Seven Bridges
Page 6
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Chief Constable Morrison slipping into the room to stand at the back, out of sight. He nodded an acknowledgment and then continued.
“We were left with forty minutes in which to assess and evacuate a radius around the bridge, on a busy Saturday night. There was no time to prevent the blast itself.”
“Sir? What about Superintendent Lucas?”
The interruption came from one of the crime analysts, an eager-faced young man with no sense of tact, or timing.
But Ryan decided to address the elephant in the room.
“I’m only going to say this once, so listen up. As you will have heard, Superintendent Lucas passed away last night. Her death is being fully investigated by DCI Tebbutt, of Durham CID. I am sure that if there is anything untoward, she will uncover it.” He paused, allowing that to sink in. “Now, there will come a time when we can pay tribute to DCS Lucas’s long service in the Metropolitan and Northumbria police forces, as is right and proper. However, as recent events have proven, life very much goes on and the longer we stand around, the less chance there is of finding out which fruitcake was responsible for last night’s destruction. First rule of CID, constable: know your priorities.”
Ryan’s reference to cake did not go unnoticed by Phillips, who turned to MacKenzie with a fatherly smile.
“I taught him that phrase,” he said, proudly.
“Aye, and many more useless things, besides,” she replied.
“I’m pleased to welcome Captain Gary Nobel, who heads up the bomb disposal unit, otherwise known as EOD,” Ryan said. “He’s going to give us a brief update on what his team have been able to find out following the blast last night.”
Nobel stood up and faced the room.
“Members of Explosives Ordnance Disposal are elite and highly trained military personnel who assist civilian authorities by providing counter terrorist support,” he said, as if he were addressing a roomful of army cadets. “The regiment is based at several locations around the UK and our squadron has a small out-posting at Otterburn. It’s thanks to those arrangements that we were able to get down to the Quayside so quickly last night but, as Ryan’s already told you, not quickly enough to find and dispose of the device before it was detonated.”
Phillips wondered if Nobel could possibly stand with his feet any wider without falling face-first on the carpet-tiled floor.
Wishful thinking.
“Once we had a bit more natural light, we sent a robotic device into the blast zone and found what we believe to have been the epicentre, just underneath the northern end of the bridge on the westernmost edge,” Nobel continued. “We were able to go in afterwards on foot, where we found remnants of an improvised explosive device that packed enough power to blow a hole with an approximate radius of two and a half metres through the tarmac and under-layers of the road. Thankfully, it was only able to shave off a small amount of steel rodding and suspension that must have been vulnerable.”
“Why d’you say it was vulnerable?” Phillips piped up, his natural curiosity overriding his subtler feelings towards their guest speaker.
Nobel tucked his thumbs into the belt loops of his trousers, dragging them down a half-inch.
“Ah, just things like corrosion or wear and tear. The bridge is ninety years old and, even with plenty of upkeep, it’s natural to suffer a degree of weakening in the nuts and bolts. To be honest, we should be pleased it wasn’t a hell of a lot worse.”
“How many people were injured by shrapnel?” MacKenzie enquired, of nobody in particular. “Thirty-two?”
“Thirty-four,” Ryan corrected, and appreciated her subtle point. The outcome was bad enough, even without fatalities.
He turned back to Nobel.
“You said it was an improvised device? Do you know anything about its components?”
“We’ve taken samples and we’ll work with your lab boys—”
“And girls,” MacKenzie muttered.
“Yeah, them too,” Nobel said, dismissively. “We’ll work with them to confirm the ingredients. My money’s on military grade, given the size of the explosion. If it had been placed beneath the bridge, maybe in one of the towers at either end, we might have seen a very different outcome.”
“How do you think somebody transported it up there, in the first place?”
Nobel shrugged.
“A sports bag or even a large rucksack would have been enough to transport a homemade bomb,” he said. “We’ve scooped up a few bits and bobs that might turn out to be what you’re looking for. Your perp would’ve needed to plant the bag well ahead of time or risk exposure and, given the direction of the blast, I’d say they hid it between the pavement railing and the outer edge of the bridge. It’s the only way they could be confident it wouldn’t be picked up by some observant passer-by.”
Ryan had to agree with the logic.
“Phillips? How are we coming along with the CCTV footage?”
The previous evening, he’d instructed a requisition of all available footage from both sides of the bridge. It was in the centre of town with several cameras trained on either end, so there was a good chance they’d pick something up.
But his sergeant pulled an apologetic face.
“Nobody’s answering from the Council office,” he said. “I’ve left messages, but the offices don’t open until eight-thirty—”
He paused to check the time, which was just after the half hour.
“There should be no trouble getting hold of whatever they’ve got. Fingers crossed the cameras were working.”
“Don’t forget the buses,” MacKenzie thought aloud. “Buses go back and forth over the Tyne Bridge and the onboard camera at the driver’s side usually has good visibility of the road ahead. You never know, we might get lucky and see a pedestrian carrying a large bag.”
Ryan nodded.
“Good thinking. Request footage for the last couple of days, to start with. We can review older footage if we need to, down the line.”
He turned back to Nobel.
“As far as you’re concerned, it’s more a question of looking at what was used to make up the device, isn’t it? We can start tracing the source of the materials, as soon as we know.”
“Yeah, I’d say so. GCHQ will be able to give you a steer on any internet searches for certain components, unless you’ve got a smart bastard who’s using the Dark Web, which will slow things down.”
Ryan thought of the planning and execution of last night’s explosion and had a sinking feeling their perpetrator would have covered every angle.
As Nobel took his seat again, Ryan turned to the tech team.
“Patel? Any update on the e-mail trace?”
The head of their specialist information technology division came to attention. Jasmine Patel was a shy, introverted woman most of the time, but she happened to be possessed of a first-class brain and a knowledge of computers that was second to none. In cases such as these, Ryan knew there was nobody better.
“Um, yes and no, sir,” she said, softly.
“Speak up, love!” Nobel called out, then nudged Phillips as if they’d just shared a joke.
“Sorry,” she muttered, feeling her palms begin to sweat.
“I think you were going to tell us about the source of the e-mail,” Ryan said, kindly.
“Yes. We spent most of the night trying to trace the IP address of the server used to send the e-mail,” she said. “We hopped from Hungary to Brazil and then to Russia and finally Ukraine, where we’ve stalled. Whoever sent that e-mail has a sophisticated level of knowledge but I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more at this stage. I’ve got the team working on it and, if we make any further progress, I’ll let you know straight away.”
She ducked down again, feeling like a failure.
“That tells us something important,” Ryan said, to the room at large. “If we were in any doubt, we now know that our perp is no fool. It sounds obvious, but they often are.”
There were a few chuckles around the room.
“Unfortunately, there was no sign of any bathing produce last night,” Ryan said, hitching a hip onto the corner of the nearest desk. “Right now, our priority is to keep trying to chase that e-mail server, to identify the ingredients—”
He broke off at the sound of a mobile phone ringing, and was embarrassed to find it was his own.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
He slapped a hand against the pockets of his jeans until he found his phone and then yanked it out, intending to bin the call. Instead, he glanced at the screen and saw that the caller was his trainee, Melanie Yates, who was on site at The Enquirer taking statements from the staff manning the news desk.
His stomach gave a funny little lurch he recognised as a premonition of things to come, then he raised the phone to his ear.
“Ryan.”
The rest of the room watched the quick tightening of his jaw and looked amongst themselves, gearing up for the news they’d been waiting for.
“Understood. Get back down here as quickly as you can.”
He ended the call and held the inoffensive piece of plastic in his hands for a moment longer as he thought of what the hell to do.
He looked up at the clock on the wall, noted the time was exactly nine o’clock, then drew himself up to face his team.
“The Enquirer have received another e-mail. We have until noon before one of the other bridges goes up.”
He watched heads turn to check the time, as he had.
“Which bridge?” MacKenzie asked, and Ryan raised a hand to rub at his temple then let it fall away again.
“It doesn’t say. All I know is, we have three hours to find out.”
CHAPTER 8
“Doctor Taylor-Ryan?”
In another part of the building, Anna looked up from an idle inspection of last month’s dog-eared magazines in one of the Constabulary’s informal meeting rooms.
“Yes?”
Tebbutt flicked the sign to ‘OCCUPIED’ and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind her.
“I’m DCI Joan Tebbutt,” she said, and offered what she hoped was a friendly smile. “Thank you very much for coming down.”
“No problem,” Anna murmured, not quite knowing what to do with herself. It made little difference that she was married to a high-profile murder detective, or that she counted several police officers as her friends. They operated in a different world and, at times like these, she felt it keenly.
Hers was the world of quiet, academic study; of losing herself in textbooks and old parchment to uncover the stories of the past and of what made up their shared history. Theirs was a world rooted in the present, where the action happened quickly and decisions were taken almost immediately. They could not afford to do otherwise.
Anna watched as Tebbutt settled herself in one of the slouchy visitor’s chairs beside her, leaving a comfortable distance between them yet close enough to create a sense of confidence. Unfortunately for her, Anna happened to live with a man who was adept at reading human behaviour and some of his experience had rubbed off over the years. Consequently, she was familiar with the ploy, which greatly diminished its effect.
“Once again, thank you for coming in to give a statement,” Tebbutt began. “I’m going to make a note of what you tell me, then you can read it back and sign it. But first, I’m going to set out the standard caution, okay?”
Anna nodded after Tebbutt went through the proper motions.
“I understand.”
“Great, let’s get started,” she said, and shuffled more comfortably in her seat as she flipped open a fresh notepad. Anna took the opportunity to study her face, noting it was smooth and clear with very few lines. There was a tiny scar just visible beneath her chin and she wondered how Tebbutt had come by it.
“You’re wondering how I got my scar, aren’t you?”
Anna almost jumped, but found herself laughing instead.
“How on earth did you know that?”
Tebbutt looked up from behind a pair of slim gold spectacles and smiled.
“Experience,” she said. “And the answer is very boring. I cut myself a long time ago when I took my nephew ice-skating one Christmas on Princes Street, in Edinburgh. No tales of gun-slinging or knife-fighting for me, I’m afraid.”
“That’s no bad thing,” Anna was bound to say.
“True,” Tebbutt said, briskly, and did a little survey of her own.
Ryan’s wife was a very pleasant surprise. Often, she’d found men in positions of power preferred a little woman at home, one with mammary glands bigger than their brains. It was a simple formula, but it repeated itself with worrying regularity. Instead, she found herself looking into a pair of intelligent brown eyes and listening to a woman with a gentle Northumbrian accent and an air of calm authority.
The doctor and her husband made an attractive couple, Tebbutt thought.
The kind of couple some might like to break.
“So, perhaps you could start by telling me what you do for a living? I like to build up as full a picture as possible.”
Anna let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding and tried to relax.
“Ah, sure. I’m a senior lecturer in the history faculty at Durham University. I spend the holidays working on new research, or writing, and term times are eaten up with teaching duties too.”
“I see. And were you working at the university yesterday?”
Anna shook her head.
“No, I reduced my teaching hours this term, so I could work more from home and press on with the book I’m writing—”
“Which is?”
Anna blinked.
“Oh, it’s a pocket history of Holy Island, where I was born and grew up.”
“Lovely place,” Tebbutt murmured, then dived into the heart of the matter.
“So, you were working from home all day, yesterday?”
“Yes, although I popped into town for an hour or so, around five o’clock, to catch the shops before they closed. I wanted to pick up some things from the food hall, in Fenwick.”
Tebbutt smiled and made a quick note.
“For dinner?”
“Yes, we were expecting Frank and Denise—that is to say, DI MacKenzie and DS Phillips—around seven-thirty.”
“So, you were in town for five o’clock, which means you left at, say, four-fifteen?”
“Yes, around then. I got home about six-thirty,” Anna said, helpfully.
Tebbutt’s face remained impassive but, privately, she thought it was unfortunate that the good doctor happened to be in the vicinity of the late DCS Lucas’s home at that hour. She’d spoken to the police pathologist first thing that morning and he’d given his best estimate of a post-mortem interval, telling her Lucas had died somewhere between three and six o’clock the previous day.
“And at what time did Phillips and MacKenzie arrive at your home in Elsdon?”
“Right on time, around seven-thirty give or take a few minutes either way.”
“And what time would you say DC Lowerson arrived?”
Anna thought back.
“It must have been around nine o’clock when we heard him ringing the doorbell,” she murmured, and thought of his shocked face standing there beneath the greyish-white light of the security lamp. “We’d finished dinner and were just chatting, playing Scrabble, that sort of thing.”
“Scrabble?” Tebbutt queried, and Anna’s lips curved.
“Yes. We live a rock and roll lifestyle.”
“I see,” Tebbutt smiled briefly, then it was gone. “Who answered the door?”
“Oh, Ryan answered. I joined him after a minute,” Anna said.
“So, DCI Ryan spoke to DC Lowerson for around a minute before you joined them?” Tebbutt repeated, just to be sure.
Anna frowned and sat up a bit straighter in her chair.
“Well, yes, but—”
“That’s fine,” Tebbutt murmured, and gave another mild smile. “Can you tell me what happened next?”
Anna swallowed.
“Well, I thought perhaps Ryan had invited him to dinner and forgotten to tell me, or that Jack had decided to pay us a visit, after all,” she said.
“After all? Doesn’t he usually come to visit?”
Anna wondered how to phrase her answer but, ultimately, fell back on the unvarnished truth.
“Not recently, no. We hadn’t seen Jack in quite a while.”
“Why?”
Anna sighed.
“He had been very busy, I think, and…” She paused, thinking of how best to put it.
“And?”
“He had become quite insular. He used to come around every couple of weeks for dinner or to have a Sunday roast with us,” she said.
“What changed, do you think?”
Tebbutt continued to look at her with a patient, unyielding expression on her face.
“Jack had different priorities, I think, and…people grow apart,” she finished, lamely. She would not be the one to incriminate her friend, certainly not on the basis of hearsay and gossip.
“Back to last night, then. You came into the hallway and saw DC Lowerson in the doorway? What happened next?”
“I noticed the bloodstains on his shirt and went back to get Frank and Denise.”
“What did you think, when you saw the bloodstains?”
“I thought he might have hurt himself,” Anna lied. It was half-true, at least. “Either way, I thought the others could help. He seemed very upset.”
“In what way? Do you recall what was said?”
Anna cast her mind back.