by LJ Ross
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
EPILOGUE
DARK SKIES
– A DCI RYAN MYSTERY
LJ Ross
Copyright © LJ Ross 2017
The right of LJ Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or transmitted into any retrieval system, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design copyright © LJ Ross
OTHER BOOKS BY LJ ROSS
Holy Island
Sycamore Gap
Heavenfield
Angel
High Force
Cragside
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
—William Shakespeare
“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.”
—Democritus
PROLOGUE
Kielder Forest, 1981
The sky was papered with stars on the night Duncan Gray died.
He watched them from the depths of a muddy crevice, his breathing a laboured gurgle as he began to drown in his own blood.
“We can’t leave him like this!”
“Shut up!”
Duncan heard their voices drifting on the chilly air, over the mound of debris and rubble that had once been a stone farmhouse. The demolition area was supposedly ‘out of bounds’ but a bit of wire mesh fencing hadn’t been enough to keep them away; not when they could forage around the dusty detritus, camp and smoke without fear of discovery.
Friends.
He began to choke, blood bubbles popping at the corner of his mouth. Their conversation grew distant and he imagined he was swimming underwater, floating, his body lapping on gentle waves as death prepared to consume him.
“But it was an accident! We can tell them it was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it, d-did you?”
There was an infinitesimal pause.
“No, of course not.”
“Well, then, if we hurry, we might be able to get help—”
“It’s too late, Roly. He’s dead.”
“I can still hear him—”
“He’ll be dead soon enough,” the other snapped, with an air of impatience. “You know what’ll happen if we tell anybody. They’ll say it was our fault and put us both away.”
“But I haven’t done anything—”
“You helped dump his body, didn’t you? You pushed him into that hole and his blood is on your hands.”
Roly looked down and began to sob loud, self-pitying tears.
“Shut up! Nobody needs to find out, especially not the coppers. You just need to keep your big mouth shut.”
“They might believe us…”
But the seed of doubt had been planted and they both knew it.
“Look, there’s nothing we can do for him now. Do you want to ruin my life—and yours—because Duncan fell over his own big feet?”
“Did he really fall?”
Roly’s tear-clogged voice was hopeful, betraying an eagerness to reject the awful truth of what had happened and replace it with an alternate version where Duncan had somehow been responsible for his own death.
“He was off his head, okay? He was desperate to get his hands on the stuff we found. I told him we could share it between the three of us but Dunc wanted to keep it all for himself. He was running back to the village, stealing it while we were setting up the tents. I was trying to take it back, that’s all, and he tripped and smashed himself up.”
It was a lie, but that hardly mattered now. The heavy piece of rock used to crack Duncan’s skull lay discarded somewhere amongst the rubble, covered in blood and hair, but they’d never find it, just as they wouldn’t find the penknife he’d used to finish the job.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to use it on Roly as well.
Too risky.
“Nobody knows we’re down here and if we hurry back, they won’t notice either of us was ever gone. This whole area will be under water soon enough.”
Their voices became a distant buzz as Duncan struggled and the stars blurred, just for a moment. He blinked, the muscles in his face twitching, his body convulsing in a final effort to survive. He thought he heard someone crying; blubbering, childlike tears that jarred with the silent valley. There were more words, harshly spoken and peppered with threats. Finally, a short, deafening silence before the first heavy stone landed on his leg, fracturing the bone.
He felt nothing.
More stones followed as they worked quickly to bury him beneath the soggy ground and Duncan watched from a motionless shell, his face a pale mask against the dirt.
“Sorry, Dunc,” he thought he heard Roly say.
The stars dimmed a final time and then there was nothing but a black, empty void as the world slipped away.
* * *
Christmas 1984, three years later
They sat side by side on the dewy grass overlooking the new reservoir, surrounded by the familiar fa
ces of friends and neighbours who had turned out to watch the Aurora Borealis set the night sky aflame. They were not disappointed, for the Northern Lights rose in a kaleidoscope of colour, more beautiful than anything they had ever seen.
Around them, the villagers gathered in clusters, their voices muffled behind heavy winter coats and scarves. Steam rose from flasks of hot tea and, every so often, there came the sound of uproarious laughter. Someone had brought a portable radio and it hummed the crackling melody of Band Aid’s newly-crowned Christmas Number One.
The pair said nothing but continued to watch the rippling lights reflected on the lake, thinking of what lay hidden far beneath its surface.
“They’ve stopped looking now,” Roly whispered.
“I know.”
“Do you think that’s it, then? Can we—can we pretend it never happened?”
“No, we can’t. Everything is different now.”
They cast their eyes up to the heavens and felt something click softly into place; some hitherto unknown part of themselves that had been missing. There was no need to pretend, no need to feel ashamed of what had been the defining moment of their lives and what set them apart from the common herd.
“You don’t understand, Roly. We’re special, now. Superhuman, or something like that.”
“What d’ you mean?”
“I dunno…” It was hard to describe the incredible, overwhelming feeling of power. “Just, different. Above all the rest.”
The sky flared in shades of green and blue, scattering light over the rippling water. Three years had passed and there had been no repercussions after Duncan’s death; especially now that the rumours had started about him running away from home. In another six months, he’d be nothing more than a distant memory.
Nobody could touch them now, not ever.
CHAPTER 1
Kielder Reservoir, Friday 30th September 2016
Thirty-two years later
Mist curled across the silvery expanse of water, rolling its way towards the shoreline and through the dense forest that lined the reservoir and stretched back as far as the eye could see. The sun cast bright shards of light over the quiet morning and there was no sound to be heard except the gentle lapping of water against shingle.
Lisa Hope stood on a long wooden jetty dressed in full diving gear, surveying the placid water with a dubious expression.
“It looks really, really cold.”
“You’ll hardly feel it, once you get going,” came the cheerful response from their diving instructor, who continued to check the oxygen tanks from the deck of his small motorboat.
A reassuring arm curled around her waist.
“Having second thoughts?”
She sighed, remembering Oliver had used that same persuasive tone to convince her to give up her Saturday mornings to attend a scuba diving course at Kielder Water. It’ll be just like the Red Sea, only much closer to home, he’d said. We can earn our certificates together, he’d said.
She heaved a long sigh, which clouded on the frosty air.
“Well, so long as we’re here…”
“That’s the spirit!” Oliver gave his girlfriend a quick smacking kiss. “Besides, people say there are forgotten villages lurking down there, filled with all kinds of treasure. Isn’t that right, Freddie?”
The diving instructor fiddled with the zip on his wetsuit. The idea of ghostly villages lurking beneath the surface like a poor man’s Atlantis was a draw for the tourists, but everybody knew the old buildings and smallholdings had been demolished to make way for the new reservoir back in the early eighties.
He supposed that’s what they called Progress.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to keep the legend alive, if it meant they’d recommend the diving course to a few of their city friends.
“Oh, aye,” he said, clearing his throat. “There’s an old church down there and, if you swim to a certain spot, they say you can still hear the bells ringing.”
He’d never heard any such thing but it was the best he could come up with at short notice.
“Really?” Oliver’s eyes gleamed. “C’mon, Lisa, let’s go and see for ourselves.”
A spark of excitement had overtaken their fear of hypothermia for the time being and Freddie helped them aboard The Daydream, checked their gear one last time and flicked the engine into life.
* * *
The icy cold water had been a shock to the system but it was nothing to compare with the shock awaiting them as they dived deeper into the bowels of the reservoir.
Freddie led them in a fan formation, thrusting downward with the kind of grace that was borne of long experience, leaving a stream of bubbles in his wake. The couple followed, eyes widening as a shoal of fish darted through the reeds and skittered around them, adjusting to the fall in temperature while they concentrated on keeping their breathing slow and even to conserve oxygen.
They followed his brisk hand signal and glided left through the murky water until they came to a clearing where the land dipped towards the basin of the reservoir at its deepest point. The water was clearer here, revealing the enormity of their surroundings, and they felt a momentary panic at the sheer size of it.
What if something went wrong?
Sensing their unease, Freddie gave them an “OK” signal and bobbed his head in the direction of what looked like a collection of tumbled-down stones. Its shadowed outline was barely visible without the natural light of the shallows and he tapped the small torch attached to the hood of his diving suit, waiting until they followed his example.
Diving deeper, they found themselves amongst the rubble of a large farmhouse. Part of its walls remained intact, marking the territory of what had once been a kitchen or a living room and Freddie pointed out the dusty outline of a tin can and the glint of a silver fork. It was mesmerising, the silent underwater landscape with its eerie remnants of the past, and the three divers drifted apart as they explored its secrets, the light from their torches flickering as they went.
After a few minutes, Freddie rounded them up and tapped his watch, giving the thumbs-up signal to indicate it was time to start making their way back to the surface. Lisa nodded and pushed away from a nearby stone, crying out in a sharp burst of bubbles as the stone dislodged, bringing with it an avalanche of silt. She kicked frantically upward to escape the cloud of brown dust that engulfed her, disorientating and blotting out the light from her torch so it was impossible to know for sure whether she was heading in the right direction.
Her breathing became erratic and fear took a stranglehold. Her arms flailed as she forgot her training and succumbed to blind panic, striking out for the surface with clumsy movements.
Something brushed against her leg and Lisa tried to shake it off. She turned to look back through the gloom and, as the muddy water dissipated, she caught sight of what had risen from the reservoir floor.
It was an arm, outstretched and crooked, its skin covered in a thick layer of peat that was crumbling into a mist under the pressure of the water. Her eyes widened in terror as the body of an adolescent boy twisted into view, his face shockingly preserved except for gaping black holes where his eyes should have been.
Lisa screamed and then she was falling, down and down into the darkness towards his outstretched arms.
* * *
Doctor Anna Taylor battled with the gearstick on a temperamental old university minibus and told herself that this was definitely, positively, the last time she would volunteer to lead a weekend residential course. As a light drizzle began to settle against the windscreen, she thought fondly of the private honeymoon villa she’d occupied for the past three weeks, tanning herself in a tropical paradise with her new husband. They’d spent long, lazy days doing very little except enjoying each other’s company and making extravagant plans about leaving their respective jobs to run a Tiki bar or something equally flamboyant. Sadly, as with all good things, the honeymoon had come to an end and was replaced with the promise of a long weekend s
pent in an area that boasted one of the highest statistical averages for rainfall in the whole country.
Anna flicked a glance in the rear-view mirror at the motley collection of postgraduate history students slumped in their seats and wondered what the next few days at Kielder would hold. The journey west from Newcastle upon Tyne had been scenic, leading them through rolling countryside and along the ‘military road’ running parallel to Hadrian’s Wall towards the western edge of the county of Northumberland. The road wound up and down the valley, across sparse plains where hefted sheep grazed, until a vast forest loomed on the horizon. The scale of it never failed to impress, reminding her of Canada or perhaps Alaska, the trees towering on all sides in a patchwork of rich green and brown. The area might not boast an exotic climate but she had to admit that whatever it lacked in temperature, it certainly made up for in breathtaking natural beauty.
The minibus wheezed its way along the main road through the trees and Anna slowed to look out for the exit that would lead to the holiday lodges they’d rented near the banks of the reservoir. Spotting it, she directed the protesting vehicle along another winding road until the water came into view, glittering steel-grey in the morning light. Next to it was a collection of low-roofed, eco-friendly buildings that housed a visitor’s centre with an inn, a gift shop and conference facilities, as well as a couple of water sports kiosks, the Birds of Prey Centre and a boathouse next to a long wooden jetty. There were a few small boats moored alongside it, including the passenger ferry that carried people to various stopping points on the lake. Anna parked the minibus in the visitor’s car park, stretched the aching muscles in her neck and prepared to unload her human cargo.
“Alright—wakey, wakey! We’re here!”
They had barely set foot on the tarmac before the commotion began.
A man dressed in a black wetsuit leapt from the deck of a small motorboat and ran halfway along the jetty, bare feet slapping against the decking. He bellowed towards one of the kiosks, waving his arms wildly to attract attention.
“Mitch! I’ve got an emergency!”
