Cuthbert's Way: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 17)

by LJ Ross

  Lowerson pulled a face, not wishing to remember some of his own demons on that score.

  “Okay, let’s get down to it,” Ryan said, and cast his eyes around the table, looking at each of their faces in turn.

  Phillips, MacKenzie, Lowerson and Yates.

  Each one a trusted friend.

  “We all know why we’re here,” he said, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the table. “But let me spell it out, in case anybody’s forgotten. We know that the artefact we recovered back in March was a fake; that’s been confirmed by Dr Ahern at Durham University, who’s an expert on Cuthbert and his relics.”

  For the same reasons they were now sitting in a room under the guise of completing ‘Continuing Professional Development’, Ahern had agreed to complete confidentiality in the matter of the pectoral cross—for her own protection, if nothing more. The same applied to their Senior Crime Scene Investigator, Tom Faulkner, who was the only other forensic professional to know the truth of the matter.

  “Our working theory is that whoever killed Edward Faber and Joan Tebbutt did so because of what they knew about the cross,” Ryan said. “Faber was killed before the heist, which means they knew the cross was a fake before they stole it—but why would anybody want to steal something they knew to be a fake? The obvious answer would be to conceal the fact from the police, before Tebbutt or Faber had a chance to tell anybody else. The best way to do that was to steal their own forgery.”

  “What I don’t understand is why they’d be so bothered about it,” MacKenzie remarked. “Why would anyone care? So what, if we discovered the cross was a forgery?”

  “Prison is still a deterrent, to some people,” Yates said.

  “Not to a career criminal,” Phillips disagreed, having known a few of them, himself. “They’d do their stretch and chalk it up as part of the game, knowing their families would be looked after on the outside.”

  “True, but we’ve already looked into known operators,” Lowerson put in. “We checked out national and international watchlists, spoke to Europol and all sorts. The fact is, high level jewel thieves or gangs fulfilling black market orders wouldn’t wait around to be caught, and they wouldn’t return to the scene to try to cover it up long after the fact. They’d disappear off to Brazil or wherever and live it up on Ipanema Beach.”

  “Doesn’t sound half bad, when you put it like that,” Phillips joked. “But I take your point, son. Career thieves might get nasty if they’re caught out, or disturbed in the heat of the moment, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to murder a police officer, or go and torture some poor old git who might have spotted the switch. It draws too much attention.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Which brings us back around to our theory, which is that we’re not dealing with a regular career criminal, or even a high-calibre gang of jewel thieves. We’re looking for someone with a very specific reason to have taken the original cross in the first place. Your average criminal wouldn’t go to all the trouble of having the artefact copied—and not just any copy, either, but one that was good enough to fool ninety-nine percent of people.”

  “Aye, it took another top-class forger to spot the difference,” Phillips agreed. “Faber threw a real spanner in the works.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Whoever perpetrated this didn’t want to be discovered, but not necessarily because they fear prison. I think it has to do with the cult of Saint Cuthbert.”

  The region’s most famous saint had died a thousand years ago on the tiny island of Inner Farne, off the coast of Lindisfarne. It was an area they were all well acquainted with; not least his wife, who’d been born on the tiny, atmospheric tidal island an hour or so north of where they were seated. In the years following Cuthbert’s death, his body had reportedly been found ‘incorrupt’ and it was hailed as a miracle. He was venerated as a saint and, thereafter, a cult developed around the dead man’s remains, which were said to have had miraculous healing properties. In Medieval times, to be in possession of a miracle-maker was a very powerful thing, bringing enormous wealth and prestige, so the Benedictine monks had guarded their brother’s body through the ages, to preserve what Ryan would have called an enduring fiction. Yet, there were many who had believed, and who may still believe, that Cuthbert’s relics had the power to heal, and that could be the key to everything.

  “We need to find more connections,” Ryan said, battling his own frustration with the lack of progress. “If the original cross was stolen because of what it represents, we could be dealing with something similar to the Circle.”

  He referred to a cult that formerly operated around the North East, consisting of prominent, influential people including their very own former Detective Chief Superintendent Gregson, who now languished behind bars at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  “There was one key difference there,” MacKenzie said. “Before it was disbanded, the Circle used to cobble together old Satanic and Pagan rituals, bastardising both to give themselves a kind of veneer of respectability and perpetuate the idea of there being otherworldly forces at work. It never had any substance; it was all smoke and mirrors, phony rituals that its followers could use to tell themselves that their actions were all in a higher cause, rather than admitting the truth—that everything they did, they did for their own personal gain.”

  MacKenzie paused, thinking of that fraught time in their lives, before shoving the memories to the back of her mind.

  “In this case, if you’re right about the original theft having something to do with the cult surrounding Saint Cuthbert, we might be dealing with a genuine case of religious fanaticism. Not something whipped up or mashed together to suit the moment, but a longstanding, historic belief system that’s endured for a thousand years.”

  “I don’t see how it’s so different,” Yates said. “Surely, both cults are used as a means of control?”

  “It’s true that any cult can exercise control over its followers,” Ryan said. “Groups forged together on the basis of a common belief system, no matter how ridiculous or untrue, allows its leaders to exert power over people using the same methods we see in other areas, like County Lines. There, you have drug dealers targeting vulnerable people, usually kids, to do their dealing well outside city limits. They bring them on board with freebies and promises, then keep them with threats.”

  Ryan lifted a shoulder.

  “Same applies to dirty coppers,” he said. “Some of them don’t flip because they want to, but because they’ve been caught out. Maybe they pilfer a bag of coke during a drugs bust because the other officers are all doing it, egging him on. Later, those same officers tell them they’re one of the gang, now, and owe a few favours, or else they’ll be reported and lose their job, the respect of their peers, their family…the lot. Of course, there are exceptions,” Ryan added, with a knowing smile. “Some people have more backbone than others.”

  Beneath the table, Yates squeezed Lowerson’s knee in solidarity. Not so long ago, he’d found himself in a compromising situation but, rather than bow to the pressure, he’d come through for his team and had been instrumental in toppling one of the most powerful organised crime gangs in the country.

  “Anyway, their methods might be similar, but their approaches are different because one carries more authenticity than the other, and has history on its side,” Ryan continued. “The Catholic Church is a powerful force and, although its following might be diminished on a world scale, it still carries plenty of weight, particularly at a local level. If you have a group of people who really believe in God, miracles, afterlives, eternal damnation and the idea of utopia, the bonds that tie are infinitely stronger than a bunch of self-interested quacks.”

  As somebody who was of no faith, but was a great believer in individual liberty, Ryan respected the rights of others to have faith in whatever they chose, so long as they did no harm to others. As a logical man, it didn’t mean that he understood the enduring quality of religious belief systems; merely, that he a
cknowledged the right of every individual to have one, if they chose to. He could readily admit that, at times like these, when religious dogma might prove to be the reason why people had been murdered and others injured, his level of tolerance fell, along with his patience.

  But he knew that both Phillips and MacKenzie had been raised in the Catholic faith, and he was nonetheless a thoughtful man, so he spoke with care.

  “Why would people believe that Saint Cuthbert’s body was still whole?” he asked, of nobody in particular. “I know there were early reports that the body was intact, repeated over the years, but those could easily have been fabrication, given what the Church stood to gain. Life experience has taught us that not all ‘Godly’ men act in ‘Godly’ ways—surely, people must have had their suspicions. Why would anybody suspend disbelief?”

  MacKenzie smiled. “Why believe anything?” she said. “For comfort, or to feel that there’s meaning and order in the world; or, perhaps because it makes living that little bit easier—as well as dying. If you truly believe in an afterlife, in Heaven and Hell, then it makes dying a little less frightening, doesn’t it?”

  “Because then, it isn’t the end?”

  “Exactly,” she murmured.

  Ryan leaned back in his chair, thinking over what she had said. If MacKenzie was right and their theories were correct, the person or group they sought answered to a much higher master than one who dressed in fake animal pelts and danced beneath a full moon. They would be prepared to die for a cause and had no respect for secular justice.

  They would never stop, for fear of eternal damnation.

  A dull ache began to throb at his temples and Ryan ordered himself to remain focused. Fear of the unknown, of coming home to find his family dead before being shot on his own front doorstep, like Joan Tebbutt, could be overwhelming. It clutched at his heart like a vice, squeezing its icy fingers until he could hardly breathe…

  He looked up to find his team watching him closely, and bore down against rising panic.

  “I believe in people,” he said, pushing back from his chair to pace about a bit, working off the cortisol running through his body. “People fed the cult back when Cuthbert died, and it’s people who are murdering to acquire his relics, today.”

  Ryan spun around, eyes blazing.

  “We’re not hunting for some spectre from the past,” he said. “Whoever is behind this is made of flesh and blood, just like us. No matter how hard this gets, we need to remember that.”

  He turned to Yates.

  “Mel, you were right when you said that whoever stole the fake cross was worried about us finding it and using it to trace them,” he said, decisively. “But I don’t think they’re worried we’ll trace them, as much as we’d trace the weak link that separates us from them.”

  “What weak link?” she asked.

  “Whoever made the forgery,” Ryan explained. “Whoever did this must have known we’d use the forged cross to try to uncover its maker and, from there, find the person who’d commissioned it.”

  “We’ve already looked into the forgers with that level of skill,” Lowerson put in. “It’s been tough to keep the investigation quiet and ask questions without raising suspicions but, from what we can gather, it comes down to two names: Edward Faber, street name ‘Fabergé’—”

  “Who’s dead as a dodo,” Phillips pointed out, in his inimitable way.

  “Exactly, and then there’s Mathieu Lareuse, street name ‘Rodin’. The two of them were old rivals, apparently.”

  “In that case, when Faber saw the cross on display at the Cathedral and noticed it was a forgery, perhaps he had a good idea of the person responsible for making it,” Ryan said. “Do you have any further update on Rodin’s whereabouts?”

  When months had gone by without turning up any leads, they’d been forced to assume Mathieu Lareuse had gone the same way as Faber—or. indeed, the dodo.

  “Actually, there’s been some good news on that score,” Lowerson was delighted to say. “Rodin was picked up and brought into custody last night, down in London. He’s been charged with various dishonesty offences and is being held on remand until he goes in front of the magistrates later this afternoon.”

  Ryan’s spirits lifted, along with the general mood in the room.

  Hope renewed.

  “This is just the breakthrough we needed,” he said, and began making plans to contact one of his former colleagues at the Met to set up a private meeting with the elusive Mr Lareuse. “Phillips, cancel whatever you’ve got planned this afternoon—”

  There came a peremptory knock on the door.

  When it opened to admit Chief Constable Morrison, Ryan took one look at the resolute expression on her face and knew immediately that their time had run out.

  She’d come to shut them down.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Ryan? A word, please.”

  She didn’t wait for him, and merely nodded to the rest of the team before stepping back outside and walking directly to her office at the end of the corridor. There might have been words to say, but Sandra Morrison was no fool; she’d wait until they were safely ensconced behind another closed door before speaking freely.

  Ryan followed at a distance, his footsteps a fraction slower than his usual pace while he thought of what he would say to try to persuade the Chief Constable to change her mind and give them just a little more time.

  In the meantime, he kept his counsel, and shut the door behind him with a soft click.

  “You wanted to speak to me, ma’am?”

  Morrison gave him a long, level look that was entirely devoid of emotion. He knew that look, because he’d employed it numerous times himself when imparting bad news, especially to grieving families.

  “Yes. Have a seat, Ryan.”

  “Thank you, but I’d rather stand.”

  Morrison gritted her teeth, and changed her mind about sitting down herself. Ryan was one of her best detectives and, despite all his foibles, she happened to like his style and his results were second to none. However, he was not built to be managed; he was built to lead. Usually, they rubbed along well, having developed an understanding over the years, which made moments like these all the harder. His focus was always on the victims of crime and their families, his energy always reserved to avenge the dead and seek justice, whatever that might be. Her focus was the same, or would have been, if she were not also responsible for managing the precarious balance between those who operated on the front line and those who sat behind desks, lunching with politicians. Appearances mattered as much as substance, which was something Ryan found abhorrent. Still, despite their differences, they shared something in common.

  Ryan did not suffer fools gladly and, as it happened, neither did she.

  “How long have you been working on Operation Bertie, Ryan?”

  Morrison’s approach threw him, momentarily, until he realised that she was doing exactly what he would have done, were the situation reversed: encouraging him to come to the same conclusion she had, despite his better judgment.

  Clever.

  “Around nine months,” he supplied, without a flicker.

  “And what progress has been made during that time?” she asked.

  Rhetorical questioning, he noted.

  “We’ve determined how the original pectoral cross was switched for the fake,” he said, keeping his tone as professional as hers. “The only possible time it could have been achieved without drawing unwanted attention was three years ago, when the exhibition space at the cathedral was being completely remodelled. Large teams of builders, scaffolders, architects, cathedral staff, security staff and other specialists were on-site at one time or another, giving scope for any number of people to have been party to it.”

  “Mm,” she said, and cocked her head to one side. “What proof do you have to support that theory?”

  Ryan swallowed. “We’ve compiled a list of all known persons who had access to the renovation works during that time, and have
been investigating each of them in turn—”

  “What proof, Ryan?” she repeated.

  He fell silent, for she was absolutely right. There was no hard evidence, no smoking gun, only deductive reasoning which didn’t stand up in court. As for the list of possible suspects, it was as long as his arm and almost impossible to investigate with any kind of rigour without raising suspicions and alerting the perpetrator.

  “The CCTV systems weren’t as robust as they are now,” he said. “Part of the renovation project involved replacing the old security system with a new one. In any event, footage from three years ago wouldn’t have been kept, and it would raise suspicions if we were to go rooting around for it.”

  Being a fair-minded woman, Morrison gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Even if you’re right in your assumptions about when the cross was switched, you’re still no closer to finding a definite lead, or even a suspect,” she said. “What about DC Justine Winter? Have you found out why she was involved in Tebbutt’s murder?”

  A muscle ticked in Ryan’s jaw, which was the only outward sign that he was irritated.

  “As you know, ma’am, when Winter committed suicide, she left a note written in runes that was later translated to read, ‘SACRIFICE’. The only other thing Winter left was a copy of the life insurance policy she’d taken out, which guaranteed cover even if she died by her own hand. The beneficiary of the policy is her brother, who suffers from a particularly degenerative form of motor neurone disease. We believe she highlighted this policy to be sure that he’d be taken care of, following her death.”

  He paused, gathering his thoughts.

  “Our current thinking is that the genuine cross was taken not for its monetary value, but because of its religious and symbolic significance—specifically, the idea that it may be imbued with healing powers. If that’s the case, we can hypothesise a link to the cult of Saint Cuthbert, and that Winter was involved in some way for the benefit of her brother, over whom she had sole guardianship following their parents’ death.”