by LJ Ross
“Jack?”
“Mm hmm?” he said, while he lifted the broken television up into his arms.
“Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said, tapping the edge of the box. “I’ll put it in the garage, for now—”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” she smiled. “I meant…thanks for all this.”
She spread her arms to indicate the room, their home—the life they now shared. It was more than anything she’d ever had before, and it would take some getting used to.
“I’m so glad we managed to work things out, so we could get to this point in our lives.”
Jack set the television down again and stepped carefully over the cat’s tail to link his arms around her waist.
“Mel, there’d be no home without you in it,” he said softly. “I should be thanking you for being so patient and forgiving. I know it hasn’t been easy, at times, and I’m sorry.”
Rather than answering him directly, she reached for a sprig of fake mistletoe that had somehow lodged itself behind one of the sofa cushions and held it aloft.
“Christmas kiss?” she offered.
“Let’s keep it hanging all year round,” Jack replied, and gathered her into his arms.
CHAPTER 5
By the time Ryan arrived at the Northumbria Police Headquarters on the stroke of nine, he’d lost count of the number of strong coffees he’d already imbibed that morning, but could be certain of one thing: there was always room for more.
He made a beeline for a trendy-looking vehicle, affectionately known as the ‘Pie Van’. It might have rebranded itself and polished up its rough edges, but ‘Stevie’s Coffee Shack’ would forever be known to the men and women of the Northumbria Criminal Investigation Department as the place to go for caffeine, sugar, carbs and questionable meat sources—which was just the way they liked it.
“Five coffees, please,” Ryan said, and yawned again. “Three with milk, two without, and throw a couple of sugar sachets on the side.”
It was a point of principle that he would never step foot inside CID without bringing his staff their first ‘proper’ coffee of the day.
“Cow’s milk, almond milk, soya milk or goat’s milk?” Stevie asked.
Ryan blinked. “What?”
“Cow’s mi—”
“No, I heard you the first time. I was just shocked you’d ask me, after all these years.”
Stevie stroked the beard he thought made him look ‘hipster’—but which, in reality, bore a strong resemblance to the one modelled by Captain Birdseye—and crossed his tattooed arms on the serving counter.
“Sorry, mate, it gets to be a habit,” he said. “Everybody’s changin’ their lifestyle, these days, and nobody gives you any notice until you’ve already frothed the milk. Take Frank—for ten years or more, he’s been asking me for coffee with full-fat milk and two sugars; three, if Denise isn’t lookin’. Then, out of the blue, he starts asking for a peppermint tea.”
Ryan frowned. “You’re sure this was Frank Phillips?”
“One and the same,” Stevie said, and crooked a finger to beckon Ryan closer. “There’s somethin’ else, n’all.”
Ryan’s interest was piqued, a matter he put down to the fact he’d been spending far too much time watching episodes of Peppa Pig with Emma.
“What?” he asked, in a stage whisper.
“He hasn’t ordered a bacon stottie for two weeks, now,” Stevie said, triumphantly. “I asked him if there’d been owt wrong with the bread…but he said he just didn’t fancy one.”
Ryan could hardly believe his ears. “You’re having me on,” he decided.
“God’s my witness,” Stevie said, crossing his chest. “I was so shocked you could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”
Ryan felt much the same way, and he accepted a tray of hot drinks with the look of a man who had been told the Earth was not round, but flat, after all.
Frank Phillips not wanting a stottie cake?
Peppermint tea?
Had the world gone completely mad?
There was only one way to get to the bottom of it, and that was to go to the source.
* * *
When Ryan entered the large, open-plan office that was home to the Major Crimes Unit, he found several familiar faces but none belonging to his sergeant.
“Jack? Mel? Have either of you seen Frank?”
Lowerson spun around in his desk chair with a friendly smile.
“Morning, boss! No, I don’t think he’s in yet—”
“I saw MacKenzie’s car parked outside,” Yates interjected, and smiled her thanks when Ryan passed her a steaming cardboard cup from the tray he still held. “Frank and Denise usually travel in together after dropping Sam off at school, unless they need two cars for some reason.”
At that moment, Frank’s wife—and professional senior, in the workplace—wandered back into the office, having taken a few minutes in the ladies’ room to remove the black mascara that had been smeared liberally across her face.
“Denise?”
“Morning!” she said, shrugging out of her woollen coat. “How’s the new parent doing, today?”
Momentarily distracted by thoughts of Emma, Ryan’s face softened into a loving smile.
“Tired, which is an ironic thing for a lifelong insomniac to feel,” he joked. “Pity it’s taken me this long to appreciate the value of sleep.”
Denise grinned. “Too late now,” she said. “Mind you, we have the opposite problem with Samantha. It’s more of a problem trying to get her up in the mornings. I thought it was only teenagers who liked to lounge around in bed all day.”
“Teenagers, and me—if I could,” Lowerson put in, with a wink for Mel.
“Chance would be a fine thing, with that feral cat running about the place,” she shot back, with good humour. “Ryan, if you ever want to do a swap, just let me know. I have a feeling Emma is much easier to handle than Sir Pawsalot.”
Ryan’s lips quirked. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, and turned back to Denise. “Actually, Mac, I was looking for Frank. Is he in the office, yet?”
MacKenzie dropped down into her chair and took a grateful swig of the coffee he’d brought her.
“Yep, he’s gone down to the gym for a quick, twenty-minute run before the briefing starts.”
Three faces turned to her in shock.
First the stotties, now this, Ryan thought. Perhaps there was something seriously wrong.
“Is Frank ill?” he asked bluntly.
MacKenzie shook her head in amusement.
“No, he’s just decided to start looking after himself a bit more,” she explained. “I’ve already told him that I love him just the same, but he thinks that, now we have Samantha, there’s even more reason for him to stay healthy. He’s still a strong man and a good boxer, so he’s started heading back to Buddle’s every once in a while to spar with some of the old crowd.”
Buddle’s Boxing Gym was a legendary establishment located in the historic west end of Newcastle, in an area that was now run-down following the closure of all the old factories that used to operate on the waterfront. Although the place had seen more nefarious criminals than world-class boxers, it was also true that it had been a community lifeline for decades of youths—including a young Frank Phillips, who’d learned to channel his energies rather than roam the streets without hope or aspiration. Buddle’s had little in the way of kerb appeal, according to Ryan’s own recollection—which was somewhat outdated, as it had been three years since he’d stepped inside the crumbling seventies prefab—but what it lacked in that department, it more than made up for in heart and soul.
“Frank always had a solid right hook,” he mused, lifting a hand to rub a phantom ache in his jaw. “Anything I can do to support the Health Drive?”
MacKenzie’s lips twitched. “Apart from keeping the biscuits under lock and key? Have you got any chickens he can chase around?”
Ryan flashed a smile, which tra
nsformed the hard lines of his handsome face into something extraordinary.
“We’ve got a cat he can chase,” Yates threw back over her shoulder. “Although, I can’t promise it won’t chase him, instead.”
Laughing at the image in his mind’s eye, Ryan left them to go in search of his sergeant. As he made his way down the wide corridor towards the stairwell, he realised that, for a few precious minutes, he’d been able to laugh with his friends and colleagues as if life were back to normal.
He’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
* * *
Ryan jogged down to the basement, where he found Phillips pounding one of the treadmills while singing along to whichever seventies disco classic was playing through the ancient headphones adorning his shiny, balding head. Sensing his arrival, Frank waved a cheerful hand and jabbed a button to slow the machine to a walk, his rounded face red and dripping with hard-earned sweat. He wore a pair of running shorts that were, at a conservative estimate, over thirty years old and spread alarmingly tight across the man’s buttocks, and his burly chest was encased in a t-shirt bearing a logo Ryan could no longer make out, given the number of washings it had evidently seen since it was made at the turn of the century.
Grinning openly, Ryan reached for the towel slung over a nearby rail and tossed it over to him.
“Need this?”
“Aye, thanks,” Phillips said, and scrubbed it over his face and neck before checking the clock on the wall. “Shaved off a minute or two since the last run.”
Ryan tried not to goggle at this gym-going stranger, presently masquerading as his friend and sergeant.
“You didn’t tell me you were getting back on the health wagon,” he remarked. “Are you feeling all right…in the head?”
“Har bloody har,” Phillips replied. “For your information, I’m feelin’ top o’ the bill.”
Ryan raised a single, dark eyebrow, both in surprise and delight.
“I like jogging myself,” he said, quite genuinely. “We could head out for a quick run at lunchtimes, now and then, if you fancy it.”
Phillips cast a beady eye over his friend’s six feet two inches of solid athletic muscle, then considered his own somewhat…cuddlier frame, and sighed.
“Well, the thing is, lad, that’s a nice thought but…well, look at me, and look at you.”
Ryan gave him a blank stare, so he tried speaking plainly.
“I mean to say…look, there’s no beatin’ round the bush. I’m a fat bastard, and you’re not. I’d only slow you down.”
His friend blinked, then let out a rich peal of laughter.
“Frank, I’d hardly describe you in those terms,” Ryan said, recovering himself. “Carrying a few extra pounds here and there isn’t the end of the world. Besides, I thought you said a bit of extra padding keeps you warm in the winter, and ‘gives the lasses something to hold on to’?”
That was true enough, Phillips thought.
“There’s a world of difference between a bit of winter padding and walking around wearing a whole bloody duvet,” he said, with brutal honesty. “Anyway, I thought it was about time I shifted some of the bulk, especially as…”
He stopped and took a sip of water.
“Especially as—what?” Ryan prodded.
Phillips sighed. “Y’know I’m older than Denise,” he said, quietly. “She might not mind, and I don’t mind it so much, any more…but now there’s Samantha to think of. I want to be around as long as possible for both of them—that poor lass has seen too much heartache, already.”
As ever, Ryan found himself humbled by his friend. Despite his gruff exterior, Phillips was all heart and fiercely loyal to those he loved—qualities you couldn’t teach down at the training academy.
“They’re lucky to have you,” he said simply. “And, for the record, you’d never slow me down, Frank. For starters, you’re as stubborn as an old mule. When have you ever let me get one over you?”
“True,” Phillips mused, rubbing a thoughtful hand over his chin. “All true.”
“So, what do you say?” Ryan prodded. “Fancy a run around the block, tomorrow?”
Phillips narrowed his button-brown eyes, then gave a reluctant smile.
“Aye, you’re on. But don’t think I’ll go easy on you, just because you haven’t slept in five months.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ryan said. “And, don’t think I’ll go easy on you, just because you haven’t had a bacon stottie in three weeks.”
Phillips gave him a knowing look.
“Might’ve known Stevie couldn’t keep that one under his hat,” he said, with a rumbling laugh. “Bet he’s been burstin’ to tell you.”
“In the man’s defence, I think he was worried you’d suffered some sort of mental break,” Ryan said.
“He might be right,” Phillips muttered, and began limping towards the shower room, grumbling under his breath about the things he did for love.
“Briefing in ten!” Ryan called after him.
“Aye, if I make it that far!”
CHAPTER 6
Nine months had passed since the robbery at Durham Cathedral, which had enabled a small band of criminals to steal what many believed to be Saint Cuthbert’s original golden pectoral cross. To create a diversion while the theft was underway, they’d staged an explosion that had caused minimal damage to the cathedral, but serious damage to Anna. Ryan would never forget the moment he’d learned the news that she’d been taken to hospital nor the long hours and days that followed, when he’d thought he might lose his wife, his soulmate, best friend, and their unborn child, as well as all the dreams they’d had of growing old together. Luckily, both Anna and Emma had survived, for which he was eternally grateful.
Others had not been so lucky.
Detective Chief Inspector Joan Tebbutt, a respected and longstanding colleague based from the Major Crimes Unit in Durham, had lost her life on the same day. Assassinated on the doorstep of her own home, Tebbutt hadn’t seen it coming—nobody could have—and the shock of her death had sent a rippling tidal wave of grief and anger across all the local area command divisions.
In the immediate aftermath of the heist, and once he’d been reassured of his wife’s status, Ryan and his team had devoted their collective energies to investigating who had killed Tebbutt, and, more importantly, why. At the same time, they’d done everything in their power to track down a missing artefact that was irreplaceable in historic and cultural terms.
To their surprise, the two lines of enquiry had converged.
Tebbutt had been gunned down by one of her own team; a young woman by the name of Justine Winter, who’d chosen to take her own life rather than face the scales of justice. That same young woman had been a party to torturing a man by the name of Edward Faber, who’d spent many years operating in the criminal underworld as a high-class forger, before turning informant. When their investigations turned up the fact that Tebbutt had been Faber’s contact during her time spent on the Fraud Team, things began to unravel. Through a stroke of technological genius, they were able to triangulate the location of the robbers using their phone signals and track down the missing cross in the process, leading many to believe the case was closed, and their troubles all over.
Except for one, niggling fact…
The cross they recovered was an excellent forgery; a fact Faber had discovered and reported to the late Joan Tebbutt.
Ryan believed—right down to his bones—that Faber had been tortured until he’d confessed to sharing his knowledge of the forgery with DCI Tebbutt, thereby signing her death warrant. But, the questions of why a young detective of good standing would involve herself in perpetrating such violent crimes, and of why a gang of criminals would go to such lengths to hide the fact that the cross they’d stolen—in spectacular style—was a fake, were unanswered. Until they were, there remained the possibility that Ryan and other members of his team were targets in the same way Tebbutt and Faber had been. To protect himself,
his team and their loved ones, Ryan had taken the executive decision not to make public their knowledge of the forgery, which afforded them a short window of time to try to find out the answers they so desperately needed.
Ryan had his own theories but, unfortunately, no proof—despite having spent several months conducting a covert investigation in the hope of generating new leads. In the meantime, there had been no further robberies, no further assassinations or reports of torture killings aside from the usual gang-related assaults, and ‘The Powers that Be’ were growing impatient with his methods.
It could only be a matter of time before the order came to shut it down.
With such troubling thoughts circulating his mind, Ryan made his way to one of the smaller conference rooms and prepared to deliver what might be his last covert briefing on the matter of the missing cross.
* * *
A little after nine-thirty, Ryan’s small team of trusted men and women assembled for their bi-weekly briefing on what had come to be known as ‘Operation Bertie’. Their meetings were held at irregular times on irregular days, quite deliberately; the reason for their absence being listed in the departmental diary as something innocuous each time.
Ryan moved to the head of the oval table in the centre of the room, having shut the door firmly behind them.
“Anybody ask where you were going?”
There were negative responses all round.
“Good,” he said. “It may have been a few months, but we can’t afford to get complacent. Tebbutt was one of ours and, like it or not, so was Winter. Whoever managed to turn Justine Winter infiltrated our ranks, and it could happen again.”
“That was over in Durham—” Lowerson started to say, but one look silenced him.
“Winter was one of ours,” Ryan repeated. “The fact she was based in a different area command makes no difference. If we’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that almost anybody can be susceptible to blackmail or coercion.”
