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

by LJ Ross

  Ryan smiled lazily and leaned back comfortably in his chair.

  “During the course of DCI Ryan’s investigation into the deaths of two people on the Cragside estate, of which you are manager, he sought the assistance of the financial investigation unit. Certain matters came to light which have led us to open our own investigation, which is why you’re here today. DCI Ryan will therefore be note-taking during this interview.”

  “Well, I want it noted for the record that my client has been extremely cooperative in agreeing to attend voluntarily today,” Kettering began, with a hauteur that must have taken years to perfect. “You acted in clear breach of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act when you failed to give my client proper written notice of this interview.”

  “A requirement which your client was happy to waive, since he was feeling so cooperative,” Salam put in.

  “Under threat of arrest,” the other woman hissed.

  “There was no threat at all,” Salam said, with a smile for Henderson. “I would have been very happy to arrest Mr Henderson.”

  Ryan’s lips twitched.

  “Now, let’s get down to business.” Salam clasped her hands together on the table top. “Please could you tell us your age and current profession, Mr Henderson, as well as your residential address?”

  He answered in a grudging monotone.

  “And I understand you do not own the estate manager’s cottage but live there as part of the compensation package from your employers, Lionel and Cassandra Gilbert?”

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  “I hope there’s a point to these questions, detective inspector,” Kettering spoke out again. “We were afforded no pre-interview briefing or any indication of what you intend to ask my client, which is another breach for the record.”

  “Actually, there’s no obligation for us to brief you ahead of an interview. Normally, we do, but what can I say? We just didn’t feel like it today.”

  The solicitor’s mouth snapped shut.

  “We understand you are an experienced estate manager, Mr Henderson. Can you tell us where you have worked previously?”

  Henderson swallowed.

  “It’s all listed on my work record, isn’t it?”

  “Where is the relevance, detective? Perhaps we should be asking to see your CV?”

  The solicitor exchanged a smirk with her client.

  “Oh, it’s quite simple, Ms Kettering. None of the companies Mr Henderson claims to have worked for actually exist.” She turned to the sixty-something man and watched him wipe perspiration from his lip.

  “Can you explain that?”

  “No comment.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed and he could feel Ryan’s eyes boring into him.

  “You are aware that, should this interview be used as evidence in court proceedings, adverse inferences may be drawn from your refusal to answer?”

  Henderson folded his arms across his chest while Salam listed his entire work history, or at least the version he’d included on the CV he provided to the Gilberts.

  “None of these stately homes exist, nor do the companies who are listed as your previous employers. Can you explain that, Mr Henderson?”

  “No comment.”

  And so it went on.

  Eventually, Salam came around to the next line of questioning concerning Henderson’s transactional history.

  “In January of this year, you purchased a BMW i8 hybrid sports car, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  He could hardly deny it, since the car was parked in the car park outside.

  “The money laundering officer at the car dealership registered a suspicious report following your purchase, Mr Henderson. Do you know why?”

  “No comment.”

  “Can you tell us the recommended retail price of a BMW i8?”

  “No idea,” he lied.

  “A steal at £105,000, depending on the specifications,” Ryan spoke up for the first time.

  “I’m told you paid a deposit of nearly twenty-five per cent of the retail price in cash, Mr Henderson. That’s a lot of money to have lying around the house.”

  Salam removed a scanned copy of the contract he had signed at the dealership and handed it to his solicitor before reciting its contents for the audio record.

  “No comment.”

  Henderson cleared his throat and trained his eyes on the ceiling, then looked away quickly when he realised the room was equipped with four cameras to capture his anxious face from every angle.

  “There’s been a string of large cash transactions dating back over at least three years.” She reeled off a few more. “Can you tell me how you managed to fund these purchases, Mr Henderson?”

  “No comment.”

  Ryan watched the estate manager with mounting dislike. They had expected him to fall back on a ‘no comment’ interview but having to listen to it was frustrating nonetheless.

  “Coming around to more recent events, we’d like to ask you about some cash withdrawals made from your current account last week.”

  Henderson sent his solicitor a panicked look.

  “Ah, just a moment, detective. How is it that you have access to my client’s personal account records?”

  Ryan licked the tip of his index finger and rifled through a sheaf of papers until he found what he was looking for.

  “Let the record show I am handing a scanned copy of the account monitoring order to Ms Kettering, which was executed yesterday evening through the proper channels.”

  “I want a moment to confer with my client.”

  “By all means,” Ryan said, affably. “We’ll leave you to talk it over.”

  * * *

  Ryan and DI Anika Salam wandered through to the observation room next door, where they joined their respective sergeants. The two men appeared to be getting on like a house on fire and Phillips was presently regaling Henry Tomlinson with some tale or other concerning Newcastle United’s footballing glory days.

  “Any word from Faulkner?” Ryan asked.

  Phillips pulled a face.

  “Sorry, guv, I had a call from him while you were interviewing. He’s having to re-test the samples because there was some cross-contamination, which wouldn’t do us much good in court. He’s working as quickly as he can but essentially he has to start from scratch.”

  Ryan stuck his hands in his pockets and jiggled the car keys he found there.

  “Without that DNA, we’ve got nothing to hold him,” he muttered.

  He stared through the window to where Henderson and his solicitor sat with their heads together, plotting, no doubt.

  Ryan turned back to DI Salam.

  “Have you got enough to hold him for twenty-four hours?”

  She shook her head.

  “You know as well as I do, fraud is a tough nut to crack. I need much longer to put my case together; it could take months to trace the source of the money. I only brought him in as a favour to you,” she said.

  “I know, and it’s appreciated.”

  Ryan nodded towards the window.

  “Let me predict what’s about to happen. We’re going to spend another hour going through every suspicious transaction going in and out of his current account, particularly over the last two months he’s been resident at Cragside, and he’s going to tell us ‘no comment’ or disclaim any connection with Victor Swann. Then, his solicitor will start mouthing off about supposition and circumstantial evidence and demand to leave. We’re going to have to let them, because he’s giving us nothing to work with.”

  “You never know,” Phillips said hopefully. “He looks the type to crack.”

  “He’s a cockroach,” Ryan muttered. “Unfortunately, they’re very resilient.”

  An hour later, Ryan walked out of Interview Room 1 and Phillips fell into step beside him. Not long afterwards, they watched Martin Henderson sweep out of the police car park with a deliberate flourish.

  “Told you so,” was all he said.


  CHAPTER 28

  The rest of the day passed in a haze of frenzied activity. The men and women attached to Operation Lightbulb redoubled their efforts to catch a killer who had figuratively stuck two fingers up and waltzed out of police headquarters as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  Ryan was hunched over his desk re-reading the witness statements taken after both incidents when there was a tap on his shoulder.

  “Boss? You’ve got visitors downstairs,” Lowerson said.

  Ryan knew immediately who they were and reached inside one of his desk drawers for the spare necktie he kept there for occasions requiring a greater degree of formality, such as meeting the parents of a recently murdered young woman.

  His legs felt heavy as he walked along the carpeted hallway towards the stairwell that would lead him downstairs to one of the ‘family rooms’ earmarked for these occasions. He prepared what he would say to them and checked he had a spare business card containing the details of a bereavement counselling service they could contact.

  As he reached the ground floor, he made his way along another corridor and then took a breath before pushing open a door marked ‘OCCUPIED.’

  Planned speeches and business cards flew out of his mind.

  Ryan’s first thought was that Alice Chapman’s parents seemed so small in the large room, huddled together on the foamy blue visitors’ chairs arranged around a central coffee table. A dying peace lily stood in the corner next to an assortment of leaflets touting meditation, funeral services and solicitors’ firms and he made a mental note to have them removed. Families of the deceased didn’t need ambulance chasers adding to their woes.

  He cleared his throat discreetly.

  “Mr and Mrs Chapman?”

  They both looked up and focused their attention on the tall, dark-haired stranger filling the doorway.

  “DCI Ryan?” Carol Chapman looked at him with unfocused eyes while her husband rose from his chair and put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  Ryan closed the door behind him and made his way across the room.

  They seemed incapable of speech, both wearing the kind of dazed expression he’d seen many times before. It was the shock. Some families harboured a false, unrealistic hope that there had been a dreadful mistake until they met the officer in charge of investigating their loved one’s murder. He could see that hope dying before his very eyes and it twisted like a knife in his belly.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he murmured.

  They were trite words he’d uttered hundreds of times before but they remained true. He was more sorry than he could say, looking at this couple who had brought a baby into the world and watched it grow into an accomplished woman, only to see her destroyed.

  It was unthinkable, unspeakable, but it was the reality he dealt with every day.

  “Why don’t we sit down?” He urged Simon Chapman into the chair beside his wife, before the man keeled over. “Can I offer you anything? Tea? Coffee?”

  “She’s really gone, isn’t she?” Carol whispered, ignoring the question while tears fell silently down her face.

  Ryan looked her in the eye.

  “Yes, I’m afraid she is. I’m sorry.”

  Carole let out a low, agonised moan unlike anything he’d heard before. She crumpled against her husband, who wrapped his arms around her and began to rock them both.

  Ryan reached for a nearby box of tissues and placed it on the table in front of them.

  “I saw—I saw on the news, some people are saying she killed herself,” Simon stammered, with sudden anger. “My daughter would never have done that. Never.”

  “I know that,” Ryan told him quietly, and it opened another floodgate.

  “I—I can’t…I can’t believe somebody has taken my daughter,” he choked out, sobbing openly now. “What kind of animal did this to her?”

  His eyes were wild now, almost mad.

  “I’m working hard to find them, Mr Chapman.”

  “What’s taking you so long?” Simon burst out, his voice cracking on the last word. “Surely, you must know who?”

  Ryan felt his throat working and bore down hard.

  “We’re investigating a number of leads…” he trailed off, unable to bring himself to tell a lie, however well-intentioned. He looked up and his eyes burned silver. “We have a suspect, Mr Chapman. We are working around the clock to find the evidence to charge him and, as soon as we do, you will be the first to know.”

  Carol Chapman raised shaking fingers to brush the tears from her face while she gathered the strength to ask him something she needed to know, for the sake of her own sanity.

  “Was she—was my baby hurt, like that?”

  Ryan understood immediately and, on this occasion, could take small comfort in telling her that there had been no sexual assault.

  “There’s no sign that your daughter’s murder was sexually motivated, Mrs Chapman,” he answered in a carefully neutral tone, designed to cushion the blow.

  “Then—then, why?” she asked brokenly.

  Ryan faltered. How could he tell this woman that her child had died because of something so paltry as money, or greed?

  How could he tell her that the person who had considered his own entitlement to be greater than Alice Chapman’s life had walked free from the very building where they sat, earlier that same day?

  “We are doing absolutely everything in our power to bring her killer to justice,” was all he could tell them.

  They looked at him mutely, faces ravaged by grief.

  “I trust you,” her father said.

  After Ryan requisitioned a squad car to take Simon and Carol Chapman back to their hotel, he watched them leave and felt that heavy burden weighing against his heart.

  * * *

  Martin Henderson felt invincible. Since arriving back at Cragside just after the lunchtime rush, he made a point of going back to work as usual. The estate had returned to full capacity, with staff and visitors being allowed to return now that the CSIs had completed their work with only the pathways near the burn remaining closed pending further enquiries, whatever that meant. He watched families roaming the forest and gardeners pruning the rhododendron bushes and could almost believe nothing had ever happened.

  Life went on as normal and people would forget, eventually.

  He strolled beneath the stone archway leading to the courtyard where Victor had been found and stood for a moment looking down at the ground, which was spotless after a thorough clean-up.

  Rest in peace, he thought nastily.

  As he rounded the edge of the house, he saw Cassandra Gilbert chatting with her housekeeper and she waved him across.

  “Hello, Martin,” she said and he was delighted to hear genuine pleasure at his return. It would make his job all the simpler, when the time came. “How did your errands go in town?”

  “Oh, fine, fine,” he said vaguely.

  “Was it the opticians or the dentist?”

  “The, ah, the dentist. Have to keep these teeth pearly white,” he said, lying through them. “It looks like everything’s running smoothly here?”

  “Oh, yes, everyone’s really pulled together these last few days,” Cassandra said. “It’s been an awful time but Maggie and I were just saying, the police might have it wrong, mightn’t they? Alice’s death could have been an accident, after all?”

  “I just don’t know anyone who could have hurt that lovely girl,” the other woman chimed in, her lips quivering. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Henderson made noises of sympathy and agreement but felt his stomach rumble and wondered what was on the dinner menu at the tea room.

  “I’m going to speak to Ryan the moment he gets back today,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to give us an update on their investigation. Surely, they must be getting close.”

  Henderson felt a shiver, despite the warm weather.

  “Why don’t you leave that to me?” he offered, magnanimously. �
��I’ll have a word with him and see what progress has been made.”

  “Would you? You’re so kind.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  As they turned to leave, his mask slipped just for a moment as he wondered whether either of the two old women might have been responsible for sending him that note. If they had, they needn’t think age would be any barrier to the kind of punishment he had in mind. He would protect himself against anybody who posed a threat, young or old.

  It could be any of them, he thought.

  He watched Dave Quibble step outside the house with one of his student conservationists, who had returned to work. His eyes narrowed as the man paused to give him a civil smile that held no real warmth. They’d never liked one another, Henderson had known that from the start, and the man was intelligent enough to dig into his past and look in all the right places.

  He spent the next hour greasing his way around the other staff in the house and grounds before making a perfunctory appearance in his office on the ground floor. Henderson watched people closely, looking for signs that they might be the mysterious sender, but eventually he gave up and settled down to wait.

  He’d find out at nine o’clock.

  CHAPTER 29

  The call came through at precisely eight thirty-six p.m.

  Ryan and his team continued to work solidly in one of the smaller conference rooms at police headquarters, where they had barely risen from their seats other than to cater for life’s basic needs, when Faulkner rang.

  Ryan snatched up the phone.

  “Tom? Give me some good news.”

  “The LCN DNA is a match for Martin Henderson. It was a complex job, because the sample was so small and we had to extract it from Alice Chapman’s own cells, then amplify it so we could do a proper analysis. Even then, it was only a fraction of the size of a grain of salt.”

  “But you’re sure?” Ryan pressed.

  “As sure as modern science allows us to be,” Faulkner replied. “But yes, I’m confident.”

  “That’s good enough. Thanks Tom, I owe you a pint.”

  Ryan rang off and was out of his chair in one smooth movement. The other members of his team looked up with curious, computer-dazed eyes.