The Infirmary: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 11)

by LJ Ross

  “She’s French or Italian or something,” Gregson continued. “We’ll need to manage that situation carefully because the last thing I want is the continental press picking up on our inability to bring this man to heel. This thing’s already going viral.”

  Again, Ryan said nothing. He could have spoken of all the hours they had been searching, of all the spent resources and personal cost to every member of his team, but it would have been like water off a duck’s back.

  “She’s French, sir.”

  He knew, because he’d already looked up her Wikipedia page. Stephanie Bernard had been twenty-seven years old, born in Paris, and with a permanent home there on the Left Bank.

  “Ryan, this breaks new ground,” Gregson said. “If you can’t put an end to this, this orgy, I’ll hand it over to someone who can. I’ve already had the Murder Squad on the blower, offering to take over.”

  Ryan knew the team in London very well, since he’d completed his training with the Met years earlier. He knew them to be capable but no more so than the team he had the privilege of working with right now.

  “Look, the nation is watching us, and people expect action,” Gregson said. “When this latest news hits the press, it’ll send shockwaves around Europe.”

  “I want it suppressed for a few hours,” Ryan said. “At the moment, he doesn’t know that we’ve found his latest victim. We might be able to use that.”

  “How?”

  “It’ll give us time to get hold of the footage from the theatre, the ticket lists and anything else we can. If there’s a name or a face we recognise, we can move in without him rabbiting away.”

  “You’ve got until three o’clock,” Gregson said.

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  A series of discussions with Stephanie Bernard’s production company confirmed that the last person to see her alive was Mark Pepper, a thirty-year-old usher at the Theatre Royal. It was pushing one o’clock, but he answered his front door in a pair of rumpled tartan pyjamas and a t-shirt with a picture of a dancing frog embroidered on the front.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr Pepper? DCI Ryan and DS Phillips from Northumbria CID. May we speak to you, please?”

  The acronyms had an instantly sobering effect.

  “Uh, yeah, sure. Am I in trouble?”

  He thought of the bag of weed sitting on the window ledge in his bedroom and broke into a cold sweat.

  “No, Mr Pepper. We’re here because we hope you might be able to help us.”

  “Oh,” he said, relieved. “What with? Is it about the bloke at the pub the other night? Look, honestly, he was all over the place. The bouncer should have thrown him out before he got into that state.”

  They followed him down a narrow hallway to a small living room that was decorated in what Phillips would call ‘man style’. An ancient sofa had been plonked against the wall and boasted a variety of food stains, while a gigantic television dominated the other wall and was flanked by freestanding speakers that must have cost a small fortune. A games console with four handsets was lying on the floor beside it, and every surface was littered with dirty plates and mugs.

  “Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to clean up,” Pepper said. “D’ you want to sit down?”

  His face was such a picture of hospitality, they were almost sorry to decline the sofa.

  Almost.

  “No, thanks,” Ryan said. “But perhaps you’d better take a seat. We have some bad news.”

  Pepper sank onto the edge of the sofa.

  “What is it?” he said. “Is it my mum? My dad?”

  “No, lad. Far as we know, your family’s safe and sound,” Phillips said. “We’re here because Stephanie Bernard was found dead in her hotel suite, not long ago, and we understand you might have been one of the last people to see her before she died.”

  They watched the changing emotions on Pepper’s face, from shock right the way through to grief and, finally, denial.

  “I-I can’t believe it. Are you sure?”

  Phillips held back any smart comments and simply nodded.

  “Aye, we are.”

  Pepper held his head in his hands.

  “I can’t—Stephanie? Was there some kind of accident?”

  Ryan side-stepped the question.

  “If you could just tell us, in your own words, what happened after the show finished last night. We’re going to take a note you can check over at the end.”

  Pepper nodded.

  “Okay. Do you mind—can I get some water?”

  “Sure.”

  They waited while he gulped down a pint of water, then filled another glass and brought it back with him.

  “The performance finished around ten-forty-five,” he said. “Stephanie usually takes…took fifteen or twenty minutes to get changed and ready to go back to her aparthotel but she was a bit quicker last night. I usually try to meet her at the stage door on the dot of eleven, but she was there at five-to.”

  “That’s very helpful,” Ryan said. “Go on.”

  “Okay. Um, she’d finished signing programmes and chatting to the people at the stage door and she was waiting for me. I’d been held up a bit by some old bloke,” he remembered.

  “Did you see anybody at the stage door when you joined her there?”

  Pepper tapped his fingers against the glass.

  “Yeah, there was a woman in her fifties with someone—I guess he was her husband. They were telling her how much they’d enjoyed the show, but they headed off straight away.”

  “Nobody else that you could see?”

  “No. Well, I mean, obviously, there were people passing by, but I can’t remember exactly. It was raining, and people were rushing to get indoors.”

  “Okay. Then what happened?”

  “Well, the company liked me to make sure she got back to her hotel safely. They didn’t spring for the Rolls Royce service, so she had to make do with me,” he said, with a shrug.

  Tears filled his eyes.

  “She was lovely,” he said, suddenly. “A real class act, you know?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “She never complained about anything and never had a bad word to say when things went wrong. She just got on with it, like a true professional. I thought she was amazing.”

  He looked down at his glass and took another sip.

  “I feel—um, I feel awful. Last night, I asked her out for a drink. Don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. “Must have had a rush of blood to the head or something. Anyway, I gave it a go and asked her.”

  “What did she say?” Phillips murmured.

  “Oh, she knocked me back. But she did it in the nicest way,” he said. “Like I said, she had class.”

  He looked up at their sombre faces.

  “Somebody hurt her, didn’t they? You wouldn’t be here, if they hadn’t.”

  They said nothing, but their silence was confirmation enough.

  “Carry on telling us what happened,” Ryan advised. “It’s the most helpful thing you can do.”

  Pepper nodded.

  “We chatted on the way to her aparthotel. It’s only a few minutes away from the theatre, down on Dean Street…although, I guess you know that,” he said. “I don’t really know what else to tell you. I dropped her off as usual and made a fool of myself, asking her out, then said ‘goodnight’ around twenty-past-eleven.”

  “Did she give you any indication that she was worried, or that anybody had frightened her?”

  “No. Yes,” he remembered suddenly. “She told me that the reason she never likes to go home alone when it’s dark is because she had this fan a couple of years ago who had freaked her out, or something like that. She wasn’t exactly the nervy type, especially not on stage, but she was quiet in real life, y’ know? Sort of…gentle.”

  “I don’t suppose she ever mentioned a name or a physical description of this fan? Male or female?”

  “Definitely male,” he said. “But I don’t know a
nything else about him. Sorry.”

  They stayed a few minutes longer covering the same ground to make sure they had his best recollection, then left Mark Pepper to his hangover and his grief.

  Outside, Ryan turned to Phillips with blazing eyes.

  “It was him. The fan, two years ago. I know it was him, the man who killed her.”

  Phillips had the same feeling, deep in his gut.

  “Aye. I think you might be right.”

  “He couldn’t have known two years ago that she’d be in Newcastle right now, so it has to be a case of opportunism. He must have been delighted.”

  “He needed to do his research quickly,” Phillips said. “The company were only here for a week and he needed to find out where she was staying, whether she was alone, whether there was a camera on the door and all that.”

  “And he’ll have wanted to see the production,” Ryan said. “It was a juggling act, considering he had Nicola Cassidy to manage alongside his regular work, but there’s no way he would have missed the show. Question is, which one did he go to?”

  “He probably paid for his ticket in cash, if he did go, but I’ll check with the box office.”

  Ryan thought back to the events of the past week.

  “We need to go back to the hospital,” he said. “It’s imperative we fill in the gaps on that rota, now we know Draycott is out of the running.”

  CHAPTER 31

  The time was edging closer to three o’clock when Ryan and Phillips stepped inside the A&E department once more. Ryan didn’t concern himself with the arbitrary deadline handed down by DCS Gregson and concentrated on doing what he did best.

  There was a different atmosphere in the Emergency Medicine Department now that Draycott had been arrested; a sense of unrest and disorder, and they reminded themselves that his staff knew nothing about Stephanie Bernard’s murder, nor of Draycott’s likely innocence.

  “Hello, Chief Inspector.”

  Keir Edwards spotted them entering the main waiting area and headed them off.

  “Doctor Edwards. How is everyone faring?”

  The other man pulled an expressive face.

  “Oh, you know, there were a few grumbles here and there about the search and about having to give a DNA sample but, for the most part, everyone was happy to help. Understandably, it’s been a shock to find out the truth about Sebastien.”

  Ryan gave him a bland smile.

  “What truth is that, Doctor Edwards?”

  The other man gave a funny little laugh.

  “Well, he’s been arrested—we assume for the murders of those poor women. Is that not the case?”

  “We can’t discuss an active investigation,” Phillips said, then jerked his head towards the treatment area. “We were hoping to speak to Joan about a staffing matter, if she’s around?”

  “I’m afraid Joan doesn’t start until four today,” Edwards replied. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  Ryan smiled, noting that Edwards was seamlessly transitioning into the role of Acting Head of Department.

  “Perhaps you can,” he said. “Shall we use Mr Draycott’s office?”

  “Certainly.”

  Edwards seated himself at Draycott’s desk and spread his hands.

  “How can I be of help?”

  Ryan took out his dog-eared copy of the staff rota for the last week and laid it out on the table so that Edwards could see.

  “This is the original rota that was drawn up two weeks ago by Mr Draycott, and Mrs Stephenson on the nursing side,” Ryan explained. “It’s since come to our attention that changes were made in the interim owing to sickness, overtime and staff swapping shifts. We were hoping you could help us to fill in the gaps.”

  Edwards made an expressive face.

  “Well, I’ll do my best. Let me see, now.”

  He made thoughtful noises.

  “Ah, yes. I can see my own shift pattern hasn’t been updated on here,” he said, and began making notes with a pencil in the margin. “Likewise, I know that Doctor Chowdhury had to swap on Tuesday…mm hmm…”

  He spent some time making notes and then sat back and pushed the piece of paper back across the desk.

  “That’s all I know of,” he said. “Joan should be able to fill in the blanks on the nursing side and she’s due back here in half an hour.”

  “Thank you, this is very helpful,” Ryan said, skimming his eyes over the notes.

  “I suppose you’ll need to take some more statements,” Edwards added. “Would you like me to arrange a meeting room, so you can talk to the staff in private?”

  Ryan inclined his head.

  “It’s good of you, but no. That won’t be necessary just yet.”

  “It’s a terrible tragedy, what happened to that woman. Such an enormous loss to the world.”

  Ryan thought of Nicola Cassidy’s wish to be a paediatric consultant and nodded his agreement.

  “Every victim of crime is a loss, Doctor.”

  “We feel the same, here, with every patient we lose,” Edwards said. “But it isn’t every day that you get somebody like that, is it? It must be quite a task for you.”

  Ryan’s forehead crinkled as he studied the rota, only half listening to the small-talk.

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  They stood up, preparing to leave.

  “Thanks again for this,” Ryan said, tucking the paper into his breast pocket. “We’ll be in touch.”

  “Ah, Chief Inspector? Sergeant?” Edwards’ voice lowered to a stage whisper. “About Mr Draycott. Some of the patients and staff have been asking where he is. What should I tell them?”

  “You should tell them the truth, Doctor. It’s always preferable.”

  * * *

  Ryan had barely gone fifty yards when the truth hit him and, when it did, it fell like a thunderbolt.

  He stopped dead, just outside the automatic doors of A&E, oblivious to the people coming in and out, oblivious to the rain that had begun to fall.

  “Frank.”

  Phillips had continued walking and was startled to find Ryan had not kept up. He trundled back to where his SIO stood, looking as if he’d seen Caesar’s ghost.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He wasn’t talking about Nicola Cassidy. When Edwards said it was an enormous loss to the world losing somebody like that, he wasn’t talking about her. He was talking about Stephanie Bernard. The bastard was talking about his latest victim.”

  It took Phillips a couple of seconds until the penny dropped.

  “Nobody knows about Bernard yet. Nobody but us.”

  “Exactly. Nobody but us and the man who killed her.” Ryan lowered his voice, thinking quickly. “Get a team down here, fast as you can, sirens off. If he thinks we know, he’ll make a run for it, or he’ll attack.”

  Phillips nodded, already reaching for his phone to put an urgent call through to the Control Room.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to keep him occupied until they get here,” Ryan growled. “He’s a danger to the public and he’s volatile. If I can keep him talking, we might be able to do this without any more bloodshed.”

  Phillips kept a sharp eye on the door.

  “Be careful, lad.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Ryan made sure his face was completely neutral when he stepped back inside the Accident and Emergency Department. A man who had killed three women with obscene brutality was not above threatening the public to save himself, and he couldn’t have any more lives on his conscience. The waiting room was awash with mothers and babies, children with sporting injuries as well as the elderly, and all age groups that lay in between.

  Ryan’s heart thudded against the wall of his chest as he made his way towards the reception desk, where he forced himself to smile.

  “Hello, me again. I was just speaking to Doctor Edwards. Do you know where I can find him? I forgot a couple of questions I meant to ask.”

  The recepti
onist returned the smile and thought she would miss seeing him around the place when his investigation was all over.

  “Yep, I think he was called through to the resus department.”

  Ryan considered the best approach.

  “If it’s okay, I’ll wait for him through there. I need to have a word with some of the staff, anyway,” he lied. “I promise I won’t get in the way.”

  “Oh, go on then,” she said, jerking her thumb in the right direction.

  Ryan thanked her and made for the resuscitation department, running through all the possible outcomes in his mind. Some of the staff spotted him and waved or smiled, but he didn’t see them; his mind was focused entirely on one thing and one thing alone.

  Safety.

  He peered inside open curtains, listening for the sound of Edwards’ voice.

  When he heard it, white-hot anger gushed through his body and he took a couple of deep breaths until he could be sure none of it would be visible. Just a few more minutes until reinforcements arrived, he thought. It couldn’t be longer than that.

  “How’s she doing?”

  Through the crack in the curtain, Ryan could see Edwards speaking to one of the nurses monitoring the heart machine.

  “She’s back down to 72 bpm, Doctor.”

  “Great work, everybody,” he said, leaning down to place a gentle hand on a child’s head. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. “You’re going to be okay, sweetheart. You’ve been very brave.”

  He delivered the words with such sincerity, it might have caused a lesser person to doubt themselves.

  But Ryan knew.

  It wasn’t just the slip Edwards had made in their conversation earlier; the notes he’d made on the rota failed to include the double shift he’d worked on Tuesday, a double shift that would have made it very difficult for him to slip away and top up the medication in Nicola Cassidy’s system. He was the only one to fit the profile for every murder; the only one who couldn’t provide an alibi for any of them.

  His stomach rolled as he listened to the child’s mother.

  “I’m so grateful, Doctor. Thank you, so much.”

  He heard the good doctor give a trite, humble reply, then the curtain whipped back, and they came face to face.