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

by LJ Ross

  He pressed his clicker, and a picture of St. Cuthbert’s shrine in Durham came up on the screen behind him.

  “For any of you heathens who don’t know, this is Saint Cuthbert’s final resting place in Durham Cathedral,” he said, pointing at the image. “The bloke was a monk and a bishop a thousand years ago but, after he died, a cult developed around him because it was said his body hadn’t decayed, which was hailed as a miracle.”

  He turned back to the room.

  “Apparently, miracles were big business back then, because everyone with an ailment came to worship at the shrine and be ‘cured’. They brought offerings and, if they happened to be wealthy or noble, you can imagine that racked up. It also brought a lot of prestige for the Catholic Church and the monks who guarded Cuthbert’s body, and that’s not something easily relinquished. However, it was all change after the Reformation, and the cult surrounding Cuthbert gradually declined in popularity—but that’s not to say it died out, altogether.”

  He took a swig of coffee.

  “That concludes the history lesson for today,” he said, and there was another flutter of laughter around the room. “All of this is relevant because we believe there may be a person, or group, who still buy into this cult—more so than the average devout church-goer, who de facto believes in miracles, if they believe the word of the Bible to the letter.”

  He shrugged.

  “Live and let live, but don’t harm anybody else, that’s what we say around here, isn’t it? The problem is, we’ve got person or persons unknown running amok, fuelled by their convictions. It’s hard to reason with a belief, at the best of times, but when you’re dealing with an organised, well-financed operation, it becomes a real problem.”

  He brought up an image of Mathieu Lareuse, taken from his charge sheet less than a week ago.

  “This is Mathieu Lareuse, street name, ‘Rodin’—”

  “Why ‘Rodin’, sir?” somebody asked.

  “Probably, after the French sculptor,” Phillips said, surprising them all. “What? I listen to Radio Four.”

  “Whatever the reason might have been, the name suited him,” Ryan continued. “He was a French national with British citizenship, who worked in galleries around London for a couple of years—until it became clear he was selling forgeries on a regular basis, many of which he’d manufactured himself. He earned himself a name on the underground circuits as being one of the best in the business.”

  He clicked the next slide, which showed the forged pectoral cross, taken by Tom Faulkner, who was the senior CSI attached to their department.

  “Lareuse was found dead in his cell in Pentonville Prison yesterday afternoon,” Ryan said. “We believe the reason is that he was responsible for creating this replica cross, which is the one we recovered back in March and which has been returned to the exhibition space at Durham Cathedral.”

  They all sat up a little straighter.

  “The decision was taken to allow the deception to continue, to give us a chance to figure out why anybody would want to steal something they knew to be fake—”

  “How did they know it was fake?” somebody asked, and Ryan could only be glad he wasn’t surrounded by morons.

  “Timing,” he replied, shortly. “We believe Edward Faber discovered his competitor’s handiwork, perhaps by chance, and told his old contact from Durham CID—who happened to be DCI Joan Tebbutt, who’d previously worked in the Fraud Unit. Unfortunately, somebody must have got wind of Faber’s discovery because, the next thing, he winds up being tortured and killed. We believe that Faber admitted to informing Tebbutt, to try to save himself, but he was already a dead man. Thanks to him, so was she.”

  Ryan hitched a hip onto the edge of the desk.

  “The point is, Faber’s death took place prior to the Durham heist, and there’s no other plausible explanation. We know that the late DC Justine Winter was involved in both murders, prior to taking her own life.”

  “Why’d she do it?” one of them asked. “Why would she turn?”

  “Money,” another one sneered.

  “There’s no present evidence to suggest money was a motivating factor,” Ryan said. “However, we do believe there may be some connection between Justine’s actions and Cuthbert’s so-called ‘cult’. She has a brother who is seriously ill, and for whom we believe she might have been persuaded to try and procure a miracle.”

  There were a few disbelieving laughs around the room, and Ryan could hardly blame them.

  “I know it’s a difficult mental leap,” he said. “I’m not a religious person myself, nor do I have a loved one who is terminally ill or suffering from a debilitating, degenerative disease. But, if I did, I have to ask myself what I wouldn’t do, to try to make them better.”

  That silenced any further outbursts, because it was only the truth. There was very little that people wouldn’t do for those they loved; and, in some cases, that included committing murder.

  “The idea of making sacrifices to one’s chosen deity isn’t new,” he continued. “It’s a practice that’s been followed around the world for centuries—probably, millennia. It’s harder to accept it happening in our modern, civilised society, because we’d like to believe we’re past all that, and more evolved.”

  Ryan clicked onto the next image, which was a picture DCI Patel had shared with him, and showed the crime scene at Crayke College with the late Father Jacob front and centre.

  There were horrified intakes of breath.

  “Not a pretty sight, I’m sure you’ll agree,” Ryan said, and clicked onto a blank screen to give their eyes a break. “The deceased is Father Jacob Jamieson, a former monk and housemaster at Crayke College, in North Yorkshire. Prior to his conversion, he was a history teacher for a number of years and was a renowned authority on the life and times of St. Cuthbert.”

  Ryan paused to polish off his coffee before continuing—talking of murder was thirsty work.

  “Father Jacob was found tortured and murdered in a cider mill on Monday morning, which is on the Crayke grounds and is owned and operated by the monastery. As you can see from that picture, his death was slow and painful, and unnecessarily dramatic, in the end.”

  “What did he do?” one of the intelligence analysts called out. “Fiddle with some of the kids?”

  Ryan frowned darkly. “In the first instance, that’s nothing to make light of,” he snapped. “And, in the second, there’s no evidence to suggest this man was anything other than a well-regarded member of his community, well-liked by his pupils.”

  He decided to address the elephant in the room, which was on all of their minds.

  “Look, I know what people think of, when they think of the Catholic Church and young choirboys, or whatever, but we need to remain professional and clear-sighted when making decisions about matters than can affect those who are still living. Yes, there has been a lot of cause for concern as to safeguarding practices on a global scale, which is a source of great sadness and regret for all involved—especially those who were victims of predatory crimes. However, when approaching a case, we need to consider each individual set of facts on their own merits, and be sure not to tarnish all with the same brush. Am I understood?”

  There were nods around the room.

  “Good. Coming back to Father Jacob, there was nothing obvious to help us understand what might have motivated his death, other than a general connection to St. Cuthbert,” Ryan said. “When we visited the scene, at the invitation of the SIO, it was on the basis that Jamieson’s death might have had some connection with the death of Edward Faber—whose murder is the only other recent torture case on the shared police database. Whilst Phillips and myself agree there are definite similarities, we were unable to disclose to the SIO the full details of Operation Bertie, and of how both Faber and Jamieson’s deaths are connected to the theft of Cuthbert’s cross. Now that the Chief Constable has authorised the decision to re-open this matter, there is no need for further secrecy, and we will commun
icate and cooperate with North Yorkshire CID at the earliest opportunity.”

  Ryan clicked again and, this time, a picture of a small, red gospel book came onto the projector screen.

  “This is a gospel book of St. John,” he told them. “More commonly known as the ‘St. Cuthbert Gospel’, on account of it having spent the best part of eight hundred years inside the man’s coffin, resting beside him. It carries cultural and literary significance but, for our purposes, it’s important because, yesterday afternoon, a man posing as the late Father Jacob stole this piece from the British Library, causing grievous bodily harm to one of their conservationists in the process. They evaded the police and made for King’s Cross, where we believe they were able to conceal themselves on board a train bound for the North. We expect CCTV footage to come through today but, at this stage, we suspect that Father Jacob was tortured and killed for information in his possession, and we suspect that information relates in some way to the gospel book.”

  “You mean, because it’s one of Cuthbert’s relics?” one of the PCs asked.

  “Possibly, but if we were dealing with a group of people whose only intent was to gather up all of Cuthbert’s relics, I’d query the timing; we believe the cross was switched for a replica three years ago, whilst renovation works were underway in the exhibition galleries at Durham Cathedral, and a lot of careful time and effort was put into that operation. When the British Library reacquired the gospel book from Stonyhurst College, in Lancashire, they made an agreement with Durham Cathedral that it would be displayed in London and Durham—if they planned to steal it, why not do so while it was more accessible, in Durham? Why wait three more years, and take it in highly risky, opportunistic circumstances?”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  “It’s more likely the information from Father Jacob was new, and important, and created an urgent imperative to steal the gospel book as quickly as possible.”

  “Did you say the book used to be at Stonyhurst?” Yates asked.

  Ryan nodded, and looked to Lowerson, who nodded his confirmation.

  “Yes—why? Have you thought of something?”

  “Potentially,” she said, scrolling quickly through her phone. “When I read the BBC news report about Jamieson’s death this morning, there was a quote from one of his old teaching colleagues, from back in the day…here we go. It says they taught together at Stonyhurst for fifteen years, which means he would have been there while they still had the gospel book.”

  Ryan smiled. “Now, that is an interesting coincidence, and adds further weight to our theory about the book carrying some special significance, beyond the obvious fact of its historic importance.”

  He turned to look up at the image of the book and wondered how a collection of written words could wield so much power.

  CHAPTER 25

  While Charles and Eve took their granddaughter for a stroll in her pram, Anna dusted off her laptop and settled down to the business of researching St. Cuthbert’s Gospel. As a senior lecturer at Durham University, her specialism was in early pagan history in the North East of England, rather than early Christian history—but no historian looking to understand the regional landscape could understand one without the other, and it was impossible not to know something of the facts and traditions surrounding its patron saint. Besides, Anna grew up on the remote island of Lindisfarne, where Cuthbert had been a bishop in the late seventh century, and near to the tiny island of Inner Farne, where he had spent much of his time as a hermit and where he’d eventually died.

  Automatically, she reached for her hair, intending to tie it back from her face, before remembering she’d been forced to cut most of it off.

  Funny, she thought. It was only hair, and would grow back, but how she’d cried about it in the privacy of her own company. A trivial and superficial thing to be concerned about, perhaps, yet so much a part of her identity for so many years, and what she expected to see when she looked in the mirror.

  Now, she had a short pixie crop, which some might say suited her.

  It was certainly more practical, but…

  Really, the problem was that she hadn’t had the freedom to choose whether or not to cut her hair; the hospital had been forced to make that decision in order to facilitate an operation to stem a blood clot on her brain. In those circumstances, she’d have gone Full Britney if necessary, but that didn’t mean she was happy about it.

  “Get a grip,” she muttered to herself. “It’s only hair.”

  Anna turned her mind to reading through her old notes surrounding the cult of Cuthbert, and refreshed her memory about the journey Cuthbert’s body had taken following his death in 687AD. According to the Venerable Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert, the saint’s body was transported the short boat ride from Inner Farne to Lindisfarne, where it was buried on the same day. Eleven years later, his sarcophagus was opened and the body found to be completely preserved, which kickstarted the cult whereby people attributed miracles to his intercession or to intercessory prayer near his remains. Then, when the Vikings took the monastery at Lindisfarne in 875, the monks were forced to flee with Cuthbert’s body, which they carried around with them for seven years. The reason generally given for this was a desire to evade capture, but it was also the ninth century’s equivalent of a rock star touring the North East, blazing a trail of miraculous power wherever the monks went and leaving countless churches named after Cuthbert in their wake.

  After seven years, the body stayed for around a hundred years at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Chester-le-Street, whereupon yet another Viking invasion forced the monks to hit the road again and transport his body to Ripon, in Yorkshire. Interestingly, Crayke Abbey was reputedly one of the saint’s resting places, while in that part of the world, and that must have been something the late Father Jacob Jamieson would have known about. Finally, the monks’ coffin cart got stuck in some mud near the riverbend at Durham, and legend has it this was the saint’s way of letting his guardians know that’s where he wanted to stay put. They set up camp at the top of the hill and built a simple ‘White Church’, which was the first predecessor to the enormous cathedral that now stood in its place.

  Over the centuries, all manner of things were buried with Cuthbert, including the body of Bede, King Oswald’s head and other gruesome keepsakes, like some sort of macabre travelling circus.

  Amongst those things was a red leather gospel book, painstakingly created for him by the monks at Jarrow.

  Anna read a brief history of the book, marvelling at the survival of a tiny book through the course of centuries, until one day in 2012 the British Library paid Stonyhurst College a princely sum to acquire the book so that it might be cared for and admired by anyone who wished to see it. Now, a person had stolen it, unable to see beyond their own beliefs and desires to appreciate the selfishness of their actions, and it was far from certain whether the little gospel book would survive the next stage in its journey.

  Feeling an acute sense of loss, she accessed the digital archive copy of the gospel, which was accessible through the British Library’s website, and sipped at a cup of tea while she flicked through the pages.

  At some point during the second hour, she heard the family return and Anna stepped away from the computer to be with her daughter, but not before noticing something unusual.

  Perhaps it was nothing, she told herself.

  On the other hand…

  While breastfeeding Emma with one strong, secure arm, she used her other free hand to go back to the beginning and scroll through the digital pages of the book, zooming right in so she could see the very grains of parchment up close.

  So easy to miss, Anna thought. Unless you were looking for it.

  She smiled down at her daughter, who was falling asleep in her arms after enjoying a belly-full of milk.

  “I think your daddy is going to be very pleased, when I tell him what we’ve found,” she whispered, and placed a soft kiss to Emma’s forehead.

  * * *

&nbs
p; Back at Northumbria Police Headquarters, Ryan was in the process of managing the logistics of a wide-ranging investigation that crossed over four different command areas, and counting.

  “I want regular lines of communication between our team here, North Yorkshire CID, Durham CID and the Met,” he said, and divvied up the tasks to one of the liaison officers. “If there are any updates on the investigation into Father Jacob or Mathieu Lareuse’s death, I want to hear about it. Understood?”

  This was met by a vigorous nod of the head.

  “Now that we have some recent activity to work with, we can use it to our advantage,” Ryan said. “Jack? Melanie? Previously, I know you said it was difficult to try to interview or extract information from the list of people who had access to Cuthbert’s cross during the renovation works, three years ago. I want you to go back over that list now and interview everyone, one-by-one, beginning with those who can’t account for their whereabouts on Sunday evening or Monday morning, and all day yesterday.”

  “Consider it done,” Lowerson said, while Yates made a swift note.

  “Better still, cross-check them again, looking for any with a recent history of severe illness, or a close family member with a severe illness, or any recently deceased family members. We’re looking for people who are vulnerable to the idea of a miracle being their only hope—so let’s look for people who might be in need of a miracle.”

  “We’ll get straight on it, this afternoon,” Yates promised.

  “Good. Mac? I need you to pick up where we left off with those hospital records,” he said. “I want to know who Justine Winter and her brother would have seen on a regular basis at their regular appointments, as well as any support groups they attended. Interview the brother, if you can, and find out who they spoke to, or who his sister might have spoken of, more often than anyone else. There’s nothing in her work e-mail account, or even on her private e-mail accounts, so we need to come at this from another direction.”