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

by LJ Ross

  She pasted a professional smile on her face and spun around like a marionette.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I was looking for Ryan and Phillips. Have you seen them?”

  MacKenzie took a casual sip of the tea she was gripping between her sweaty palms.

  “Mm? No, I think they took a call…something to do with the Faber case,” she replied. That last part was true, at least.

  Morrison tutted. “Pity, I was hoping to have a word with them about a couple of things,” she said. “If they come in, would you mind telling them to pop into my office?”

  “Of course, no problem.”

  Morrison narrowed her eyes, having only just noticed how hot and bothered MacKenzie seemed to be.

  She lowered her voice so they would not be overheard.

  “Denise.”

  “Yes?”

  “You really should have told me.”

  MacKenzie swore she felt her heart stop beating. “T—told you…what?”

  Seconds ticked by.

  “Peri-menopause is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Morrison said, at length. “If you’re struggling, you should ask your GP about hormone replacement, because it changed my life. Honestly, I was sweating like a pig on market day…”

  MacKenzie didn’t know whether to be offended at the imputation that she was old enough to be peri-menopausal—she wasn’t even fifty, yet, for goodness’ sake—or grateful that Morrison had misread her guilt sweats as being something more benign.

  Gratitude won out.

  “Thank you,” she said gravely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  As she walked off, Morrison smiled, and wondered when they would ever learn.

  One down, two to go, she thought, and went in search of her next victim.

  * * *

  Ryan and Phillips left DCI Hassan to await his team outside Pentonville Prison, having first elicited promises that he would contact them if anything of interest turned up in his investigation, and furthermore that he would make himself available for a well-earned pint just as soon as they were able to take the time.

  “Nice feller,” Phillips said, once they were on their way back to King’s Cross. “Shame it’s been a bit of a wasted journey, though.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Ryan argued, and cut down to a pathway alongside Regent’s Canal, which ran east to west behind the King’s Cross complex. “Now, we know that Lareuse was involved in the making of the replica cross. That has to be the reason he’s dead.”

  “Well, now, just hold your horses there, lad,” Phillips said. “There’s nothing to say he couldn’t have been killed for another reason. Blokes like him have got their fingers in all kinds of pies—”

  Pies, his mind whispered. Steak and ale pies…

  “Not every pie involves the death of a senior murder detective, a monk and a forger, not forgetting a high-profile heist targeting a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

  “Will everyone stop talkin’ about pies?” Phillips burst out.

  Ryan gave him a funny look. “You brought it up—”

  “Aye, well…why are we headin’ down this way, anyway?” Phillips asked, having only just realised they’d wandered off the beaten track. “Isn’t it quicker to head down the main road?”

  “Not to get to where we’re going,” Ryan said. “If we continue along here, we’ll hit St. Pancras station, and one street over from that is the British Library.”

  Phillips sighed.

  “You’re wantin’ a look at that gospel book, aren’t you?”

  “You read my mind.”

  “They’re hot on protocols, these places,” Phillips cautioned. “You can’t just rock up; you’ve got to make an appointment.”

  “Lucky I made one for four o’clock, then, isn’t it?”

  Phillips pursed his lips. “Anyone ever tell you, you’re narf a jammy bastard?”

  “You have, daily, for the past ten years.”

  “Aye, well, I stand by it.”

  “Duly noted,” Ryan grinned. “C’mon, it’s up here, on the left.”

  * * *

  Morrison ambushed Lowerson in the break room.

  “Jack?”

  He nearly choked on the Christmas gingerbread latte he’d been in the process of quaffing.

  “Ma’am?”

  She stalked towards him, eyeing her prey very much as a lion might have done on the plains of Africa.

  “I was looking for Ryan or Phillips. Have you seen either of them?”

  On the countertop, a message flashed up on his mobile phone which read, ‘CC on the war path. Watch your back! Mac x’

  He snatched it up, before Morrison could read the offending text, and vowed to change his phone settings.

  “Anything urgent?” she asked, innocently.

  “N—no, not at all. Ah, you were asking me something?”

  “Yes, Jack,” she said, very patiently. “I was asking you where Ryan and Phillips are.”

  “I don’t exactly know where they are…right now,” he said, and told himself these things were all a matter of interpretation. It was perfectly true that he didn’t know where they were at that precise moment.

  Morrison waited five full seconds, to let him sweat a while.

  “They wouldn’t happen to be in London, would they?” she asked, silkily.

  “London? Ah—”

  Luckily for him, MacKenzie must have sent a Code Red warning to Yates, who bustled into the room at all speed.

  “Oh! Jack, thank goodness, I’ve been looking for you everywhere. There’s somebody on the desk line for you—they said it was important…and urgent!”

  “Gosh,” Morrison said, widening her eyes. “Important and urgent.”

  “I’d better take that,” Lowerson said, and scarpered as fast as his legs would carry him.

  In the awkward silence following his departure, Yates offered a shaky smile, and Morrison smiled in return.

  The third zebra, she thought.

  “Looks like it’s just the two of us left standing, Melanie,” she said.

  Yates told herself not to crack. It was a bluff…she couldn’t know for sure where Ryan and Phillips had gone.

  Could she?

  “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  Yates frowned, wondering if it was a trap.

  “No, thank you,” she said, politely. “In fact, I’d better get back to my desk—”

  Morrison looked her squarely in the eye.

  “That’s it,” she snapped. “Enough of this nonsense. What time are they due back from London?”

  “W—who, ma’am?”

  Morrison stared at her for a long moment then, to their mutual surprise, began to laugh. Whatever she thought of Ryan at that moment, one thing was certain.

  He could inspire loyalty unlike any other person she’d ever known.

  “Oh, go on, bugger off,” she told Yates, without any malice. “Before I change my mind.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The British Library was an imposing, red-brick building of 1970s design, boasting a slanted roof and a piazza, of all things, as well as the largest library catalogue in the world, estimated to be somewhere in the region of two hundred million individual items—some dating all the way back to 2000 B.C.

  Shortly before four o’clock, Ryan and Phillips made their way through the aforementioned piazza to the library’s main entrance. Venturing inside, it became clear to them that the British Library was far more than a collection of books—it was a temple to reading.

  “Well, look at that,” Phillips whispered.

  “Not bad,” Ryan agreed, with his usual flair for understatement.

  The foyer was wide and airy, with a floor of criss-crossed marble and white-painted columns which supported a geometric floorplan of reading rooms, storage, conference and exhibition spaces. In the centre of it all was a striking glass column known as the ‘King’s Library’, which contained a collection of books amassed by the eighteenth-century monarch, George
III.

  “I hope you know where we’re going,” Phillips said. “A person could get lost in a place like this.”

  “I can think of worse fates.” Ryan smiled. “But, as it happens, I do know where we’re going. The St. Cuthbert Gospel is normally on display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery, and the Head of Conservation has agreed to meet us there.”

  They passed through the turnstiles using the visitors’ passes Ryan had already procured for them, and made their way to the Gallery, which was on the ground floor. It was an impressive space, with a permanent display of literary treasures including one of only four remaining copies of the Magna Carta, notes written by Leonardo da Vinci and an original manuscript of Alice in Wonderland. They took their time weaving through the displays, umming and ahhing over each wondrous item like a pair of schoolboys in a sweet shop, until they came to the case which held St. Cuthbert’s Gospel.

  Or, should have done.

  “Where is it?” Ryan asked, tapping a finger against the glass countertop. “The placard says it’s supposed to be here.”

  All that remained was the empty stand.

  “This could be the right person to ask,” Phillips said, nodding towards an official-looking woman in a bright red blazer who was heading straight for them.

  “You must be the two detectives from the North East,” she said, with a cheery, slightly crooked smile. “I’m Doctor Isabel Malone, Head of Conservation here at the Library.”

  Ryan shook the hand that was held out to him.

  “Thank you for meeting us, Doctor Malone,” he said. “We were hoping to see the gospel book, but it appears to be missing.”

  “Ah, yes, I’m sorry about that,” she said, with a touch of embarrassment. “Unusually, we had a last-minute request to view the book from one of our leading academics in the area, and so we indulged him. I’m afraid his appointment has overrun a little…”

  She checked the time on her watch and made a sound of irritation.

  “My colleague is with him now, in one of the private reading rooms,” she explained. “I’m sure they won’t be much longer…”

  Ryan felt the nerve endings in his body begin to jangle.

  “You said this man was a leading academic,” he said slowly. “Anyone we would know?”

  “Well, I suppose if you have an interest in the life of St. Cuthbert, yes, you might have heard of Father Jacob.”

  Ryan and Phillips stared at her, and Malone’s hand rose to clutch her throat, for it looked as though they’d seen a ghost.

  “Is anything the matter?”

  “Father Jacob Jamieson?” Phillips repeated. “The monk?”

  She nodded, glancing warily between them. “That’s right. Why? Is there a problem?”

  “Where is he now?” Ryan demanded, his eyes already scanning the exhibition room for a man resembling the late Father Jacob.

  “In one of our private rooms, viewing the book,” she said, shakily.

  “Where?” he repeated. “Which one?”

  “I—it’s the one just across the hall, directly outside,” she stammered. “Room G12—”

  Ryan set off at a run.

  * * *

  Ryan was fast, but whoever had been in Room G12 was faster.

  He burst into the private reading room to find it empty, but for the unconscious body of a young woman who’d been dealt a series of violent blows around the back of her head.

  Phillips and Malone were hot on his heels.

  “Siobhan!” the woman cried, when she caught sight of the conservationist.

  Then she noticed something which, to her, was much worse.

  “Oh, my God! The book! St. Cuthbert’s Gospel is gone!”

  “Call an ambulance!” Ryan shouted, and shouldered past them both to run out into the corridor towards the exit turnstiles.

  It took only seconds for him to emerge back into the marble foyer, and only a couple more to locate his quarry.

  There, passing through the exit turnstiles, was a bald-headed man with a grey beard, dressed entirely in a long black habit.

  “Hey!” Ryan shouted. “Police! Stop where you are!”

  People passing in and out of the electronic turnstiles froze, and the foyer fell quiet.

  The man in black turned to look at him, and it was as though Ryan was looking upon the face of a dead man.

  Father Jacob?

  The man smiled, and then ran.

  CHAPTER 20

  Ryan didn’t hesitate.

  He gave chase, propelling himself across the foyer to vault over the turnstiles, ignoring the distant cries of the security staff, all the while keeping his eyes firmly on the figure in black who was making rapid progress through the piazza on the other side of the main doors.

  Stop!

  Stop, police!

  He ran outside and into the darkness, heart pounding as he tried to keep up with the figure who raced towards the protective crowds of Euston Road.

  Determined, Ryan pushed his legs harder, sprinting full pelt through the piazza, passing beneath a shadowy sculpture of Sir Isaac Newton until he reached the pavement.

  He searched left and right, examining the sea of passing faces, trying not to be distracted by the glare of headlights from the busy road.

  “Shit,” he muttered, turning a full circle.

  Which way?

  West led towards Euston Station and, beyond it, Regent’s Park.

  East led to King’s Cross and St. Pancras, only minutes away on foot.

  He went with his gut and veered east, running through the commuter crowds making their way home from work, eager to catch their train home.

  Bypassing St. Pancras station, Ryan continued on to King’s Cross, reasoning that, if their perpetrator was connected in any way with the cult of St. Cuthbert, he was most likely to be based in the North East and might be hoping to catch a train from there to Newcastle.

  He might have been on the same train as them, earlier in the day.

  Shoving that sickening thought aside, Ryan ignored a red pedestrian signal and, spotting a brief gap in traffic, bolted across the road towards the nearest entrance to the station concourse, horns blaring in his wake.

  Inside King’s Cross, the place was heaving with people; faceless suits, mothers with children and everyone else in between, all lugging suitcases or backpacks behind them. They milled in clusters across the enormous concourse with its high curved metal roof, and fancy new shopping area.

  How times changed.

  But there was no time to think of local regeneration now; all his attention was on the passing faces of the crowd, remembering all the while that the man he hunted could be armed and dangerous.

  When a minute ticked by without any sighting, Ryan began to think he’d made the wrong call and should have veered west…

  Then, he spotted it.

  Just a flash of black material, which was barely distinguishable from a small crowd of children all dressed in Harry Potter robes they’d bought from the Platform 9 ¾ souvenir shop, across the way.

  “Move aside!” he shouted. “Move!”

  The crowds parted as he made for another set of turnstiles—this time, giving access to the platform area.

  “Hey! Stop right there!”

  An officer from British Transport Police hurried over as Ryan pushed his way to the front, knocking over a large suitcase in his haste to catch up with the man who was making for the 16:26 from King’s Cross to Newcastle.

  The time was 16:25.

  Ryan felt the officer’s hand snatch at his jacket, but tugged free of it and surged forward, hearing the fatalistic sound of a train guard’s whistle on Platform 3.

  A few more seconds, and the train would leave the station.

  Rounding the head of the platform, he saw the figure board the train as the doors swished shut, and he let out a cry of frustration.

  By the time he reached the doors, his frantic hammering on the ‘open’ button had no effect. He tried to wrench the
doors open by force, but the automatic locking mechanism held firm.

  “Open those doors!” he shouted. “Police! Stop the train!”

  But it was already pulling out of the station.

  * * *

  Ryan had barely recovered when a couple of British Transport Police officers caught up with him.

  “What the bloody ’ell was all that about?” one of them demanded. “You nearly knocked a woman off her feet, back there! It’s not on, you know, that’s common assault—”

  Ryan tried to reach for his warrant card.

  “Whoa there, mate! What’ve you got in your pocket?”

  Both officers braced, ready to defend themselves against a knife attack.

  Ryan raised his hands again in a non-threatening, palms-out position.

  “I was going to reach for my warrant card,” he enunciated, through gritted teeth. “I’m CID, for God’s sake—”

  “A likely story—"

  Just then, Ryan caught sight of Phillips jogging down the platform towards him.

  “Detective…Sergeant…Phillips,” he wheezed, coming to a jerky stop beside them. “Northumbria CID. This one’s with me.”

  They checked his warrant card and nodded.

  “All right, sir, if you’re sure you can handle him. He’s a lively one, mind you—and he made a grab for something in his pocket, a minute ago.”

  Ryan stared, dumbfounded.

  “Some blokes just can’t ’andle missin’ a train,” the other one said.

  “I agree with you, son, but this one happens to be a DCI,” Phillips said. “We’re after a real criminal, and he’s gettin’ away on that train, while we’re standin’ round here chewin’ the fat. Any chance you two could shake a leg and get in touch with the train manager? We need to stop that train.”

  The two officers looked amongst themselves, then at the two policemen.

  “Right…bloody ’ell! Right…”

  “Now,” Ryan snarled. “We need to stop it, now.”

  “We can’t do that! It’ll be past Haringey, by now—”

  “Howay, man, before I shove my boot up your arse!” Phillips roared, and it was enough to have the two of them scarpering towards the Controller’s office.

  * * *

  Chief Constable Morrison had spent much of the afternoon working on her anger management techniques. She’d sipped herbal tea, listened to ten minutes of a meditation podcast, and even tried something called an ‘Empty Chair Technique’ to think through what she might say to Ryan, if he were there in the room.