Ryan shook his head.
“As far as her record is concerned, she’s whiter than white.” He passed a weary hand over his eyes. “I have absolutely no evidence to corroborate what happened between us. Not a damn thing.”
He looked over Phillips’ shoulder and thought of his life in London, a lifetime ago.
“All I have are memories.”
*
Phillips declared a state of temporary emergency and directed Ryan to the staff canteen, where he ordered two sausage stotties with brown sauce and found a quiet corner where they would not be disturbed. “Eat,” he ordered Ryan, who obeyed without question.
After the second bite, he started to feel better.
“I’m telling you, it’s an old Geordie remedy,” Phillips proclaimed but didn’t touch his own sandwich.
He folded his hands on the shiny-clean table top and waited until Ryan had eaten his fill before raising another important matter.
“I’ve got something to ask you.”
Ryan frowned.
“Shoot.”
“Will you be best man, at my wedding?”
It took a second or two, then Ryan forgot his own troubles and broke into a wide grin and stood up to give him a hard hug.
“It would be an honour,” he said. “That’s assuming MacKenzie doesn’t come to her senses before then. Congratulations, Frank.”
Phillips shook his head, hardly believing his own luck.
“I hope it isn’t the anxiety talking,” he thought aloud. “What if she changes her mind, once she’s back to her old self?”
“Don’t be daft.”
“I’m older than she is,” Phillips continued. “I don’t want to be a burden to her in years to come.”
“I’m sure MacKenzie’s realised that you’re a few years her senior, using the magical power of simple arithmetic,” he said. “Besides, you’re already a burden, so it makes no difference.”
That earned him a hard punch on the arm.
“Look, stop questioning it, just be grateful you’ve found someone who’ll put up with you for the rest of your life.”
“With sentiments like that, you could have been a poet,” Phillips said.
“If my career in law enforcement goes down the pan, I’ll give it a try. You realise, this gives me some excellent leverage.”
Phillips gave him a beady-eyed look.
“My stag do is fast approaching,” Ryan explained. “You’ve been threatening a night I’ll never forget for months. Now, you know you can’t do anything too outlandish because, whatever you do, I’ll quadruple it when your turn comes around.”
Phillips gave him a pitying look.
“Lad, I’ve been on more stag dos than you’ve had hot dinners. The question you need to ask yourself is: do you have sufficient life insurance cover?”
Ryan looked up at that.
“Welcome to big school, son,” Phillips said, and took a hearty bite of his sandwich.
CHAPTER 14
News of the discovery of a body at Cragside suspended any further discussion and they made their way back to the estate with all speed, leaving instructions for Lowerson and Yates to meet them there. Thanks to a loose interpretation of the Highway Code, Ryan managed to cut the journey time by almost half. However, as he steered his car through the pillared gates and Phillips sent up a prayer of thanks for their safe arrival, it quickly became obvious that the media had still beaten them to it.
Ryan slowed the car to a crawl and scanned the faces of the crowd that had gathered outside the entrance to the house and were spilling onto the driveway. For all he knew, they could be trampling across an active crime scene and he had a good mind to book them for obstruction. His mood did not improve when he spotted four news vans parked haphazardly along the grassy verge leading up to the main entrance.
“For God’s sake. Who tipped them off?”
Ryan pulled up behind one of the vans and cut the engine.
“My money’s on the family,” Phillips said. “I reckon old Lionel fancies himself on the telly.”
But Ryan shook his head.
“There’s only one person who could be stupid enough, and egotistical enough, to enjoy this kind of spectacle.”
With that, he slammed out of the car and went in search of Martin Henderson.
*
The estate manager was not hard to find. He stood on the stone steps outside the main doors of the house dressed in what Phillips would have called his Sunday Best, holding court over a group of baying journalists who were eager to capture a soundbite in time for the lunchtime news.
“It’s a terrible, terrible tragedy,” he was saying, injecting just the right note of sympathy into his nasal voice. “As spokesperson for the Gilbert family, I would like to offer our sincere condolences to Alice Chapman’s family and to assure them that we will be doing all we can to make sure an accident like this never happens again.”
“What if it wasn’t an accident? Two deaths in two days looks suspicious, doesn’t it, Mr Henderson?”
He shook his head sadly.
“I don’t think we can draw any particular conclusions from these unprecedented events,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about.
“Turn those cameras off!”
The crowd parted like the Red Sea and several stunned faces spun around as Ryan’s voice carried across the driveway. His long legs covered the ground at speed and he was coldly, furiously angry.
“You!”—he jabbed a finger toward Henderson—“Get your arse back inside the house or I’ll book you for wilful obstruction!”
The estate manager hesitated and was obviously tempted to argue against the edict but Ryan took a step closer and looked him dead in the eye.
“Go on,” he purred. “Try me.”
Henderson might have had a monstrous ego but he didn’t have a death wish. He scurried back inside the house and Ryan’s lip curled.
“As for you vultures”—he turned scathing eyes on the men and women who remained, making no move to switch off their cameras or microphones—“you should know better than to release the name of a victim of crime before their identity has been confirmed or the family informed. Have some integrity, for pity’s sake. Now, bugger off, before I report you to Ofcom!”
They scattered like rats and Ryan watched them with a fulminating glare.
“That’ll not be the end of it,” Phillips warned, as he came to stand beside Ryan. “They love a bit of nonsense to feed the masses. Fake news and all that.”
Ryan sighed and thought of what Morrison would have to say about it all.
“I don’t have time to worry about PR. I want some order injected into this chaos,” he said as he swept a disgusted hand over the driveway, which was still teeming with people who had come to watch the drama unfold. “Where are the first responders?”
Two young police constables loitered on the far side of the driveway with their hands in their pockets and Ryan saw red.
“Go easy, lad,” Phillips advised him but settled back to enjoy a good dressing down.
“Oi, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Fucking-Dum!”
The constables promptly shat themselves at the sight of a senior officer heading in their direction with a bloodthirsty look in his eye.