Cragside: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 6)

by LJ Ross

  “DCI Lucas will be taking up her new position here from the end of next month,” Morrison made a point of saying. “Just after you return from your honeymoon.”

  Something flickered in Lucas’s eyes.

  “You’re getting married?”

  Ryan inclined his head.

  “Congratulations,” she murmured.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Ryan stormed out of Morrison’s office and headed blindly down the corridor, nearly colliding with Phillips as he rounded a corner balancing a white polystyrene cup and a paper bag containing a freshly-baked corned beef pasty. “Oi! Where’s the fire?”

  Ryan took a couple of deep breaths and eyeballed the coffee.

  “I’ve just come from Morrison’s office. She’s appointed a new DCS.”

  “Oh, aye? That was quick,” Phillips replied. “I s’pose it’s a good thing, since you didn’t fancy the job yourself.”

  Ryan stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “What’s wrong with the new bloke? You don’t march down here with a face like thunder unless there’s something bothering you, lad. Might as well spit it out.”

  “It’s a woman called Jennifer Lucas,” Ryan said. “I knew her from my days at the Met.”

  Phillips gave him a bland stare.

  “You knew her? Or you knew her?”

  Ryan turned to him with serious grey eyes.

  “We had a very brief thing nine years ago.”

  Phillips handed over the coffee cup, having decided the man’s need was greater than his own. Ryan took a grateful swig and glanced down the corridor, waiting for a group of staff to pass before speaking again.

  “Lucas is the reason I left London.”

  Phillips wanted to make a joke of it, to laugh about ex-girlfriends or manfully reminisce about past conquests but one look at Ryan’s face silenced him.

  “If it’s that bad, can’t you speak to Morrison about it?”

  “I’ve tried.” Ryan took another sip of coffee and waited for the caffeine to hit his veins. “She thinks I’m behaving unprofessionally by even raising it. Morrison has no idea who she’s dealing with.”

  Phillips tugged his lip between thumb and forefinger.

  “What kind of thing are we talking about here? Is Lucas bent? On the take?”

  Ryan shook his head.

  “As far as her record is concerned, she’s whiter than white.” He passed a weary hand over his eyes. “I have absolutely no evidence to corroborate what happened between us. Not a damn thing.”

  He looked over Phillips’ shoulder and thought of his life in London, a lifetime ago.

  “All I have are memories.”

  * * *

  Phillips declared a state of temporary emergency and directed Ryan to the staff canteen, where he ordered two sausage stotties with brown sauce and found a quiet corner where they would not be disturbed. “Eat,” he ordered Ryan, who obeyed without question.

  After the second bite, he started to feel better.

  “I’m telling you, it’s an old Geordie remedy,” Phillips proclaimed but didn’t touch his own sandwich.

  He folded his hands on the shiny-clean table top and waited until Ryan had eaten his fill before raising another important matter.

  “I’ve got something to ask you.”

  Ryan frowned.

  “Shoot.”

  “Will you be best man, at my wedding?”

  It took a second or two, then Ryan forgot his own troubles and broke into a wide grin and stood up to give him a hard hug.

  “It would be an honour,” he said. “That’s assuming MacKenzie doesn’t come to her senses before then. Congratulations, Frank.”

  Phillips shook his head, hardly believing his own luck.

  “I hope it isn’t the anxiety talking,” he thought aloud. “What if she changes her mind, once she’s back to her old self?”

  “Don’t be daft.”

  “I’m older than she is,” Phillips continued. “I don’t want to be a burden to her in years to come.”

  “I’m sure MacKenzie’s realised that you’re a few years her senior, using the magical power of simple arithmetic,” he said. “Besides, you’re already a burden, so it makes no difference.”

  That earned him a hard punch on the arm.

  “Look, stop questioning it, just be grateful you’ve found someone who’ll put up with you for the rest of your life.”

  “With sentiments like that, you could have been a poet,” Phillips said.

  “If my career in law enforcement goes down the pan, I’ll give it a try. You realise, this gives me some excellent leverage.”

  Phillips gave him a beady-eyed look.

  “My stag do is fast approaching,” Ryan explained. “You’ve been threatening a night I’ll never forget for months. Now, you know you can’t do anything too outlandish because, whatever you do, I’ll quadruple it when your turn comes around.”

  Phillips gave him a pitying look.

  “Lad, I’ve been on more stag dos than you’ve had hot dinners. The question you need to ask yourself is: do you have sufficient life insurance cover?”

  Ryan looked up at that.

  “Welcome to big school, son,” Phillips said, and took a hearty bite of his sandwich.

  CHAPTER 14

  News of the discovery of a body at Cragside suspended any further discussion and they made their way back to the estate with all speed, leaving instructions for Lowerson and Yates to meet them there. Thanks to a loose interpretation of the Highway Code, Ryan managed to cut the journey time by almost half. However, as he steered his car through the pillared gates and Phillips sent up a prayer of thanks for their safe arrival, it quickly became obvious that the media had still beaten them to it.

  Ryan slowed the car to a crawl and scanned the faces of the crowd that had gathered outside the entrance to the house and were spilling onto the driveway. For all he knew, they could be trampling across an active crime scene and he had a good mind to book them for obstruction. His mood did not improve when he spotted four news vans parked haphazardly along the grassy verge leading up to the main entrance.

  “For God’s sake. Who tipped them off?”

  Ryan pulled up behind one of the vans and cut the engine.

  “My money’s on the family,” Phillips said. “I reckon old Lionel fancies himself on the telly.”

  But Ryan shook his head.

  “There’s only one person who could be stupid enough, and egotistical enough, to enjoy this kind of spectacle.”

  With that, he slammed out of the car and went in search of Martin Henderson.

  * * *

  The estate manager was not hard to find. He stood on the stone steps outside the main doors of the house dressed in what Phillips would have called his Sunday Best, holding court over a group of baying journalists who were eager to capture a soundbite in time for the lunchtime news.

  “It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy,” he was saying, injecting just the right note of sympathy into his nasal voice. “As spokesperson for the Gilbert family, I would like to offer our sincere condolences to Alice Chapman’s family and to assure them that we will be doing all we can to make sure an accident like this never happens again.”

  “What if it wasn’t an accident? Two deaths in two days looks suspicious, doesn’t it, Mr Henderson?”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “I don’t think we can draw any particular conclusions from these unprecedented events,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about.

  “Turn those cameras off!”

  The crowd parted like the Red Sea and several stunned faces spun around as Ryan’s voice carried across the driveway. His long legs covered the ground at speed and he was coldly, furiously angry.

  “You!”—he jabbed a finger towards Henderson—“Get your arse back inside the house or I’ll book you for wilful obstruction!”

  The estate manager hesi
tated and was obviously tempted to argue against the edict but Ryan took a step closer and looked him dead in the eye.

  “Go on,” he purred. “Try me.”

  Henderson might have had a monstrous ego but he didn’t have a death wish. He scurried back inside the house and Ryan’s lip curled.

  “As for you vultures”—he turned scathing eyes on the men and women who remained, making no move to switch off their cameras or microphones—“you should know better than to release the name of a victim of a fatality before their identity has been confirmed or the family informed. Have some integrity, for pity’s sake. Now, bugger off, before I report you to Ofcom!”

  They scattered like rats and Ryan watched them with a fulminating glare.

  “That’ll not be the end of it,” Phillips warned, as he came to stand beside Ryan. “They love a bit of nonsense to feed the masses. Fake news and all that.”

  Ryan sighed and thought of what Morrison would have to say about it all.

  “I don’t have time to worry about PR. I want some order injected into this chaos,” he said as he swept a disgusted hand over the driveway, which was still teeming with people who had come to watch the drama unfold. “Where are the first responders?”

  Two young police constables loitered on the far side of the driveway with their hands in their pockets and Ryan saw red.

  “Go easy, lad,” Phillips advised him but settled back to enjoy a good dressing down.

  “Oi, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee!”

  The constables promptly shat themselves at the sight of a senior officer heading in their direction with a bloodthirsty look in his eye.

  “Report!”

  “Y—yes, sir,” one of them babbled. “Control Room received an emergency call at around seven-fifteen this morning. We were dispatched to attend the scene and secure it. The head gardener discovered the body of a young woman down by the burn she believes to be that of Alice Chapman.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “Ms Shapiro says she rang 999 straight away, from her mobile.”

  “Has anybody tried to contact Alice Chapman?”

  “Not yet, sir, but Ms Shapiro says her car is parked in the staff car park, which Mr Henderson and several other staff members have since corroborated. It’s a silver Renault Clio, ’09 plate.”

  Ryan looked between the pair of them, noting their names for future reference.

  “Tell me, at what point did you feel it was acceptable to allow the press—or anybody, for that matter—to invade a crime scene?”

  “Sir, honestly, we tried to keep them out—”

  “Are you aware of the appropriate procedure as first responders to a crime scene?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Did you, or did you not, fail to follow that procedure?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then you’re lucky I’m not writing you up for a disciplinary. Get your fingers out of your arses and start doing the job you’re paid to do,” he ground out. “One of you start moving these people along and the other one get down to the entrance and guard the scene. Anybody could have slipped along the path to take pictures of the victim, thanks to your negligence,” he spat. “Now, move!”

  Nodding like seals, they scarpered.

  * * *

  Lowerson and Yates arrived shortly afterwards and set to work restoring proper procedure, taking statements from those present and closing all access routes to the house within a half-mile radius leading down to the burn, which effectively made the entire house and gardens a crime scene. Constables were stationed at each access point and were armed with log books to record all those seeking to enter or leave. When they were satisfied that things were returning to some semblance of order, Ryan and Phillips joined Tom Faulkner and headed down to the bottom of the valley. Ryan gave one of the local constables—he couldn’t remember whether it was Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum—a level look as they passed by where he stood guarding the access route to the river, clutching a log book which they dutifully signed.

  “What’s the story, then?”

  Sweltering inside his plastic suit, Faulkner led the way down a narrow pathway towards the burn, brushing past pampas grass and sprouting perennials as he went.

  “A call came into the Control Room at around seven-fifteen,” Ryan told him. “It seems the head gardener, Charlotte Shapiro, was doing her early rounds of the estate and stumbled on the body. She put a call through to 999 and the local boys arrived around fifteen minutes later.”

  “Henderson seems to think it’s been identified already,” Phillips said, bringing up the rear.

  “Henderson’s a prat,” Ryan said succinctly. “But, as it happens, Alice’s car is parked in the staff car park and there’s been no sign of her since yesterday. It’s hard not to draw conclusions from that.”

  Each man fell silent, preparing themselves for what was to come.

  Sure enough, a distinctive bouquet assailed them as they reached the lower part of the valley and the burn came into view. Death possessed its own unique scent, the kind of sickly-sweet odour that clung to your clothes and stayed in your memory for a long while after. On a warm day in summer, it was especially potent.

  They pushed through the undergrowth near the banks of the burn and came to a gradual, horrified standstill.

  The body lay ten or twelve feet ahead of them, half-submerged beneath the water. Maggots were already swarming to feast on the remains and the high-pitched whine of newly hatched flies was almost deafening above the rippling water.

  “Dear God,” Phillips whispered. “That poor girl.”

  Ryan’s face betrayed very little of the emotions swirling through his body and his eyes remained impassive as he continued his silent observation of the scene. But rage flooded through his veins as he thought of the wasted life; the love, the laughter, the people she left behind. Nobody had the right to take that from her.

  Nobody.

  “Is it her?” Phillips asked.

  Ryan looked at the clothing and the hair and nodded. Alice Chapman had been wearing a pale green summer dress with printed daisies and white plimsolls on her feet. The dress was now sodden and stained, twisted around the remnants of her body and only one shoe remained on her feet. The other lay upturned beside the water.

  “Yes, it looks like Alice.”

  “The, ah, position of the body would be consistent with a fall from the bridge,” Faulkner said quietly, his throat working again.

  Ryan looked up at the iron bridge rising above them with its fine arches and engineered metal, then back at the body.

  “The torso has been moved,” Faulkner continued, in a low voice that shook with feeling. “I can see that at a glance.”

  Phillips nodded sombrely but didn’t bother to ask who or what had been responsible for displacing the body; it was obvious from the open wounds on the girl’s torso that animals had played their part.

  Faulkner cleared his throat and stepped forward, snapping his mask into place.

  “Better make a start,” he mumbled.

  Ryan and Phillips held back, allowing him to conduct his assessment without cross-contamination. They watched him move carefully around the body, swiping a hand through the air every now and then to clear the flies, taking pictures as he went.

  “Could’ve been a suicide,” Phillips pointed out, and wished he could light up a cigarette to mask the unfortunate smell.

  “It’s possible,” Ryan agreed but his gut told him otherwise.

  “If someone was going to do her in, there are easier ways,” Phillips said. “Throwing someone over the side of a bridge takes a bit of strength and speed.”

  “Not all killers plan ahead.”

  Phillips watched Faulkner shuffle around the body, not envying him the task. After a few minutes, he made his way back to them.

  “This is going to take a while,” he said grimly. “Better send the troops in, and tell them to bring plastic sheeting.”

  Ryan nodded and began
to turn away, then paused and looked back up at the bridge.

  “Do you think she jumped?”

  Faulkner lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Given the state of the body, it’s hard to say,” Faulkner replied. “I’ll take some swabs and we’ll see what we see.”

  Ryan nodded, recalling times when an apparently suspicious death had been ruled a suicide or the coroner had left the verdict open. There were borderline cases where the wider circumstances leaned towards accidental death, too.

  But after two deaths in as many days, he didn’t like the odds.

  “Could be a coincidence, two deaths happening in the same place,” Phillips said, reading his mind. “I can’t see what Victor and Alice have in common, apart from both working up at the big house.”

  “That’s what we need to find out, Frank.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The staff were fully assembled in the library when Ryan and Phillips returned.

  It was one of the larger reception rooms on the ground floor and happened to have been the first room in the world to be lit by an electric lightbulb, according to Dave Quibble’s guided tour the previous day. No artificial lighting was necessary now, as late morning light streamed through a large bay window overlooking the valley and warmed the apricot-coloured walls which provided a contrast to the heavier décor throughout the rest of the house.

  “Oh, Ryan, I’m so glad to see you.” Cassandra Gilbert bustled across the room, looking as if she had spent most of the morning in tears. Her husband had roused himself from his sick bed and was installed in an armchair beside the fireplace.

  “About bloody time you coppers came to see us!” he boomed. “No use palming us off on the junior staff. I want to know what you’re doing about all this!”

  Cassandra winced.

  “I’m sorry.” She kept her voice low, so that only they could catch what she said. “He’s a bit hard of hearing.”