Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 2)

by LJ Ross

  “Come on, Denise,” she muttered, giving herself a firm mental shake.

  She took the stairs quickly, the heels of her smart boots clicking on the concrete as she went. She counted off each passing floor, unable to shake the sense of danger and the illogical feeling that she was not alone. The sound of her footsteps echoed loudly and masked other sounds, but beneath the din she thought she heard a voice. Immediately, she froze, like a startled deer. While her eyes darted between the path she had already taken and the stairs she had yet to follow, her ears strained to hear the sound again. The silence was deafening.

  She could have sworn she smelled lavender.

  Clenching her teeth against the shaking which was working its way through her body, she gripped the handrail and forced herself to finish the journey. Her leather saddlebag smacked heavily against her hip as she raced down the stairs. Finally, when her feet hit the ground floor, she gave in to the impulse to run along the wide corridor leading to the car park exit, her bag flapping behind her. She fumbled with the door code twice but, eventually, it opened. She thrust outside into the cool night air and cast her eyes across the darkened tarmac to where her car stood, illuminated by one of the large spotlights lining the staff car park. As her stomach jittered, she asked herself why she had stubbornly refused Phillips’ offer of a lift home, or his offer to stay with her while she went over the footage.

  Pride.

  Her experience with Colin Hart had shaken her up, more than she realised. After a strong cup of sugary tea in the staff canteen, embarrassment had crept in. She cringed at how she had practically run away, displaying what she considered a weak attitude towards her job. Once the dust had settled she had been keen to prove, mostly to herself, that she was back to normal.

  That was why she had pushed Phillips away, telling him to pack up and go home. She had even refused his offer of dinner, made by his own fair hands. He was, amazingly, an excellent cook. She had regretted her decision the moment he left the Incident Room but she regretted it even more now.

  She peeled herself away from the wall at her back and prepared to make a run for it and to hell with what anybody thought.

  But, in horrified slow motion, she spun around as the door behind her opened again and a figure emerged, his face shadowed.

  Fear clutched at her throat like a fist. A half-strangled sound escaped her and she stumbled backwards, her feet trying desperately to catch up with the voice inside her head, which commanded her to move, to act now.

  “Denise?” Jeff Pinter stepped out of the doorway and shrugged into his long overcoat. “Everything alright?”

  “J-Jeff?”

  Denise stayed where she was, one hand braced against the side of the wall for support, adrenaline pumping through her system, still primed for flight.

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” He chuckled at his own weak joke.

  “What are you doing here?” Embarrassment made her voice sharp and Jeff held up his hands in appeal.

  “Woah, there, calm down. I thought I might catch Ryan, since he usually works late, but apparently I’ve missed him.”

  Denise didn’t back down.

  “You could have called him, instead. What do you need to speak to him about, anyway?”

  Jeff frowned, his face concerned.

  “I was going to offer to go over the old reports I compiled on Edwards’ victims, to make sure there weren’t any oversights,” he replied easily. “Are you OK? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  MacKenzie’s heart rate had slowed and her breathing had steadied sufficiently for her to pull herself upright. She hedged Pinter’s question, giving herself a few seconds to regain her composure by straightening her jacket and hitching her bag a bit higher on her shoulder.

  “I’m fine, Jeff. You startled me, that’s all.”

  He clucked his tongue sympathetically.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, drawing on a thin pair of gloves. “But, you know, a lady shouldn’t be out so late at night, all by herself.”

  MacKenzie’s teeth snapped together. Her natural instinct was to respond in kind with some sort of caustic remark to the effect that it was equally dangerous for men as for women, but she was used to Pinter’s old-school approach to life. Besides, she had felt frightened. Another thing to add to her rapidly growing list of things to feel mortified about today.

  “Well, it’s high time I went home. Goodnight, Jeff.”

  “Why don’t I walk you to your car?”

  It was a kind offer, MacKenzie thought. Why, then, did it sound threatening?

  “No, really, Jeff. I’ll be fine on my own. See you around.”

  “Don’t be silly, it’s no trouble,” he persisted, picking up his leather briefcase as if to join her.

  Denise started to panic and she scrambled around her jumbled mind for another excuse to put him off. At that moment, she caught another movement out of the corner of her eye and she could have cried with relief.

  Phillips ambled across the car park from the direction of what was affectionately known in CID as the ‘Pie Van’. Some of the flaky pastry had crumbled onto the collar of his coat and there was a small gravy stain at the knot of his tie, which told tales of his misadventures. Spotting Denise beside the side door, he raised a hand in greeting and squinted to see who stood beside her, in the shadows.

  “Pinter?”

  “Evening, Frank,” came the breezy reply.

  Phillips noticed instantly that MacKenzie was not looking herself. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that she was terrified. In a subtle move, he slid an arm around her waist and felt her lean against him for support.

  One of the things he loved most about Denise MacKenzie was her fierce, sometimes prickly, independence. Earlier, when she had kicked him out of the Incident Room, he had allowed her to believe that he had taken her at her word, right until he reached the elevator and thought better of it. He had taken a turn around the block and ended up at the Pie Van, where he had stalled for a further twenty minutes munching happily before shaking himself off and heading back to CID. Throughout that time, MacKenzie’s car had remained within his line of sight, through the wire barrier which separated the car park from the road beyond.

  Now, he was pleased he had risked her wrath and stayed nearby. Whether it was the strain of the day or present company, he couldn’t be sure, but something was clearly upsetting her.

  And whatever upset Denise, upset him.

  “Something I can help you with, Jeff?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait until another day.”

  With a friendly nod, Phillips led MacKenzie away. Behind them, Pinter stood and watched their progress, deep in thought. After a few minutes, he slowly unpeeled his gloves and tucked them back inside the pocket of his coat.

  * * *

  Anna came home after another late lecture to find Ryan engrossed in paperwork. Miles Davis was a welcome intrusion into his silent task, providing a balm to his strung-out nerves. His dark head was bent over a large file of papers and he had changed into well-worn jeans and a loose t-shirt. An empty glass of water stood on the nearby coffee table.

  Anna knew that he was spending more and more of his nights with her and less in the impersonal environment of his own apartment. She had wondered, at first, whether she would find it hard to adapt to the added presence of another person. Instead, she found herself missing those times when he was away from her, a sure sign that he had slotted seamlessly into her life.

  “Ryan?”

  His eyes lifted to seek her out and he smiled, unfolding himself from the cramped position he had occupied for over two hours. He stood up, stretching out his muscles as he did, before leaning in for her kiss.

  “How was your day?” he murmured, running a gentle hand over her cap of shiny hair.

  Anna thought of the endless essays she had marked, the hours spent cooped up in the library. Her body prickled as it re-played the quiver of unease she had experienced, walking do
wn the High Street earlier that day, but she decided not to mention it. The last thing he needed right now was to listen to her melodramatic ideas about imaginary stalkers.

  “Busy,” she answered instead. Her eyes were stinging and her vision was slightly fuzzy from the strain. He noticed the action and frowned.

  “You forgot your glasses, again.”

  “Don’t fuss,” she said, but was touched that he would care. “Have you eaten?”

  “I thought I would wait for you.”

  She looked closely at him. The pallor of his skin and the drawn, anxious face spoke of more than mere tiredness.

  “What happened?”

  He shook his head, hardly knowing where to begin.

  “Edwards happened.”

  Self-consciously, he let go of her. He didn’t want to discuss the man’s name in her presence, but if he had to, it felt better not to talk about him and touch her at the same time. He didn’t want her to connect to Edwards, even conversationally.

  “You went to see him, didn’t you?”

  Anna took a seat on the edge of the coffee table, because it was closest.

  Ryan nodded and prowled around the small living space.

  “It was rough, but the day’s been shitty from the get-go,” he clarified. “Beginning with Pinter finding ritual markings on the body of Claire Burns.”

  Anna stared at him and felt apprehension spread through her chest. She took one long, deep breath.

  “Markings? Are they the same as -?”

  “Yes. An inverted pentagram, slashed into the torso around the time the girl died. We didn’t see it properly until she was, quite literally, pieced back together.”

  Anna looked away from his silvery-grey eyes, somewhere into the distance. The most recent victim had apparently suffered the same cruelty as her own sister, six months earlier. What did it mean? Had the Circle returned, to take another victim?

  “I thought it was finished,” she whispered. “I thought all that was over and done.”

  Ryan took the seat beside her and held both of her hands in his. They felt cold.

  “We don’t know for sure yet that there’s any connection to the Circle,” he tried to reassure her. “In fact, it’s more likely to be someone with an unhealthy obsession over the cases that I’ve worked on in the past.”

  Anna searched his face.

  “You mean someone’s copying the style of previous murders? Why?”

  “Anna, if I could tell you why people did some of the crazy shit they do, it would make my job a hell of a lot easier,” he sighed, but laid it out for her. “We’re looking at someone – a guy called Colin – who’s been writing to Edwards in prison, chatting like old friends. It’s looking like Edwards sent Colin up to Sycamore Gap on Sunday morning, knowing there would be something to find up there. I’m betting Edwards killed Amy, maybe she was his first effort, and he hid her. He directed Colin up there because, for reasons best known to himself, he was happy for her to be found. Either that, or Colin already knew Amy was lying hidden under the stones and he was returning to the scene of his crime. We don’t know, yet. As for Claire Burns, she lived on the same street as Colin Hart and we have a witness who says he was harassing her.”

  “You think Colin might have taken some inspiration from Edwards, in killing Claire?”

  “Very possible.”

  “Whereas, you’re thinking that Edwards killed Amy Llewellyn all those years ago and just never admitted it?”

  Ryan looked at Anna for a long moment. She had summarised the situation commendably, but for all that it made sense, there were gaps that needed plugging.

  “I wish it were that simple. I can’t tell you how much I’d like to wrap it all up in a pretty bow like that and take it to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

  “What’s missing?”

  Ryan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling as he worked through the loopholes in his mind.

  “On one side of the scales, Edwards has admitted that he had a relationship with Amy Llewellyn and we have a statement from a shopkeeper which confirms that he bought the same bracelet found on Amy’s body – in fact, he bought ten of them. On the other side of the scales, no bracelets were found on any of his other victims, so why buy in bulk? Besides which, he claims he didn’t kill Amy, although he wanted to. He says he gave Amy up, voluntarily, to some unknown person.”

  “He knows who killed her?” Anna was horrified.

  “So he claims,” Ryan said conversationally. “But let’s not get carried away. It could still have been him. He’s had time to settle into his surroundings and to find that prison is not to his taste. He doesn’t want another prosecution to add to his existing sentence, so perhaps he’s regretting the fact that she has been found after all these years and he’s trying to divert suspicion from himself.”

  “He’s in prison for life,” Anna said.

  “Yes,” Ryan nodded. “But he’s likely thinking that he can somehow reduce his tariff on the grounds of ‘good behaviour’. This is a man who thinks that ordinary rules don’t apply to him. He believes that he will be able to circumvent the system.”

  “He’s dreaming.”

  “And then some,” Ryan agreed, with a short, mirthless laugh. “But if we do believe him when he says that he gave Amy up, foregoing the opportunity to kill her, then that would explain why none of his DNA was found on her body, or on the bracelet. The trace samples are so small that, if he had touched it, even once, there would be a chance of something being found. Yet, it wasn’t. We’ve got three samples on the bracelet: one belonging to Amy, another one belonging to an unidentified male and a final sample which was confirmed as a match to Colin Hart, just this evening.”

  “It matched? Then, surely, that confirms he killed her?”

  “No,” Ryan shook his head. “It adds weight, but the downside to the Low Copy Number DNA testing is that, with the samples being so small, it could have come from Colin coughing over the bones when he found them. He might have touched the bracelet when he found it on Sunday, which is almost certainly what he would argue in court. We’ve got added weight, but it’s not an airtight case.”

  Anna felt his frustration keenly.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The only thing I know for certain is that our killer wants attention. He wanted Amy to be found, or at least he wants to be credited for her murder. Claire’s murder told us a lot about his psychology; he managed to copy Edwards’ MO, firstly using a pressure syringe to sedate her, then using adrenaline and antibiotic to keep her alive while he dissected her, until she died from massive cardiac arrest. That was Edwards’ style. But, to cap it all off, our perp has also managed to copy the ritual style we found at Holy Island, by slashing the torso. Not forgetting that all of these girls went missing or died around June 21st, which is the summer solstice.”

  Anna listened intently, imagining the kind of mutated mind that could conceive of so much pain.

  “It’s like he’s giving you the finger.”

  Unexpectedly, Ryan laughed.

  “Got it in one.”

  “How will you handle it?” Anna saw the visible signs of strain and wondered what else had been said while Ryan had been cooped up in a room with Keir Edwards.

  Ryan shrugged it off.

  “Same way I always do,” he replied. “First thing tomorrow, we’re bringing Colin back in for questioning, this time under arrest on suspicion of murder. In the meantime, he can enjoy his last night playing Scrabble with Mother Hart, who probably has no idea what a naughty boy her son has been.”

  * * *

  While Ryan listened to mellow jazz music with Anna, another man allowed himself to enjoy some peace and solitude, after a punishingly long day. Finally, he could retreat to his own corner of the world, away from the daily stresses of his everyday life, away from other people. He could sit and ruminate.

  He thought of the police and the visits they had paid, but tried to put that out of his mind.
It was nothing he couldn’t handle. He glanced towards the ceiling, with its ornate plasterwork and centrepiece chandelier, and felt his blood boil. Deliberately, he looked away again and tried to clear his mind, to empty it of all the inconsequential things, which usually clogged it. Were it not for the prosaic vicissitudes which filled his days, he would be able to spend more time on the work he really loved. Instead of living the empty, false shell he inhabited each day, he could be the man he really wished to be.

  He could flourish.

  He looked across at a tall, mahogany cabinet, the key for which he always kept on his person. With a sly smile, he fished around the waistband of his trousers and found the little hidden pocket, which he had sewn there himself. He drew out a small brass key.

  Anticipation coursed through his body as he unlocked the cabinet. Before viewing its contents, he closed the door to this room and locked it. He pulled on two pairs of thin gloves. He was a careful, cautious man. He opened the polished doors to reveal several file stackers, filled with different coloured plastic wallets.

  His hand hovered over the files, deliberating his choice.

  Eventually, he selected a red wallet and retreated to his chair with it clutched to his breast. There, in the quiet room, he re-lived the delicious memory of it all. He re-read the neat, intricate notes he had made before and after, allowing the sensation of killing to flow through his veins. Reverently, he ran his fingertips over the single photograph he had allowed himself to take, which captured beautifully the fear and confusion of his last victim.

  Much later, after he had sated himself, he closed the file again and returned it to its rightful place in his cabinet, which was ordered alphabetically. Every now and again, he needed to remember, to relive those magical moments and feel powerful again. Usually, he could survive on those memories for long periods of time before he needed to kill again.