by LJ Ross
THE INFIRMARY
– A DCI RYAN MYSTERY
LJ Ross
Copyright © LJ Ross 2019
The right of LJ Ross to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or transmitted into any retrieval system, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design copyright © LJ Ross
OTHER BOOKS BY LJ ROSS
The Alexander Gregory Thrillers in order:
1. Impostor
2. Hysteria
3. Bedlam
The DCI Ryan Mysteries in order:
1. Holy Island
2. Sycamore Gap
3. Heavenfield
4. Angel
5. High Force
6. Cragside
7. Dark Skies
8. Seven Bridges
9. The Hermitage
10. Longstone
11. The Infirmary (prequel)
12. The Moor
13. Penshaw
14. Borderlands
15. Ryan’s Christmas
16. The Shrine
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“First, do no harm.”
—Hippocrates
CHAPTER 1
Sunday 6th July 2014
The Sunday Market on Newcastle’s Quayside was bustling. Traders touted everything from chocolates to knitted tea caddies, and the air was heavy with the scent of fudge and fried onions as John Dobbs fought his way through the crowd.
He walked with his head bent, avoiding the faces of those who jostled him along with impatient nudges and irritable sighs.
“’scuse me, mate.”
A meaty hand thrust him aside and Dobbs stumbled backwards into the path of an oncoming buggy laden with children.
“Mind out o’ the way, man!”
A rake-thin woman raced towards him, shoving the buggy out in front of her like a battering ram.
“Sorry,” he muttered, ducking between the stalls.
Dobbs risked a glance between the flaps of colourful tarpaulin and waited. He searched the passing faces of the crowd and began to think he had imagined the creeping, paranoid feeling of being followed.
Then he spotted them.
A man and woman weaved purposefully through the stream of people and came to a standstill, craning their necks as they searched the faces with hard, focused eyes that set them apart from the common herd. It was the same pair he’d seen yesterday, and the day before that.
It could mean only one thing.
Police.
He felt his stomach jitter, one slow flip that brought bile to his throat. They had come for him.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, and shuffled backwards, trying to make himself invisible. His chest shuddered in and out as he battled to remain calm, sucking in deep breaths of sickly-sweet summer air.
The policeman must have sensed him, because he turned suddenly and their eyes locked. Time slowed, the crowd became a blur and, in the second that PC Steve Jessop hesitated, Dobbs took his chance.
He spun around and burst through the brightly coloured canopies that billowed on the air, running along the quayside without any idea of where to go, driven only by the need to get away, to find somewhere safe.
“Hitchins! He’s leggin’ it!”
Dobbs heard the man shouting to his partner and knew they wouldn’t be far behind. His feet slapped against the pavement and he’d barely gone a hundred yards before he began to tire, muscles screaming as he urged his useless body to go faster.
“We’re in pursuit of subject heading west along the Quayside! Surveillance is blown. Request further instructions. I repeat, request immediate instructions!”
Dobbs cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the pair of them shouting into their radios as they gave chase. When he turned back, he lost his footing and careened into a group of teenagers, falling awkwardly to the sound of jeers.
He didn’t stop to listen but scrambled up again, the pads of his fingers tearing at the rough paving stones as he fought to stay ahead. There was a buzzing in his ears as he leaped into the road.
Horns blared, brakes screeched as he ran beneath the enormous bridge connecting Newcastle and Gateshead. It towered high above his head in a graceful arch of painted green steel, its underbelly spattered with the faeces of a thousand birds who nested in its nooks and crannies. Their noise was deafening, a cacophony of squawks and cries as he searched for a way to escape, a quiet hollow where he could breathe and think clearly. He pressed his hands to his ears.
“Please, God,” he muttered. “Make them stop.”
Beneath the wide arches was a granite tower supporting the north side of the bridge. Usually, its doors were kept firmly locked to the public, but vandals seeking a new dumping ground had tampered with the chain and it lay in a heap of rusted metal on the floor, leaving the door tantalisingly ajar. Dobbs squeezed behind the barrier railing, yanked the door open with a creak of hinges, and hurried inside.
He blinked as his eyes adjusted to sudden darkness, retching at the overpowering smell of birds and mildew. Ahead of him, a staircase beckoned, and he followed it up to an enormous tower room. Its steel framework was still visible from the days when it had been used as a warehouse in the 1920s and, as the sun broke through the dusty window panes, he looked up to its high rafters in a kind of wonder. Tiny pigeon feathers and a haze of dust motes floated on the air and, to his fevered mind, it was a kind of cathedral, a place of sanctuary.
But not for long.
The sound of running footsteps followed him upstairs, and Dobbs flew up another staircase leading to the upper level. In the distance, he heard the long wail of police sirens outside and knew they were for him.
Sweat coursed down his face and into his eyes as he hurried upward. His legs burned, and his gasp
ing breaths echoed around the high walls as he clambered higher.
“Up there!”
He heard them in the tower below, then the crackle of a police radio.
“Subject is inside north tower of the bridge and heading for the roadway exit on the top level. Requesting immediate support!”
“Where the hell is Cooper?”
Dobbs didn’t stop to wonder who Cooper was. His lungs laboured, dragging stale air into his exhausted body. Clammy hands pushed against the crumbling wall as he struggled to reach the top of the stairs and whatever fate awaited him there.
“John!”
He heard the woman calling out to him, warning him to stop, to stay calm. All the things he couldn’t do even if he wanted to.
He emerged from the stairwell onto a precarious gangway wrapping around the topmost level of steel frame and the height was enough to make him dizzy. His legs were shaking with fatigue and black dots swam in front of his eyes as he clung to the wall. He heard the rattle of metal as they climbed the stairs below and he searched desperately for a way out.
Dobbs spotted a door halfway along the gangway and began to edge forward, sweating as his feet slid against bird excrement and the gangway creaked beneath his weight. The birds were all around now, cooing and crying like the pealing of bells.
“John! Stay where you are!”
He clasped a hand around the heavy door handle that would lead him out onto the top of the bridge. On the other side, he could hear the thrum of traffic and he tugged harder, desperate to get out.
The door was locked.
A sob escaped him, echoing around the cavernous tower.
Frantic now, he put his weight behind it and kicked out at the old chain lock, but it wouldn’t budge. He was almost beaten when he spotted a small hook to the side of the door with a set of old keys, coated in cobwebs and grime. His hands shook as he tried each of them in the lock until, miraculously, the chain fell away.
The police were only metres away by the time he prised the door open. When he burst onto the bridge, a gust of strong wind hit him like a fist to the face so that he almost fell backwards again. Cold air rolled in from the North Sea and whipped through the high arches, the metal screeching and moaning like a woman in torment. He shook his head to clear the sound, pressing the heels of his hands to the sides of his head to relieve the pressure.
“John?”
He backed away from the door as the two police officers joined him, red-faced and out of breath.
“John,” the woman repeated, palms outstretched. “I’m Detective Constable Hitchins and this is Police Constable Jessop. All we want to do”—she paused to catch her breath—“all we want to do is talk to you.”
But he heard fear and mistrust buried beneath the empty platitude.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered and began to cry.
Jessop and Hitchins glanced at each other, neither sure how to handle a situation that was escalating rapidly out of their control.
Where was Cooper?
Vehicles and pedestrians moving in both directions across the bridge had come to a standstill and the road was blocked by the shrieking arrival of several squad cars. In his peripheral vision, Dobbs watched as more police officers swarmed out of their cars and began to set up makeshift barriers to protect the public from the madman on the bridge.
Tears spilled over his face. Small, salty rivers that pooled in the lines on his cheeks as he continued to edge backwards.
“John, listen to me,” Hitchins began.
“It’s all over!” Jessop cut across her, adopting the kind of aggressive stance he thought would help him get ahead in life. “Give yourself up, man!”
But he wasn’t listening to either of them. He watched a seagull weave through the metal struts overhead with an elegant flap of wings, then dive towards the water somewhere below.
“…John Edward Dobbs, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
As they surged forward to restrain him, Dobbs grasped the thick safety rail on the edge of the bridge. Drawing on the last drop of strength he had left, he heaved himself over the barrier and clung to the top, his knuckles glowing white as he held tight. He pressed his cheek against the cold metal and closed his eyes, mouthing a silent prayer.
“John, come down from the railing,” he heard one of them say.
“Stay back!” he muttered, and opened his eyes. Far below, the river glistened diamond bright in the early afternoon sunshine as it undulated gently towards the sea.
“John!” Hitchins’ voice sounded urgent. “Don’t do anything stupid. You don’t want to do anything final.”
But he knew she didn’t care. She couldn’t; not if he was a killer.
Another radio crackle.
“Subject is volatile, there’s a strong suicide risk. We need a crisis negotiator here, now!”
Slowly, Dobbs began to relax his grip on the metal railing.
“John, there’s still time to come down and talk about things,” the woman tried again, her voice wobbling.
How strange, he thought, that it was they who were frightened in the end.
He watched the river, mesmerised by the ebb and flow of the waves as the police continued to talk, to cajole, and finally to threaten. New officers came and went, more sirens and more noise while Dobbs retreated to the recesses of his own mind.
“John! Tell us why, John! At least tell us whether there are any more! You owe us that!”
In his last moments, he thought of his life, and of the people he had known. He couldn’t recall ever feeling truly happy; there might have been flashes over the years, but they had been outweighed by crushing loneliness. He thought of all the stupid, desperate actions he had taken to quell it. He thought of the dead woman, and started to laugh through his tears, a hysterical, maniacal sound that jarred in the surrounding silence.
And then, sweet oblivion as the water rose up to meet him.
CHAPTER 2
Thirty miles further north, two men sat side by side on the grassy verge of a different riverbank deep in the heart of Northumberland. The sun had begun its gradual descent towards the horizon and cast long, hazy summer rays over the landscape, lending it the kind of vintage hue that could rarely be captured on film. There was a peaceful hush, broken only by the sound of summer insects in the brush and the distant thrum of civilisation at the Angler’s Arms pub further upstream.
“Do you think we’ll catch anything before I start drawing my old-age pension?”
Detective Sergeant Frank Phillips favoured his companion with a stern look.
“The trick is to be patient, lad. Let the fish come to you.”
“We’ve been sitting here for nearly two hours and my arse is getting numb. Maybe the fish have migrated.”
Phillips shuffled against the hard ground and wished he’d brought a foldaway chair.
“That’s City-boy talk,” he grumbled, for appearances’ sake. “The trouble with your generation is you want everything to happen immediately.”
Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Finlay-Ryan looked across at his sergeant with an indulgent expression.
“That explains it,” he said, mildly.
“Explains what?”
“Why you haven’t asked MacKenzie out to dinner yet. You’re waiting for the fish to come to you, I take it.”
Phillips’ ruddy face flushed an even deeper shade of red.
“Don’t know what you’re gannin’ on about,” he muttered, hunching his shoulders defensively. It had been a full five years since his wife passed away—God rest her—and he had no intention of replacing her. But just lately it seemed that every time he turned a corner, he’d run into Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie and find himself jabbering nonsense or, worse still, saying nothing at all while she looked at him with those laughin
g green eyes of hers.
Damn the woman.
“I’m too old for all that,” he decided.
Ryan grinned and felt a tug on his fishing line.
“Yeah, I suppose you’re getting a bit long in the tooth,” he mused. “MacKenzie’s a few years younger, probably has a lot more energy—”
Phillips swung around to face him, squaring his stocky shoulders and jutting out his chin in the manner of a bull preparing to charge.
“I’ll have you know there’s still plenty of—”
“Fish tugging on your line?” Ryan offered.
“Aye! And I’m not too old to catch them, neither.”
“Just as well, because you’ve got some catching up to do,” Ryan said, as he unfolded his long body and began to reel in an enormous brown trout. There was a tussle by the water’s edge and sweat glistened against his forearms as he braced his legs and struggled to overpower the fish’s will to survive.
Phillips abandoned his own rod and jumped to his feet.
“That’s it, lad, you’ve got him now! Put your back into it!”
Ryan blew strands of dark hair from his eyes and hauled the protesting fish from the water, experiencing a quick surge of adrenaline followed swiftly by regret as he held its cold, quivering body in his hands. Quickly, he unhooked the fish and released it back into the shallows, heart thumping as he waited to see if it would recover.
“What’re you doing?”
Ryan’s shoulders relaxed as the trout flipped over and swam furiously towards the safety of deeper waters.
“I didn’t feel like fish tonight after all.”
Before Phillips could pass comment, a brassy rendition of the Indiana Jones theme tune sounded out across the quiet valley, disturbing a flock of birds nesting in the high reeds on the other side of the river. Ryan searched his pockets to find his mobile phone and, when he noted the caller ID, prepared to face death once again.
* * *
Northumbria Police Constabulary Headquarters nestled on the leafy western border of Newcastle upon Tyne, in a gentrified suburb far removed from the daily grind of the Criminal Investigation Department. Its boxy, sixties-style architecture stood out as a glaring anachronism but provided a welcome relief to the men and women tasked with investigating the worst that man could inflict upon his fellow being.
