by LJ Ross
Perhaps she would be a useful person to know.
MacKenzie’s pace slowed to a jog, then to a walk, until the machine stopped completely, and she tugged the headphones from her ears. Almost immediately, she was aware of a sensation of being watched and turned to find the new superintendent lounging in the doorway. Unlike herself, Lucas was sleek and polished in a tailored grey suit, her dark, expertly dyed hair styled into a neat bob around an attractive face dominated by a pair of baby-blue eyes. She knew that Lucas was somewhere in her late forties but, at first glance, she might have passed for ten years younger.
“Ma’am,” she said stiffly, feeling irritated by the scrutiny. “Am I needed upstairs?”
It was her designated lunch hour but she could shower and change quickly enough.
“No, no,” Lucas said, with a wave of her hand. “Nothing that won’t keep. I wanted to have a word with you about…well, a private matter.”
MacKenzie stepped off the treadmill and kept her face neutral.
“Oh? I’m not sure I’m the best person to speak to about private matters. Perhaps, if you talk to HR?”
Lucas wasn’t put off.
“It’s just, as a fellow woman, I wanted to ask how you’ve found working with DCI Ryan.”
MacKenzie’s face betrayed nothing and she looked her superior dead in the eye.
“That’s easy. Working with Ryan has been a privilege. He’s been more than just a boss, he’s been a mentor and a friend.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that,” Lucas said briskly. “But…well, it just strikes me as odd that a woman of your obvious capabilities hasn’t been promoted to higher rank and I can’t help wondering whether that is a symptom of bad management or bad judgment.”
MacKenzie gave her an empty smile.
“From the very first, DCI Ryan has encouraged my progression through the ranks and, if I ever express a desire to move higher up the ladder, I have no doubt he would support my application because there isn’t a sexist bone in his body. He doesn’t care, so long as you do the job and do it well. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’d like to go and clean up.”
With that, she brushed past Lucas and headed towards the locker room but, instead of reaching for a towel, she rummaged around for her mobile phone and pushed ‘speed-dial’.
After a second, Phillips answered.
“Frank? Is Ryan with you?”
Phillips looked across at the man in question, who sat in the driver’s seat as they prepared to depart Kielder and head back to the city.
“Mm-hmm,” he said. “Is anything the matter?”
MacKenzie craned her neck towards the open doorway and lowered her voice.
“I think we’ve got a fox running loose in the hen house.”
* * *
As it turned out, MacKenzie’s instincts were not wrong.
DCS Lucas wasted no time in implementing her New Order and when Ryan and Phillips returned to CID Headquarters they felt a different energy in the air, one they didn’t recognise or feel part of. But there was no time to worry about it before the superintendent’s mousy personal assistant informed Ryan he was expected in the superintendent’s office immediately.
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Phillips muttered, collapsing into his ergonomic desk chair.
“She probably wants an update or to talk about resourcing,” Ryan said. “That’s reasonable.”
Phillips folded his lips and thought of what MacKenzie had told him.
“Aye, well, you know where I am if you need anything,” he said gruffly.
Ryan nodded his thanks and turned in the direction of the executive suite, where he was ushered quickly into a large corner office that was now Lucas’s domain.
The first thing he noticed was not the woman herself but the extreme minimalism of her workspace. The industrial beige wall colour splashed around the rest of the police building had been obliterated by lashings of white paint to give the space a stark, clinical feel. There was not a picture on the wall nor a photograph in sight. There were no plants or bookshelves to create a homely atmosphere or give anything away about Lucas’s personality. The only adornments were a large, expensive-looking antique desk in dark mahogany and matching desk chair, a row of concealed filing units—also painted white—and two standard-issue visitor’s chairs covered in black foam.
Ryan’s gaze swept the room and then focused on the woman who watched him like a spider.
“I never did like trinkets,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Please, come in and take a seat.”
She gestured to one of the visitor’s chairs and didn’t wait for him to take up her invitation before rising to open one of the concealed cabinets which, it turned out, contained a coffee machine.
“Care for a cappuccino? Ah, no, I remember—you prefer stronger coffee.” She threw her remarks over her shoulder, in a kind of casually intimate way that made his stomach turn.
“No thanks.”
Lucas returned to her desk with a delicate china cup and saucer and settled herself, seemingly unperturbed by the fact he had chosen to remain standing several feet away. She took a tiny sip from her cup, then set it down carefully beside her notepad, which was placed directly in front of her and perpendicular to a silver-plated fountain pen embossed with her initials. Ryan remembered it was a habit he had first observed years ago and had failed to associate as one of the symptoms of her obsessive compulsion.
Her voice cut through his reverie.
“You’re looking well,” she observed, noting the tan and general aura of contentment.
Shame it wouldn’t last.
“You’ve been having quite a ball up here, haven’t you, Max?”
His body froze at the sound of his first name rolling off her tongue, as if she had the right.
“Ryan,” he corrected.
“Oh yes, I’d heard you’re going by your surname, now.”
He said nothing. After all, she was part of the reason why he preferred to leave behind the man he had once been.
She took another sip from her cup and continued in the same, maddening tone of voice.
“While you were away frolicking on a beach, I spent a lot of time reading over the paperwork on cases closed recently in CID. It made for very interesting reading, I don’t mind telling you.”
“I’m glad the misfortune of others amuses you.”
Once again, she continued as if she hadn’t heard him.
“The fact is, you don’t seem to be aware of what your job entails.”
He laughed shortly.
“Really? How strange. Here I was thinking I’d been running a successful team of detectives. Perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to how I’ve been missing the mark.”
“Gladly,” she said, flipping open a notepad with one long fingernail. “For starters, your role is to coordinate the work of a team of constables, sergeants, inspectors and civilian staff. That does not include you scampering around the countryside like a wannabe action hero.”
He swallowed back the angry retort on the tip of his tongue and focused on facts.
“Every statistical report during my tenure as chief inspector has recorded an upward trend in closed cases,” he replied. “Internal surveys have recorded very high levels of staff satisfaction as to workload, progression and management style.”
“Well, they’d hardly complain about the fact their boss was never in the office to breathe down their necks,” she shot back.
“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he ground out.
“Careful, Ryan,” she said softly. “Your temper is showing.”
He was incredulous.
“Are you seriously trying to suggest that the team I manage has been anything other than highly successful?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” she said. “You follow instinct rather than hard evidence, putting the lives of other people at risk.”
His body revolted at the suggestion that he would ever, could ever, put t
he people he considered family at risk.
“Every detective in CID knows their job comes with a certain level of risk,” he threw back, vibrating with anger. “There have been times when I’ve tried to protect them, but they don’t want to be mollycoddled; they want to learn their trade, which is something they can’t do if I’m wrapping them in cotton wool. As for relying on instinct, you’re living in a dream world.”
He took a step closer, urging her to listen.
“Look, I get the same feel for people as any experienced detective who’s been in the game long enough, but that doesn’t mean I rely on instinct over hard evidence.” He cocked his head, mockingly. “Do you think I go up against murderers and madmen just for kicks? No. I do it because it stops them hurting the people on the street, the people who don’t know what kind of monsters lurk outside their front door.”
“How laudable,” she cooed. “I’m sure you have the media eating out of your hand, dishing out speeches like that.”
He shook his head.
“Oh, I’m not finished yet,” she continued, standing up to walk around to the front of her desk so that the scent of her heavy perfume assaulted his nostrils. It was the same fragrance she’d worn all those years ago and the sensory memory was an uncomfortable trigger to the past.
“A little birdy tells me that your girlfriend—oh, I beg your pardon, your wife—often comes along to spectate at crime scenes. How romantic, and how wholly inappropriate.”
Ryan willed himself to remain calm in the face of her provocation.
“When we met, Doctor Anna Taylor was engaged by DCS Gregson as a police consultant on a case in which her own sister was eventually murdered and where she was also targeted.”
“In other words, she was a material witness,” Lucas put in.
“No, not in the beginning. According to proper protocols and due to the unique geography of the crime scene on Holy Island, it was necessary to designate a residential property as the incident room during that investigation. It wasn’t possible to avoid contact.”
“Contact? Is that what you call it?” She let out an ugly laugh. “How about the rest? Do you expect me to believe there has been a legitimate reason why she’s been present in these offices or at a crime scene in subsequent cases?”
Ryan looked at her for a long moment, trying to read what lurked behind her eyes. He wondered if Lucas knew she was prodding an open wound, laying bare the guilt he carried each day.
Of course she knew.
His voice was curiously flat when he spoke again.
“Thanks to my unwanted association with The Hacker and my failure to apprehend the remaining members of The Circle cult immediately, Anna had the great misfortune of being a potential target over the past two years. Just by knowing me, her life was endangered. Therefore, it was not possible for her to avoid contact with this department. But if you’re suggesting that I’d compromise an active investigation by embroiling my wife in the work that I do, that is nothing more than grubby slander which I demand you retract.”
Lucas folded her arms, enjoying herself.
“Aha, now the breeding comes out,” she mused. “Nothing much ruffles you, does it, Ryan? I seem to remember a time when I could get under your skin.”
He looked down his nose from a superior height of six or seven inches.
“If you have nothing more to say, I think I’ll head along to the Chief Constable’s office to make her aware of exactly what I do remember and, in particular, the incredible hypocrisy of being lectured about professional boundaries by you, of all people.”
He turned to leave.
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll do that,” Lucas said, very quietly.
Something in her voice stopped him in his tracks and he waited to hear what ace she had up her sleeve.
“Like I said, Ryan, I’ve been doing some checking. It always struck me as very odd that ballistics couldn’t identify who fired the shot that disabled The Hacker. I see from the files that you found that rather odd, too.”
“There was no shot fired.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
He said nothing, but a sick dread began to spread in his gut.
What had she found?
“The investigation ruled out MacKenzie and Phillips,” she continued, ticking them off her fingers. “It ruled out the tactical team and you weren’t carrying a weapon at the time. But when I look at the statements taken from officers on the ground, who else do I find listed as being present? None other than Doctor Anna Taylor, right there, in the thick of it all.”
A dawning suspicion hit Ryan squarely in the face and he wondered why it hadn’t struck him before. Had it been Anna, his wife, who had disabled the man who would have killed him that night?
Where would she find a weapon?
His police revolver, which he kept in a locked box at home, the combination for which was her birthday digits.
His face remained impassive as possibilities roamed his mind and when he spoke again, his voice was cool.
“What are you implying?”
“Oh, I think we both know that your wife took matters into her own hands. No doubt to save the man she loves,” Lucas said. “Problem is, she had no right to discharge a weapon and, if she used your police issue, you are culpable.”
“Forensics found no evidence of a gunshot wound anywhere on The Hacker’s body.”
“And yet, in your own statement given last April, you clearly say you heard at least one gunshot.”
“I was recovering from a severe trauma,” he said. “I had just been water-boarded at the top of a dangerous waterfall. God Almighty could have spoken to me, a choir of angels could have sung, and I wouldn’t have heard a damn thing. Obviously, I didn’t hear a gunshot, since there was no evidence of one having been fired.”
Lucas tapped a finger against her lips. He was a cool one, she’d give him that.
“It is within my power to order an internal investigation and refer it to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I can find the proof.”
“Then find it,” he bit out. “Until then, I’ll be making my own complaint—to the Chief Constable.”
She let out a soft, tinkling laugh.
“Oh, but Sandra agrees with me—and my proposed course of action.”
Ryan frowned.
“Which is?”
“There’s going to be a shake-up,” she explained, moving back around to sit at her desk, signalling that the meeting was almost closed as far as she was concerned. “Effective immediately, I’m re-allocating your team. Phillips will handle affairs at Kielder, alongside his other active cases, and he can take Melanie Yates with him,” she said, referring to the young police constable Ryan had recruited and was in the process of training to become a detective. “MacKenzie will be assigned to cold cases while you will remain here, at the office, where you belong.”
A muscle ticked at the side of his jaw, then he thought of his other protégé and wondered what fate she had in store for him.
“And Jack Lowerson? What menial duty do you plan to assign to him?”
She merely pressed the buzzer on her phone and her personal assistant appeared like an apparition in the doorway.
“Priya, I’d like you to come in and take some notes for me, please.”
With adrenaline pumping through his veins, Ryan stalked from the room and went in search of the Chief Constable.
* * *
At Kielder, the police had completed their usual checks and returned to their stations, but the whispers continued long after their departure, spreading like wildfire through the small settlements and villages scattered around the banks of the reservoir. They seemed to crawl from the woodwork, people who normally thrived on being so far removed from ordinary civilisation in their secluded patch of the world. They were drawn to gossip like moths to the flame, unwittingly flapping their lips closer and closer to the truth of who had risen from the water like a ghostly apparition.
He was dead and gone, years ago. It was best to remember that and not the memory of his pale face staring up from the hollowed-out pit of earth where they’d left him to die, nor the awful memory of betrayal and its acrid taste that never quite went away. Over the years, it had been possible to forget sometimes; even to enjoy the trees and sky, to swim and sail on the water. On a clear day such as this, it had been possible. With every passing year, the truth became distant and faded, like an old black-and-white film whose imagery became grainy until it was distorted out of all recognition.
But now, Duncan was back.
He had never really gone.
CHAPTER 6
Ryan found Chief Constable Morrison in the staff canteen, picking at a bowl of pasta carbonara. She was seated at a table in the corner, fork in one hand as her other hand cradled an e-reader while she made the most of her break. Her sandy-blonde head was bent with her body angled away from the door and consequently she didn’t see Ryan’s approach.
“Ma’am? I’d like a word, please.”
Morrison nearly dropped her fork.
“It’s my lunch break, Ryan. Can’t it wait?”
“No, I’m sorry. I think I’ve waited far too long already.”
Her brows furrowed and she jerked her chin towards the free chair opposite, but he shook his head.
“I’d rather go somewhere private.”
Her lips firmed.
“If this concerns Superintendent Lucas—”
“It does.”
Now she let her fork clatter back into the bowl and reached for a napkin, wiping her hands and mouth with short, irritated movements.
“I thought we’d settled this, once and for all. The two of you had a personal relationship many years ago, while you were both at the Met. Long enough, I should have thought, to let bygones be bygones. Frankly, I would never have expected you to behave in such an unprofessional way.”
Her words struck like angry little knives and, if Ryan had thought he would find the compassion of a friend, he realised he’d been sadly mistaken.
He lifted his chin and waited for her to collect her things and stomp from the room, in the direction of her office. Once they were behind closed doors, Morrison dumped her bag, shouldered out of her blazer and faced him with impatience.
