by LJ Ross
He scanned the room nervously.
“Spit it out, Arthur,” she kept her voice low, but it cracked against him like a whip. “You’ve brought me here, now tell me what’s bothering you. Getting cold feet? It’s a little late for that.”
“Cold feet? No, I wanted to thank you.”
Freeman’s face remained impassive and she waited for him to elaborate.
“I suspected…I thought you would do something. But I didn’t know for sure. I wanted you to know you have my full support.”
Freeman said nothing and moved away to look at another display, not bothering to check that he was following. Of course he would follow. With a subtle glance, she made sure there were no CCTV cameras to capture their discussion.
“I take it Bowers has been found,” she said carefully. She was always a careful woman.
“Yesterday evening,” Gregson affirmed. “Ryan found him.”
That brought a smile to Freeman’s painted lips and, to the casual observer, her face was transformed suddenly into something beautiful.
“Did he, indeed?” She laughed huskily. “I never knew he had such a sense of humour.”
“Bowers? You think that he told Ryan about us—?”
Freeman shrugged her slim shoulders in a gesture of extreme indifference.
“What does it matter, now? I presume you have Ryan in custody, as your prime suspect.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“I had to release him. We didn’t have enough to hold him.”
Neither her stance nor her eyes wavered from their cool inspection of his face.
“That’s disappointing, Arthur,” was all she said.
“I’ve made my position clear,” he hurried on. “I’ve spoken to the Chief Constable and to the other members of the disciplinary committee. If he isn’t charged with murder, he’ll be dismissed from his post. I’m sure of it.”
“Good. That’s good,” she murmured, running her fingers over a china bowl in the shape of a conch. “I can rely on you to ensure that things progress as we discussed?”
Gregson swallowed a sudden panic. In his haste to celebrate the removal of one threat, had he overlooked the creation of an even greater one?
Too late to think about that now.
“I’ll do what I can.”
Freeman fixed him with another unblinking stare.
“You will do whatever is necessary. You’ve been given a great deal of latitude in recent times, considering your complete ineptitude,” she didn’t bother to mince her words.
He nodded dumbly.
“The Circle needs a new Priest,” she continued, her eyes glittering. “This time, we will have a Priestess. I’ll see you tonight, Arthur.”
Gregson watched her turn away from him. He continued to watch until the top of her shiny head disappeared on the escalator to the ground floor and then he sank for a moment into one of the display chairs, releasing the pent-up air in his lungs in one long, shaky breath.
* * *
DI Denise MacKenzie stood on the threshold of St. Oswald’s Church at Heavenfield watching the dust motes dancing on the air. Sunlight beamed through the windows and there was a light breeze from the fields outside which freshened the dank smell of the evening before. It would have been a prosaic, unthreatening scene inside the little church on the hill, were it not for the presence of Faulkner’s team of CSIs in their white paper suits to remind them that a man had died there only hours before.
Beside her, DC Lowerson stood poised and ready to serve as acting sergeant. Phillips had been deemed ‘too close’ to the investigation and was not listed as part of its task force in case he should bias the outcome, whatever that might be. MacKenzie knew that she, too, had been on the borderline. But, the regulations required a person of sufficient rank to act as Senior Investigating Officer in a murder investigation. If Gregson vetoed every man and woman in CID on the basis of their friendship or respect for DCI Ryan, there would be very few options left to choose from.
So, for now, MacKenzie remained in charge of proceedings.
“Faulkner?”
He looked up from where he had been swabbing an area around the altar and raised a nitrile-gloved hand in greeting, gesturing that it was safe to enter in their plastic-covered shoes.
MacKenzie and Lowerson walked slowly along the main aisle of the church, past the rows of plain wooden pews, their eyes tracking the details of the room. She had lost count of the times she had seen Ryan silently observing a crime scene, eyes sharp, his senses consciously heightened as he committed it to memory and she followed his example.
The church itself was a boxy piece of nineteenth century architecture partly obscured by a few trees and a small boundary wall. It was certainly not the kind of ancient masterpiece one might have expected to find in an area famed for its historic buildings. Inside, there were no fancy touches. Spirituality without artifice, MacKenzie thought, as she noted the basic pews and functional font, the cork board displaying everyday, run-of-the-mill notices for those who happened to visit. She saw a glossy leaflet advertising the annual pilgrimage to the spot and wondered if their intake would be lower or higher next year, after this year’s excitement. That would be an interesting observation on human nature.
“Every detail, Jack,” she murmured to Lowerson, who stood a few inches behind her right shoulder. “Let’s try to get a feel for the place. You never know what might be important.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied, then corrected himself hastily. “Ma’am.”
MacKenzie smiled inwardly. There weren’t many senior female detectives in Northumbria CID, certainly not under Gregson’s leadership, but times were changing. She thought briefly of her progression, which she owed largely to Ryan having noted her abilities during several early cases. Unlike some of the other inspectors who belonged to an earlier generation of middle-aged men who enjoyed bawdy humour and cups of tea made by their female colleagues, Ryan had seen past her face and figure to the brain beneath. He made sure that she had the experience to support an application for promotion and had given her the confidence to reach for it. She remembered asking him why he had bothered.
“I don’t give a damn what you look like, so long as you do a good job.”
She smiled at the memory.
“Hello Denise,” Faulkner’s suit rustled as he moved from his crouched position. “Jack, good to see you fit and well again.”
“Thanks,” Lowerson replied automatically, but pushed the memories of weeks spent in hospital to the back of his mind. “What can you tell us?”
Faulkner moved his mask to one side and scratched an itch on the side of his unremarkable face. Tufts of mid-brown hair sprung out at the edge of his paper cap and his glasses stayed on his nose with the help of a long elastic band wrapped around his ears and the back of his head. MacKenzie wondered why he didn’t try contact lenses.
“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“I’ll take the good news,” she replied, with a sinking heart.
“Well, the church is small, which means that there’s less ground to cover. We’re making good progress,” he waved a hand vaguely in the direction of his staff, who worked painstakingly to cover every inch of ground. “It’ll take a while longer to go over the pathway outside and the track from here to the road, not to mention Bowers’ car, his house and all that.”
“And the bad news?”
“We’ve got nothing,” Faulkner replied, succinctly. “I should say, we’ve got nothing that won’t turn out to be DNA belonging to Joe Bloggs who popped in to say a prayer and sneezed beside the altar. There are a few old hair samples and clothing fibres strewn across the pews and dug into the cracks in the stonework, over the floor…you name it. Separating them and distinguishing old from new will take days if not weeks, and that’s just for starters. In the immediate vicinity we’ve got fairly large scale blood loss, but that’ll be Bowers’ blood or I’ll eat my paper hat.”
“Anything e
lse around the body?”
Faulkner huffed out a breath and his myopic eyes were filled with regret.
“One or two clothing fibres found on Bowers,” he said. “Looks like dark grey or black wool.”
MacKenzie took his meaning straight away. The dead man had been wearing a thin raincoat over cream chinos and a polo shirt, whereas DCI Ryan had entered the holding cells wearing a thin grey jumper and jeans.
“Surely, that’s to be expected,” she said, a bit desperately. “Ryan found the body and took the man’s pulse. A bit of wool might have come off as he leaned across in the dark, don’t you think?”
Faulkner pulled a face.
“No question that we both want that to be the case. There isn’t a murdering bone in Ryan’s body, even if he is an irritable sod most of the time,” Faulkner surprised himself by saying. “But the fact of the matter is, I have to record what was found. How that’s interpreted is up to others to decide.”
MacKenzie nodded. She wouldn’t ask him to betray his integrity by leaving it off the inventory, just as she wouldn’t ask it of herself.
“Alright, anything else found roundabouts?” she asked hopefully.
“That’s a little odd,” Faulkner reflected. “The place was practically spotless—and I mean spotless—except for two things. An empty crisp packet, which we found near the entrance, and half of a broken ice lolly stick.”
“The little wooden ones? Where did you find it?” Lowerson piped up.
“It was lying a few metres away from the altar, in the middle of the floor over there,” Faulkner pointed to the relevant yellow marker.
“Only half the stick? Where was the other half?”
“Who knows?” Faulkner shrugged inside his overalls. “For all we know, it could be weeks or months old. We swabbed the area and there was no sugary residue to indicate that the corresponding lolly had melted away beside it. The stick looks old and it’s bone dry, but we’ve sent it in for analysis along with the crisp packet and the fibres.”
“OK, I guess that’s all we can do for now,” MacKenzie agreed. “What about the weapon?”
“Um, well. We recovered a lead ball from the floor beside the wall on the eastern side,” Faulkner pointed to his left, where a scattering of yellow markers showed the estimated trajectory of the little round ball. It had passed through Bowers’ skull, flown for a little way until it ricocheted off the wall a few metres behind him and then fallen to the floor. An inanimate object briefly animated to kill a man.
“Lead ball? You mean a bullet?”
Faulkner shook his scruffy head.
“No, it looks much older than a modern bullet. It’s just a lead ball, no metal casing or anything like that.”
“We’re looking for an older weapon, then?”
“I would say so.”
“Alright,” MacKenzie murmured, tracing the path of the leaden ball from the altar to the wall directly behind where Bowers’ head had lain.
“We found traces of fine black powder covering the altar and the floor around it. There was some on Bowers before they moved him,” Faulkner continued. “That says to me that our perp fired a single shot into Bowers’ head at close range and a bit of the powder was discharged along with the lead ball. I’ve sent the samples over to ballistics—”
“Put a rush on it,” MacKenzie interjected.
Faulkner nodded his approval and then cleared his throat.
“Already done, Mac. Hope you don’t mind, I thought you’d approve the resources.”
“I will. Carry on, Tom.”
“Well, it doesn’t necessarily help Mark Bowers right now, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to point out that there is no way this came from a Glock, or any modern service revolver.”
Lowerson asked the necessary question.
“Glock?”
“Glock 17,” MacKenzie answered shortly. “It’s the semi-automatic pistol of choice for Authorised Firearms Officers.”
“Ryan’s authorised,” Lowerson said. “And I’m guessing he has a Glock 17.”
“Not any more he doesn’t,” MacKenzie corrected him. “It was confiscated when he was suspended from duty. In the circumstances, that’s a very good thing.”
“It certainly wouldn’t have helped his case,” Faulkner agreed. “But, as I say, we’re looking at something much older, maybe even an antique piece since we’ve found traces of powder. The lead ball was about yea big.”
He used thumb and forefinger to sketch out the size.
“Much larger than the usual,” MacKenzie agreed. “Looks like it should belong to a rifle, except that wouldn’t match the injuries.”
Faulkner shook his head.
“There would have been nothing left of his head, if a rifle had been used at close range. No,” he shook his head again. “You’re looking for some kind of pistol, but you’ll have to wait until ballistics come back with their report because this is way out of my league.”
They stepped outside into the morning light and allowed themselves a moment to settle their nerves. The church was just a building, but the dark red stains sullying its walls were a poignant reminder that they hadn’t driven out into Hadrian’s Wall country to appreciate the scenery. Slowly, they walked around to the back of the church, getting the lay of the land.
“Couldn’t have been suicide, then,” Lowerson broke the silence, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pristine, tailored grey suit. “If the weapon is missing, I mean.”
MacKenzie stopped to gaze over the undulating hills towards the north and west, enjoying the feel of the breeze ruffling her hair and cooling her skin. The view was panoramic, a sweeping vista towards the Scottish borders. A group of inquisitive sheep congregated on the edge of the graveyard, as if they knew it would be sacrilegious to venture further, then scattered as the two detectives continued their tour of the church grounds.
“It seems that way, at first glance,” MacKenzie answered. “But a weapon is a commodity, Jack. Who’s to say that an unknown person didn’t stumble upon Bowers a few minutes before Ryan entered? He or she could have pocketed the gun, thinking they could hock it later on for a bit of cash in hand, especially if Faulkner’s right and it was an antique weapon. On the plus side, antique weaponry tends to leave a decent paper trail.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lowerson admitted.
“Not everybody is as upstanding as you, boyo,” she smiled over at him. The sunlight lit up her hair so that it shone a blazing red around her face. It was so tranquil here, they might have been the only two people around. Just them and the unprepossessing church which looked as if God himself had dropped it accidentally in this incongruous spot.
Lowerson blushed, feeling young and ridiculous.
“We’ll need to speak to the pathologist,” MacKenzie was saying. “He’ll be able to tell us whether there was any residue on Bowers’ hands that might indicate that he discharged a weapon himself. But first, let’s track down the caretaker and see what he can tell us.”
With a final look out across the hills, she turned and headed down the incline towards the main road.
CHAPTER 5
“We shouldn’t be here.”
It was a rare thing for DCI Ryan to feel uncomfortable. For the most part, he was a man unmoved by the opinions of society, preferring to follow his own path in all things. Right now, he felt distinctly uncomfortable.
In fact, he felt naughty.
“We definitely shouldn’t be here,” he repeated. “I’m going expressly against every regulation there is.”
“Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat.”
Rendered momentarily speechless by a description he hadn’t heard since prep school, he found himself following Anna’s lead into the well-tended stone cottage.
Inside, they were met with a musty silence and overtones of aromatic spice, suggestive of wax polish or potpourri. The hallway was dark and covered in framed photographs, cataloguing the life of a man who liked to remember the past.
There were images of Mark Bowers as he had been in life, decked out in his ubiquitous chinos and shirt against backdrops of castles and archaeological excavations. Ryan peered closely at the pictures to try to gauge the man’s character from what he had chosen to immortalise in print, but all they could tell him was that Bowers had been passionate about his work. Every picture showcased a new excavation site, arranged chronologically, by the looks of it. The oldest print was positioned on one side of the front door and showed a fresh-faced Bowers standing amid a group of university students, perhaps from his history days at Oxford. The newest wrapped all the way around the hallway to the other side of the front door and showed a much older Bowers posing in front of Bamburgh Castle, beside a small group of people Ryan presumed to be members of his excavation team.
Ryan scrutinized the people in the photographs, committing faces to memory on the off chance that one of these smiling academics had taken it upon themselves to put a bullet in their friend’s brain.
Anna disappeared into the first room on the left, which she knew to be the epicentre of Bowers’ home. His study was exactly as she remembered it: floor to ceiling bookshelves crammed full of books, many of them old and cracked with age. This had been a working library, she recalled, for a man who read every volume and didn’t care for books that hadn’t earned their place on the shelf.
“It looks just the same,” she murmured.
“It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” Ryan replied from the doorway, his voice unaccountably loud.
“I know, but…” she trailed off. “I don’t know. I expected it to feel different, somehow. Empty, maybe. Instead, it feels like he could walk through the door at any moment.”
Ryan heard tears clogging her throat, so he brought her sharply back to the present.
“He may not walk in, but Faulkner and his team might. Let’s get moving, we’re on borrowed time, as it is.”
“I just want to see if there’s anything which might help,” Anna said, obstinately. “You didn’t have to come.”
