by LJ Ross
“Turning to this evening, when was the last time you saw Victor?”
“It was at about seven-fifteen. He came in to ask if there was anything I needed before he went down to have a bloody good drink at my expense,” Gilbert grumbled.
“Did he seem concerned or out of sorts?”
“Not that I noticed. He looked pleased with himself, all suited up and wearing some ridiculous hat or other.”
Ryan couldn’t argue with that.
“Can you tell me your own movements this evening?”
Gilbert gave him a pointed look.
“What for? Don’t tell me you think somebody pushed the old sod? Well, I suppose it’s not outside the realms of possibility. Always the quiet ones to watch, isn’t it?”
He let out another nasally guffaw.
“As for my movements, I’ve been cooped up in here all night. Haven’t so much as left this bed except to use the bathroom, which is right there,” he said, pointing a chubby finger at a connecting doorway on the other side of the room. “Hardly seen a soul except for Cassandra, who came in a few times.”
“The last time being around quarter-to-midnight?” Ryan offered.
“Haven’t the foggiest,” Gilbert replied, reaching for another tissue. “I keep dozing off.”
Ryan looked at the man’s streaming nose and acknowledged that he probably wasn’t feigning illness.
“Once again, thank you for your time. We apologise for having disturbed you.”
Gilbert grunted, his eyelids already drooping.
As they closed the door behind them, Ryan turned to Phillips.
“Charming man.”
“Oh, aye, a real fat heid,” Phillips agreed, leaving Ryan to marvel at his singular turn of phrase.
* * *
It was almost three o’clock in the morning before Phillips let himself into the smart, three-bedroom semi he owned in an area of Newcastle known as Kingston Park. It rested on the western border of the city and had been chosen twenty years ago for its relative proximity to CID Headquarters. A lot had changed in the intervening years, he thought, as he toed off his comfortable brown loafers and slid them onto the shoe rack in the hallway next to MacKenzie’s boots. For a start, he’d lost his first wife to cancer nearly eight years ago and never thought he’d find another woman he loved enough to ask to share his life a second time.
Well, he’d surprised himself there.
Then, there was the fact he took orders from Ryan, a man young enough to be his son. It made him smile to think of how uncomfortable they’d been in the early days, compared with their easy camaraderie now. He was going to be best man at Ryan’s wedding and that made them more than just friends or work colleagues.
It made them family.
CID Headquarters had moved to new premises in another part of town and Phillips felt a pang of regret for the loss of the ugly, sixties-style building they’d called home for too many years to count. Its boxy design was no oil painting and he wouldn’t miss the perpetual stench of sweat and detergent, but those greasy walls held memories. He supposed he should be grateful he’d been spared the process of uprooting his desk and dealing with the logistical nightmare of transferring operations, thanks to a three-month suspension from work.
Phillips scrubbed a tired hand over his face.
If he were a younger man, he might have been angry. As it was, he felt relieved that the outcome of the disciplinary hearing had been relatively lenient. He’d attacked a doorman in his quest to find Denise, who was being held by a known serial killer at the time. By following his instincts, he’d brought the force into disrepute through conduct unbecoming a detective sergeant. He’d undermined public confidence, according to the stony-faced panel who had considered his case. However, since CCTV proved he hadn’t thrown the first punch and none of the other players was alive to make any further complaint, not to mention that his instincts had turned out to be correct, the Powers That Be had decided to hand down a three-month suspension without pay rather than resorting to dismissal.
Oh, and he was off the promotion list for the foreseeable future.
Thirty years of loyal service but it only took one misdemeanour to cancel it all out.
Phillips waited to feel some sense of disappointment but it never came. The fact was, he’d do the same all over again to protect the woman he loved and who had, against all the odds, survived. The Hacker had always planned to kill Denise and theirs had been a race against time. What was a setback in the workplace, compared with her life? Three months’ suspension had enabled him to devote himself entirely to her recovery but, now he was back at work, he was finding it hard to keep his mind on the job. He worried about how she was coping on her own, particularly since she showed no inclination to come back to work herself.
That was a problem for another day.
When he stepped into their bedroom a few moments later, MacKenzie was not sleeping peacefully. She was sitting bolt upright in the double bed they shared, her fingers clutching the handle of a kitchen knife.
“Frank?”
Banking down the impotent anger he always felt when he saw that look in her eyes, the fear another man had put there, he moved quickly across to the bed and curled his hands around hers.
“Aye, lass. It’s me.”
He watched the fight drain out of her body, leaving her limp and tired. The knife shook and he tugged it gently from her fingers.
When she tried to reach for it again, he took her in his arms.
“Shh, now.” He began to rock her, rubbing wide circles against her back. “He’s gone, he’s dead and gone.”
MacKenzie buried her face in his shoulder and breathed in the comforting smell of him.
“He’s dead,” she repeated, thinking of the Hacker’s remains lying on a cold, impersonal slab at the mortuary. “He’s dead.”
“You saw him.” Phillips knew the drill. They’d been through it numerous times but it seemed to help her to remember that the man who haunted her nightmares was reduced to ash, his body incinerated and incapable of hurting another living soul.
MacKenzie nodded and let her eyelids droop, snuggling into the hollow of Phillips’ neck until her breathing became even and he knew that she slept. With infinite care, he laid her down against the pillows, drew the covers over her slender body and held her hand for a while longer, wishing he had been taken instead.
* * *
The wait was agonising. It had been two hours since they’d given their statements to the police and more time had been wasted listening to a long-winded rehash of the life of Victor Swann, whose dubious character had taken on the quality of a martyred saint in the eyes of his co-workers. The place had been awash with tearful anecdotes and sob stories about the many times Victor had saved the day, forcing disingenuous smiles and polite murmurs from anybody required to listen.
The man was dead and he’d been an average man at best.
End of story.
But no, the caterwauling had continued as people piled into the minibus that had been laid on to ferry them all back to their respective homes, mostly within the grounds of the estate or in the nearby town of Rothbury. There’d been precious few minutes to change clothes and gulp down a glass of water before slipping out again.
The police lingered into the early hours of the morning. Their voices carried across the quiet gardens down into the shadows of the forest, their clumsy feet crunching across the gravel driveway while Ryan presided over it all like a Mother Goose, clucking around as if he were master of all he surveyed.
Arrogant bastard.
But so long as they didn’t stray too far, there was time to make one final, very important house call.
CHAPTER 4
Sunday 14th August
Ryan opened his eyes one at a time and made a swift assessment of the damage. His head was pounding but the ache was low grade, nothing a couple of painkillers wouldn’t cure. His throat felt scratchy and dry, which was no more than he deserved after an e
vening quaffing red wine as if it were going out of fashion. He could have done with another eight hours’ solid sleep but that was wishful thinking. After all the drama of the previous evening, he and Phillips had eventually classified Victor Swann’s untimely demise as ‘not suspicious’ but that didn’t mean there wasn’t paperwork to clear up and calls to make, even at the weekend.
They needed to find Swann’s next of kin, for starters. Nobody seemed to know much about Victor’s private life beyond the fact he was a familiar face at Cragside. But by the time the body had been collected for transportation to the mortuary and Faulkner had completed his work, it had been after two o’clock in the morning and they were all exhausted. Ryan had taken the decision to go through the dead man’s personal effects with the benefit of a few hours’ sleep and some natural light.
Technically, Ryan knew Victor’s death should be passed on to another team to free up resources for the more serious cases that were the domain of CID. There was no evidence to suggest foul play; an extensive search of the crime scene had shown no indication of it. Yet, it continued to trouble him and so, until the results of the post-mortem came back in a few days’ time, he planned to keep hold of the case for as long as he could.
Caseloads and budgeting ran through Ryan’s mind as he weighed up all the active investigations into murder, manslaughter, rape and GBH alongside the officers attached to each. He considered who he could enlist to deal with the mind-numbing bureaucracy of a non-suspicious death and thought immediately of PC Melanie Yates. It was character building for an ambitious young officer and he happened to know that Yates hoped to get her stripes working in CID. She had a solid backbone, which was a crucial component in all the staff on his division, and she held up well at a crime scene. Maybe it was time to authorise a permanent transfer to see what she was made of.
Ryan glanced at his watch and was dismayed to find it wasn’t even eight o’clock. Weren’t Sunday mornings supposed to be slumberous days of rest, spent in bed with the object of one’s desire?
“Ryan! Get your arse out of bed, y’ lazy lump!”
Speak of the devil.
He huffed out a laugh, then swung down into a few quick press-ups on the floor to get his blood flowing. His nose detected the scent of smoked bacon as it wafted upstairs and his mood perked up considerably.
A few minutes later, Ryan was towelling himself after a quick shower and looking forward to breakfast when his mobile phone began to shrill.
He made a dive for it.
“Ryan?”
He was caught off-guard and unconsciously squared his shoulders when he recognised that the caller was Chief Constable Sandra Morrison.
“Good morning, ma’am. Has there been an incident?”
“No, nothing like that. I’m sorry to disturb you at home but there was a matter I wanted to discuss with you privately.”
“Oh?”
There was a short pause while Morrison fiddled with the biro she twirled in her hand and searched for the right words.
“Phillips has been back at work for three weeks now.”
“Yes.”
Morrison was already aware of Ryan’s feelings on the subject, which he’d told her in no uncertain terms. As far as he was concerned, Frank Phillips should never have been put through the humiliation of a disciplinary inquiry, especially when his actions had been instrumental in leading them to find the Hacker. Furthermore, his sergeant should never have been subjected to a three-month suspension.
At the other end of the line, Morrison sighed.
“Let’s try to put it behind us.” She refused to justify what she considered to be appropriate actions, taken with the best interests of the constabulary in mind. Much as it might have pained her to do it, much as she might have suffered a few sleepless nights, it was not enough to know that Phillips had acted with the best of intentions. They had to be seen to be trustworthy in the eyes of the ever-watchful public.
It was that detachment and ability to consider the politics of a situation that had allowed Sandra Morrison to rise quickly through the ranks of the police hierarchy.
It was also the reason why Ryan preferred to remain exactly where he was.
“The fact is, I’m concerned.” She came straight to the point. “I’m glad to see Phillips return to the office but he seems very distracted.”
Ryan’s jaw set.
“That’s hardly surprising, is it? He’s been dragged through the wringer these last four months and he’s been caring for MacKenzie at home.”
“I realise that but the HR team tell me she’s refusing to see the occupational therapist and they haven’t heard a peep from MacKenzie about when, or whether, she’s planning to come back to work.”
“She’s entitled to take up to twelve months’ leave. For God’s sake, she was kidnapped, psychologically tortured, physically battered. Do you expect her to shrug it off?”
His words came out like bullets, every one of them hitting their mark.
“I expect her to recover,” Morrison threw back. “You forget, I’ve known Denise a lot longer than you have and she’s always been strong. Hiding away at home for months will only reinforce her fear.”
It was on the tip of Ryan’s tongue to make some snide remark about Morrison being a psychologist in her spare time but he recognised more than a grain of truth in what she was saying. He’d seen his own share of trauma over the years and it had always helped to get back on the proverbial horse rather than staying at home, brooding about the what-ifs.
“Ryan—”
“Look, I’ll talk to Phillips about it.”
Morrison breathed a quiet sigh of relief and set the biro back down on her little writing desk at home.
“I appreciate that.”
She groped around for a change of subject when Ryan offered none.
“I, ah, heard you caught a new one last night?”
“Nothing major. One of the staff here at Cragside fell down a flight of stairs. I discussed it with Phillips and it looks like an accidental death but I’m keeping it on the radar.”
His tone was clipped and formal, his voice bearing the mark of years spent at a southern boarding school. Among his friends, Ryan could be warm and generous but not a whisper of that was evident now.
Sitting at home in faded running gear, her sandy blonde hair pulled back into a merciless ponytail, Sandra Morrison recognised the civil tone and swallowed an unexpected lump in her throat; she was no longer privy to the warmth Ryan reserved only for those he considered a friend.
In his eyes, it was the price she paid for betrayal.
“I see,” she murmured. And she did see. “Ryan, you know we discussed the prospect of your promotion to superintendent a few months ago?”
He shifted the handset to his other ear and walked to the bedroom window to look out across the gardens towards the edge of the forest. Cragside was hidden somewhere among those trees, he thought, like a sleeping giant.
The position of detective chief superintendent been vacant for almost a year since DCS Gregson, his former boss, had fallen from grace in spectacular fashion and was now living at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Although it wasn’t part of the Chief Constable’s job description, Morrison had been forced to oversee much of their operations in CID until Gregson’s successor could be appointed, but they all knew it was a temporary arrangement. In many ways, Ryan had been a shoo-in for the job. He had solved a series of high-profile cases and, much to his own surprise, was a popular figure in the press. The role of superintendent was unappealing not only because he’d be chained to a desk. Thanks to Gregson and the rot that had spread throughout CID, the position was tainted by association and Ryan wasn’t sure he was ready to accept such a poisoned chalice.
Ryan leaned his long body against the window frame and watched a bird swoop down from the trees to perch on the birdhouse Anna filled with fresh seed every morning.
“My position is unchanged,” he said eventually.
“I realise t
hat and, since you have no interest in proceeding, I wanted to let you know we have another strong candidate in mind.”
He raised a single dark eyebrow.
“Anyone I know?”
“Perhaps. Her name is Jennifer Lucas and she would be coming to us from the Met. She’s acting DCS while the present incumbent is on a leave of absence, but they’re due to return in the next couple of months so she’s interested in accepting a permanent post and making a fresh start elsewhere.”
Morrison paused but no comment was forthcoming.
“She’s coming in next week for an informal discussion and there are a couple of other candidates we’ll be speaking to but Lucas has the strongest credentials on paper. I’d appreciate your input, Ryan, because whoever we appoint will be the person you’ll be reporting to directly from now on.”
Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger to stifle the tension that was developing behind his eyes.
“I…yes, I know Jen Lucas. She was my DI, back when I started at the Met.”
“Oh! I must have missed that connection. That’s great, you two can pick up right where you left off.”
Hardly, Ryan thought.
“She was a good inspector,” he said. “But—”
“Yes?”
Integrity prevented him from fabricating a list of professional blunders because the plain truth was that Jennifer Lucas had always been an outstanding detective. Any relationship that had existed between them had ended years ago and should have no bearing on her appointment as DCS.
Ancient history, he decided.
“Nothing. Who are the other candidates?”
When Morrison rang off a couple of minutes later, Ryan slipped the phone into the back pocket of his dark jeans and continued to stare out over the flower beds blooming in the garden below. He watched Anna step onto the patio with a cup of coffee and a newspaper, making herself comfortable at the bistro table. She tipped her face up to the sun that turned her dark hair to burnished mahogany and warmed her long legs as she stretched out in shorts and sandals. When she caught sight of him at the window she raised a hand to wave, crooking a finger for him to join her.