by LJ Ross
“Home sweet home,” Phillips said, from the passenger seat of Ryan’s car as they swung through the barriers and into the staff car park.
“Why is the car park so full—on a Sunday?” Ryan murmured, eyeing the rows of cars.
The two men exchanged a glance.
“Bugger,” Phillips said. “There goes my carvery dinner.”
Ryan nodded and made a mental note to cancel his plans for the evening. If he was any judge, they’d be in it for the duration.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go and see what all the fuss is about.”
The office was a hive of activity as they strode along the dingy, carpet-tiled corridors of CID and made directly for the executive suite on the top floor. Telephones rang and printers hummed as they passed offices and conference rooms staffed with people working overtime. There was a lingering smell of damp permeating the air, made worse by an unpleasant odour wafting from the general direction of the gents toilets.
“Howay, man, that’s criminal! Give it a courtesy flush, for pity’s sake!”
Phillips called out the directive as they passed the doorway and chuckled to himself as a stream of abuse followed swiftly from somewhere within.
He was still grinning when he turned the corner and almost collided with Denise MacKenzie.
“Sorry,” he muttered, drawing himself up to his full height.
She smiled slowly and folded her arms across her chest.
“Didn’t expect to see you in the office today, Frank. You’ve heard, then?”
Phillips hastily pulled himself together.
“I’m just on m’ way to see Gregson, now,” he answered, striving for nonchalance. “How bad is it?”
She pulled an expressive face.
“Bad enough. Cooper lost a prime suspect today and the IPCC’s already making noises about negligence. The Chief Constable’s on the warpath.”
Phillips cleared his throat.
“Well—”
“I should—”
“Right. Thanks for the heads up.”
Phillips scurried away, trotting to keep up with Ryan who was standing a discreet distance away.
Before the man could pass comment, Phillips growled a warning.
“Not one word,” he said.
Ryan held both hands up, smiling broadly.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Their smiles faded as they approached a door bearing a shiny brass plaque. Phillips checked his tie—a jazzy little number in a shade of sunflower yellow—before rapping a knuckle against the wood.
“Come!”
They stepped inside the private domain of Detective Chief Superintendent Arthur Gregson and found the room brimming with senior police staff from at least two area command divisions. Conversations ended mid-flow as they entered the room and heads swivelled to greet the newcomers.
“Ryan, Phillips, come in,” Gregson gestured them inside and closed the door behind them before returning to his desk. “Take a seat, if you can find one. The rest of you, clear out!”
While the room emptied, they remained standing like sentries to their general.
“Thanks for coming in on your day off,” Gregson said, in the kind of tone that suggested he expected nothing less. “I suppose you’ve seen the news?”
He looked between their blank faces.
“Have you been hiding under a bloody rock? There’s been a major incident,” he told them, without preamble. “Less than an hour ago, our prime suspect in the Harris case ran around half of Newcastle while Hitchins and Jessop chased after him. He threw himself off the Tyne Bridge in full daylight, to a crowd of spectators who streamed the whole thing on social media. I’ve already had the IPCC on the blower wanting answers and the phones are ringing off the hook in the press office.”
Ryan frowned.
“Cooper’s the SIO on that one, sir. It’s regrettable that the suspect has taken his own life, but I don’t see that it qualifies as a major incident.”
Gregson linked broad, workmanlike hands on the desktop and took a moment before answering. He was an imposing man with a shock of steel grey hair, a permanent golfer’s tan and over thirty years on the force. A man in his position knew how to handle difficult situations and difficult people with detachment, but he could only admire the clinical way Ryan cut straight to the heart of the matter.
“John Dobbs isn’t the problem, Ryan. It’s Cooper.”
Only then did they realise that their colleague, DCI Sharon Cooper, was nowhere to be seen. Ryan swung his gaze back to Gregson.
“Where is she?”
“Cooper’s been uncontactable since around eleven this morning,” Gregson replied. “She sent a message to say she needed to take an hour’s personal and that’s the last we heard. John Dobbs had been under surveillance for three days. Jessop and Hitchins were on shift this morning when he spotted them and took off along the Quayside. They tried radioing her for instructions but heard nothing. We sent a response team and a crisis negotiator to the bridge, but it was too late.” He lifted his shoulders and let them fall again. “While Cooper was AWOL, Dobbs offed himself. They did their best in the circumstances but Hitchins and Jessop don’t have the authority or the experience. They were expecting to watch the bloke and make an arrest if necessary, not talk him down after running the length and breadth of the city. God knows, it’s not the outcome any of us wanted.”
“Or what the Harris family might have wanted,” Ryan added, thinking that it was a cowardly way out for a killer. “Where’s Cooper now?”
It was unthinkable that the SIO tasked with commanding their most high-profile murder investigation in recent years was MIA. It wasn’t just negligent, he thought, it was unforgivable.
But he kept his thoughts to himself, at least until he had spoken to his colleague.
“There’ll be hell to pay once the media gets wind of it,” Phillips put in.
“They already have,” Gregson intoned. “I’ve got the media liaison managing that side of things, but I want to get ahead of the evening news before the next disaster unfolds.”
Ryan felt a coldness begin to spread inside his chest, a creeping dread he recognised as the kind of sixth sense murder detectives develop after a while on the job. In the face of what looked like gross professional negligence, Gregson was displaying a surprising lack of enmity. It begged the question why.
“Where’s Cooper, sir?”
Gregson sighed deeply.
“Her police tracker’s still transmitting from her home in Tynemouth,” he replied calmly. “There’s a response team on their way there now. They’re under orders not to force entry until a senior officer arrives. Ryan, I need somebody I can trust to be there on the ground before they go in, making sure everything’s done by the book. I can’t have a bunch of squaddies trampling over the place; Cooper’s one of our own, after all.”
When the full weight of that implication hit home, Phillips’ eyebrows flew into his receding hairline.
“You think Dobbs got to her before he topped himself?”
Gregson sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Too early to say, Frank. All we know is that Cooper’s police tracker is still transmitting, the doors are locked and her car’s parked outside.”
Ryan shook his head slightly.
“It couldn’t have been Dobbs, not if he was under police surveillance. His movements are accounted for.”
The room fell silent for long seconds and the sound of traffic filtered through the cracks in the walls.
“Both of you get down there as quickly as you can,” Gregson said heavily. “And keep it as quiet as you can. The people in this city think the danger has passed. Let them stay blissfully ignorant for as long as possible.”
CHAPTER 3
Ryan raced across the city with a blithe disregard for the highway code while Phillips rode in the passenger seat bracing one hand against the dashboard in case of impact. They barrelled along the Coast Road towards the sea,
past old factories converted into overpriced apartments and council estates badly in need of investment until they reached the pretty village of Tynemouth, where DCI Sharon Cooper lived. Ryan slowed to a crawl along its quaint high street, finding it alive with locals enjoying the last of the summer sunshine breaking through the clouds and warming the walls of the ancient priory, presiding over things from its craggy outcrop overlooking the beach.
“Dunno why newspaper isn’t good enough, anymore,” Phillips mumbled.
Ryan gave him a distracted glance.
“What?”
“Fish ‘n’ chips,” his sergeant elaborated, nodding towards a fancy-looking restaurant. “In my day, you got a freshly battered fish and a mountain of chips soaked in salt ‘n’ vinegar, all wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Nowadays, it’s all artsy-fartsy paper from France wrapped in bleedin’ ribbons and bows. Waste of money, if you ask me.”
“Probably more hygienic,” Ryan said fairly. “And too much salt is bad for your health.”
Phillips made a sound like a raspberry and patted the middle-aged paunch that was just visible beneath his summer jacket.
“You need a bit of padding ahead of winter,” he explained, eyeing Ryan’s lithe physique with a trace of pity. “The lasses like to have something to hold on to, y’ know.”
Ryan couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t lost on him that Frank had a habit of lightening the mood in times of stress, such as now.
“You could just wear a jumper,” he said, executing a sharp left turn into one of the residential streets lined with smart Victorian terraces. Further conversation was forestalled when they spotted a line of police vehicles blocking the road and drawing the unwanted attention of Cooper’s neighbours.
“So much for keeping things quiet,” Phillips said.
Ryan yanked the handbrake with more force than was necessary and stalked across the road.
“You!” He pointed an accusing finger towards one of the first response officers. “What the hell do you call this?”
He spread an arm to encompass the crowd of onlookers.
“Sir, we were told to guard the scene.”
“You were told to act with discretion and intercept anyone entering or leaving DCI Cooper’s home. We don’t know if there’s any scene to guard, yet,” Ryan snapped, with rare optimism. “Above all else, you were told not to create a circus, which is what this is starting to look like. Where’s your sergeant?”
“Sorry, sir,” one of them mumbled. “The DS was supposed to be here.”
Ryan’s mouth flattened ominously.
“What steps have been taken to manage the crowd?”
They looked between themselves for divine inspiration.
“We—well, we told them to go home but they’re not listening.”
Ryan swore softly, eyeing the throng with impatience. Beside him, Phillips reached for a packet of Superkings and considered whether he had time for a smoke while Ryan delivered a quick lesson on crowd management.
“Listen up!” Ryan began, in clipped, well-rounded tones. “You’ve already been told to move along. If you continue to disregard a police instruction, I will not hesitate to issue formal cautions to each and every one of you. They remain on your permanent record,” he added, for good measure.
The crowd scattered like rats, muttering discontentedly about things being different in their day, whatever that meant. Phillips let out a small sigh and replaced the packet of cigarettes inside his breast pocket.
Maybe later.
Ryan turned back to the two constables standing on the pavement outside Cooper’s postage-stamp front garden. Behind them, the curtains were drawn at the windows of the house and nothing stirred on the air except a summer breeze.
“Set up a cordon,” he ordered. “Log every entry and exit. The official line is, ‘no comment’, in case anybody asks.”
Two heads bobbed up and down.
“And you can tell your sergeant to piss off, if he ever deigns to turn up. We can take it from here.”
“Right. Yes, sir,” they gabbled.
He began to turn, then his head whipped back around again.
“One more thing. If—and only if—there has been an incident, DCI Cooper’s home and person deserve our respect. That means no smart comments and no pictures. You stay put, you keep your eyes forward and note anybody sniffing around. If I find either of you has breathed a word, you’ll be pulled up on a disciplinary. Is that understood?”
Ryan watched their faces turn pale and was satisfied that his threat had hit home. He gestured towards two other officers who were standing a short distance away carrying a small battering ram, affectionately known as the ‘enforcer’. Above their heads, he caught sight of several pairs of curtains twitching in the houses across the street.
“Let’s get it over with,” he said, and pulled out bright blue protective shoe coverings and matching nitrile gloves.
You could never be too careful.
He led the short way along an encaustic-tiled pathway towards the front door and knocked loudly.
“DCI Cooper? It’s DCI Ryan and DS Phillips. Open the door, please!”
No answer.
He tried again, louder this time, hammering his fist until the door rattled.
“DCI Cooper! We have reason to believe your life is in danger! Be advised we are about to force entry!”
Still no answer.
On the off-chance, Ryan tried the door knob but found it locked.
“Back door’s locked too, sir,” one of the constables told him.
“Alright, let’s get it open.”
Ryan stepped back to allow the two waiting constables forward. In one easy motion, they swung the ram and there came the sound of splintering wood as the door flew open, revealing a shadowed hallway beyond.
Ryan held up a hand to signal caution, then stepped inside.
* * *
They smelled the blood first.
The air was saturated with the tinny scent of it as Ryan and Phillips moved warily through the downstairs rooms, eyes watchful for any signs of life. They found the crusted remnants of a bowl of porridge beside the sink in the kitchen and the dregs of a glass of wine on the coffee table in the living room but not much else. There was a curious stillness, as if the walls were watching their progress through the house.
Waiting.
“Upstairs,” Ryan said quietly and padded up the narrow staircase to the first floor. Phillips’ heavier tread sounded behind him, familiar and comforting as they walked headlong into the unknown.
The air grew more stagnant as they emerged onto the landing, searching inside each room they passed until only one door remained.
“Get ready,” Ryan muttered and grasped the handle.
Both men remained standing inside the doorway for long seconds while their bodies adjusted to the horror, struggling to control the urge to reject what they had seen.
“Dear God,” Phillips managed, swiping the back of his hand across his mouth to repel the stench of human waste.
Ryan’s face remained shuttered. Calm grey eyes swept over Sharon Cooper’s bedroom, noting the tiny details that would later become the fabric of his nightmares.
The curtains were closed.
“Make a note for Faulkner,” he said, referring to the Senior Crime Scene Investigator attached to CID. “Check the curtain fabric in here and in the living room downstairs. He might have forgotten to cover his hands.”
Phillips nodded, breathing hard through his teeth.
“Is it definitely her?”
Amid the destruction, it was by no means obvious.
“I think so,” Ryan replied, and forced himself to look again at the remains of what had once been a woman.
Sharon Cooper’s body parts had been laid out on her bed like the components of a macabre jigsaw puzzle against a canvas of blood, which drenched the linen and oozed onto the floor in coagulated drops, forming puddles on the pale blue carpet. A few strands of matted b
londe hair hung limply from her head, which had been placed atop a broderie anglaise scatter cushion like a ceremonial offering. The clothes she had chosen to wear that morning were folded neatly at the end of the bed and a single fly flew in circles above her left foot, tipped with pink polish.
“It’s inhuman,” Phillips breathed. “I’ve never—in twenty years, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
And he had seen his fair share. From bodies found in rubbish bins to the kind of vengeful murder inflicted between the ruling gangs in the criminal underworld, he’d seen it all in his time.
But this was different.
“Whoever did this really enjoyed themselves,” Ryan agreed, swallowing back rage as he thought of the woman’s family and of the friends she left behind. He thought of all the memories she would never make, all the life left to live.
Nobody had the right to take it from her, and never with such brutality.
Nobody.
Ryan closed his eyes briefly, remembering the last time he’d seen Cooper alive. She’d been stressed and run-down, both of which were natural by-products of heading up an important investigation that had drawn national headlines.
“Stupid thing’s on the blink again,” she’d told him. “All I want is a packet of ready salted. Is it too much to ask?”
“Give it a good kick,” he’d said. “It’s therapeutic.”
Meaningless, nonsense words, but he thought of how her eyes had crinkled when they’d shared a joke.
Now, those same eyes were filmed white and stared sightlessly up at the ceiling.
“No sign of a break-in,” Phillips said, bringing him back to the present. “Could be a vengeance kill. Could be somebody she’s put away over the years…could even be Dobbs.”
“No,” Ryan turned away. “It’s not Dobbs. Look at her, Frank. She can’t have been dead more than a few hours. There’s no way he could have done this whilst under surveillance.”
He let out a short, mirthless laugh and shook his head.