by LJ Ross
It was hardly the first time MacKenzie had acted as SIO in the case of a suspicious death, but she was feeling nervous all the same. No matter how experienced she was, nor how confident of the steps and procedures she needed to follow, there was no getting away from the fact that she was responsible for keeping things on an even keel for the short time that Ryan was absent on special leave. The Chief Constable had told her, in no uncertain terms, that the Department needed a safe pair of hands to steer the ship while its captain was abroad and MacKenzie was the woman for the job.
Without any false modesty, MacKenzie knew herself to be a highly competent person and a damn good murder detective. But the thought of managing a disparate group of detectives, all of whom she knew and respected, was enough to bring her out in a cold sweat. It wasn’t all nerves, she acknowledged. Her leg still ached badly following the severe injuries she’d sustained at the hands of a madman, so much so that even an hour’s drive from Newcastle to Warkworth had taken its toll. Almost a year had passed since the horror of that encounter, but the scars remained, serving to remind her that she was not fully recovered, nor quite as invincible as she would like to imagine. Just lately, she’d begun to worry she may no longer be up to the physical demands of the job.
And, if that were the case, she didn’t know what she would do with herself.
“Alright, guv?”
It took a moment before she realised Frank was speaking to her.
“I—yes, thanks. Just running things through my head.”
Phillips pursed his lips. He recognised the tired look on MacKenzie’s face and, in the ordinary way of things, would have offered her a shoulder to lean on. But they lived by a hard-and-fast rule that, no matter what their personal relationship, when they were at work he would treat her as he would any other senior officer. That meant no canoodling in the stationery room and no cuddling on the riverbank.
More’s the pity.
“I had a word with the lad who found the body,” he said, getting down to business. “Matthew Finch is one of the volunteers at the castle.”
“Oh yes?”
“Aye. He says the rowing boat was moored on this side of the river with the oars lying on the jetty beside it when he came down around ten this morning.”
“Is that usual?”
Phillips shook his head.
“Nope. The ferryman always stows the oars in a locked shed and secures the boat to make it safe overnight.”
MacKenzie was a quick study.
“Well, since our man is still lying dead inside the hermitage, I’ll take a wild guess that it wasn’t Edward Charon’s ghost who rowed back over here and left the oars lying about.”
“Aye. Which means he—or she—fled the scene from this side of the river. Question is, which way did they go next?”
MacKenzie murmured her agreement and took a wide, sweeping survey of the vicinity. To reach the landing point where they now stood, they had followed a public footpath from the castle in a westerly direction for half a mile running parallel to the river on its southern side. Across the river, on the northern side, there was an identical landing point where they could see a pathway leading to the hermitage and a large sign which read, ‘NO PLEASURE BOATS ALLOWED TO LAND HERE.’ Turning to look behind, she noticed a single-track country lane leading up through the trees.
“Where does that lead?” she asked. “Is it a farm access road?”
“That’s Watershaugh Road, leading to Coquet Crescent,” one of the castle volunteers chimed in. “It circles back up to the outskirts of the village.”
MacKenzie nodded her thanks and turned again to Phillips, speaking in an undertone. “Frank, when we’re finished here, I want to check out all possible exit routes and ask Faulkner to look at any recent tyre tracks on Watershaugh Road. It’s been damp the last few days, so we might be lucky. Check for any CCTV cameras, although it seems unlikely there’d be any in a place like this.”
Phillips nodded his agreement.
“Easy enough for someone to leave a car parked further up that road,” he mused. “All they’d need to do after finishing their business with Charon is row back across the river, dump the boat and walk a hundred yards to find their car. It’s almost dark by four-thirty, so there’s a good chance nobody would notice.”
“Fewer people come out after dark during the winter, especially as the weather’s been so cold,” she added. “But we’ll do a house-to-house and see what that throws up.”
“Good thing about small villages is you always get one or two nosy neighbours,” Phillips reminded her. “There’s a decent chance one of them was twitching the curtains last night and happened to see something.”
MacKenzie thought of their unknown perpetrator stealing away into the night under cover of darkness. It was all too easy to imagine.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go and see what Edward Charon can tell us about his killer.”
* * *
If MacKenzie and Phillips had harboured any notion that Edward Charon might have taken his own life inside the hermitage, it was short-lived. As soon as they ducked inside the billowing forensic tent plastered to the side of the rock-face, they knew immediately that the man had been murdered. The hermitage consisted of an inner chamber and a small chapel comprising three vaulted bays with an altar at the far end. Charon’s body rested against the worn step at the foot of the altar, where blood-spatter stained the floor dark red. He was sprawled at an unnatural angle, his legs twisted beneath his torso and his arms outstretched, as if he had been turning to run when he fell.
“D’ you see this?”
Tom Faulkner beckoned MacKenzie and Phillips over to where he had crouched down beside the dead man’s head. Phillips steadied his nerves and edged a little closer, concentrating on breathing heavily through his mouth. The CSIs had set up freestanding lights to enable them to work but they had the unfortunate side-effect of raising the overall temperature in the small stone cavern and did little to alleviate the ripening scent of death. In all his years of policing, this part of the job had never appealed to Frank. He supposed it was embarrassing for a seasoned murder detective to get the heebie-jeebies at the sight of a cadaver but there was nothing he could do about that. Regardless, he was getting too long in the tooth to worry about whether he could look at the ravages of death without flinching and was more inclined to focus on who was responsible for it.
MacKenzie, on the other hand, seemed to have an iron-clad stomach.
“That’s massive blunt head trauma,” she said, her suit rustling as she moved beside Faulkner to get a better look at the side of Charon’s head. “His skull is completely caved in. Any sign of a weapon?”
Faulkner stood up again, arching his back a bit to ease out the kinks.
“We found a chunk of loose stone lying on the floor over there covered in blood and brain matter,” he said, pointing towards a small yellow marker. “I bagged it up for analysis and I’d put money on that being the murder weapon.”
Phillips cleared his throat.
“Just goes to show,” he remarked.
Two heads swivelled in his direction, each with a blank expression.
“Show what?” Faulkner asked the burning question.
“Goes to show there’s nowt new under the sun,” Phillips elaborated. “Folk have been doing each other in with bits of rock and chunks of wood since the dawn of time and they’re still doing it now.”
MacKenzie threw him a pained look.
“All I’m saying is, there’s no need for all this fancy novi-whatsit—”
“Novichok,” Faulkner put in. “The Russian nerve agent used by spies and KGB moles.”
“Aye, that’s the one. There’s no need for all that, when you can just give somebody a couple of good whacks ’round the back of the head and call it a night.”
“I’ll remember this, Frank, when we have our first marital disagreement,” MacKenzie said, dryly.
Faulkner barked out a laugh.
&
nbsp; “Well, fancy methodology or not, our murderer clearly didn’t baulk at getting their hands dirty. You can see the blood-spatter stretches halfway across the floor and Charon has almost completely bled out.” He paused, running his trained eye over the room. “It’s obvious there’s been some animal interference during the night, you can see that from the skin on his hands and face. Whatever it was—maybe a fox, or a rat?—has trodden in the blood and spread it all around, contaminating things even more. It’ll be a job to sort through it all, once we get the samples back to the lab.”
MacKenzie’s heart sank, but she appreciated his honesty.
“Just do what you can,” she said, looking down at the man’s body with sympathetic eyes. “Nobody should die like this.”
The two men murmured their agreement.
“Aye, whoever did this didn’t mind a bit of blood,” Phillips said. “Looks to me like they pummelled the poor feller.”
MacKenzie stepped away carefully.
“I’ve already put the pathologist on standby; he’s expecting to take delivery of the body within the next hour or so. After then, we’ll see if there’s anything else he can tell us.”
“Pinter knows his stuff,” Phillips agreed, referring to the senior police pathologist. “It’s hard to tell if there are any defensive wounds, so maybe he’ll be able to help us there. But, judging by the way he fell, it looks as though Charon was surprised from behind.”
MacKenzie nodded.
“When I spoke to his manager, Doreen Jepson, she said Eddie Charon was quiet and well-spoken. He kept himself to himself, came into work and did as he was told without any trouble. He always had his lunch at the same time, usually went home at the same time and didn’t tend to socialise with any of the other castle staff.” She paused and looked up from her inspection of one of the walls. “Do you know what that tells me, Frank?”
“Charon had a routine,” Phillips said. “Anybody could have watched him for a few days to see what his habits were.”
MacKenzie nodded.
“Exactly. Let’s see if we can find a next-of-kin and take it from there,” she said. “Nine times out of ten, it’s someone the victim already knows.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then we’ve got one hell of a job on our hands.”
As they turned to leave, Phillips paused.
“Is there another way out of here?” he asked.
Faulkner looked up from where he had been taking a series of photographs and shook his head.
“Nope, just the one entrance leading in and out,” he replied. “No easy access route from this side of the river, either, although there’s a kind of raised stair leading to the top of the cliff. Apparently, it used to be an orchard or a garden of some kind, when the priest lived here. I’ll get one of our guys to sweep it, once we’re finished in here.”
“Thanks, Tom,” MacKenzie said. “The rowing boat was on the other side of the river when Matthew found it this morning, which suggests our perp left that way, but it’s too early to rule anything out. Let us know if anything crops up.”
“Will do,” Faulkner said, his voice muffled behind the plastic hood he wore. “Hey, have you heard anything from Ryan?”
Phillips had thought that the sight and smell of human waste were enough to turn his stomach, but the thought of his friend being in danger eclipsed all else.
“Aye,” he said gruffly. “He left a message to say they’d landed safely and that some bloke from the Italian CID met them off the plane.”
By mutual accord, the three of them stepped outside the stifling interior of the hermitage and breathed deeply of the cool breeze that awaited them on the riverbank. Faulkner slipped off his hood and face mask before speaking again.
“I was the one who swabbed the postcards,” he said. “Aside from the saliva on the back of the stamps, we found partial fingerprints. I’d hazard a guess they belong to the handlers in the mail service, because there was no match to Nathan Armstrong.”
“You’re sure?” MacKenzie asked.
“Positive,” Faulkner replied. “We had a set on file after he was arrested and there was no match.”
They fell silent and watched a pair of swans gliding over the water, which glistened as the sun reached its pinnacle, sweeping beams of white light across the valley. It might have been an Arcadian scene, timeless and unchanging through the centuries—if they ignored the police personnel roaming the grassy banks.
But it failed to have the same impact, not while they thought of their friend who was far away and without their support.
“If Armstrong sent those postcards, he had to know that Ryan would come after him. He had to know he would never stop searching for the evidence to bring him in,” Faulkner said softly. “He couldn’t stand knowing he’s still out there, living like a king while the families of his victims live with the pain of what he did every day.”
“Aye, it’s who he is,” Phillips agreed. “Armstrong knows that, as well as we do.”
Suddenly galvanised, Phillips began making his way down towards the dinghy that would take him back across the river.
“Where are you going?” MacKenzie called after him.
“I’m going to speak to the Chief Constable, that’s where I’m going. I want a few days leave.”
MacKenzie hurried after him.
“Frank! Ryan said he wants to take care of Armstrong quietly. He can’t do that if we all turn up with bells and whistles on. Besides, he’s over there unofficially, so it won’t do any good for us to barge in and start ruffling any Italian feathers.”
“I don’t need any bells or whistles, I just need an overnight bag and a good chunk of rock—just in case,” he replied, darkly.
“I mean it, Frank. You can’t go in like a bull in a china shop. If Ryan needs us, he’ll let us know.”
Phillips slowed down as her words hit home and he came to a standstill on the edge of the wooden jetty. MacKenzie caught up with him a second later and he turned to her in frustration.
“I know you’re right, lass. I just can’t stand to think of him and Anna over there without a friend in the world.”
“They have each other,” she said simply.
Then, she overrode their hard-and-fast rule and wrapped her arms around him.
CHAPTER 6
As they were driven through the narrow, cobbled streets of Florence, Anna reflected that it was easy to forget that she and her husband had been born into vastly different echelons of society. Ryan hardly ever discussed his childhood, although it had been a happy one, because to do so reminded him of the sister he had lost, and his grief was still too raw. He seldom discussed money, either, nor the fact he was endowed with quite a bit of it—unless he was planning to give some of it away and felt it prudent to seek her approval first. In the beginning, her mind had boggled at the regular sums he quietly dished out to worthy causes and she’d wondered if he was frivolous or just plain daft. However, she had come to realise that Ryan resented having more than he needed to be happy and would rather share it about with those who had been less fortunate.
Just another reason to love him, she supposed.
In fact, the one and only time they had ever truly argued was to do with her suggesting they draw up a prenuptial agreement before they were married. After all, his family were not merely rich but wealthy in an ‘old money’ sort of way; the kind that was carefully managed, re-invested and handed down through the generations. She, on the other hand, lived simply within her means as a university lecturer and had only modest savings, none of which had been handed down by her family, all of whom were now dead. When she had broached the subject with him, quietly explaining that she felt it was only fair and that she did not want his family to feel she was taking advantage considering the disparity, Ryan had been furious. As far as he was concerned, they were a partnership and whatever possessions he had were hers, too.
“Anna, if anything were ever to happen between us, I’d be happy to share half
of whatever I have with you,” he’d said. “In fact, if I’m ever stupid enough to throw away the best thing in my life, I’d deserve to lose the lot.”
And that had been the end of the conversation.
Ryan was not a man who needed to wear the latest fashions, nor have the biggest, newest car. It was, therefore, all too easy to forget about his privileged childhood before he’d chosen to become a policeman and it was only on rare occasions that Anna was reminded of it.
As it happened, today was one such occasion.
Ryan had been conspicuously vague when she had asked him where they would be staying while they were in Florence and had merely told her everything was ‘in hand’. Naturally, she assumed a hotel had been booked in advance and thought no more about it; but, as Ricci’s black Mercedes crossed the River Arno and wound its way up the wide, tree-lined avenue known as Viale Machiavelli, narrow, shutter-fronted houses gave way to enormous villas set in spacious grounds. Palm trees and other tropical plants crept onto the pavements and formed arches over the road as it curled upward towards Piazzale Michelangelo, one of the highest points of the city which held panoramic views of Florence and the hills of Fiesole in the distance.
“Are we nearly there?” she asked him.
Ryan looked across at her, then away again.
“Mm hmm,” he said. “Not far now.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed.
“You never mentioned the name of the hotel,” she said, failing to notice that the car had slowed to a crawl and was indicating to turn into one of the gated entranceways set back from the road.
“That’s because we’re not staying at a hotel,” he said cagily. “We’re staying in a villa.”
“You rented a villa?”
Ryan shifted in his seat.
“Ah, not quite. Here we are.”
Anna’s head whipped around in time to see a set of giant iron gates give way to immaculately-tended lawns fanning out from what could only be described as a miniature palace.
