by LJ Ross
“Howay, lad,” Phillips said, giving him a gentle nudge out of the north door. “Let’s go for a stretch of the legs, it’ll do us both good.”
“The only thing I need is to find the low-life behind all of this,” Ryan said, and began striding across the lawn.
Phillips sighed, but whatever words of wisdom he’d been ready to impart were interrupted by shouts from the press corps, who remained just outside the police cordon on the far side of Palace Green.
“DCI Ryan! Is it true you’ve been called in because the explosions were linked to the terror attacks in Newcastle last year?”
“No comment,” he ground out, dipping beneath the barrier.
“If the terror attacks aren’t related, why have you been called in from a different Area Command?”
Ryan held the police line up to allow Phillips to duck underneath, resolutely holding his tongue while they buzzed like flies around his head.
“Is it true that a police officer was gunned down yesterday afternoon, in broad daylight?” they shouted.
“Was the attack gang-related?”
“Do you believe the attack is connected to the recent fire at Notre-Dame?”
Ryan and Phillips had almost made their way through the crowd, when a final question tipped the balance.
“DCI Ryan, is it true that your wife was injured in yesterday’s blast?”
Clearly, this was news to some of the other reporters, who obviously hadn’t thought to bribe any of the hospital staff in the area, and their excitement reached fever pitch.
“Just keep walking, lad,” Phillips cautioned.
“Isn’t it true that your wife’s family and, in particular, her father, were involved in the cult known as the Circle?” the same reporter shouted. “Is there any connection?”
“What the hell is he implying?” Ryan snarled.
“Just leave it—” Phillips said, but the warning fell on deaf ears.
Ryan spun around to face them, eyes wild with grief and loathing. “You enjoy this, don’t you? You feed off the drama and the heartache. Well, here are a few scraps for you to take away.”
Eagerly, camera men switched their lights to red and reporters held out portable mics, ready to capture an impassioned statement from a man already beloved by their viewing public.
Ryan stood tall and straight-backed, his dark hair gleaming in the late morning sunshine, a physical embodiment of the hero they wished him to be. But, as he swept his gaze over each face in turn, there was only one in the forefront of his mind.
Anna.
He was no hero, he thought. He was a very ordinary man who did his best to protect those he loved and the people he served. He asked for no special treatment, nor expected any starry-eyed hero worship; all he hoped for was a long life spent with good people, at the end of which he might be able to look back without regret.
But, he realised, they didn’t care to hear any of that. It was easier to play the role, and pretend he felt no fear.
“This was no terror attack,” he said, and the crowd fell silent. “Terrorism is morally reprehensible, and something we will never tolerate. However, terrorists can at least lay claim to some system of ideology, however flawed it may be. Terror attacks are usually perpetrated for a reason—not one that you or I might ever consider acceptable—but a reason nonetheless.”
He paused to let that sink in, before continuing.
“In this case, we are dealing with the grubbiest of criminal,” he said, choosing his words with care. “This attack was not carried out by anyone believing in a cause, just robbers who value money more than human life. They planned and executed a robbery in which they managed to steal one of our region’s most precious artefacts: Saint Cuthbert’s cross is a thousand years old, and carries national historic and religious significance, a value too high for any material price. These things meant nothing to the men or women who desecrated the cathedral yesterday.”
A muscle ticked in Ryan’s jaw, but he forced himself to continue. He had started, so he would damn well finish.
“In their greed, these people thought nothing of striking down a pregnant woman,” he said, and couldn’t prevent the tremor in his voice. “They cared even less whether she lived or died. A number of other people sustained minor injuries as they tried to escape, and they are lucky those injuries were not more serious, and that they didn’t happen to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”
As he looked out across the sea of expectant faces, Ryan wondered whose shadowy face he would uncover, before all was said and done.
His next words were for them.
“To the perpetrators of yesterday’s crime, I say this: whether it’s today, tomorrow, or a year from now, I will find you. There won’t be a hole big enough, or dark enough, for you to hide in. For every action, there is a price. You may believe that you have stolen something that is priceless,” he said. “You also very nearly robbed me of something even more priceless. For that, you’ll answer to the police and to the laws of this land—but first, you’ll answer to me.”
There was a stunned silence, and then the crowd was galvanised once more. They clamoured for attention, but Ryan merely shook his head.
“I have to get back to my wife and child.”
* * *
Phillips was waiting a short distance away.
“You don’t have to say it,” Ryan muttered, as they made their way back towards the car park.
“Say what?” Phillips asked, innocently. “I wouldn’t dream of saying that Morrison won’t be happy when she sees the lunchtime news, for example, or that you’ve just laid down a challenge to a certain kind of maniac.”
“Morrison asked me to manage the investigation,” Ryan replied. “I’m managing it.”
Phillips pursed his lips.
“Sounded to me like you were laying down a marker. Be careful, lad. We’re not dealing with a gang of shoplifters, here.”
Ryan stopped and turned to look at his friend.
“They might have killed her Frank,” he said. “I want their heads on a stick.”
“Aye, I know,” Phillips said, and ran a calloused hand over his chin. “Fact is, if anybody’d hurt Denise, I’d probably feel the same—”
“Probably?” Ryan retorted. “I seem to recall you marching into a known gangster’s office, without backup, ready to thump his lights out, back when Denise was hurt.”
“That’s as maybe,” Phillips said, obtusely. “All I’m saying is, just make sure that the head on a stick doesn’t end up being yours.”
On which note, Ryan’s phone began to ring.
“I always said there was a touch of the clairvoyant in you,” he said, holding up the display.
It was Chief Constable Morrison.
Ryan looked at the display for a long moment and then, much to Phillips’ dismay, clicked the red button to bin the call.
“I already know what she’s going to tell me,” he said, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “With Anna being a victim, she’ll say I can’t remain focused and that I’ll have some kind of unconscious bias.”
“Nobody would blame you, if you did,” Phillips said. “But there are protocols—”
“Don’t talk to me about protocols, Frank. Everyone in Durham is close to this case,” Ryan said. “The attack is on the heritage of the city, and of this entire region, which means everybody’s got an interest. The same applies to the Tebbutt investigation, because there isn’t an officer within a hundred-mile radius who didn’t have some connection with Joan, and who could swear they had an entirely unbiased interest in finding her killer. You and I both know that.”
Phillips heaved a sigh, and then nodded.
“Aye, that’s true enough,” he admitted. “What’ll you do about Morrison?”
“The Chief Constable can wait a little while longer,” Ryan said. “If she wants me off the case, she’ll have to come and tell me in person.”
* * *
It was so beautiful.
Gleaming, with its polished gold and garnets; a pretty thing for anybody to behold. But this collector was no magpie, seeking out scraps of glitter. The beauty of the cross lay within, its power much greater than pounds and pence.
Their eyes strayed to the television, where the policeman spoke of things he could never comprehend, and the old anger began to rise, as it had since their earliest memories of childhood. Back then, it had been small things, trivial things, to some.
To ordinary people.
They’d always known they were special; set apart from the common herd. With such a bloodline, greatness of mind was more than a lifetime’s achievement—it was preordained.
Fuelled by the knowledge, they reached for the cross with trembling hands, hesitating only for a moment before grasping it with greedy fingers.
The rush was incredible; the feeling of ecstasy so potent, their body shook with the force of it. They felt the power transmitting itself from vessel to master, as though it were touching their very soul, enriching every fibre of their body.
The cross was still strong, and so were they.
Reverently, they set the cross back down and stepped away, raising a hand to wipe away the spittle from their mouth.
This time, when they looked at the television, their eyes shone with madness.
CHAPTER 13
The journey back to Newcastle took longer than expected, and the delay did little to calm Ryan’s nerves, which were already frayed by thoughts of all the worst-case scenarios that might have played out during his absence from the hospital. When he finally did arrive back at the Royal Victoria infirmary, the situation was not helped by the fact his wife was missing from her bed—which was now occupied by an elderly lady sporting a jazzy blue rinse.
“Are you looking for someone, pet?” she asked, in a frail voice.
“My wife,” he answered, looking around for the nearest healthcare professional.
“My husband passed away last winter,” the lady said, looking away for a moment to stare down at the tubes protruding from her hands. “If he was still here, he’d have come to visit.”
Although he was distracted, Ryan took a moment to listen. Life was made up of small moments like these and, after all, he was lucky.
He was not alone.
“I’ll be with him soon, no doubt,” the woman continued.
Ryan wondered how best to answer. He didn’t believe in an afterlife; only in the here and now. But he had no wish to belittle or deprive others of whichever belief system helped them through the day and, if the lady was seriously unwell, the thought of joining a husband she so clearly loved and missed would be a comfort.
He would be the last person to rob her of that.
“Do you have any other family?” he asked gently.
“A son and a daughter, but they lead busy lives, down south,” she said, fussing at the bedclothes. “I’m that proud of them both. Our Tony’s an accountant, and Sally’s an artist.”
“Do they know you’ve been unwell?”
Her mouth took on a stubborn line he found endearing.
“No sense in worrying them,” she said. “I’ll be out of here soon, and they’d have come all the way up here for nothing.”
Presently, a nurse entered the room carrying a roll of fresh surgical bandages and a couple of glossy magazines tucked beneath her arm.
“Here we are, Mrs Kaye,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s get you freshened up. Would your visitor like to wait in the friends and family area?”
Ryan opened his mouth to say something politely to the negative, and to ask after the lady he was anxious to visit, but was pipped to the post.
“Oh, that’s just my toyboy,” the old lady said, with a twinkle in her eye.
“Is that so?” the nurse said. “I wondered why your heart rate seem to have picked up.”
“Aye, well I’m not blind yet,” Mrs Kaye said, and gave a wicked chuckle that soon descended into a coughing fit.
Ryan began to turn away, when a distant and long-forgotten memory of his grandmother came to mind. He recalled a precocious, if not downright cantankerous lady, with bright blue-grey eyes similar to his own—and a penchant for heavy perfume, pearls and hard Irish whiskey.
“I’ll bring you some flowers next time,” he said, with a smile, and then turned to the nurse. “I was looking for the lady who was previously occupying this bay. Anna Taylor-Ryan?”
“Oh,” the nurse replied. “The lady who’s expecting?”
He nodded.
“They moved her onto the main ward,” she told him. “Two floors down.”
Ryan thanked her and was about to hurry away, when some impulse made him turn to blow the old lady a kiss.
He was rewarded with a smile that stayed with him, warming his heart through the sterile hospital corridors until he found Anna again.
* * *
When Ryan was eventually reunited with his wife, he found that she was not alone.
A tall, silver-haired man with a chiselled profile stood at the shoulder of a petite, dark-haired woman of around sixty, who was seated in a faux-leather wingback chair beside Anna’s bed.
“Mum? Dad? I had no idea you were coming,” he said, leaning over to brush his lips over Anna’s. She still looked pale, he thought, but better than she had earlier that day.
Watching him, Eve Finley-Ryan’s face broke into a maternal smile and she rose from the chair, covering the distance between them to wrap her arms around him.
The tight ball of worry lodged deep inside Ryan’s heart began to uncoil in the warmth of his mother’s embrace, and he relaxed as she held him tightly against her.
“There,” Eve murmured. “We came as soon as we could, and we’ll stay as long as you need us.”
“I don’t need—”
Ryan began to pull away, to reject the help that was offered, an automatic denial on the tip of his tongue. There had been a time in his life, after his sister Natalie’s death, when guilt and shame had driven him into isolation. He hadn’t wanted to see the sadness in his mother’s eyes—a sadness he was convinced he was responsible for. But now, he realised it had been a different kind of grief he’d caused—the grief felt by a mother who believed she had lost both of her children, when only one had died. Now, when his parents had come to support Anna and the baby—and him, too—he realised it would be only too easy to make the same mistake again.
So, instead, he accepted the hand that was held out to him.
“Thank you,” he said.
Anna smiled, and he reached over to squeeze her hand.
“We’re both very happy you’re here.”
Eve looked at their joined hands, and was overcome with love, and relief. Anna had been her son’s redemption and, for that reason alone, would always occupy a special place in her heart. She, who had lost a daughter, had found a new one in the young woman who had lost a mother. Together, they had forged a special relationship, and she knew she had Anna to thank for bringing them closer together as a family.
“Frank rang us, late last night,” she said. “We drove up, first thing this morning.”
He might have known it would have been Phillips, Ryan thought. The man had firm ideas about family and, on this occasion, he had to agree with his foresight.
He looked over at the other member of their small gathering, who had yet to speak a word.
Charles Ryan was what Mrs Kaye might have called, ‘a fine figure of a man’. In his late sixties, his father might easily have been ten years younger, with an athletic frame and a shock of steel-grey hair which had once been as dark as his own. After serving in the military in his younger years, Charles had spent much of Ryan’s childhood and adolescence travelling, as part of his professional duties in the Diplomatic Service.
Now, Ryan felt, as he always did, that there was a distance between them; a chasm he longed to bridge, yet didn’t know how. Whereas others like Phillips were easy with their affection, and never shy to administer a manly hug, his
father seemed either unwilling or unable to do likewise. Consequently, he remained on the other side of the hospital bed, a physical reminder of the emotional distance between them.
Sensing the tension, Eve stepped into the breach.
“Why don’t we go and get a coffee, Charles, and give Max and Anna some privacy?”
“Is it ‘Max’ anymore?” his father asked. “I understand we’re supposed to call him ‘Ryan’ now.”
There was an awkward, heavy silence, and Eve sent her husband a look which spoke volumes.
“Call me whatever you like,” Ryan said, echoing the man’s clipped, well-rounded tones. “As I recall, you often referred to me as ‘boy’, whenever you were at home. That will be more difficult now, since I’m no longer a boy and haven’t been for some time.”
“So I see,” his father replied, and would have cut off his own tongue rather than admit how proud he was, just to be standing there looking at him.
He clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the door, stopping only to give Anna’s hand a brief pat on the way out.
“Canteen’s this way,” he said, briskly.
CHAPTER 14
While Ryan grappled with family politics, it was Phillips’ turn to do the school run.
Much like McKenzie, he had almost resigned himself never to experience the joys of parenthood—firstly, because he and his late wife Laura had been unable to have children, and, secondly, because it was growing late in the day to think of becoming a father by the time he found happiness with MacKenzie. Still, they’d been happy as a couple, he recalled, and life never felt lacking in any way.
Until Samantha had come into their lives.
Loving the little red-headed girl had proved as easy as breathing. Smart, sassy, and with a sweet tooth to rival his own, it was as though she’d been meant for them from the very beginning. True, the adoption process was not yet complete—and that gave him some bad moments when he allowed worry to creep in—but Samantha seemed happy, and had even taken to calling McKenzie ‘Mum’, sometimes. The house was a lot noisier with her in it, and there had been some minor run-ins as the three of them had grown to understand one another and live together, but, by and large, she’d slotted into their lives like the missing piece of a jigsaw.
