Longstone: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 10)

by LJ Ross

  “Alright, let’s get moving.”

  * * *

  In the quiet of her mother’s sitting room, Daisy lay on the sofa with her head resting on Josh’s lap. He stroked her hair with a gentle hand and watched the dust motes dancing on the air around them.

  “Try to sleep,” he murmured. “You’re exhausted.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  His hand stilled its rhythm and he wondered what else he could say, what else he could do to make it right for her.

  Nothing, he thought. Nothing could make things right again.

  “If they find out what’s down there, they’ll find out about Shell Seekers, too,” Daisy mumbled, and took another shuddering breath.

  Josh broke out into a clammy sweat, thinking through all the possible ramifications.

  “I’ll try to get out of it—”

  “How?” she asked. “What if—what if they killed my mum? What if that’s why they killed her?”

  Josh squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the thought.

  “Thanks for not telling the police,” he said.

  “I couldn’t,” she said, and it had been hard, especially as they’d been so kind.

  He rubbed a shaking hand over his eyes, trying desperately to think of a way out.

  “I’ll speak to them,” he decided.

  She sat bolt upright and faced him with puffy, tear-stained eyes.

  “No!” she almost shouted. “I can’t lose you, as well! What if something happens—?”

  “It won’t,” he said, affecting some of his old confidence. “Trust me.”

  She said nothing, but lowered her head to rest against his shoulder.

  “Do you think Iain found it?” Josh wondered aloud. “Do you think that’s why he wound up dead?”

  Daisy shivered in the warm room.

  “I’m scared, Josh.”

  Me too, he thought, and checked the clock on the wall, which read twelve-thirty. Another few hours and it would be time to leave.

  “We could run,” he whispered, suddenly. “Leave, now.”

  She let out a harsh laugh that made her sound older than her years.

  “And go where?” she said. “With what money?”

  “I’ve got a bit saved,” he said. “It would be enough to get away.”

  “What about your mum and Hutch?” she argued, although the idea was tempting, so tempting. “It would kill them if you left.”

  The fight drained from him as quickly as it had come. He couldn’t do what had already been done by his father before him. He would not abandon the people he loved, to save himself. It was a matter of personal pride, and it was the lesson he taught new divers every time he took a boat out.

  Never make yourself an island.

  CHAPTER 18

  Phillips stared at the diving rib with a dubious expression on his face and planted his stocky feet firmly on the pier.

  “Is that thing safe?”

  Pete Tawny exchanged an amused look with Ryan, who hopped onto the boat as if he’d spent his life on the water, barely needing to adjust his balance.

  “Of course, it’s safe,” he called back to his sergeant, and chucked a life jacket in his direction, which Phillips caught as a reflex.

  “Aye, I bet that’s what Iain Tucker said, n’all,” he muttered, and started to shoulder into the cumbersome bright orange jacket.

  After a few minutes’ cajolery, Phillips found himself clinging to the edge of the boat as it headed out onto the open water and steered a course for the Farne Islands. If he was able to overlook the motion of the water, which played merry havoc with his insides, he might have found the view breath-taking. The day had turned overcast as morning gave way to afternoon and thick, puffy clouds covered the sky in a blanket of steel-grey mist. Now and then, the sun broke through and glittering rays of light bounced off the water, so brightly he had to shade his eyes. To the north, a cluster of rocky islands came into view and, further still, the tiny outline of a lighthouse.

  “How’re you holding up?” Ryan raised his voice above the sound of the waves and the engine.

  Phillips blinked the sea spray from his eyes and looked across at his friend, whose eyes were clear and shone with adventure, while his black hair ruffled in the wind. There were only fifteen years between them but, in that moment, Phillips experienced a wave of fatherly pride and found himself wondering what it might have been like to have a son. One who made him take boat rides to God only knew where, to look at rocks and speak to bird conservationists in the name of murder investigation.

  “It’s not as bad as I thought,” he admitted, and risked taking his hand off the rail.

  His stomach gave a violent lurch as his legs wobbled, and Ryan threw out an arm to catch him as Phillips made a grab for the rail again.

  “Steady,” Ryan said. “Think of it like riding a horse. Try to go with the natural motion of the boat, rather than against it.”

  Phillips rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, aye, because I’m a regular equestrian, me.”

  Ryan laughed.

  “Alright, bad example. Look, just try not to fall overboard in the next five minutes. We’re almost at Inner Farne.”

  Sure enough, Tawny slowed the boat as they reached a narrow channel known as ‘Wideopen Gut’, which ran between Inner Farne—the island closest to the mainland—and its nearest neighbour.

  “Bit of a gruesome name, isn’t it?” Phillips remarked, as they bobbed through the Gut.

  Tawny smiled, but didn’t turn around. He knew better than to take his eyes off the sea at this point, even for a second.

  “Aye, they’ve come up with some grisly names, over the years,” he agreed. “Almost at the landing, now, lads.”

  Whinstone cliffs rose majestically from the waves, the sheer rock face spattered with the waste of thousands of birds who had nested in its crevices and circled the air during the breeding season in the summer months. But now, the island was tranquil, with only the odd, plaintive cry rising overhead. It was an eerie, beautiful place, unlike anything they’d seen before, and the three men fell silent as they passed through scenery that might have looked the same a thousand years before.

  Tawny guided the boat towards the landing jetty on Inner Farne with skilful ease and, soon after, Ryan helped Phillips off the boat again, demonstrating the kind of patience he might have shown his maiden aunt. They walked carefully along a slippery boardwalk past a small, ancient building Tawny told them was deliberately mis-spelled ‘The Fishehouse’ and which had, apparently, been built by St. Cuthbert as a kind of miniature hotel for the monks who came to visit him during his years as a hermit on the island.

  “And here’s Janine,” Tawny said, as a tall, grey-haired woman approached them from the direction of a squat, oddly-shaped building with a round tower painted in white which, they were told, had been a former pele tower built in the sixteenth century. “Jan’s the island ranger, the one I was telling you about.”

  Ryan tried not to fall prey to stereotypes but, when he’d imagined the type of person who might choose to live nine months of every year on a nature reserve, cut off from the mainland with only the sea and the wind for company, he had imagined a socially-awkward recluse; somebody unable to look him in the eye and who probably kept baby chicks tucked in the pockets of her waterproof jacket. Instead, they were greeted by a friendly woman with a mile-wide smile and a ready handshake.

  “Hi! Welcome to Inner Farne,” she said, giving their warrant cards the once-over. “I heard about what happened to Iain, then of course about poor Mandy. I can hardly believe it.”

  “We’re on our way to Longstone, but we wanted to stop off here and have a quick chat, if that’s alright with you,” Ryan said.

  She nodded and began leading them back towards the pele tower.

  “Of course. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help much, but you never know. Come on inside, out of the wind.”

  Her home was simply furnished but cosy, and a
n enormous Aga pumped out generous waves of heat as they stepped into the kitchen and began to shed their outer clothing.

  “Got a nice pot of coffee on the go, if anybody’s interested,” she said, once they were settled around a scrubbed pine kitchen table. “Wind’s picking up out there.”

  This last remark was directed at Pete, who nodded his agreement.

  “We can’t stay too long, if you’re wanting to see Longstone,” he told the two detectives. “The sea’s been changeable the past few days, best not to risk it.”

  Phillips took a gulp of coffee to steady his nerves for the return journey.

  “We’ll be quick,” Ryan promised, and was grateful when Tawny picked up his mug and tactfully left the room, allowing them some privacy to question Janine alone.

  “Pete tells us you’re one of the conservationists in charge of overseeing the nature reserve—is that right?”

  She joined them at the table and set her cup down on an artisan coaster showing a painted image of Dunstanburgh Castle.

  “Yes, I’m one of three rangers. We’re based here nine months out of every twelve, usually, but this year I’ve stayed a bit longer. It was a warm summer,” she explained. “That drew out the mating season, so I needed to hang around and make sure the birds were protected.”

  “What kind of birds?” Phillips asked.

  “Oh, all kinds,” she said. “We get a lot of Arctic terns, puffins, guillemots, razorbills, cormorants—and quite a few cuddy ducks, of course.”

  Ryan smiled at that, grateful now that Anna had already briefed him on the alternative name for the common eider duck.

  “You must see quite a lot of tourists,” he said.

  She nodded and took a slurp of coffee.

  “Especially during the summer months,” she said. “We had to turn some boats away, this year, because the amount of footfall was disturbing the birds. It tails off towards autumn, so things have been a lot quieter recently.”

  “Do you keep in much with the folk on the mainland?” Phillips asked.

  She made a rocking gesture with her hand.

  “So-so. I see Pete quite a bit,” she said, jerking her chin towards the door he’d recently used. “He runs tours and has to look out for the lighthouse up on Outer Farne, anyway. There’s another lighthouse on the island here, too.”

  “How about Iain Tucker?” Ryan asked. “Did you know him?”

  Janine nodded.

  “Yes, I’ve known him as an acquaintance for a few years, now. He did a bit of work with MAST on their underwater projects and he does a lot of shipwreck diving, himself. He stopped off here at least once when he was in the area. I think he liked the birds,” she said, and looked swiftly into the bottom of her mug. It didn’t seem appropriate to add that they’d once enjoyed a memorable evening when he’d been laid up by the storm and was forced to spend the night. That had been years ago, and she would always think of Iain as a good, kind man, one whose friendship she would miss.

  “Do you remember the last time you saw him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I remember exactly, because it was the night before I heard he’d been found dead.”

  Ryan’s eyes sharpened.

  “Thursday night?”

  “Yes, it would have been Thursday night…actually, more like Friday morning. It was around one o’clock.”

  Phillips made a hasty note.

  “Seems an unsociable hour,” Ryan said. “Do you mind telling me how you came to see him?”

  “Well, it wasn’t so much him, as his boat, the Viking Princess,” she clarified. “I haven’t been sleeping well, lately, so I was still awake watching a bit of Netflix. I saw the light from the boat reflected in the window, so I stuck my head out of the door to see if I knew who it was. It was blowing a gale, so I was a bit worried that anybody was out on the water, in the middle of it.”

  “How could you tell it was the Viking Princess?” Ryan asked.

  She gave him a half-pitying look that translated roughly to ‘stupid outsider’, before explaining, very slowly, that all boats were not the same.

  “Iain had had that boat for five, maybe six years. I’ve been on it, looked around it, and I’ve seen it plenty of times on the water or in the harbour when I’ve been over that way. He paid to moor it there,” she added. “Anyway, the usual route through the islands goes through Wideopen Gut, past the landing point here on Inner Farne. That’s deliberate, so I can keep track of the boating traffic coming through the nature reserve. It also means I get to see every kind of boat and every kind of owner, unless they flout the rules and use a different route without me knowing about it.”

  “All the same, it was dark, it was stormy…you’re sure it was him?” Phillips asked.

  She gave him a thin smile.

  “I may not be a spring chicken any longer, but I still have my sight,” she said. “I recognised the boat, I didn’t say I recognised Iain.”

  Ryan frowned.

  “What do you mean?”

  She polished off the last of her coffee and set it aside, before linking her hands.

  “Every time Iain passed by the landing jetty, he’d honk lightly on his boat horn. Just once, and not too loudly, as a sort of friendly ‘hello’. He had his little habits and that was one of them. If it was getting dark, he’d flash his boat light a few times, too,” she said. “He didn’t do either of those things on Thursday night, although I might not have heard a horn above all the rain.”

  “You don’t think it was Iain,” Ryan realised.

  She looked troubled, then shook her head.

  “When I heard about what had happened the next morning, I realised I hadn’t seen the boat coming back. I fell asleep around half-past one, so I might have missed it. That’s what I told myself, anyway. But, when Pete said Iain’s boat was still missing, I realised it hadn’t come back through the Gut. Then I started to wonder whether he’d been the one steering the boat in the first place.”

  Ryan felt his heart rate quicken.

  “And you’re sure it passed by at around one?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d just started the next episode of Making a Murderer,” she said. “Scared myself half to death, but I never thought something would happen so close to home.”

  “The truth is always stranger than fiction,” he said, as Tawny re-entered the room and signalled it was time to leave before conditions grew worse. Outside, the wind had begun to whistle through the old window panes of the pele tower and Phillips was looking distinctly unwell.

  “One last thing, Janine. Did Iain ever talk to you about a wreck he was searching for, one in particular? Did you ever see him spending time in any particular area, diving?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you kidding? Iain had been going on about a Viking wreck somewhere around here for as long as I’ve known him…and I’ve been Head Ranger here for nine years,” she said. “The thing is, when nothing turned up after the first couple of years, people stopped asking him about it. I suppose we didn’t want to embarrass him, if he was no closer to finding it.”

  “How about diving spots?” Ryan said, holding up a hand to stave off any hurrying remarks from Tawny. There was more to learn from Janine, he was sure.

  And there was.

  “Well, to be honest, the reason I didn’t worry too much when I saw his boat out so late is because Iain had been diving after dark for years,” she admitted. “It’s against the official rules, I know, but he was a very experienced diver. Besides, once you’re down to a certain level underwater it’s dark regardless of whether the sun’s shining above water, especially since there’s a lot of coal slurry on the rock bottom.”

  You should have said something, Ryan thought.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “Iain had been spending a lot of time way past Knivestone, or at least that’s what he said the last time I saw him.”

  Ryan came slowly to his feet.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” he said. “If you think o
f anything else, please get in touch.”

  She nodded.

  “Did I—should I have called the Coastguard, when I saw the boat out that late?” she asked, the words rushing out of her mouth before she could snatch them back.

  Ryan gave her a long, level look.

  “I think you know the answer to that, already,” he said. “But there’s no reason to think it would have made any difference to what happened to Iain.”

  With a polite nod, he stepped back outside and into the driving wind.

  CHAPTER 19

  As Phillips prepared to face another ordeal on the high seas, MacKenzie banged on the door to The Cockle Inn and peered through the window alongside.

  “Nobody home?” Yates said.

  “The light’s still on,” MacKenzie replied, and knocked on the door one last time, to be sure. “And it’s only two-thirty.”

  Thirty seconds or so passed, then they heard the rattle of the heavy door being unlocked and it swung open to reveal Hutch standing in the doorway, looking a bit dishevelled.

  “Sorry, we’re closed,” he told them, politely enough.

  “Mr Hutchinson? We’re from Northumbria CID. I’m Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie and this is my colleague, Trainee Detective Constable Melanie Yates. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we wondered if we could ask you some questions?”

  “No—you’re not disturbing me, not at all. We were just—ah—just having some quiet time, after the news this morning,” he said, and showed them both inside.

  Once inside, he fell back into the role of the accommodating host.

  “Can I offer you a soft drink or something warmer?”

  “That’s very kind of you, but no, we’re fine,” MacKenzie said, taking in their surroundings. The inn was upmarket, she thought, with good quality furnishings and not a bar fly in sight. “We were hoping to be able to speak to Gemma Dawson?”

  “Gemma already gave a statement this morning,” he said.

  Both women gave him bland, meaningless smiles. Cop smiles, he thought.

  “I can go and get her,” he amended, with a slight edge to his voice.

  “That would be so kind, thank you,” MacKenzie said, and watched him hurry upstairs to find his co-manager.