by LJ Ross
“Is it raining outside?” Ryan asked.
Josh shook his head.
“First night this week we haven’t had any rain.”
“Good. Let’s take a stroll around the block, and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
The younger man nodded, surprised to find Ryan so easy to talk to. He supposed an air of authority could be deceptive.
They headed out into the cold evening and began to walk away from the centre of the village, both men seeming to need a break from its claustrophobic streets in order to think clearly. They passed by the Cockle but Josh didn’t pause, keeping pace with Ryan as they headed further north towards St. Aidan’s Dunes, which swept along the beach that ran all the way to the base of Bamburgh Castle, further up the coast.
“All my life, people told me I was better off not knowing my father,” Josh began, after a few minutes’ companionable silence. “But, today, for the first time, I’ve been given a reason to believe they might be wrong. Can you tell me whether the body you found today is my father?”
He stopped at the foot of the dunes and looked Ryan in the eye, man to man.
“I know you can’t discuss your case,” he qualified. “But I need to know if you believe it could be my da—That it could be Kristopher Reid.”
It helped to call him by his full name, Josh realised. If he used the word ‘father’ or ‘dad’ too often, he wouldn’t be able to see things through.
Ryan swore softly beneath his breath, wanting to brush him off and trill out some standard words about procedure and confidentiality but, as he looked at the young man’s face, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Yes,” he said. “We believe the diver we found today may be your father, Kristopher Reid. I’ve asked our forensic team to analyse the samples you’ve already given us, so we can compare the DNA profiles and come up with a more definitive answer.”
Josh’s lips trembled and he turned away, staring out to sea while he brought his emotions back into check. Ryan didn’t rush him, nor would he have expected him to hide his feelings; he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to grow up believing that one of the people to whom you owe your very existence was so unworthy, although it happened more often than anyone would like to admit.
Nobody was perfect, after all, so it came down to a question of degree.
“You know, my father spent most of his career working overseas,” he said, conversationally, as they listened to the waves crashing against the sand further below. “He led a very busy life, he and my mother, and they travelled a lot. To create some stability for me and my sister, they put us into boarding schools. Separate boarding schools,” he added. “We saw them during holidays and for the odd weekend but, for the majority of my childhood, my dad was a stranger to me. I couldn’t claim to know him well and I felt abandoned, most of the time. Still, not knowing him as well as I’d have liked didn’t prevent me from loving him, then, or now.”
Josh nodded, his face in profile.
“And the fact he sent you away?”
Ryan gave a slight shrug, recognising that personal confidences didn’t come easily to him at the best of times, never mind in the middle of a triple murder investigation.
“We’ve had long discussions about it, but the short version is that my father made the decision he felt was right at the time, just as your father took decisions that made sense to him at the time. At the end of all this, Josh, you may find that your dad wasn’t a perfect paragon. You know why? Because none of us are. We’re all human, trying to make the best we can of life.”
Josh remained silent for long minutes while Ryan’s words ran through his mind, then came to a decision.
“I have a confession to make.”
CHAPTER 31
After Gemma had taken herself off to bed, no longer able to keep her eyes open despite it being only a shade after seven o’clock, Daisy sought solitude and escape in the television set in the sitting room upstairs and Hutch found himself manning the bar alone. Luckily, it wasn’t a busy night, the recent spate of deaths having driven people into their homes after dark, for safety. All the same, one or two die-hard drinkers remained, ambling up to the bar every now and then to refill their glass of ale, their ruddy complexions thrown into harsh focus by the nautical lamps Gemma had fitted overhead.
Gemma.
Looking around the bar area he thought of another time, years before, when she’d kissed his brother in the middle of it all. Closing his eyes, he could still see them locked together, as if nothing and nobody in the world existed but them. He remembered the pain of unrequited love, even all those years ago, and the ecstasy of having finally claimed her for his own.
She isn’t yours, his mind whispered.
His eyes flew open again.
“Stop it,” he mumbled.
“What’s that, son?” one of the regulars propping up the bar called out to him.
“Nothing, Alan. Get you a refill?”
“Still got a half here, lad.”
With a pleasant smile, Hutch turned away, hiding his face from the world. Twenty years ago, he’d wondered how he would survive, living with the pain of loving someone who looked at him like a brother; just a faithful friend who was always there to pick up the pieces. He’d never expected that to change—not even when Josh was born or during all the years that followed. If anything, Josh had filled the void in Gemma’s life, a perfect miniature of the man she’d lost, only better.
After all, Josh would never leave her. Sons never abandoned their mothers.
What room had there been in her life for him?
None, until lately.
He thought of their night together and smiled wistfully, but his smile turned down at the edges as he thought of how distant and cool she had been this evening. He knew the reason for it, as well.
Kris. Always, Kris.
He saw his brother’s memory floating in her mind and behind her eyes, he heard his brother’s name spoken softly on the air as she tried to comfort Josh while he battled to come to terms with the fresh blow. He saw his shadow around every corner and heard his laughter on the wind whenever he stepped outside his front door. He’d carried the guilt of living for twenty-three years, at times almost going mad with the notion that his brother might return to punish him for stealing his woman and his child; for surviving.
And now, in his happiest moment with Gemma, Kris had returned. His body being discovered was the reason why she couldn’t think of him now, and he didn’t bother to wonder whether she ever would again. Now, with the ghost of Kristopher between them, he would always find himself relegated to third place, behind Josh.
As the dog snuffled at his feet, Hutch gave a harsh laugh.
Fourth place, he amended.
* * *
“Full moon tonight,” one of the men complained.
The midnight sky was littered with a thousand stars, illuminating the small salvage boat as it crept along the coastline towards the Farne Islands. Its AIS had been deactivated, as had all other tracking devices, to ensure its movements would remain undetected.
“Ten minutes and we’ll be there,” the skipper told the short, portly-looking man who stood beside him, watching the waves with an eagle eye for any other vessels on the water.
“You can do better than that,” he said, and the captain increased the speed with a frisson of alarm. The money was appealing, but he still planned on coming out of their venture alive at the end of it.
“What happened to Dawson?” he asked.
“That isn’t your concern,” Vernon replied. “I don’t pay you to ask questions.”
The captain fell silent and concentrated on navigating through a tricky current.
“According to my mate, it’s around a mile north-north-west of Knivestone.”
“Your mate better be right.”
Vernon peered out at the dark water, listening to the slosh of the waves as they fell against the hull of the boat. The waters were protecte
d around here, more so than usual, by virtue of the many thousands of birds, seals and other wildlife that had made it their home. People came to gawp at them and take pictures of themselves so they could upload it onto social media and outdo their less adventurous friends. They oohed and ahhed over the birds and took their kids on boat tours before heading back to play crazy golf and eat battered fish. People looked at the islands in wonder and with reverence, but all he saw was another opportunity.
The salvage boat was part of a fleet he kept in a private facility, separate from the usual fleet he sent out to take care of legitimate business. His father and his grandfather before him had always told him that a man should have a hobby and, he supposed, his hobby was illicit marine salvage. He’d converted the beam trawler to operate heavy salvage equipment, including a mechanical grab, side-scan sonar, several floodlights, magnets and airlifts as well as a freefall steel chisel weighing over eight metric tonnes which he had used several times before to break into stubborn wreck sites.
“Coming up alongside Knivestone now, sir,” the captain said, with a deference Vernon found pleasing.
“Keep a lookout.”
* * *
From his position on the uppermost level of Longstone lighthouse, Pete Tawny put an urgent call through to the jetty landing at Inner Farne, where Janine Richardson was waiting to take his call. After a brief exchange, she ran outside to relay the message to the Coastguard and Police boats moored by the Fishehouse.
“They’ve just passed Knivestone,” she told the Coastal Area Commander.
Walker checked the scanner on his boat, which registered nothing in the vicinity.
“Ryan was right,” he muttered. “They’re sailing beneath the radar. Thanks, Janine.”
“How did he know?”
“Tip-off,” he replied.
With that, they set off in a fan formation, with one of each of the three boats circling through the islands to approach their target from different sides and reduce the chance they’d need to give chase.
“Let’s surprise the bastard,” Walker said, and grinned. “Easy as she goes.”
* * *
Shortly afterwards, HM Coastguard boarded the ghost salvage vessel and Hugh Vernon was handed over to the local police to be charged with fraud and blackmail, as well as numerous contraventions of the Merchant Shipping Act and the Protection of Wrecks Act. With Josh Dawson as their star witness, it wouldn’t take them long to unravel Vernon’s various illicit activities, including the illegal looting of shipwreck sites and the criminal disposal of dangerous salvage by Vernon Salvage Inc. into the protected waters off the North-Eastern coastline.
While Vernon shouted for his—no doubt expensive, no doubt dirty—lawyer, Ryan enjoyed the comfort of hearth and home with his wife, Anna.
“I can’t believe I’m the historian in the family, yet you’re the one who’s uncovered a thousand-year-old Viking warship,” she declared, clicking through the digital images taken by the diving crew once more. She made appreciative noises as she reached the close-up images of the carved prow which had been fashioned into the curling body of a snake with its face jutting outward, no doubt to strike fear and panic into the heart of any sailor brave enough to take her on.
“We can do a job-swap if you like,” Ryan said, not altogether jokingly. “You can come and solve these murders and I’ll pore over the textbooks to figure out who those ships belonged to.”
“I think I’d have the bad end of the bargain,” she said, happy to admit that investigating these particular murders was a much more challenging task than trying to determine the origin of a few planks of wood. Well, perhaps more than just a few planks of wood, she amended, as she flicked through some more of the images.
“Has the team managed to secure a license to excavate, yet?”
“Getting itchy fingers, are we?” Ryan joked. “They’re working on it. Ursula says you’ll be the first one they call once they can make a start on bringing up some of the junk.”
Anna looked at him as though he’d said a naughty word.
“What?” he asked.
“Priceless ancient relics are not ‘junk’,” she said, and wondered how she had managed to fall hook, line and sinker for a man who’d seemed to have been born without any passion for the past. She supposed it came from seeing death at such close quarters and being reminded of his own mortality on an almost daily basis. That was bound to give him a strong impetus to look forward, rather than back.
She turned off the screen and leaned back in one of the comfortable armchairs in their sitting room, enjoying the last embers of the fire and the way its glow polished Ryan’s hair to a blue-black shine. He lay on the sofa opposite with his feet crossed at the ankles, a file still open on his lap.
“It’s after midnight,” she murmured. “I’m surprised you’re still awake, after the day you’ve had.”
“There’s always more to do,” he replied, but took the hint and closed the file. There wasn’t much more he could do before the morning.
“Do you know who might have killed him? The man you found today, I mean.”
Ryan nodded.
“Yes, of course. I can’t prove it, yet, unfortunately.”
Anna raised an eyebrow when he gave her a name.
“You’d have to be very sure,” she said. “Nobody would believe it, otherwise.”
“Wouldn’t they? I don’t know. People have done so many appalling things, in the name of love.”
“Even so, it’s extreme.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Ryan said, without irony. “People never fail to impress me with the extravagant and imaginative ways they find to kill other people but, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, their reason for doing away with someone usually boils down to love, sex, jealousy, money or revenge.”
“How are you going to prove it?”
He sighed, swinging his legs down from the sofa to lean his forearms on his knees.
“Honestly? I’m not sure,” he said. “The killer’s been smart, even at short notice and in some of the worst conditions imaginable. I’ve gone over and over the evidence we have so far and there’s no obvious connection to any of the deaths; nothing that would hold up in court.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“I’m going to do what I always do,” he said. “I’m going to follow all the lines of enquiry until I can’t go any further and I’m going to work the crime scene. The principle doesn’t change just because the crime scene happens to be forty-five metres underwater.”
“You’re not going to dive down yourself?” she asked, a bit worriedly.
Ryan laughed and held out a hand to tug her upwards and into his arms.
“I might enjoy a bit of holiday scuba diving but that isn’t the same as diving in the middle of the North Sea, in one of the most dangerous diving sites in the world. I like adventure, but I don’t have a death wish.”
She leaned up to plant a kiss on his lips.
“Be careful,” she told him. “You don’t have to dive to be in danger. There’s enough of it on land.”
CHAPTER 32
Monday, 5th November
Guy Fawkes’ Night
When Ryan’s team arrived in Seahouses the following day, the morning had not yet broken. It had been agreed with the marine archaeological team that their work would focus on the Viking shipwreck for the time being, pending full arrangements for funding, licensing and registration with Hector Sayer, HM Receiver of Wreck, who had been positively gleeful upon hearing the news the previous day. In the meantime, police divers would convene in time for an early morning dive to enter and conduct a more thorough search of the cabin where the diver’s body had been discovered, alongside a wider search of the naval trawler, on the off-chance there might be some surviving evidence to provide a clue as to who had been responsible for barring the unfortunate man inside what would become his underwater coffin.
Unfortunately, fate was not on their side.
&nbs
p; “Detective Chief Inspector Ryan?”
Ryan turned in the process of boarding the Jolly Roger to find a tall, straight-backed man in full naval uniform approaching him along the north pier. He was flanked by two junior naval officers, and they all wore serious expressions on their clean-cut faces, in varying degrees of severity.
“Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Smythe-Weston,” he said, in the crisp, rounded tones of one who had spent his life in service to the Crown. “A word, please.”
The small team from the police Underwater Search and Marine Unit cast wary glances amongst themselves. The unannounced arrival of Her Majesty’s Navy did not bode well. If Ryan was concerned, his face betrayed none of it, and he stepped lithely back onto the pier with a smile fixed firmly in place.
“DCI Ryan,” he said, extending a hand. “How can I help?”
The briefest of handshakes was exchanged before Smythe-Weston spoke.
“I’ll come straight to the point,” he said, stiffly. “It’s come to our attention that you’ve uncovered a trawler belonging to Her Majesty’s Navy. Given her location and size, we believe the trawler to be the HMS Bernicia, which was sunk on 14th May 1940. Twenty-three men were lost when she went down, and the site is therefore protected as a designated war grave. That being the case, you have no legal right to enter or interfere with any aspect of the wreckage.”
Ryan listened to the man’s spiel with mounting disbelief.
“Are you aware that we found the body of a diver, yesterday?” he asked, in even tones.
“I’m aware that you found a body following an illegal entry to the war grave, yes,” the man said, silkily. “We are willing to overlook the transgression on the understanding there will be no further interference.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Ryan muttered. “Are you seriously telling me you’re more concerned with an eighty-year-old underwater mausoleum than with an active murder investigation?”
“Under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986—”
“Don’t start spouting legislation at me,” Ryan snarled. “The man we found yesterday had a home and people who loved him. They deserve to know how he died. The same goes for the other two people who died this week.”
