Holy Island: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 1)

by LJ Ross

  “Yes.”

  “Getting back to the evening of 20th December, then, can you describe your movements?”

  “After she’d gone to the pub, wearing a red top which left everything on show,” Mathieson sneered at the memory, ran shaky hands through his wispy hair, “I had dinner with Helen, we watched some TV. It became quite late and Helen was tired, so she went to bed around half past ten, I think.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I made sure she took her sleeping tablets, put her to bed. I came to bed a bit later, but couldn’t sleep. I got up again and tried to call Lucy, to see when she would be home. She didn’t answer. I thought about going down there and dragging her home. I was about to, when she finally came in just before midnight.”

  “Your wife was upstairs, in bed?”

  “Yes, she was fast asleep. She sleeps quite heavily when she’s on those tablets.”

  “What happened when Lucy came home?”

  Mathieson paused, remembering.

  “She came into the kitchen, quite drunk,” he said disapprovingly. “She called me several names, said some unpardonable things and we argued.”

  “What sort of things?”

  Mathieson’s hands shook again and he clutched them together.

  “She called me a ‘sick old man’ or words to that effect.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  “How do you think I felt?” he exploded, then quickly contained himself. “The anger – it just – just – overwhelmed me. I wanted to remind her of who she really was, how she used to feel about me, what we were to each other.” His myopic eyes appealed to both of them to understand. “I reached for her, tried to embrace her.”

  “Embrace her?” Phillips prodded.

  “I wanted to kiss her.”

  “She didn’t return the feeling?”

  Mathieson raised a hand to his temple, rubbed at an invisible ache there.

  “It – it gets a bit hazy. It was all over so quickly. I tried to draw her into my arms but she struggled, tried to push me away. I think I was holding her arms. She kicked my leg with one of her boots,” he said dreamily, rubbing absently at the bruise beneath his trousers. “Somehow, we were on the kitchen floor. She was struggling, threatening to scream for Helen. I think she meant it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had to quieten her,” Mathieson said softly. “I just wanted her to be quiet for a moment, to listen to me. I wanted us to be together again.”

  “How did you ‘quieten her’, Daniel?”

  Mathieson’s voice shook now and his hands were trembling badly. He was staring at them as if they belonged to someone else.

  “I – I – I…” he gulped. “I had my hands around her neck –” He raised his hands and repeated the motion as tears began to trickle down his face. “And suddenly, she wasn’t struggling anymore.”

  There was a moment’s silence and Ryan re-filled their water glasses.

  “You’ve come this far, Daniel, you might as well tell us the rest.”

  Ryan sat back, silver eyes hardened to a flinty grey as he listened to the man describe how he had carried his daughter out into the night and along to the garage at the Lindisfarne Inn, only a couple of streets away.

  “Why did you take Lucy up to the Priory, Daniel? Why did you clean her? Why the ritual?”

  “It was only proper.” The calm tone was back, now that the worst part was over.

  “’Proper’?”

  “According to our beliefs, the body of a loved one must be cleaned thoroughly, Chief Inspector, as a mark of respect. It was right that I tended her body and removed her to holy, consecrated ground.”

  There were so many questions to ask, Ryan barely knew where to begin.

  “You say ‘our’ beliefs? Whose beliefs would they be?”

  For the first time, Mathieson hesitated, his answers more measured.

  “Mine and Lucy’s, of course.”

  “Paganism?”

  Again, a tiny pause.

  “Yes, that’s right,” little or no eye contact, Ryan noted, which usually denoted a lie.

  “Where did you obtain camphor, Daniel?”

  “Lucy had some, in her room.”

  “Surely, if she followed Pagan ritual, Lucy would have kept items in her room pertaining to that. Yet, we found no such items when we performed a search. Did you remove them, Daniel?”

  “No comment.”

  Both detectives raised their eyebrows.

  “Why be uncommunicative now, when you’ve been so helpful? We’re merely trying to understand your beliefs.”

  “No comment.”

  “Very well,” Ryan fought back frustration. “You cleaned Lucy up at the garage. We found her DNA all over it,” he added casually, so there could be no mistake. “You used camphor. What else?”

  “I used some of the soap they keep in boxes there,” Mathieson piped up again, seemingly happy to discuss this part. “Some turps and bleach, too.”

  “Must have been hard, transporting her to the Priory, worrying if anyone would see you. Then, carrying her up the steep side of the hill,” Phillips said sympathetically.

  “It was difficult, I confess. I nearly lost my resolve,” Mathieson added, as if he were reminiscing about old times. “But I got there in the end.”

  * * *

  Ryan and Phillips spent another hour going over Mathieson’s story, picking it apart, tugging at the different directions again. He was happy to discuss, ad nauseam, how he had killed his own daughter. He was happy to describe how he had prepared an altar for her, smoothed her hair and said prayers over her body before leaving her. He confessed to cleaning the lawnmower and the garage floor later the same night and even admitted that he had planted Lucy’s clothes in Alex Walker’s fishing hut in a childishly spiteful act. Remarkably, he was unrepentant about it, claiming that Walker deserved all he got.

  Jealousy came in many forms, Ryan decided, and every one of them was ugly.

  What Mathieson refused to talk about was his religious beliefs. No amount of cajoling, flattery or threats could induce him to discuss it.

  Only once did his resolve falter, on the topic of Megan.

  “We found several bank transfers in your name, deposited into Megan Taylor’s account. Can you explain that, Daniel?”

  “I slept with Megan several times over the course of last year,” he answered without any qualm. “She seemed to expect a payment, which didn’t surprise me since I went to her with the expectation that she would prostitute herself.”

  The coldness of that statement, Ryan thought, the detachment. He didn’t bother to ask if his wife had known about the association. He was betting not.

  “Were you aware that Megan kept a diary, Daniel?”

  No comment, but curiosity peaked in the older man’s face.

  “She did,” Ryan affirmed, “discussing her appointments and so forth. She described someone called, ‘D’, along with her attendance at several ritual ‘circles’. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No comment,” was the expected answer, but there was a knowing look.

  “Did you kill Megan, Daniel?”

  “No comment,” he said in the same pleasant tone.

  Ryan and Phillips stared for a moment.

  “Earlier this afternoon, as we were leaving Lindisfarne, you confessed to the murders of Megan Taylor and Robert Fowler,” Ryan said in patient tones. “Are you now rescinding your confession?”

  Mathieson folded his lips.

  “Look,” Ryan said, beginning to lose patience. “DI Phillips and I are reasonable men. We understand what you’ve told us about Lucy, we’re even willing to accept that there was no premeditation there. I’m sure you can argue it down from murder to manslaughter in court,” the words stuck in Ryan’s throat, but he knew it was the truth. “But Megan and Rob, that took planning. It wasn’t the heat of the moment there. It’s going to be very hard to argue those ones down, Daniel, unless you gi
ve us a reason to believe that it wasn’t you.”

  Silence, punctuated only by the sound of Mathieson’s heavy breathing.

  “You made transfers into Megan’s account. Was she going to expose you, Daniel? Was she going to tell Helen?”

  “Megan served her purpose, as did Rob,” Daniel hissed, sending small drops of spittle across the table.

  “What do you mean, ‘their purpose’?”

  Mathieson would say no more.

  Ryan stared at him for a few long moments and then called a break, since it was nearly half past six. Outside, he turned to Phillips.

  “Anything to do with the ritual, anything to do with Megan or Rob and he clams up. Why? He’s practically singing about Lucy.”

  “I can’t understand it,” Phillips agreed. “He’s almost proud of himself when he’s telling us about killing his daughter.”

  “He thinks that he’s atoned for his crime by giving her a ‘proper’ burial,” Ryan said.

  Phillips watched while his SIO paced to the coffee machine, watched it percolate, then swallowed the greasy liquid from one of the little polystyrene cups.

  “What you thinking?”

  Ryan finished swallowing, lobbed the cup across the room where it fell perfectly in the centre of the open bin. Then, he turned back.

  “I’m thinking that if I go back in there and question him again, he’ll tell us absolutely nothing about Megan or Rob. I’m thinking he’s been stringing us along about those two. He was under surveillance when Lowerson was hit, so we know it wasn’t him. I was betting on Ingles for that, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “He had an accomplice?”

  Ryan looked out of the boxy window, but instead of seeing the police car park below, he saw in his mind’s eye the map of Lindisfarne he had taped on the wall of his cottage. He saw the little red flags which marked where each body had been found: Lucy on the south of the island, at the Priory. Rob on the west of the island, on the causeway beach. Megan in the centre, on the roof of the pub, but the weather vane had been fixed to point north.

  They served their purpose.

  “Frank, what was it you said about pagans attaching meaning to the four points – north, south, east and west?”

  Phillips scratched his head. “Ah, just that it’s a big part of their ritual, boss. Each point, or watchtower, or guardian or whatever they like to call it, means a different element.”

  “Earth, air, fire and water?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Why?”

  “He’s not finished.”

  “Mathieson?”

  “No,” Ryan spun around again and his eyes were fierce. “Mathieson was finished after Lucy. It’s been staring us in the fucking face. Why would he practically turn himself in, when he hasn’t made his sacrifice to the east? It makes no sense for Mathieson to confess now, if he was responsible for all three. There’s still one to go.”

  “Ah-“

  “The victims – I thought there should be a pattern - there isn’t, or not in the usual sense,” Ryan carried on, the words tumbling out in a stream of consciousness. “I was thinking of it yesterday, of how psychopaths are goal-driven. There’s always a meaning behind everything they do, something to gain. This isn’t some bloke gone cuckoo, dancing around a wicker man and it isn’t about some perverted old man who finally flipped and killed his own daughter. The man we’re after had a reason, a very specific reason, to kill Megan and Rob. It fits, why the bodies were treated differently, marked differently.”

  “Who?” Phillips said urgently.

  “The same man who didn’t want Megan mouthing off to his wife about their affair. A man she calls ‘D’, the pillar of their community. The same man who didn’t want to see Alex Walker jailed for a murder he didn’t commit, so arranged for another one to happen, so that we could be sure that Walker didn’t do the first. Side benefit was killing off Rob Fowler, who maybe knew too much and was, as this man viewed him, undesirable. Who fits the bill?”

  “Christ,” Phillips breathed as he felt it all click into place.

  “So simple,” Ryan shook his head, ran fingers restlessly through the heavy black hair. “We have to get back.”

  “Mathieson –” Phillips trotted behind Ryan to keep up with the long strides as they powered along the corridor towards the exit.

  “Get MacKenzie to finish going over his story, try again to get him to tell us who ‘D’ is, because he knows, all right. He knows and he’s feeling pretty fucking smug about it,” Ryan snapped out. “Threaten him with exposure, if necessary. Mathieson feels loyal to this prick and he’s acting on orders; that’s why he doesn’t want to give him away. Break that loyalty, tell him we’ll let it be known that he sang like a canary, unless he tells us and we’ll charge him for one murder rather than three. He’s frightened of him, so he won’t like that.”

  “On it now,” Phillips huffed. “Where will you be?”

  The clock read six forty-five and the tides were due to roll in just before eight. The island was an hour and a half’s drive away, on a good day.

  “I’m going to be on the island.” He hoped he would be on the island. “Get a team together. We’re looking for somewhere which suits his ego, somewhere big enough to house it. It has to be the fort. That’s where I’ll be.”

  “We’ll be right behind you.”

  Ryan looked into the steady brown eyes of his DI and nodded before heading out into the wind.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Jolly Anchor was brimming with rekindled Christmas cheer when Anna eventually gave up waiting for Ryan and headed along to the wake by herself. Multi-coloured lights hung from the pillars of the bar and holly sprigs had been tacked to the walls and around the big fireplace, which was blazing. The warmth of the room, filled with so many recognisable faces, helped Anna to shake off the remaining anxiety which had filled her as she’d watched Ryan drive away.

  It was pathetic to feel so needy. He had left Lindisfarne so that he could question and presumably charge the man responsible for killing three people. That was a reason to be thankful, she reminded herself, not to feel lonely and bereft. She had lived alone for years, had been the mistress of her own destiny. Why should that change after only a few days spent with Ryan?

  Anna reached into her bag to check her mobile phone again before she remembered that there was barely any reception on this part of the island. Still, it didn’t matter too much. Ryan knew where she would be if he wanted to find her.

  She saw Mark heading towards her wearing a thick Christmas jumper decorated with white bobbly snowflakes and was compelled to smile. Tonight was meant to be a celebration of the lives of those they had lost, a salve for the hurt they had all felt in varying degrees over the past few life-altering days. She owed it to Megan to get into the spirit of the occasion, so she took the offered glass of mead.

  “It’s good to see you here, Anna,” Bowers said, noting the shadows under her eyes and the way the firelight danced across her face.

  “It’s good to be here,” she replied, waving across to Bill Tilson who was manning the bar with Pete. “I wasn’t sure if I would come.”

  “No Ryan, tonight?” Mark asked.

  “He’s across on the mainland…”

  “Oh, of course, questioning Dan Mathieson. That came as a bit of a shock to us all.”

  “I know,” Anna said, “it was always going to be a shock, because it was almost certain that we would know the person responsible. Let’s hope that’s an end to it.”

  Bowers nodded reflectively and swirled the brandy in his hand.

  “Let’s hope Mathieson does the right thing,” he said. When Anna turned with a questioning look, he added, “Confesses to his crimes.”

  “Oh! Yes, that would make Ryan’s job much easier. There’s so much evidence, apparently, down at the Rigby garage, it seems to be all tied up.”

  “That’s very good,” Mark said. “Here’s to the end of a nasty interlude, then.”

  Anna raised her gl
ass to clink with his and, since the mead was beginning to make her head slightly fuzzy, she asked a personal question.

  “Do you ever feel lonely around Christmas, Mark? It never used to bother me, but just lately, I’ve realised my outlook might have changed.”

  Bowers looked down into his glass, watched the amber liquid for a long moment.

  “I used to feel lonely. Life passed me by, really, because I got caught up with work. I never made time for a ‘Mrs Bowers’,” He turned to look at her briefly, just once and then turned back to the room.

  “You don’t feel that way, anymore?”

  Bowers glanced around the room, a wide sweep of intelligent eyes.

  “Not as much. We find other things, other people to occupy us.”

  “Well, nobody could say that you’re a layabout, Mark,” Anna chuckled, thinking of all the good work that he did for the island.

  “I like to keep busy,” he shrugged it off. “But don’t make my mistake, Anna. Grasp life and everything it has to offer you, because otherwise you’ll wake up one morning, older, lamenting the fact that you squandered opportunities. Ryan’s a good man.”

  He drank more and thought of their absent friend.

  “How do you –” Anna broke off, embarrassed.

  Mark turned to her with a smile.

  “I was going to say, ‘how do you know when you’ve found the right person?’”

  Bowers turned fully towards her and reached out, touched the ends of her hair briefly before pulling back.

  “I used to love a woman, Anna. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever known, inside and out. I adored her, but now she’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry, Mark,” Anna said deeply. “I never knew.”

  “How could you? I never told you.” And still, you don’t understand, he thought.

  “Why didn’t it work out?” she should probably stop being so nosy, Anna thought, but Mark was the closest thing she had to family now.

  He shook his head.

  “She belonged to someone else.”

  * * *

  The roar of the engine was a shock to the quiet coastline as Ryan’s car sped along the winding road towards Lindisfarne. He punched in Anna’s number on the hands-free phone again.