by LJ Ross
MacKenzie shook her head in bemusement, wondering if there was a reference manual for moments such as these. As a woman in her mid-forties, while Frank was more than a decade older, the pair of them had practically ruled out the possibility of having children of their own. That was the way of it, sometimes; she’d spent the first twenty years of her adult life searching, but only found the person to share her life with after most women had already married and had their babies. It had never really bothered her, and they’d certainly been very happy on their own, but deciding to take Samantha into their hearts and hearth had been a revelation. All the same, parenting was no easy task, as she was learning every day.
Suddenly, she felt a twinge run through her bad leg.
A couple of years before, she had been the hostage of a violent killer, and escape had not come without a cost. The blade of his knife had torn ligaments and nerves, causing her leg to cramp and seize, and for a phantom pain to follow her throughout the day. She knew that some of it was psychosomatic; a kind of echo of the trauma and fear she’d once suffered. But, no matter how much she attended physiotherapy classes or counselling courses, no matter how much she forced herself to keep going, the pain remained real and could sometimes take her by surprise.
“Are you okay?” Samantha asked, having watched the blood drain from MacKenzie’s face.
“I’ll be fine,” she managed, clasping a hand to her leg. “I just—I just need to sit down.”
As she staggered towards one of the nearby benches, she found herself wondering whether she would ever be able to escape the long shadow the Hacker still cast upon their lives.
The child was sensitive, and intelligent; Samantha sat beside the woman she was coming to think of as ‘mother’ and didn’t ask the burning question she longed to ask: how Denise had hurt herself. Instead, she simply reached across to take her hand and held it tightly in her own small fingers.
Denise looked down at their joined hands, and then into the small, freckled face, and smiled.
CHAPTER 5
By the time they reached the site of the incident, Phillips was puffing hard after covering the ground in what he would have described as indecent haste. To his chagrin, the mile-long hike didn’t seem to have posed too much of a challenge to the other three, and he told himself it was high time he went on a diet.
“There’s Faulkner,” Ryan said, and raised an arm to hail the Senior CSI, who had arrived shortly before them with two members of his small crew. They were hard to miss, dressed as they were in white polypropylene coveralls which stood out amid the brownish-green landscape of the valley.
As they’d walked, flat plains had given way to the sharp rise and fall of the lower Cheviot Hills, dipping towards a wide valley where a series of small burns flowed. In the middle of it all, a small huddle of men and women had gathered, partly camouflaged by the khaki green of their uniforms.
Ryan paused to take a sweeping look around the vicinity, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. From his position on higher ground, the army and police personnel on the valley bed seemed to move like ants; their bodies seemingly insignificant in the wide, open space of land and sky. If their presence was hard to spot in broad daylight, he could only imagine the challenge in pitch darkness.
It sent an odd shudder up his spine, and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
“Which way was she running?” Ryan asked, of the two army officers.
“West to east,” Huxley replied, after a small pause. “From the underside of Witch Crags, over there, in this direction.”
She pointed to illustrate the direction of travel.
“The section was headed north,” she continued, and traced another line in the air. “The real target is another half-mile in that direction.”
“So, you knew straight away, they’d made a mistake,” Phillips put in.
Dalgliesh nodded.
“We shouted the command to ‘STOP’ but, as I said earlier, they responded quickly to a perceived target. There were six firers on the ground, and we believe all of them expended ammunition.”
Ryan’s face became shuttered as he thought of what might be left of the poor soul who was now lost to the world. Until he knew the full circumstances, he would not pronounce judgment; it was the job of a soldier to defend their country, and that required the proper training. But it was his job to investigate the unlawful taking of a life, and he knew from hard-earned experience that didn’t require a full magazine of ammunition.
It only required a single bullet.
* * *
As they reached the small group of soldiers and civilians, a tall, broad-shouldered man of around fifty spotted their arrival and peeled away from the rest. As he approached, both Dalgliesh and Huxley came to attention.
“At ease,” he said, in well-rounded tones. “You must be from the police.”
“Y’ sir. This is DCI Ryan and Sergeant Phillips, from Northumbria CID,” Dalgliesh said. “This is our Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Robson.”
He nodded to them both, and exchanged a firm handshake.
“Sad business,” he said, without preamble. “Your forensics team have just arrived, but we took some pictures prior to that, which we’re happy to make available.”
“Thank you,” Ryan said, and looked across to the other members of the assembled crowd. “Perhaps you could introduce us to any other witnesses who were present at the time of the incident, last night? Through the course of the day, we’d like to interview all members of the section as well as any other army personnel who played a part in the exercise.”
“Of course,” Robson said. “I’ll make sure they’re made available to you. It would be in all our interests to complete the necessary formalities before close of business tomorrow, when the company is due to move out.”
Ryan raised a single eyebrow, and gave a slight shake of his head.
“I’m sorry, I can’t give you any assurance that our preliminary investigation will be finished by tomorrow evening. Until such time as our interviews and enquiries are complete, it would be helpful for the platoon to remain encamped at Otterburn.”
If Ryan had expected some resistance, he was pleasantly surprised.
“Naturally, I understand. I’ll make all necessary arrangements,” Robson said, without hesitation. “If there’s anything else I can do to assist, you have only to ask.”
Ryan thanked him.
“I’ll introduce you to the other key members of last night’s exercise,” Robson continued, signalling the remaining three uniformed officers to join them. “Here, we have my second-in-command, Major Owen Jones, whose job it is to plan and maintain an accurate record of training undertaken by all our soldiers; Gwen Davies, Company Sergeant Major for the 1st Royal Welsh; and Corporal Rhys Evans, who was our Target Officer during last night’s training. Our Medical Officer is Major Rupert Sanderson, who returned to base earlier this morning to oversee the troops’ debriefing.”
Ryan nodded, and turned to his sergeant.
“Frank, if you wouldn’t mind taking down initial statements from these officers, I’ll have a word with Faulkner,” he said, and then turned back to the CO. “We appreciate your cooperation.”
With that, he turned and strode purposefully across the moor.
* * *
Back at camp, Private Jessica Stephenson couldn’t stop the tremor in her hands.
Her eyes darted around the room where she’d been asked to wait, and she wondered whether the other members of her section had also been singled out and were pacing the floor of their own holding cell.
For that’s what it was; she was under no illusions about that.
They’d been stripped of their weapons and clothing and, after a chat with the Medical Officer about actions in the ‘line of duty’, had been separated pending police investigation.
And, in the silent room, left with only her own thoughts for company, her mind began to unravel. Had she kille
d that woman?
She sank onto the edge of a single camp bed and held her head in her hands, trying to remember every detail of what had happened.
It had been dark—so dark—and she’d struggled to see clearly. Even now, her eyes felt teary and blurred from the strain, and her body cried out for sleep.
But she would not sleep.
She couldn’t.
Jess held her hands out in front of her and stared at them; at the skin, at the shadows of veins and capillaries throbbing beneath, and thought of the other woman’s hands as they’d lain motionless in the dirt.
With a sob, she curled up onto the bed and tucked her knees against her chest.
The trembling continued.
CHAPTER 6
First responders from the local police station had set up a cordon of sorts, consisting of a line spray-painted on the ground to prevent further contamination of the incident site. Beyond it, Faulkner’s team of CSIs were busy erecting a small forensics tent around a small patch of earth where the fatality occurred, and the man himself was taking a series of photographs of the wider scene as well as more detailed shots of the valley floor, using a high-spec camera.
Ryan stopped at the painted line and entered his name in the logbook, which was being kept by one of the local constables and of which he approved. It didn’t matter what the terrain; procedures were in place for good reason.
“Tom!”
Faulkner turned at the sound of his name and raised a hand in greeting, then beckoned Ryan forward. The latter paused to cover his shoes in blue plastic coverings, then stepped over the line and into the crime scene.
“Good to see you, Ryan,” the CSI said, and pushed up the mask he wore to reveal an average, pale-skinned face badly in need of a shave. “Early start, today.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Ryan shrugged. “What’ve we got here?”
“A forensic nightmare,” he replied, bluntly. “Even if we weren’t outside and open to the elements, there must have been ten or more people trampling around the site here before we were able to secure it. I’d say we’ll probably be here for the rest of the day.”
“Understood.” There was little point in wishing it were otherwise; Ryan knew the kind of careful, intricate work required of a forensic team and it was in nobody’s interests for that work to be rushed.
“We’ll start with the spot where the victim died, and move out in expanding circles,” Faulkner continued. “I’ve taken some shots of the area, and of the spatter pattern, which seems to be in line with what you’d expect.”
Ryan’s eyes strayed to the ground, which was now partially concealed by the flapping tent, and saw an angry reddish-brown stain.
“Anything else of note?”
Faulkner sighed, and scratched the top of his head with a gloved hand.
“The CO said the woman would have been running in this direction,” he said, indicating a westerly motion. “If that’s the case, I’m going to focus on the area she was most likely to have crossed, and see if it turns up any other useful clues. Do we know who she was?”
“She hasn’t been identified,” Ryan murmured. “No personal effects on her, no purse or handbag, but she could already be in the system as a Missing Person.”
Faulkner nodded, sadly.
“Have you considered—?”
“That she didn’t run out into the line of fire by accident? Yes, it’s a possibility,” Ryan said, in a low voice. “We won’t know the likely answer until we find out who she was, and what her life was like; whether she posed a risk to herself.”
Faulkner made a rumbling noise of sympathy.
“I feel sorry for whoever fired the fatal shot,” he said. “They were following their training, but it won’t feel that way, just now.”
Ryan stuck his hands in his pockets and looked out across the ranges, then back to where Phillips was making his way around the small group of army officers, exercising his inimitable charm to great effect.
“I feel sorrier for the victim,” he was bound to say. “But I agree with you. In their marksmanship training, the targets are made to look human, so trainees won’t be afraid to pull the trigger when they need to, on the battlefield. It’s hard to blame a soldier for following orders, to the letter.”
He paused before continuing.
“All the same, this isn’t a battlefield—and that woman wasn’t a target.”
* * *
Private Jess Stephenson’s eyes flew open at the sound of a brief knock on the door, and she hurriedly stood to attention, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She must have nodded off at some point, but it had been a fitful sleep, filled with dark, nightmarish shapes that clawed at her skin.
She looked down at her hands, then clasped them behind her back as the door opened.
Sergeant Major Gwen Davies entered with two other men in tow, neither of whom she recognised. One was somewhere in his late thirties; tall, dark, and movie-star handsome, if she’d been thinking clearly enough to notice. The other was in his mid-fifties, with a shorter, stockier build and button-brown eyes that were presently full of compassion.
“At ease, Private,” Davies said. “Stephenson, this is DCI Ryan and DS Phillips, from Northumbria CID. They’re here to take a statement from you, as part of their investigation.”
Jess nodded, feeling a bit light-headed.
“Would it be possible to get a glass of orange juice, or something sugary, in here?” the taller one asked, and she sent him a grateful look.
The Sergeant Major nodded and excused herself.
“Private Stephenson—do you mind if we call you Jessica?”
“I prefer Jess,” she said quietly.
“Thank you.” Ryan indicated that she should sit. “We’re here to ask you some questions about what happened, if you’re feeling up to it?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“It’s all normal routine,” Phillips reassured her. “We’ll be asking the same of everyone who was on the exercise, last night.”
She swallowed.
“Do I—do I need a lawyer, or anything like that?”
“We’ll be asking you these questions under caution, so you’re entitled to a lawyer if you’d like one,” Ryan said, evenly. “We can wait, if you’d like to make a call?”
She searched their faces, and then shook her head.
“No, it’s alright. I’ll answer whatever I can.”
Ryan smiled, and pulled out one of two spindly plastic chairs arranged around a small table in the corner of the room. Then, he recited the standard caution.
“Do you understand those rights and responsibilities?” he asked.
She nodded, and was grateful when the door opened again to admit the Sergeant Major, who brought a tall glass of orange juice with her.
Jess drank it in four large gulps, and then stared down at the glass she held in her hands.
When she looked up, her eyes were twin pools of misery.
“It was me,” she whispered. “I was the one who killed her.”
CHAPTER 7
The dog was following him, again.
From his perch beneath the concrete flyover, the soldier watched a small, scruffy-looking dog skip towards him with the same, dopey-eyed grin on its face he’d seen somewhere before, on the banks of the Shamalan Canal.
“Bugger off!” he slurred, and hurled an empty can of beer in its direction.
The dog wavered, and then plonked its bum a safe distance away, where it continued to stare at him with big, baleful eyes.
“Why don’t you leave me alone?” he asked, speaking half to himself. “I don’t like you. I don’t want you, alright?”
The dog’s tail began to wag, and he made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh. Overhead, early morning traffic whizzed around the roundabout and over the Tyne Bridge, or into the centre of Newcastle, as people went about their daily grind.
He remembered doing that, once.
After the army, he’d tried becom
ing a civilian. What other choice had they given him? He couldn’t stay in the Watch, not if he couldn’t fire a gun or follow a basic command anymore.
And so, he’d come home.
They told him there were groups for men like him; places he could go, people he could talk to.
He’d joined the waiting list for some of them.
And waited.
And waited.
In the meantime, he’d drank on Friday and Saturday nights with his old civvie friends, who told him stories about being estate agents and mortgage brokers. He’d watched them flirt with women in bars, while he’d fought rising panic and claustrophobia, and the crippling knowledge that he no longer looked like everybody else.
Until, one day, they stopped asking him to join them, and he’d taken to drinking on his own.
He’d tried to get a job, but there were few available for men like him. Maybe, if he’d finished his training, or if he had a brother who could put in a good word…but there was nobody. He’d gone through the care system before enlisting, and he wouldn’t know his family if they passed him on the street.
Eventually, he’d picked up a few hours at a factory, making exhausts for the latest motors coming off the production line. It had been alright at first, but then they’d moved him to another section, where they said they’d train him to weld.
Sparks everywhere, and the hissing sound of flame hitting metal.
Like the fire that had melted his skin, and reduced Naseem to ash.
They’d found him huddled in the corner, with his hands over his ears.
They said there were people he could talk to, about things like that. Doctors, and psychologists, or something.
And then, they’d let him go.
The soldier looked over at the dog, but found him gone, too.
* * *
When Lowerson and Yates arrived at the Central Mosque, they found two fire engines in attendance, having spent over an hour working to extinguish the blaze. Exterior walls that had once been white were now a charred grey, and the interior was little more than a damp, hollowed-out shell. Local police had set up a safety cordon to keep back a crowd of locals, who spilled out onto the main road and blocked early-morning commuter traffic as people made their way into the city centre.
