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

by LJ Ross

  She sighed.

  “I know, and I’m sorry. I just couldn’t face going back up there, not after everything that happened.”

  “That’s all in the past,” he said, with a flick of his wrist.

  “Is it? Sometimes I think I’ll never forget the sight of him above me, knife poised –”

  “Don’t dwell on it,” Mark interjected. “He was out of control; a madman. Thankfully, he was stopped before it was too late.”

  “If Ryan hadn’t made it back in time …”

  Mark cast his eye around the room with its warm tones and scattered frames of Anna and Ryan in various settings. How neatly the man had slotted into her life, Mark thought. Yet he, who had known her since she was a child, still remained on the outside, forever looking in.

  “How about life at the university?” He diverted the conversation neatly away from Ryan’s heroics.

  “Oh, never a dull moment,” Anna replied gaily, but there were shadows around her eyes. Her long-limbed body had always been slim, but it was looking especially slender in the casual summer shorts and loose t-shirt she wore. He tried not to notice the length of her legs or the smooth curve of her cheek as she turned to rest her cup on a side table.

  “I’m glad you visited,” she began and, fool that he was, he felt a flush of happiness at the sentiment. “I’ve been meaning to pick your brain about something.”

  Of course, he thought.

  “How can I help?”

  “Do you remember Jane Freeman?”

  Mark took his time finishing his tea, replacing the cup and saucer with care.

  “Yes, of course. She was one of my PhD students, whilst I was still working at the university. I believe she was appointed one of the senior archaeologists for National Heritage in the region, with particular oversight of Hadrian’s Wall territory. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no special reason; curiosity, mainly. Ryan has had some dealings with her, recently, as part of an investigation he’s been working on.”

  “Ah, yes,” Mark said knowingly. He, too, had seen the interview Ryan had given. “Those girls found inside the wall?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Jane was rather ambitious for my taste,” Mark continued, crossing one chino-clad leg comfortably over the other. “She always managed to convey the impression that she would sell her own grandmother if she thought she could get ahead.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I had the same impression,” Anna agreed, grudgingly. One of the things her mother had always taught her was that, if she didn’t have anything kind to say, it was better to say nothing at all. Sadly, experience had taught Anna that she was much more human than that, and much less forgiving.

  “I take it she’s been flapping around the site, making life difficult?”

  Mark smiled, the tiny crows feet beside his eyes crinkling with shared understanding.

  “I think so,” Anna nodded. “Then again, Ryan always seems so capable of handling himself and other people. I can’t think of anybody who has ever concerned him, except perhaps the man who killed his sister, of course.”

  Mark listened, but said nothing.

  “I’m not sure I could say the same,” Anna admitted.

  “You’re still troubled by what happened, on the island?”

  She nodded, looking away briefly. She felt that she could tell Mark her woes; he had known her since she was a young girl with scuffed knees and fading bruises. He had shown her kindness and what it meant to be a friend. He had seen her progression, from the girl with the dysfunctional family, to the woman seated before him. Not without scars, not without hurts, but stronger for them.

  “Maybe I just need more time.”

  “I’m sure that’s it,” he nodded. “Unless … would it be a stretch to assume there are similar overtones in Ryan’s present case? Young girls being killed, in a site of historic importance …” he trailed off.

  She sighed.

  “Not to mention the dates,” he observed. “You’d have to be blind not to notice the significance, after recent events.”

  Anna felt her chest tighten. She had hoped that Ryan was right, that it was just somebody using the date as a snub to the Holy Island murders, but what if they were wrong? What if her secret fears had a real foundation and the Circle still existed?

  Mark saw the fear crossing her expressive face and reached across to pat her hand. He wished he could have done more. Instead, he said,

  “I’m sure that Ryan has things well in hand.”

  Anna smiled weakly. It would be disloyal to say otherwise, to express her worries for Ryan’s health and the toll that the investigation was taking on him even after only a few days. Last night had been the worst so far. After visiting Keir Edwards, he had clawed at the bed like a maniac, fighting Edwards all over again in his sleep.

  She had tried to wake him to break the awful cycle of memories but when his eyes opened, Ryan had looked straight through her. Then, he had been angry and irritable. Instead of finding comfort in each other, he had pulled away from her to roam downstairs for the remaining hours of the night.

  She said nothing of that to Mark.

  “I don’t understand the mentality,” she picked up the thread of their conversation. “I don’t understand why people would chant and do unspeakable acts of violence in the name of – what? Satan?”

  Mark watched the confusion, the yearning to understand, and wished that he could help her.

  “People have committed all kinds of unspeakable acts over the centuries, in the name of one religion or another.”

  Anna frowned.

  ‘You think the Circle considered their cult to be a religion of some kind?”

  “The press seems to think they’re pagans, without a religion,” was all he said.

  “You and I both know that’s a generalisation.” As a historian specialising in pagan history, she knew better than most that it was misleading to apply such a vague label, especially in relation to contemporary practices.

  Mark shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s true, in a technical sense. If by ‘pagan’, they mean anyone who does not follow the orthodox, usually Christian viewpoint, then you could say that the Circle on Holy Island was pagan.”

  “You’re saying they were ‘unorthodox’?” Anna laughed. “Surely, that’s an understatement. There are perfectly harmless groups of neo-Pagans all around the country who dance and sing to the solstice, hoping for a good yield. The men and women who comprised the Circle were mentally unstable.”

  “Lucky, then, that it’s been disbanded.”

  “I’m not sure that it has been,” she spoke seriously again.

  Mark raised his eyebrows.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Anna locked her warm brown eyes onto his and he felt the usual pull in return.

  “You said yourself, the dates are significant,” she avoided answering the question fully, once again conscious that she was not at liberty to discuss the ritual markings found on Claire Burns’ body.

  “That could easily be a question of chance,” he said reasonably.

  She tucked her feet up beside her on the sofa opposite him, unconsciously returning to the foetal position as she thought of her misgivings yesterday.

  “I know you’re right,” she said, trying to project an air of confidence. “I think I’m getting paranoid in my old age.”

  She offered a weak smile but he was unconvinced.

  “Anna, you know how much I care about you,” he said earnestly, thinking that she had no conception of how much he cared. “If there’s anything I can do to help you, I will.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, really. I’m being silly. I’m probably tired, after one or two late nights.”

  They began to talk of other things; of history, of the places they had visited around the world and the countries yet to see. All the time, Mark remained painfully aware of the subordinate position he occupied in her life and, try as he might, h
e could not help resenting it.

  * * *

  Keir Edwards completed a new personal best in abdominal crunches and was pleased with the results when he surveyed himself critically in the short panel of reflective Perspex, which passed for a window. The six-pack he had been so proud of was developing into a ridge of eight now. That was one of the few good things about spending long hours with only himself for company: he could devote himself to … himself.

  Chuckling, he angled himself to check the time on the white clock hanging at the end of the hallway. It was nearly time for his regular eleven-fifteen telephone call.

  He checked and re-checked the corridors for signs of life, but heard only the usual ranting and shouting from the solitary cells around him.

  When he was satisfied that he would not be disturbed by a wayward guard, he tugged the metal bed away from the wall and with extreme care, removed a corner of one of the breeze-blocks which lined the walls. Inside the cavity, there was a grey sock, inside of which rested a pay-as-you-go mobile phone with the ringer muted.

  He tugged it free and waited for the call to come.

  He spent a few minutes discussing recent developments and then replaced the phone inside the hollowed space, happy with the day’s entertainment so far. He considered topping it off with a phone call to one or other of the pathetic women who wrote to him almost daily, vowing undying love and affection, but the thought of having to feign interest bored him before he had even begun.

  Perhaps, on a slow day, he’d get around to it.

  * * *

  At the same time that Mark Bowers left Anna’s cottage, Ryan found MacKenzie at her desk in CID Headquarters.

  “Mac?”

  Denise looked up from where she had been poring over the statements received from Claire Burns’ family, for the tenth time.

  “Where are the rest of the team?”

  “I left Phillips in charge of operations at Colin Hart’s house. Faulkner is still going over things there and he’s likely to be a few hours, yet.”

  “I heard about Geraldine Hart,” MacKenzie said. “It’s pointing dead centre at Colin, isn’t it?”

  Ryan pulled over a chair from a neighbouring desk, the metal legs scraping tracks across the thin carpet. He straddled the chair and rested his arms along the back of the seat, fixing her with his sphinx-like stare.

  “Did you find any CCTV footage?”

  MacKenzie sighed.

  “No. I’ve referred it to the tech team, but they’ll be hours if not days …”

  Ryan nodded. It was just as he had suspected.

  “It’s looking like Colin fled the house through the back garden,” he said simply. “The DCs who had him under observation obviously didn’t account for the trellising along the back wall, which enabled him to climb over into next door’s garden. You can see where the ivy has been damaged and his footprints are all over the soil beneath.”

  MacKenzie felt a twinge of fear.

  “There’s an APW out, has been for hours,” Ryan was quick to snuff out any panic. “His car is still on the drive, so we know he didn’t have transportation of his own. There are no records of him having used his cards in the last six hours and certainly no car rentals from any of the agencies across the city.”

  “The helicopter couldn’t find him?”

  “We asked the traffic helicopter to have a sweep,” Ryan replied. “They couldn’t find him. No sightings, nothing. He’s vanished, Denise.”

  “How?”

  “Precisely my question,” Ryan smiled, the light of battle turning his eyes from dark grey to pale silver. “I think someone picked him up.”

  MacKenzie frowned.

  “How is it possible that the DCs missed that?”

  “They were stationed outside Colin’s house,” he said. And happened to be two of the most hapless blokes he’d ever met. “The direction of his escape seems to end at the house three doors down. He climbed over the garden walls to get there and I’m betting he tried the back doors until he found one that was left open. In this case, the kitchen window at Number 28 was wide open to visitors. The DCs wouldn’t have seen him coming out of the front door of a house which lies much further down the street, outside their eye-line.”

  “He’s like a poor man’s Pink Panther,” she said disparagingly, with a hint of her former flair. “What makes you think he had help?”

  “Telephone records,” Ryan replied without pause. “Colin made two phone calls from his home line yesterday; one was to his solicitor.”

  “And the other one?”

  “Well, that’s the interesting thing, Denise. I know exactly who the other number belongs to. In fact, so do you.”

  MacKenzie turned fully around in her chair, all ears.

  “I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind undertaking some reconnaissance?”

  MacKenzie crossed her excellent legs and raised one finely arched eyebrow. She may have been spooked, but it would be a cold day in hell before Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie wasn’t up to a challenge.

  “Talk to me.”

  Ryan walked across to the double doors of the Incident Room and with a sharp glance in both directions, locked them from the inside.

  “This needs to be done properly,” he wanted to make that clear, from the outset.

  “Naturally.” She paused. “Does Frank know?”

  Ryan had thought about not telling Phillips for about a nanosecond before laying out the entire plan, in full. It was about knowing whom you could trust.

  “He knows,” Ryan said evenly.

  He couldn’t say that Phillips was entirely happy about it. In fact, when he had aired the idea to his sergeant, he had nearly found himself in a headlock. He had coaxed and cajoled but eventually Ryan had played his trump card.

  “Phillips,” he had said. “Do you respect MacKenzie, as a good policewoman? Do you think she can handle herself?”

  “’Course I bloody do! What the hell do you take me for?”

  “Then, let her do her job. She can do this.”

  “Ryan, I love that woman. Do you hear me? If anything happens to her, I’ll break your scrawny neck and I don’t care how much we’ve been through.”

  They had shaken hands on it, because that was fair enough. If anything did happen to MacKenzie, Ryan would be ready to break his own scrawny neck.

  * * *

  DC Jack Lowerson looked up from his bored position playing Solitaire at the sound of Ryan’s purposeful stride down the centre aisle of the ward.

  “Sir?”

  Ryan nearly smiled at the eagerness. He conducted a quick assessment and thought that Jack’s colour looked good. He also noticed that the same pretty young nurse bustled straight over to check that Lowerson had all he needed.

  “I’m fi –”

  “Actually, we could do with some fresh water over here,” Ryan overrode Lowerson, all charm. The nurse hurried off to fill the jug on the table, which lay untouched.

  “Fancy a walk?” Ryan asked cheerfully.

  Jack gave him a bewildered look.

  “I thought you wanted water?”

  “Changed my mind. Let’s go for a wander.”

  He led Lowerson out of the ward, one hand under his arm, checking the nurse’s station as he went.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m busting you out of here.”

  Lowerson started to panic. While he was in the hospital, unwell, he was also safe from the world that awaited him outside. He still had no idea what he was going to do about it, but he wasn’t ready to leave.

  He began to dig in his heels, but Ryan practically shoved him inside one of the large hospital lifts before rounding on him.

  “You ready to get back to work?”

  Lowerson stopped fidgeting, in sheer surprise.

  “I – yes, I suppose so –”

  “Yes, or no?”

  Lowerson followed instinct, to hell with the rest.

  “Yes.”

  “I nee
d your absolute discretion, Jack. This goes no further.”

  The Adam’s apple in Lowerson’s throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed. If there was one thing that Jack understood, it was how to keep his mouth shut.

  “What do you need?”

  “I need you to be my eyes and ears, and to be a shield for MacKenzie.”

  “MacKenzie? What’s going on?”

  “I can’t do it myself, Jack, I’m too recognisable, too visible. MacKenzie is working on a special project,” he laid out the plan in summary and watched Lowerson’s young mouth turn from eager to angry.

  “I don’t believe it,” he hissed. “The bastard –”

  “Cool, calm, collected,” Ryan reminded him. “I need you to think with this.” He tapped a finger to Jack’s temple.

  “I need forensic evidence,” Ryan said simply. “I want to draw him out of hiding. I want him to be tempted to kill again, but this time, we’ll be waiting for him.”

  “It’s risky.”

  “I know,” Ryan agreed. “That’s why I need people around me that I can trust.”

  “You can rely on me.”

  * * *

  Elsewhere, the streets were mobbed with a lunchtime crowd. Families looked for somewhere to sit and eat sandwiches while young children flicked yoghurt; office workers and shop assistants sought a quiet corner to themselves without needing to think about KPIs or the Customer Always Being Right. Pigeons circled above Grey’s Monument, the stone needle jutting from the ground at the apex of Newcastle’s historic centre. At its foot, teenagers lounged on the steps of the monument, chattering loudly. All around was activity; along the grand, nineteenth century streets, which led from there down to the cathedral and eventually to the River Tyne.

  Two men walked along Grey Street, past the theatre with its Doric columns and signs advertising the Moscow State Ballet.

  “He paid a visit to Lowerson this afternoon,” Gregson began without any pleasantries. There was no time for them.

  The High Priest continued to stroll along the busy street, confident that they would not be noticed amongst the horde.

  “This is exactly what I anticipated,” he said, without a trace of complacency or censure. Somehow, that made it all the more menacing.

  “Where is Lowerson now?”