by LJ Ross
He yawned again and checked the time on his phone.
Ten-forty.
He could hardly believe how the time had flown. What had begun as a friendly drink between two new work colleagues had quickly escalated into easy, free-flowing conversation and one sociable drink had turned into two, then two into three.
It had been all too easy to forget that the woman seated opposite was his superintendent. She was funny and chatty—bubbly, even—with so many stories to tell about life in London. He’d laughed until his belly hurt, at times, and as she gathered up her coat and bag he couldn’t understand the tension between her and Ryan at all.
She was incredibly likeable, not to mention attractive.
Very attractive.
Jen—she’d asked him to call her ‘Jen’ when they were outside of the office—had shown a genuine interest in his career, his thoughts, his politics and even his love life.
Her husband was a lucky man, he thought suddenly. At least, he’d heard she was married, but there had been no mention of a Mr Lucas during the evening and he thought it would be rude to ask.
When Lucas rose, he hurried to pull back her chair, delighted to be able to perform a small act of chivalry most women he knew would have mocked.
“Thank you,” she said, and her eyes lingered a fraction too long on his mouth.
The cold air hit them as they exited the wine bar and Lowerson realised he was a lot drunker than he thought. Probably because he hadn’t eaten, he thought with inebriated clarity.
“Come on,” she murmured, tucking a hand through his arm. “This way, Jack.”
They clattered through the darkened streets and, by the time they reached the front door of her palatial Edwardian terrace, Lowerson’s face was flushed thanks to a combination of giddy pleasure and cold night air. He waited until she found her keys and turned up the thin collar of his flashy blue suit, wishing he’d brought an overcoat.
She opened the front door and he took that as his cue to leave.
“Thank you for a great evening,” he said politely. “I’ll see you on Monday morning.”
She leaned against the doorframe and surveyed him with a hooded expression.
“Why don’t you come in for a cup of coffee, before you head home? It’ll help to sober you up.”
She was so considerate, Lowerson thought.
Lucas didn’t bother to wait for a response and turned to hang up her coat. A moment later, she heard the front door click softly shut behind him and smiled at her own reflection in the hallway mirror.
CHAPTER 17
Sunday, 2nd October
The sun had not yet risen before the media caught the scent of murder and began to arrive at Kielder Forest in their droves. Like a pack of ravenous wolves, they roamed the villages in search of a juicy, early-morning titbit to satisfy their readership and, by the time Ryan had kissed Anna goodbye and made the short journey from the lodge to his car, he found several reporters gathered around it.
“Chief Inspector! Is it true there’s a serial killer at large?”
“No comment.”
“Is it true another one of The Hacker’s victims has been found?”
Ryan almost laughed. They’d do anything to milk that man’s devastating legacy, even down to inventing new victims that bore no resemblance to his usual type.
“No comment.”
“Is it true there’s a mass grave lying beneath the surface of the reservoir? Is it true that the Kielder Ghost is responsible for these deaths?”
The what?
Ryan glared at the journalist who’d shouted those inane questions and at least he had the grace to look abashed. Clearly, pickings had been slim on the news desk lately.
“If you have any intelligent questions to ask, contact the Press Office,” he said, witheringly.
“What about the traffic cordons, Inspector? People have a right to know if they should be on their guard!” another reporter shouted at him. “They have a right to know!”
Ryan’s hand stilled on the car door and he turned to look at the journalist. Her face was earnest, seemingly passionate about uncovering the truth, and if he was feeling charitable he might have admired it. However, more important concerns weighed upon his mind, such as not being responsible for starting a widespread panic and finding justice for the dead according to proper procedures. It was true that the media could be useful to an investigation sometimes but he’d learned it was a double-edged sword that should be wielded lightly.
“At present, official advice remains the same,” he said. “That is, to exercise common sense and avoid situations which may give rise to danger wherever possible. No further comment.”
Their cries buzzed like flies in his ear and then muted as the car door slammed shut behind him. Ryan rested his hands on the steering wheel and then gave a brief toot of his horn, to clear a path on the road ahead. He could only imagine what Lucas would have to say about public relations if he mowed down a group of journalists in cold blood.
It was tempting, but he had to be satisfied with their shocked expressions as he fired the engine and missed them by inches.
* * *
While Phillips and Yates oversaw operations at Kielder, Ryan returned to the office to meet Guy Sullivan’s parents who had returned from Lanzarote late the previous evening. He’d taken the trouble to wear a suit and tie and spent the long drive back to the city preparing himself for an emotional meeting. It was never going to be easy to face the parents of a young man whose life had been taken but there were coping strategies he tried to employ; methods of boxing away his own emotions which were completely superfluous to the situation. Words ran through his mind, hackneyed phrases he’d used over the years to convey sympathy and they sounded trite even before he’d spoken them aloud. Trite they may be, but it didn’t make them any less true.
Green fields gave way to urban development and, before long, the uninspiring architecture of the new Police Headquarters came into view.
“Home, sweet home,” Ryan muttered.
The duty sergeant at the desk told him Mary and Paul Sullivan had arrived very early, over an hour before they’d agreed to meet at eight-thirty and Ryan sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. He didn’t blame them for wanting to seek answers to the impossible question of why someone had murdered their son; he only wished he had the answers they were searching for.
He strode across the foyer and buzzed into a separate corridor containing a dedicated ‘family room’ on the ground floor. It bore a small red placard warning Ryan it was occupied and he paused on the threshold to check his tie and steel himself for the outpouring of grief and anger that awaited him beyond its closed door.
When he stepped inside, the first thing he noticed was Mary Sullivan. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep across a row of foamy visitor’s chairs and her husband’s jacket was draped across her huddled form, while Paul sat across from her with his hands clasped between his knees, staring down at the floor between his feet.
He looked up with bloodshot eyes when Ryan entered.
“Mr Sullivan?”
Ryan spoke quietly, careful not to disturb the sleeping figure, but Mary heard him anyway and her eyes flew open.
“Paul—Paul—”
The jacket slipped unheeded onto the floor as she forced herself upright, reaching out to clasp her husband’s outstretched hand.
Ryan moved into the room, hating the neutral décor and cheap scented sticks on the window ledge for their vain attempt to create a calming environment for the bereaved. He hated the posters taped to the walls and the stacks of leaflets they insisted on leaving around the side tables, full of counsellors touting their services and ‘healing’ yoga classes which claimed to ease the burden of grief. No matter which police station or hospital you went to, the room was always the same and it couldn’t fail to remind him of his sister’s death and the numb, empty faces of his parents when he’d delivered the devastating news. Now, he saw the same look mirrored in the
faces of the Sullivans.
Ryan reached across and pulled a chair in front of them so they were seated in a triangle, and settled himself so they were on eye level. What he needed to say deserved to be said face to face and at close quarters.
“Mr and Mrs Sullivan, I want to tell you how very sorry I am for the loss of your son.”
Time was suspended for a moment while the words penetrated and then they both seemed to wilt, their bodies swaying against the weight of the news no parent should ever hear. Ryan sensed that, until that moment, there had been hope. On a subconscious level, they’d hoped he would tell them it was all a terrible mistake.
“What happened?” Mary whispered, and fixed him with a direct stare. “I don’t understand this at all. My son went away on a history trip with his university and now you tell me he’s—he’s d-dead…”
Her chest rose and fell as she battled tears, all the while watching Ryan with fierce, unyielding eyes that demanded to know why.
“Was he attacked? Why? Was it drugs? Was it?”
Her body was shaking, Ryan thought, and bore down against his own reaction.
Later, he told himself. Later, he could let go.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs Sullivan,” he repeated. “We’re using all available resources to investigate your son’s murder. There is no evidence to suggest his death was drug-related. Unfortunately, it bears the hallmarks of an unprovoked attack.”
“What do you mean, ‘unprovoked’?” Paul asked. “Are you saying there was no reason for it at all?”
Ryan watched the man’s eyes fill with tears.
“We’re working very hard to find out the answer to that question, Mr Sullivan,” Ryan said, detesting how clipped and formal his voice sounded.
It was either that or break down completely. The latter would do little to inspire confidence in the minds of these people who had already lost so much and who needed to believe that their son’s death would be avenged; there needed to be a price paid for what had been taken, to bring some small measure of closure in the empty void of time stretching before them.
Ryan watched the tears begin to spill down Paul Sullivan’s face and forced himself to watch, to offer the box of tissues sitting handily on the table in front of them and not to look away.
“My boy,” Paul said, brokenly. “My boy.”
* * *
An hour later, Ryan ordered a squad car to deliver the Sullivans back to their hotel, accompanied by a family liaison officer who would be a point of contact for them during the remainder of the investigation. Ryan had given them his personal card, too, because nobody wanted to be fobbed off by a junior member of staff. They wanted to speak to the person in charge and, in this case, that responsibility fell squarely with him. They also wanted to see their son first thing tomorrow and no amount of cajoling or well-intentioned advice seemed to put them off. He had a feeling that, even if he’d told them the mortuary was closed on Mondays, they’d still turn up just to be sure.
He stood by the main entrance until the squad car left, then turned and marched back across the foyer and along the corridor to one of the smaller conference rooms at the far end of the interview suite. There were no cameras in there, no windows and the walls were sound-proofed.
Ryan locked himself inside.
He prowled around the four walls, then sank into one of the chairs and let his head fall into his hands. There, in an impersonal room without anybody to see or to comfort him, Ryan allowed himself a moment to process the emotions swirling through his mind.
Logically, he knew his grief was borrowed. What right did he have to grieve when the pain of those people ran so deeply? He wasn’t the one who had lost a child.
Except, he grieved not only for their son but for so many more. Their faces swam before his eyes, the faces of the dead. They walked beside him every day, a procession of men, women and children who demanded that a toll be paid for their lives. And he was the ferryman, Ryan realised. He was the man who ensured their safe passage to safety, in the minds of those who lived on. They sat in the waiting area for hours for somebody to tell them they hadn’t been forgotten and their loss was still important.
And it was, Ryan thought, vehemently.
Their loss was no less important because science and police methods had failed to equalise the scales. The press called it mismanagement; the executives blamed the politicians and the politicians blamed a broken society.
What did he believe?
It was a little of everything as well as something else that was more elusive and subtle. Something that they could not quantify or manage or try to control.
It was human nature.
But what should he do when the nature of a person was more animal than human? How should he explain the frenzied attack of one person against another when there was no defensive motive? There was only one explanation, Ryan thought. Perhaps, when a person lived in the wilderness, it was only a matter of time before they turned away from society’s norms and reverted to a state of nature.
He lifted his head up again and his eyes were a hard, silver-grey. It was time to put down whichever predatory animal was roaming free, before another face was added to the reel.
* * *
Craig Hunter knew the police were coming even before their car entered the clearing outside his cottage at Adderburn. It got that way, in the country, when you were surrounded by trees and the only sounds you heard most days were the swaying of the leaves, the squawk of crows and the rustle of animals in the undergrowth. Your senses developed, just like Nature had intended.
Quickly, he threw another log onto the large bonfire burning in the small patch of garden at the back of his house, then walked around to head them off at the gate. The dog loped alongside him, tail quivering between its legs as it sensed the tension building in its master.
Finally, the car came around the bend.
The fat little sergeant was back, Hunter noticed. There was a man who looked like he could plant a fist in your face and not feel the difference. He had a different dogsbody with him this time and no sign of the pretty little brunette with the ponytail.
Pity.
She’d looked just the type who needed a real man to show her the facts of life. He’d seen her staring at him the other day, getting hot under the collar at the thought of him giving her a piece. Too many namby-pamby types waltzing around, in his opinion, worrying themselves sick about what was right and proper and whether they’d booked a tooth-whitening appointment, or some shit. Too much talk of ‘don’t say this’ and ‘don’t touch that’. Far as he was concerned, if a woman was going to put it all on show, he was damn well going to have himself a slice. If he had anything to thank his father for, it was for teaching him how to handle a woman.
Hunter wheezed out a laugh and re-arranged himself as the two policemen walked across to meet him.
“Back again, are we?”
Phillips stopped at the gate.
“Mr Hunter? I’m DS Phillips, we met yesterday morning. This is PC Walton, from the local area police. As you’ve likely heard on the news, we’re investigating the murder of Guy Sullivan and we’re hoping to eliminate as many people as possible from our enquiries. We’re asking local people to give a voluntary sample of their DNA and we’re hoping you’ll also agree.”
Hunter looked between their bland, expressionless faces. Cop faces, with dead eyes.
“I thought you needed a warrant, or whatever you call it?”
“Would you like us to get a warrant, Mr Hunter?” Philips asked.
Hunter thought quickly.
Nothing to worry about.
“Nah, you’re alreet. Nowt to hide. D’ you want me to piss into a bucket?”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr Hunter. We use a buccal swab, which looks like an ear-bud. It shouldn’t take more than a minute to rub it around the inside of your cheek.”
“Help yourself,” Hunter shrugged, and opened his gob.
Phillips’ nose wrinkled at th
e meaty scent of Hunter’s breath and he wondered if halitosis was contagious. You could never be too careful, so he stepped aside and gestured for the constable to come forward.
“Walton? Howay, lad, this’ll be good practice for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
CHAPTER 18
Before he paid a visit to the mortuary, Ryan swallowed his pride and jogged upstairs to the executive suite in search of Jack Lowerson. There had been a sufficient cooling-off period since their argument the previous day and it was time to bury the hatchet. Life was just too short to hold a grudge, especially against a man who’d saved his life. Taking the time to gaze at the stars had achieved its objective the previous evening, which was to gain perspective on his trivial existence in the world and when he’d walked away with his wife by his side Ryan had realised one, very important thing:
He was a lucky son of a bitch.
He was alive. He was loved. That was a hell of a lot more than many could boast.
Could he blame Lowerson for being the one to remind him of his good fortune?
Of course not.
So Ryan went in search of peace with his friend. His long legs ate up the stairs until he emerged onto the first floor but he found most of the office cubicles empty aside from a skeleton weekend staff, since it was Sunday.
“Damn,” he muttered and checked his watch.
Still early.
Time enough to make a short detour on his way to the mortuary.
But when he slowed his car and crawled along the curb alongside the entrance to Lowerson’s garden flat fifteen minutes later, there was no sign of the man or his car. Ryan drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and then moved off again, telling himself Jack’s private life was his own affair.
* * *
Half an hour later, Ryan walked into the chilled air of the basement mortuary.
At first glance, the place looked completely empty, but he knew Jeff Pinter would be lurking somewhere since he’d called the man at home and offered to pay him overtime if he got his bony arse back to work. There were few things in life that money couldn’t buy, especially when the recipient had expensive tastes in opera and fine dining.
