Penshaw: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 13)

by LJ Ross

  “Any suggestion of foul play that he can see?” Phillips asked.

  Ryan opened his mouth, then his eyes flicked back to where Lowerson was seated, eyes almost wild with fear of discovery.

  “Ah…no. No, not yet.”

  Phillips made a tutting noise.

  “It’s fishy, that’s for sure. Something isn’t right about all this. Everybody I’ve spoken to seems so sure that Simon wouldn’t have taken an overdose—deliberately, or otherwise.”

  “What about his sister, and brother-in-law?” Ryan asked. “Do they agree?”

  Phillips frowned.

  “They seemed a bit more open to the possibility, but both seemed genuine. We really need to speak to Joan.”

  After an action plan was agreed and MacKenzie left to collect Samantha from school, since it was her turn, Phillips intercepted Ryan as he made for the door.

  “Where’d you rush off to, earlier?” he asked.

  Ryan swore inwardly.

  “I had a couple of meetings to go to,” he said. “Why? Is there anything urgent?”

  Phillips had a sudden thought.

  “Here, they’re not trying to talk you into taking that superintendent’s job again, are they? The last two supers have been duffers, so they need a decent officer to take it on—but it’s a poisoned chalice that, lad.”

  Ryan looked at his friend with sudden emotion and made a silent promise this would all be over by the end of the week, whichever way the hammer fell.

  “Don’t worry, Frank. I would never abandon the team.”

  He put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and then moved off, leaving Phillips to stare after him.

  CHAPTER 26

  “The police say it was an accidental overdose.”

  Mike Emerson spoke softly to his mother-in-law, who lay on the hospital bed looking so different from the woman he’d known the week before. Joan Watson had always been a second mother to him; the one who’d cooked his meals and listened to his triumphs and disasters as if he was her own son. When he’d plucked up the courage to ask Sally to marry him, she’d been the first one to welcome him into their family.

  Not even Alan had gone quite so far.

  Oh, he’d been friendly enough—always including him in a few after-work jars down at the pub. He’d even introduced Mike as his future son-in-law, which had been nice.

  But he knew Alan had never liked him.

  He’d never been good enough for Sally, according to Alan. He’d never said it, in so many words, but it had been as plain as the nose on his face. When all the rumours had started about Alan being ‘The Worm’, Mike could have done more to stop them from spreading.

  But he didn’t.

  Now, with Sally shooting daggers at him across the width of her mother’s bed, Mike wished he hadn’t wasted his time with any of them.

  “Nuh,” Joan was saying. “Nuh. Don’ blve ‘t.”

  The second stroke had taken it out of her, he thought. The first had knocked her, but this one had robbed her of the use of some of her muscles, so the left side of her face drooped like a melting ice-cream.

  “I know, it’s hard, Mum.”

  Joan was getting frustrated, her bandaged hands slapping against the hospital bed.

  “P’leez,” she was saying. “P’leez.”

  “Please, what?” Sally wondered. “What can I get for you?”

  She looked at the pillows, the bedspread and the water bottle, trying to interpret her mother’s request.

  “P’LEEZ!” Joan cried out, catching the attention of the nurse.

  “There, now, Mrs Watson. Don’t get too upset, it’s not good for your blood pressure.”

  Trapped inside her own head, Joan thought of the handsome police detective and his sergeant, who’d called around the day before. She wanted to send up a flare or call 999.

  People talked, you see.

  They forgot themselves and talked, while they thought you were asleep, or unable to reply.

  And she heard.

  She’d heard it all.

  * * *

  Ryan needed air.

  He was tired of looking up and seeing Lowerson’s ashen face or Phillips’ confusion. He didn’t want to see Yates’ heartbreak, either. It was only four-thirty, but he couldn’t stomach another minute wondering whether somebody from the Evidence Store would turn up to ask why he’d taken it upon himself to alter the forensic records. Never before had he been called upon to interfere with the course of an investigation, and it turned his stomach.

  “I’m taking an hour’s personal,” he announced, and Phillips looked up in surprise.

  “I thought we could have a swift one, down at The Shipbuilder?” he objected, checking the time on his watch. “I could finish up here—”

  “Thanks, Frank—another night.”

  Ryan grabbed a printed copy of the GCHQ response Alan Watson had received in the post, and then made for the door. In another few minutes, he was inside his car, reversing out of the staff car park with swift, precise movements, and on his way to the only place he knew would make a difference.

  Home.

  * * *

  ‘Home’ was not the bricks-and-mortar house Ryan and Anna shared in Elsdon, but the feeling they shared when they were together. Therefore, he did not take the A1 northbound after leaving Police Headquarters but, instead, turned south towards the city of Durham. It was a cool thirty-minute drive, but he’d have driven twice that distance, if only to be with her.

  Ryan crossed the River Tyne and glanced briefly to his left to see the perfect harmony of seven different bridges spanning the water, each with its own history. Never again would he look at those bridges without remembering the fear and mayhem one sick person had reaped upon the city, not so long ago.

  What right had one person to terrorise another? he wondered.

  Their world was a shared one, and there needed to be rules so they could all get along in relative peace. As a younger man, he’d never understood what drove one person to maim or to murder; to steal or to cheat. He supposed that’s what had driven him to work in law enforcement: a desire to restore order, and balance.

  But the world wasn’t built that way, and neither were people. They didn’t conform to laws made by their fellow men, not even when their liberty was removed or, in other countries, when it cost them their own life in exchange.

  Life experience had taught him a lot since those early, idealistic days. It had taught him temperance, and fortitude. He’d lost much along the way, including his sister, but he’d gained a skinful of wisdom, too. It would never be an equal exchange, but it was something to cling on to.

  Ryan passed the turn-off that would lead him to Penshaw, and thought again of the people who lived in that quiet village. What connection could there possibly be, between Bobby Singh and the Watson family?

  He didn’t know yet, but he would find out.

  He owed it to a man who’d lived for thirty-five years with the shame of being called ‘traitor’. Alan Watson died having lost the respect of his friends and family, without ever knowing who was the worm who turned.

  * * *

  Inside the History Faculty building in Durham, Dr Anna Taylor-Ryan moved her presentation on to the final slide of the day, then turned back to the full auditorium of master’s level history students, all of whom were taking her course, ‘Early Pagan History in Northumberland’ as part of their degree.

  “As you know, ‘paganism’ comes from the Latin paganus, meaning ‘rural’ or ‘rustic’,” she said. “It was a largely pejorative, derogatory term first coined by early Christians during the fourth century, to describe people in the Roman Empire who were polytheistic. In other words, it became known as a religion for the peasants.”

  At the very back of the auditorium, the door opened and Ryan slipped inside. The movement caught her eye, and she smiled across the rows of eager faces.

  “If history teaches us anything, it’s that human behaviour moves in cycles,” she said. �
�Back in the Bronze Age, early pagans tried to make sense of their natural surroundings and began to worship gods they assigned to various elements of the natural world, much like the early Egyptians. With the advent of Christianity came conflict, much like the divisiveness that can come from differing religious beliefs today. So, the essay question for this week is a reflective one,” she said, moving behind the lectern to shut down the presentation. “Please tell me, in an essay of no more than five thousand words, what is the most important lesson that can be learned from the parallels between early Pagan Northumberland and modern Northumberland?”

  She paused, while they scribbled the question on scraps of paper, or typed it onto their laptops.

  “I’ll be around for five minutes at the end, if anybody has a burning question to ask. Otherwise, I’ll see you all next week.”

  Soon after, the students began to file out of the lecture theatre, in a cloud of cheap aftershave that barely masked the smell of yesterday’s pants. Ryan waited for them to leave and then jogged down the wide auditorium steps to greet his wife.

  “This is a nice surprise,” she said, feeling oddly vulnerable. It had been a while since Ryan had paid a visit to her workplace. “Did you have business in Durham?”

  There was always work to be done, and his colleagues in Durham CID would, no doubt, have news to share with him regarding Operation Watchman. However, it wasn’t the reason he was there.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said simply, and watched the smile blossom on her face.

  “Really? Well, in that case, why don’t we go for a walk along the riverbank, like old times?”

  Anna used to own a little stone cottage by the banks of the River Wear, in the shadow of the mighty cathedral which loomed over the rest of the city like an elven castle, too beautiful to be real. Before that cottage was lost at the hands of a madman, he and Anna had spent many a happy day and night within its cosy walls, watching the river roll by.

  “Sounds good,” he agreed. “So long as I can carry your books.”

  She chuckled, and rose up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss.

  “I can carry my own books, but you can carry the laptop.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Denise MacKenzie had always considered herself a fast learner, and the art of parenting was no exception. In many ways, the affection and love for her new—she hesitated to say, her new daughter—came as naturally as breathing. It was no hardship to love the wiry little girl with a mop of wild auburn hair not unlike her own. If they had ever been blessed with their own biological offspring, he or she could not have been a more perfect fusion of her and Frank. Sassy and smart, loving and loyal, the little girl was everything they could have hoped for, with a dash of cheek and a dollop of humour thrown in, for good measure.

  She smiled as she stood at the fence overlooking the low pasture, where Samantha was cantering across the grass on Pegasus, the horse left to her by her family, who were all gone now.

  “Hi, Mac!”

  Samantha waved as she passed, holding the reins with ease, yet still managing to cause MacKenzie’s heart to skip a beat. The girl had grown up with horses, as she had, and knew almost all there was to know about the beasts, but it didn’t prevent the maternal worry that she would take an unexpected fall.

  “Eyes forward!” she called out, and the manager of the livery in Elsdon laughed across the yard.

  “You’ve got a fine horsewoman, there!” she said.

  “Aye, well, I wish she’d keep her eyes on the road,” MacKenzie quipped, but it was true that watching Samantha on the horse was like poetry in motion. They had a unique connection, this girl and the white stallion, and she was grateful to Ryan for coming to a favourable arrangement with the livery so they were able to keep him. She suspected the arrangement was being subsidised by their friend, but he refused to admit as much, and anybody she tried to ask fell back on what was obviously an agreed party line.

  So, she was content to be grateful, for herself and on Samantha’s behalf.

  Presently, girl and horse slowed to a trot, then a walk as they approached the fence. Samantha dismounted in a smooth motion, and took the reins in her hand.

  “C’mon boy,” she said, rubbing his neck with her gentle hand. “Let’s go and rub you down.”

  Rather than go to school, Samantha’s family had entrusted her with the upkeep of the horses as soon as she was old enough, so MacKenzie had no need to ask whether the girl knew what she was doing. Instead, she walked back to the stables alongside, their feet keeping time with the clip-clop of Pegasus’ shoes.

  “I forgot to ask you, how was school today?”

  Samantha bowed her head.

  “It was fine,” she mumbled.

  “Doesn’t sound fine,” MacKenzie replied, peering beneath Pegasus’ chin. “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Samantha said gruffly. “I don’t care what they say.”

  “What who says?”

  “The girls at school.”

  MacKenzie sighed. It had barely been two days, and already the meanness had started. Would things never change?

  “What did they say?”

  Samantha led Pegasus into his stall and reached for a bucket of feed, which she set in front of him while she began to unfasten his bridle.

  “Just stuff.”

  MacKenzie fell back on her interview training, and used it to draw the girl out.

  “Unkind stuff?” she queried.

  Samantha nodded, reaching down to unstrap the horse’s saddle while Pegasus stood calmly, waiting for her to finish.

  “One of them said I was a dirty gyppo,” she whispered. “The other one said I wasn’t to be trusted because everybody knows my dad was a criminal.”

  MacKenzie felt white-hot rage rush through her veins and, in that moment, she wanted to hurt those who had hurt her little girl.

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said, wanting to reinforce the fact it was always the right thing to do. “It was very wrong of those girls to say those things, and it was very hurtful.”

  Samantha began to brush Pegasus’ hair, in long, smooth strokes.

  “Did the teacher hear this?” MacKenzie asked.

  “No, they said it at break time, when they knew nobody would hear.”

  Sneaky little…MacKenzie thought.

  “Okay. Did you tell the teacher?”

  Samantha shook her head.

  “They’d tell everyone I’m a snitch,” she said, with a resigned shrug. “Besides, their parents are rich, and the teacher thinks they’re great, so nothing will happen.”

  We’ll see about that, MacKenzie thought.

  We’ll just see about that.

  “Maybe it’s a one-off,” she said, working hard to remain optimistic for the girl’s sake. It had been a big step for Samantha to start school, let alone begin to enjoy it, and she’d be damned if she’d let a couple of ill-bred brats ruin all that.

  MacKenzie wondered what Frank would make of it all, and the very thought brought a smile to her face. When Phillips found out, he was liable to go around and arrest the pair of them.

  Once Samantha had finished and said goodbye to her horse, MacKenzie slung an arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her in for a hug.

  “You don’t have to manage alone, Sam. We’re going to be here for you, now, remember?”

  The girl turned her face into MacKenzie’s stomach and clung on tightly, breathing in the scent of something she’d never had.

  CHAPTER 28

  “Something’s troubling you,” Anna said.

  She and Ryan walked hand in hand along the riverbank in Durham towards Prebends Bridge, enjoying the warm breeze rippling through the rushes while rowers moved across the water with barely a ripple, the muscles in their arms glistening in the late afternoon sun.

  “I know you told me you couldn’t say,” she continued, in the same quiet tone. “But I need to know that you’re alright
.”

  Ryan spotted a bench up ahead, where they could sit and enjoy the lazy flow of the river as it made its slow journey to the sea.

  “Come on, let’s sit for a while.”

  Anna was happy to sit beside him on that pretty patch of earth, listening to birds rustling in the long grass while the world went by. Their lives rarely allowed for this sort of indulgence; there was always something more pressing to do. It wasn’t just Ryan’s job that cut into their personal lives, either; her career had always been her solace, and she was unwilling to sacrifice all she had earned and all she enjoyed, for the sake of expedience—nor would Ryan expect her to.

  But it did take a bit of juggling.

  “I still can’t give you specifics, but I’ll give you some hypotheticals. How would that be?”

  Anna gave him a long, knowing look.

  “That’d be just fine. Consider me bound by a doctor’s oath of confidentiality.”

  “You’re not a medical doctor,” he reminded her.

  “Same principle,” she said, with a wink.

  Ryan blew out a long breath and settled back against the seat, holding her hand between both of his own. She watched his profile as he looked out across the river and thought it was little wonder he grew so frustrated by the number of people who saw only his exterior, which he considered to be a transient, fickle thing. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, after all, and was subject to change.

  But to this beholder, he was beautiful, and always would be.

  “Let’s say there’s a young, ambitious detective who wants to make his mark on the world,” Ryan began, as if he were telling her a bedtime story. “His heart is always in the right place, but he tends to rush things and take short-cuts, rather than putting in the time necessary to achieve his goals.”

  “I’ve a very clear picture in my mind,” Anna said, thinking of Jack Lowerson. “Go on.”

  “This young detective has had a spate of bad luck,” Ryan continued. “Some things he could never have foreseen and other things…he could have prevented with better decision-making.”

  Anna nodded, thinking it was only the truth.