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

by LJ Ross

  “At our end, we still haven’t located any eyewitnesses or managed to narrow down Mandy’s time of death,” MacKenzie said, then turned to Lowerson. “Unless you happened to get hold of any CCTV?”

  He nodded.

  “I’ve been in contact with a few of the businesses on the high street and down by the harbour,” he said. “They were expecting the call, since Frank had already been in touch with them about Iain, yesterday. The footage is starting to come through but, given Mandy’s probable route from her home to the harbour, I’ll hazard a guess there’ll be very little except maybe a couple of cameras near the traffic lights which might have picked her up. Even then, everyone agrees the fog was heavy last night, so I’m not holding my breath for good visibility.”

  Ryan listened with only half an ear, far more impressed by the way Lowerson was settling back into his work after so long away from the office than by his ability to drum up CCTV footage. Work wasn’t everything, but it was a step in the right direction and, after all he’d been through, Jack deserved to get his life back on track.

  “Did you manage to do those background checks, Mel?”

  She nodded.

  “We were just talking about it earlier, sir. I ran standard checks on Paul Hutchinson, Gemma and Josh Dawson, Daisy Jones and the people who were listed as being present at the time Iain Tucker made his announcement about the wreck. The lists provided by Gemma and Paul were almost identical, making twenty-eight people in total, thirty-two, if you count the Shaeffer family who stayed overnight at the same time as Iain.”

  “And? Anybody currently on the run for multiple murders?” Ryan asked, hopefully.

  “Unfortunately—or, fortunately—not, sir. None of the permanent residents at the inn had anything worse than a caution for possession of marijuana between them. Other than that, there was a smattering of speeding tickets and low-level assaults for a couple of the locals.”

  “All very law-abiding,” Phillips said, perversely disappointed. “What about Tucker’s ex—and Mandy’s too? Anybody come into their lives lately who might have held a grudge?”

  “Iain Tucker’s ex-wife and son went into Newcastle yesterday afternoon to identify his body and I took a statement from each of them,” Yates said. “They were both devastated, for one thing, and both very much alibied during the relevant timescale. There’s no way either of them could have been responsible.”

  Phillips clucked his tongue.

  “As for Mandy Jones, we’re still having trouble finding any record of Daisy’s father. There hasn’t been anybody but the two of them listed on the electoral roll since Mandy’s parents transferred the cottage over to her, so it’s hard to get a steer on whether there was anybody significant in her life, other than her daughter. Should I ask Daisy?”

  Ryan thought of the young woman and felt a stab of concern. If Mandy had been the only family Daisy had known and her father was no longer in their lives, it would rub salt into an open wound to quiz her about his absence now.

  “Try to find a record of Daisy’s birth certificate, instead,” he suggested. “If you still come up empty-handed, we’ll ask her then.”

  Yates nodded.

  “We’re still trying to get hold of Mandy Jones’ financials, her bank statements and all that. Faulkner’s taken her laptop and iPad into the lab for testing and he’ll work with the tech team to see if there’s anything interesting on the hard drives. We’ll look at her e-mail history and social media accounts but that’ll take another day, at least,” Lowerson said, and made a grab for the stale toastie, before thinking better of it.

  “What about her employer?” Phillips thought aloud. “You’ll probably need to have a word with the Harbour Commissioners before Faulkner can go over the computer in her office, anyway, since it’s their property.”

  MacKenzie nodded.

  “It’s a bit of a convoluted set-up,” she explained. “The harbour is held on trust for the benefit of the community by a board of Commissioners, which is made up of local bigwigs. I contacted the general number on the website and left a message, but I’ll chase it up later today and see if I can get hold of one of them.”

  Ryan hitched a leg up onto the edge of the table in the Break Room-cum-Incident Room and folded his arms as he considered the woman who had been Mandy Jones.

  “I’d chase the bank again,” he said. “The position she held made her a bribe-risk. I want to see her financial statements.”

  MacKenzie nodded her agreement.

  “Will do. How’s the Tucker investigation coming along?”

  Ryan heaved a meaningful sigh.

  “Let me see, now. We’ve got no conclusive autopsy report, no eyewitnesses other than Janine Richardson, no interesting mobile phone records, no meaningful CCTV footage or forensic evidence and definitely no handwritten confession to the man’s murder. In all honesty, I’d be struggling to justify keeping this one open, if it weren’t for Mandy Jones turning up so soon afterwards.”

  As if somebody upstairs had heard his plight, Alex Walker rushed into the room at that very moment brandishing a rolled-up map of the Farne Islands.

  “I’ve done it,” he announced, a bit smugly. “I’ve mapped Iain Tucker’s last known PLB locations.”

  They crowded around the table as he spread out the map, which had been annotated with a series of multi-coloured dots and arrowed lines which must have taken him most of the day to plot.

  “Each of the colours represents the PLB’s movements over the past four days,” he explained. “I haven’t gone back any further than that because I reckon this tells us all we need to know.”

  The room fell silent as they studied the regular journeys Iain Tucker had made in the days leading up to his death. Sometimes, the route diverged, but at least two things remained consistent each time. First, that he always left Seahouses and headed towards Wideopen Gut and past the landing at Inner Farne, corroborating what Janine had told them. Second, that he had consistently travelled to a specific coordinate roughly five-hundred metres off the rocky edge of Knivestone before continuing onward in an almost straight line back to Seahouses.

  “He went the roundabout way so that people wouldn’t follow him,” Ryan murmured. “He wanted to lose himself in the islands before heading up to Knivestone.”

  “The GPS records show these same coordinates every day, always after four o’clock,” Walker said.

  “As dark was drawing in,” MacKenzie murmured.

  “After the other diving vessels finished for the day, too,” Ryan pointed out. “He didn’t want spectators.”

  “If only he’d kept his mouth shut,” Phillips said, sadly. “The poor bloke might’ve still been alive.”

  Ryan straightened up and put a hand on Walker’s shoulder.

  “Thanks, Alex. This is a huge leap forward and I’m grateful.”

  Walker gave an embarrassed shrug.

  “Don’t mention it. Look, I’ve got to get back to my day job but let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

  “You might as well let the others know that they’ll be inundated with marine archaeologists tomorrow morning,” Ryan said, then immediately thought better of it. “On second thought—”

  He strode across to the door and closed it with a soft click.

  “Iain Tucker probably lost his life because he knew these coordinates,” he said, turning around to face them. “Because of that, this information goes no further than these four walls. Agreed?”

  There were nods around the room.

  “Whoever it is will realise soon enough that we’re searching for the wreck,” Lowerson pointed out. “What difference does a few hours make?”

  Ryan turned to him with serious eyes.

  “In some cases, it’s the difference between life and death.”

  CHAPTER 21

  While Ryan talked his Chief Constable into spending a portion of the Constabulary’s already strained resources on a jointly-funded expedition to find a Viking wreck, on the tenu
ous basis that it may provide answers relevant to Iain Tucker’s death, another man made the journey from Seahouses to the stately town of Alnwick, fifteen miles to the south.

  The streets were quiet by the time Josh arrived and a light drizzle coated the windscreen of his car, giving the passing scenery a general sense of gloom. He found a parking space and hurried towards his destination, conscious that he was running exactly on time but couldn’t afford to be late.

  The little Indian restaurant was a quiet, inconspicuous place that tended to attract visitors from all walks of life. The staff were discreet and asked few questions other than what their patrons would like to eat or drink, which made it the ideal place for a private meeting.

  The door jingled above his head to announce his entry and Josh glanced around the room to see if the other member of his party had arrived.

  Yes, unfortunately.

  Josh headed over to the little two-seater table and slid into the unoccupied chair, feeling his heart begin to thud against his chest as he came face to face with the person he believed to have killed Mandy Jones and who might choose to kill again, if he wasn’t careful.

  Next time, it could be a member of his family—or Daisy.

  “You’re right on time.”

  Josh nodded as the waiter poured two glasses of tepid water, then retreated.

  “I needed to talk to you.”

  “So I gather.”

  Josh struggled to contain his frustration as the waiter returned again, this time with poppadums and a selection of chutneys. He didn’t want any food; he wanted to get the words out quickly, before he lost his nerve.

  “Did you—have you heard what happened to Mandy Jones?”

  “Of course. Very inconvenient, for all concerned.”

  Josh stared in horrified disbelief, then lowered his eyes. He was always the first to look away.

  “You remind me a lot of your father,” came the unexpected remark and it slid like a deft arrow between his ribs and into the soft, vulnerable centre of Josh’s heart. He felt it keenly, the longing to know every scrap of information about the man who had left them before he was born. He’d found old pictures of his father, ones taken around the same age he was now, and they might have been twins. He wished he had known him, even a little, if only to tell him what a useless, self-serving coward he’d been to run away.

  Anger followed on the tails of sadness. Anger at himself for being so predictable and so easy to manipulate.

  “I’m nothing like him.”

  “How would you know?” came the sly rejoinder. “You’re remarkably similar, not only in looks but in temperament. You both prefer to take the easy road.”

  Josh felt a red mist descend and his fingers gripped the table.

  “You think this is easy? You think I like having to—”

  “Quiet.”

  The word was rapped out like a single gunshot and Josh rocked back in his seat, as if he’d been slapped. There, in a crowded restaurant surrounded by strangers, it was easy to forget the danger of speaking too loudly. It was a precarious balance he needed to find, if he wanted to avoid ending up like Iain Tucker or Mandy Jones.

  The sound of a poppadum being broken in half intruded into his thoughts.

  “I don’t want to be involved anymore,” Josh whispered. “I want out.”

  There was no immediate reply; only the sound of another poppadum crumbling. Tension strummed on the air between them and Josh shuffled in his seat, wishing he had the nerve to get up and walk away.

  But, of course, he didn’t.

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “Wh-what do you mean? I’ve done everything I was supposed to. I don’t want to be a part of it anymore,” Josh repeated, hating the desperate sound of his voice.

  The waiter hovered again, asking if they’d like to order their food.

  “We’ll have another few minutes, please.”

  It was not a request.

  “You can have the money back,” Josh said, once the waiter had gone, then wondered where the hell he’d find the cash to replace all that he’d taken. It didn’t matter; he’d take out a loan against the business, if need be. Anything to extricate himself from the living hell that was, at least in part, of his own creation.

  “I don’t think you heard me the first time, Joshua. There is no severance clause to our relationship; no option to buy me out. I suggest you come to terms with it or there will be consequences.”

  A moment later, Josh found himself sitting alone at the table, his dinner partner having departed. He drew in several long breaths and then fumbled in his wallet for some notes to pay the meagre bill.

  “Thank you, sir,” the waiter said, and had already forgotten Josh’s face by the time the door jangled shut behind him.

  * * *

  “Need a lift?”

  Yates jumped slightly as Lowerson appeared behind her chair.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether you brought a car this morning, so I thought I’d check in case you needed to hitch a ride back into the city.”

  “Is it that time, already?” she asked, and swivelled around to look up at the clock on the wall. Unlike the cheap plastic time-keeper which graced the interior of the Criminal Investigation Department, this one was an antique made of polished burr walnut.

  Its ornate dials read five-forty-five.

  Ryan was seated across the room with his mobile clutched in one hand while his other flew across a notepad as he made intermittent remarks concerning budgeting and resources. He caught their eye, looked at the clock himself, then made a waving signal to indicate they should go home.

  “Take the opportunity, while you can. There isn’t much more you can do here tonight, so you may as well get a good night’s sleep,” MacKenzie said. “It’ll be another long day, tomorrow.”

  “Alright,” Yates said, and turned back to Lowerson. “Um, I brought my own car, but I can walk with you.”

  She felt her neck redden with embarrassment.

  “Sure, let me grab my coat.”

  After they headed out into the darkened streets, Phillips waited for a respectable ten seconds before passing comment.

  “D’ you think it’s been long enough, then?”

  MacKenzie looked up from her inspection of Mandy Jones’ social media accounts, which seemed mostly to have consisted of heavily made-up ‘selfies’ and videos of cute-looking animals performing tricks for their human owners.

  “Long enough for what?”

  “For Jack to be thinking of other lasses, that’s what.”

  Her eyebrows flew into her hairline.

  “Who are you, now, the Town Matchmaker?”

  Phillips spread his hands.

  “All I’m saying is, Mel’s a nice girl. He could do a lot worse.”

  “That may be true, Frank, but the heart doesn’t always follow what the head says. If it did, I’d be Mrs Liam Neeson, by now.”

  She grinned at his affronted face.

  “Aye, well, he’d have to fight me off, first,” Phillips muttered.

  “Who’d be fighting who off?” Ryan asked, having finally finished negotiating terms with the various parties to a shipwreck salvage operation that would begin the very next morning.

  “Never mind,” MacKenzie told him. “Did you have any luck with Morrison?”

  Ryan ran his fingers through his hair as he replayed the conversation he’d just had with their Chief Constable.

  “Yeah, eventually. She’s given the go-ahead to join forces with MAST to do a sweep of the area around the coordinates Alex has mapped out,” he said. “She hasn’t authorised much but it’s enough to fund a morning, maybe a full day. If we’re right about those coordinates, hopefully it won’t take longer than that because we’ll be in the right place already.”

  “X marks the spot?” Phillips said.

  “Let’s hope so,” Ryan said. “I spoke to Ursula Tan from the MAST team and she says they
’ve got the equipment they’ll need, since they’re already working on a long-term project further down the coast at Beadnell. I got the strong impression she’d drop that one like a sack of hot coals if she finds something on the seabed over here,” he added. “I also spoke to Iain’s former colleague and everybody’s favourite Big Shot, Jasper Vaughn, too.”

  And that had been a tiresome conversation, made more so by the man’s natural propensity to speak rather than to listen.

  “He might not be at the top of my Christmas card list but there’s no denying the man knows his onions when it comes to marine archaeology,” he said. “We may need him to find Iain’s wreck.”

  “And, what if there’s nothing down there, after all?” Phillips was forced to ask.

  “Then, we’ll have a bunch of very disappointed archaeologists, an angry Chief Constable and an even bigger mystery on our hands,” Ryan said. “Because, if Iain Tucker and Mandy Jones didn’t die because they knew about a Viking shipwreck, it means they died because they knew about something else.”

  He paused, thinking of a time, not so long ago, when a dangerous cult known as ‘The Circle’ had operated in these parts; where unscrupulous people with psychopathic tendencies had bribed, coerced, threatened, assaulted and often killed in a cycle of greed and blood-lust that had permeated even the uppermost ranks of Northumbria CID. It was possible that it had reconvened, that another group of like-minded narcissists had banded together, springing up again like weeds.

  “Keep your eyes and ears open,” he told them. “In small places like this, people tend to close ranks. Yesterday, Mandy Jones looked us in the eye and claimed she had no idea why Iain Tucker had died, but now she’s ended up meeting with the same fate. If she’d spoken out, things might have ended very differently for her.”

  “Fear is a great motivator,” MacKenzie murmured, thinking of her own personal history. A phantom pain shot up the leg where a long white scar reminded her every day that a knife had once torn cleanly through the muscle.

  “Let’s hope the tide turns, tomorrow,” Ryan said, and meant it in more ways than one. Unless the stormy weather moved on, they would not be able to find the answers they so desperately needed the sea to reveal.