The Hermitage: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 9)

by LJ Ross

  “Ryan will be back soon,” she said. “He’d never miss your stag do, for one thing. In the meantime, we’ll keep the home fires burning.”

  Having been distracted momentarily by the knee-squeeze, it took a second or two for Phillips to remember what they had been talking about.

  Ryan.

  “Oh, aye. Well, just so long as he doesn’t decide to up sticks and buy some fancy villa while he’s over there. That’s all we need.”

  “Right enough, I can think of nothing worse than a friend with a villa in Tuscany. Imagine our embarrassment if he asked us to visit,” MacKenzie drawled.

  Phillips was momentarily lost for words.

  “Here we are,” she said, as they entered the village of Warkworth a few minutes later.

  The sun had risen higher in the sky, burning away the misty fret that had rolled in from the North Sea to shroud the village, leaving a clear, crisp morning in its wake. Stone-built cottages and shops lined the main village square and the castle towered proudly above it all in the wintry landscape, its pale gold walls sprinkled with a layer of frost that shimmered like diamonds as it melted in the gathering heat.

  “Pretty place,” Phillips said. “What did you say the old feller’s name was?”

  “Charon,” MacKenzie told him. “Edward Charon.”

  “Why would anybody hurt some old codger who manned a rowing boat?”

  MacKenzie frowned as she pulled into the castle’s car park.

  “That’s what we’ll have to find out, Frank.”

  CHAPTER 3

  A thousand miles away, Detective Chief Inspector Ryan stepped outside the main terminal building of the Aeroporto di Firenze-Peretola and into a wall of heat. Unlike the conditions back home, Florence was experiencing unseasonably warm weather and he closed his eyes, allowing himself the briefest of moments to enjoy it.

  “Shall we find a taxi?”

  His eyes flickered open again at the sound of his wife’s voice. He turned and swept his gaze over the woman by his side and thought, as he always did, that he was a very fortunate man. She stood tall and elegant, the morning sun burnishing her dark hair to a rich mahogany. If circumstances had been different, he might have smiled and slung a casual arm around her shoulders, drawing her in for a lingering kiss before spending the rest of the day sightseeing in one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

  But circumstances were not different.

  This was no holiday and neither of them harboured any illusions about the dangers they faced in travelling to Italy. Ryan dropped his leather holdall and reached across to take her hands, which were cold despite the weather.

  “You don’t need to be here,” he said, urgently. “I told you before, I’d rather you stayed at home, safe and sound—”

  “How do you know I’d be safe?” she interrupted him. “While that monster is out there roaming the streets, none of us are safe.”

  Honesty compelled him to agree. Nathan Armstrong was a killer without conscience, a man who had taken a life at least twice that they knew of, but probably more. Despite his best efforts, Ryan had been forced to let him walk free months earlier and each day since then had been a physical wrench; a constant ache in his gut as he thought of how many others might fall prey while the dangerous man remained at large.

  But the person who mattered most was standing right in front of him.

  “Anna, if anything happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”

  She tried to reassure him.

  “I won’t be a burden,” she said. “But I can’t wait around at home, worrying, never knowing…” She shook her head. “It would drive me mad.”

  The pads of his thumbs rubbed absent circles against the soft skin of her hands.

  “You’re never a burden to me,” he said quietly, and meant it. “But that won’t make a difference to Armstrong. He doesn’t care about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, or about the destruction he might leave behind. He cares about one thing, and one thing only: himself. He’s a dangerous predator and, if it means hurting you to save himself, he’ll do it, make no mistake about that.”

  The words, spoken aloud, were both chilling and oddly prosaic.

  Anna shivered, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as she thought of the man they had come to find and, she hoped, to bring to justice.

  God help them, if they didn’t.

  “It was my choice to come here,” she reminded him. “I know the risks and so do you. I don’t believe I’m a target for Armstrong because he’s careful. He doesn’t act without thought or planning. It would be too much of a leap for him to hurt me, the wife of the detective who wants him behind bars. He has a reputation to uphold and he won’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention to himself, not so soon after his arrest last year.”

  Ryan searched her face for a long moment and then silently drew her towards him, into the warmth of his body to hold her close. Her reasoning was sound, he thought, but she hadn’t considered the other possibility: that killers sometimes change their MO.

  “We could turn back,” he said softly.

  The top of her head brushed the underside of his chin as she shook it.

  “He sent postcards to our home, Ryan. He knows where we live. Until he’s behind bars, we’ll never be able to rest because he could come for us at any time, any day he chooses. He could murder us while we slept, and we’d never see it coming.”

  Ryan’s arms tightened around her as they stood there, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the airport as people came and went. He thought of the sinister cards that had been mailed to him from around the world, blank except for the DNA they’d found on each of the stamps—a different profile every time. As far as he was concerned, Armstrong had sent them as a calling card; an arrogant, taunting message to the detective who had failed to lock him up.

  “It’ll never be over until I bring him in,” Ryan agreed. “But it won’t be easy. Armstrong’s spent a lifetime hiding behind the persona he’s created for himself.”

  His eyes fell on a newsstand carousel bearing a selection of glossy Italian paperbacks, including several copies of a book entitled, Il Mostro. The shiny sales copy declared it the twentieth-anniversary edition of the worldwide bestseller and there, in bold red typeface, was the name of its author.

  Nathan Armstrong.

  * * *

  Before they could seek out a taxi, Anna and Ryan were met by a smart-looking man of around forty. He wore a tailored grey suit with considerable panache and a pair of wraparound sunglasses which he propped atop his dark head, revealing eyes that were quietly assessing. Ryan recognised the look as being one he often employed himself and knew instantly that the stranger belonged to the same profession.

  Police.

  “DCI Ryan? I am Alessandro Ricci, an inspector with the Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali. I have spoken with the Direttore Generale della Polizia Criminale in Rome, who tells me you are here to assist with one of their enquiries, yes?”

  When Ryan said nothing, Ricci clucked his tongue and produced an identification card from his inner breast pocket.

  “Scusi, signore. I am well known in Florence, so I forget.”

  Ryan scrutinised the identification card, which appeared to be in order, before extending a hand. Although he was fluent in Italian, he addressed the other man in English for Anna’s benefit.

  “Ricci?” he enquired. “DCI Ryan, Northumbria CID. Thanks for coming down to meet us. May I introduce my wife, Doctor Anna Taylor-Ryan.”

  True to stereotype, the other man’s demeanour altered dramatically as he focused his attention on the striking, dark-haired woman at Ryan’s side.

  “Signora,” he breathed, and snatched up her hand before Anna had a chance to utter a token protest. As he bent his head to kiss it, she threw a look of surprise in Ryan’s direction and received a broad grin and distinctly continental shrug in response.

  “I am honoured to welcome you both to my city,” Ricci said, straighten
ing up again. “Please, come this way.”

  As he turned and walked in the direction of a sleek black Mercedes, Anna raised an eyebrow.

  “Looks like the police lead a more glamorous lifestyle out here,” she observed. “Maybe you should raise it with the Chief Constable and see if you can get a few perks for the office back home.”

  Ryan huffed out a laugh.

  “Chance would be a fine thing,” he said. “We’re lucky the Department sprang for a plumber to fix the blocked drain in the gents toilets, let alone budgeting for luxury cars and silk suits.”

  Anna wrinkled her nose. “In that case, maybe you should budget for a few extra cans of air freshener, instead.”

  “Either that or put an embargo on baked beans in the staff canteen,” Ryan replied.

  Anna laughed, just as he’d hoped she would, and he drank in the sound of it until they reached the car where Ricci held the door open in readiness for them.

  “Where are you staying, Chief Inspector? We can drop your wife there, before going on to the office—?”

  But Ryan gave a small, firm shake of his head.

  “We prefer to travel together, for the time being,” he said, in a voice that brooked no argument. “Let’s go straight to the office.”

  Ricci glanced between the pair of them with troubled eyes but dipped his head, raising an arm to indicate that they should step inside the car.

  “Prego.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The headquarters of Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali (GIDES), the elite Florentine police team dedicated to investigating serial crimes, was based out of the Commissariato San Giovanni on the Via Pietrapiana. It was a stone’s throw from the famous Basilica of Santa Croce, containing the tombs of such luminaries as Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo inside its neo-Gothic walls, but the interior of the police building was a far cry from the white-marbled grandeur of its neighbour. It boasted the same level of amenities to be found in any government building across the globe and, consequently, Ryan and Anna were met with a familiar scent of stale sweat and cooked meat as they stepped inside its glass-fronted double doors.

  “Some things never change,” Ryan muttered. “It’s like a home away from home.”

  Before long, they reached a door at the end of the hallway. A tarnished brass name plaque declared it to be Ricci’s office and he swung open the door, gesturing for Ryan to enter.

  “Please, make yourself comfortable,” he said, then turned to Anna. “With your permission, signora, I will show you to our break room, where you can relax while your husband and I discuss certain confidential aspects of our case.”

  Anna and Ryan exchanged a meaningful look.

  “I won’t be far away,” he murmured.

  She nodded, and he waited to see which room she was taken to before stepping inside Ricci’s office.

  “You are protective,” the other man said, when he returned a moment later. “But you are in one of our police headquarters, my friend. There is no safer place to be.”

  Ryan made no comment and Ricci indicated one of the over-stuffed chairs on the other side of his desk.

  “Can I offer you a drink? Some coffee, perhaps?”

  When two steaming cups of fragrant brown liquid arrived shortly after, Ryan was forced to question whether there might be a God, after all.

  Ricci leaned back in his desk chair and smiled genially.

  “Let us speak frankly to one another,” he began. “When I heard from my colleague at the directorate in Rome, I was confused. Why would an English detective travel to Italy to assist an investigation which, forgive me, is far outside his jurisdiction?”

  He lifted his hand, then let it fall away again.

  “And to bring your wife? It is irregular, to say the least.”

  Ryan finished his coffee in two strong gulps, then faced Ricci squarely.

  “I agree, it’s highly irregular,” he said, and watched surprise flit over the other man’s face. “But we have very little choice. I assume your colleague, Director Romano, informed you of the postcards my wife and I received at our home address over the past few months. Most recently, from Vienna, and from Paris before that.”

  “Yes, but I don’t see—”

  “The cards contained no message,” Ryan continued. “But our forensic team was able to extract a DNA profile from the saliva found on each of the stamps. The profiles weren’t the same,” he added. “We ran numerous searches of our domestic databases, as well as European and International databases, to see if we could match the DNA to a missing person. Nothing turned up, until we heard from Director General Jacopo Romano last week.”

  “Si, he tells me the DNA on one of those cards matches a missing Italian national,” Ricci said. “I cannot see how it is possible, signore. It is more likely that your forensic team made an error.”

  Ryan smiled, but it failed to reach his eyes.

  “The missing Italian national is a man called Ricardo Spatuzzi,” he said, and watched recognition flare in Ricci’s eyes. “I understand Spatuzzi is a lawyer attached to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, based out of Vienna. He’s worked there for three years, according to his employer, and went missing after a gala dinner. You recognise his name?”

  Ricci visibly squirmed.

  “Spatuzzi…It’s a common name in our country,” he said, affecting a thicker accent than before. “There are countless missing persons reported each year.”

  “But not so many with as high a profile,” Ryan argued. “I wonder why Spatuzzi’s name hasn’t been reported more widely in the national press?”

  Ricci made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

  “The press is notoriously unreliable,” he scoffed. “Isn’t it an English saying, that we should not believe everything we read?”

  Now it was Ryan’s turn to be dismissive.

  “The fact remains that Spatuzzi’s DNA ended up on the back of a stamp which was sent to me. Romano tells me that the Austrian police enquiry threw up a guest list of people who attended the gala in Vienna and, aside from Riccardo Spatuzzi, there is another name on that list we recognise.”

  Inspector Ricci scrubbed a tired hand over his face.

  “I have heard it already,” he muttered.

  “Nathan Armstrong,” Ryan said, very clearly.

  The name seemed to drift on the stuffy air inside Ricci’s office for a moment or two, until he broke the silence that followed Ryan’s bald statement.

  “Signor Armstrong is a very famous man,” Ricci said. “Especially in this city, Chief Inspector. His most famous book was based on the real-life crimes of Il Mostro di Firenze and is still very well regarded. Mio Dio, a Hollywood movie was made of his book years ago!” He held up both hands as if to ward off any arguments. “No, my friend. I cannot believe that a man of Armstrong’s calibre would have anything to do with Spatuzzi’s disappearance.”

  “Believe it or not, the facts speak for themselves,” Ryan ground out. “Armstrong attended the same gala whilst he was in Vienna as part of his world book tour.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “That’s what Armstrong will say,” Ryan agreed. “So, let’s consider another postcard, this time the one sent to me from Paris.”

  He leaned forward, demanding Ricci’s attention.

  “Listen. The Parisian police have identified a list of missing persons whose DNA could match the saliva we recovered from the back of the stamp,” he explained. “On that list is a young waiter named Luc Bernard, who was reported missing by his family a month ago, shortly after he attended Nathan Armstrong’s book signing at Shakespeare’s bookshop, in Paris.”

  This time, Ricci did not suggest the timing was coincidental. Once he could excuse, but twice was curious, to say the least.

  “Is there any evidence—?”

  “Nothing,” Ryan told him. “The police haven’t found a scrap of physical evidence that would implicate Armstrong in either disappearance.”

  Murder was a wo
rd that remained unspoken but neither man was naïve enough to imagine that either Spatuzzi or Bernard would turn up alive and well any time soon.

  “There must be camera footage of their movements,” Ricci said. “GPS tracking linked to their mobile phones?”

  “It’s in the process of being recovered,” Ryan replied.

  “Still, I cannot believe—”

  “You don’t have to believe anything,” Ryan interrupted him. “All you have to do is question Armstrong about his movements. It’s already been cleared by Director General Romano, who agrees that the circumstantial evidence provides reasonable grounds to interview Armstrong when he lands in Florence.”

  Ricci ran agitated fingers through his hair.

  “And what part do you play in all this?”

  Ryan smiled grimly.

  “I’m here in an unofficial capacity,” he replied, although the words stuck in his throat. “My superiors have liaised with the Director General and have come to an understanding: I will assist in any way I can, but this is your baby, Alessandro.”

  The other man studied Ryan for a long moment while the sound of blaring horns and traffic filtered in through the window overlooking the road outside.

  Eventually, Ricci came to a decision.

  “When does Armstrong land?”

  This time, when Ryan smiled, it reached his eyes.

  “Tonight.”

  CHAPTER 5

  In Warkworth, MacKenzie stood on the banks of the River Coquet dressed in polypropylene coveralls, ready to perform an initial walk-through of the crime scene awaiting her across the narrow stretch of water. She was joined by Phillips and an assortment of first responders, including two local police constables, a couple of castle employees and representatives of the local RNLI, who had been called in from the nearby fishing village of Amble to supply a dinghy for the duration of their investigation.

  After transporting a pair of sombre-faced paramedics back across the water, the bottle-green rowing boat belonging to the castle had been impounded for forensic analysis on the orders of the Senior Crime Scene Investigator attached to Northumbria CID, Tom Faulkner. His team had already begun to protect the scene at the hermitage with the addition of a forensic tent and metres of plastic sheeting while they awaited the arrival of their Senior Investigating Officer.