*
Chief Constable Morrison was waiting for him when Ryan knocked on the door of her office, and she gestured toward one of the semi-comfortable tub chairs arranged in front of her desk. He noticed she’d put a few potted cacti on the window ledges and watercolour pictures of local seascapes hung on three of the walls to soften the stark white. Ryan came to stand in front of her desk.
“I understand you wanted to see me, ma’am?”
“Yes. Take a seat, Ryan, you’re giving me a neck-ache.”
She watched him settle himself, admiring the way he always managed to look unruffled, no matter what bubbled beneath the surface of those clear grey eyes.
“How are things up at Cragside?”
Ryan shifted in his seat, recognising the warm-up question for what it was. They both knew what Morrison really planned to talk about but he was happy to go along with the subterfuge if it bought him a few precious minutes.
“Progressing,” he replied. “I had a word with Jeff Pinter earlier this morning and it’s likely there was a struggle before Alice Chapman died. On that basis, we’re treating her death as murder in the absence of any other plausible alternative. DNA testing is ongoing.”
“What about the first victim?” Morrison racked her brains for a name. “Victor Swann? I understand you’re treating his death as a linked investigation.”
“Yes, ma’am. Although we’re awaiting the pathologist’s report, it would appear there is an evidential link between the two deaths. I suspect there is a strong financial motivation too. Swann lived like a king but his earnings capacity didn’t match his spending. DC Lowerson and PC Yates have been following the money, digging around into any outstanding SARs to see if there are any markers on his file.”
Morrison nodded. He seemed to have everything in hand, which was no less than she expected.
“I hear that MacKenzie has started back at work? That’s excellent news.”
Ryan nodded.
“She’s planning to do two or three days per week to begin with and I’ve agreed to be flexible on that. It’s still early days.”
“Of course. If there’s anything she needs—”
“She’ll let us know,” Ryan interjected smoothly. “But I’m keeping an eye on her. We all are.”
The tone suggested, ever so subtly, that his team looked out for one another. Not being party to that, Morrison was left out in the cold.
Her lips flattened.
“There was another matter I wanted to discuss.”
She found herself bristling under his silent scrutiny and came straight to the point.
“I was disappointed by your reaction the other morning, when I told you of the new appointee to the superintendent position,” she said, flatly. “While you are naturally—shall we say, reserved?—I thought your behaviour was out of character, even for you.”
She realised he was not going to help her by volunteering any information, so she needed to be even more blunt.
“I want you to tell me why you have a problem with DCI Lucas. Surely it can’t be something as trivial as a brief history together, over a decade ago.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw and Ryan looked away for a moment. When he turned back, his eyes were completely veiled.
“I have no grievance on record against DCI Lucas.”
“Alright,” Morrison said, a bit testily. “You say you don’t have a formal grievance but what about an informal one? Don’t try and tell me everything is tickety-boo, because I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Ryan felt the old fear creep back, the worry that he could be wrong or that he would not be believed. He remembered how Lucas had behaved all those years ago and what she had done; the times she had made him doubt his own sanity. Had he magnified those memories over time? Perhaps she had changed; recovered and found inner peace.
Pigs might fly.
Ryan opened his mouth to tell Morrison about the times he had feared for his safety; the times Lucas had threatened suicide if he should ever leave her; the horror at coming home to his flat in London to find her there with a firearm held to her head.
At the time, he hadn’t put it on record out of a sense of sympathy and misguided pity, and it had been his single biggest mistake. He had been a much younger man, barely twenty-three to her more worldly thirty-two, and he hadn’t the first idea how to manage such a volatile situation. Lucas was his superior and they had been discreet from the start because personal relationships had been discouraged in the ranks. Unfortunately, that meant nobody knew of it and Lucas threatened to deny any intimacy between them if Ryan raised it with the brass.
When he’d overridden her threat and tentatively mentioned it to one of his colleagues, they’d laughed.
Grow a pair of balls, mate.
Man up.
Apparently, it was inconceivable for a man like Ryan to be the subject of unwanted attention. He’d been told he should stop complaining and that other men would kill to have a woman like Jennifer Lucas in their lives. Back then, he’d been young and proud, unwilling to embarrass himself any further by showing them the scars of his short-lived romance.
He wondered whether the response would have been different if he’d been a woman.
But that was then.
Ryan was a different man now, with ten more years of life experience. He knew what it meant to be a partner in a meaningful relationship, where neither party was ever made to feel trapped, or worse. He didn’t mind the jokes around the canteen or the banter from his friends because he’d made a new life for himself from the ashes of the old one.
He’d built something good here, something solid that was worth protecting.
Ryan had just made up his mind to tell Morrison the real reason for his concern, when she said something that stopped him.
“I don’t know whether it will interest you to know that DCI Lucas will be moving north with her husband,” Morrison said, and watched relief pass over Ryan’s face.
It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was delighted to know that Lucas had left her troubles behind her and gone on to find happiness in the years that had passed. He couldn’t wait to tell Anna about this development.
“As you can see, there really should be no awkwardness,” Morrison continued. “Unless there’s something else you feel I should know?”
Ryan thought of Lucas’s husband and of the uncomfortable position it may put her in if he were to rake up the past. For all he knew, she had children who could be affected by any repercussions.
“No. No,” he said again, more firmly this time. “There’s nothing.”
Therein, Ryan made his second big mistake.
*
Ryan found his team gathered around Lowerson’s desk, waiting for him. “Everything alright, lad?”
Phillips gave him a sharp look but Ryan nodded and felt relaxed for the first time in days. It might be awkward working with Lucas at first but there was a lot of water under the bridge.