” said Ryan. “Despite the information we’ve received from other former members of the Circle, we haven’t been able to find anything solid to link him or anyone else to their deaths.”
“They ended up prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion, didn’t they?” commented Lowerson. “Maybe we just have to accept that all we can do is put him away on the basis of all these combined smaller charges.”
“Unless—”
Heads swivelled to look at Ryan as he thought aloud.
“What if Gregson is telling us the truth, at least partly? Phillips? Hand me the file with the artist’s impression, will you?”
He accepted the file containing the sketch of the person Anna had seen during her evening at Heavenfield Church. MacKenzie moved quickly to look over his shoulder.
“This isn’t Gregson,” Ryan said, matter-of-factly. “Anna would surely have recognised him. Who is it, and what can they tell us?”
CHAPTER 30
Heavenfield Church gleamed brightly in the early afternoon sunshine as Ryan and his team walked the gentle incline towards its doors, which stood open to a small gathering of foreign visitors who enjoyed the peace that such a restful spot could bring. Wild flowers bloomed over the fertile soil and there was hardly a breath of wind to spoil the easy atmosphere.
Inside the church, they found Keith Thorbridge scrubbing away after the CSI team had given him the green light to tidy up the interior and return things to normal. While the others waited at the rear, Ryan stepped forward with MacKenzie in tow. A flagstone creaked as he approached and Ryan noticed that a woven cloth had been draped over the altar, presumably to hide the remaining blood stains.
Thorbridge turned at the sound of the stone creaking and rose to his
feet, holding a bottle of detergent and a soapy cloth in each hand like a mitre and crosier.
“You again?”
MacKenzie ignored the animosity and held out her warrant card.
“You remember me, Keith? I’m DI MacKenzie and this is DCI Ryan.”
“Oh, aye, the one who’s in all the papers,” he mocked.
Ryan found himself warming to the short, prickly man with an obsessive love of cleaning.
“They do love a pretty face,” he agreed, and thought he saw an answering twinkle in Thorbridge’s beady eyes.
MacKenzie gestured around the small church. “The place is looking good, Keith,” she said with a smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ll bet you’re glad to have all those devil-worshippers out of the way, eh?”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“The thing is, Keith, we went ahead and got a warrant to look around your house while you were gone,” Ryan said. “We found your box of secrets.”
Thorbridge turned a hitherto undiscovered shade of red and Ryan stared at him in fascination.
“Got no right to poke around a man’s personal things!”
“I didn’t read the letter from Sheila,” Ryan held his hands up. “Promise.”
“We did notice your notes on the Circle,” MacKenzie said swiftly, then waited for the old man to speak up.
Sun beamed through the stained glass windows, casting rainbow hues over the flagstones and Thorbridge lifted his face to the light, basking in the rays.
“Aye, I’m glad they’re gone,” he said softly. “Heard all about it on the news.”
“How did you know their names, Keith?”
“Put it together after watching the news, like I said.”
“Did you snoop on them, Keith? Did you see Patrick Donovan killing those women?”
“Never saw no killing,” Thorbridge muttered angrily. “Knew something was amiss, though, and saw him leaving afterwards.”
“Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you report it?”
Thorbridge shuffled his feet.
“Didn’t know what they might do,” he admitted, fear shining in his wrinkled brown eyes. “I didn’t want much. I only wanted to be able to look after this place,” he looked around him and Ryan felt compassion stir in his chest. Love was shining from Thorbridge’s leathery face. “Didn’t know what to do. Then that one—Bowers—died, and they started dropping like flies.”