Ryan's Christmas: A DCI Ryan Mystery (The DCI Ryan Mysteries Book 15) Read online

  RYAN’S CHRISTMAS

  – 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

  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

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “By the pricking of my thumbs

  Something wicked this way comes…”

  —William Shakespeare, Macbeth

  CHAPTER 1

  The Friday before Christmas

  “Hell’s bells, I’m freezin’ me nuts off in here!”

  Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Finlay-Ryan glanced at his sergeant in the rear-view mirror, then turned his attention back to the road ahead.

  “The heating’s already on full blast,” he said, pulling a face at the temperature gauge, which confirmed it was below zero outside. Snow had been falling steadily ever since they’d left Edinburgh, and the journey back to Northumberland had been slow going. Normally, it was a pleasant two-hour drive but, judging by the worsening conditions outside, it would be a while longer before they made it home.

  There followed a theatrical brrr, as Detective Sergeant Frank Phillips shook himself all over and rubbed his hands together.

  “I told you to wear a thicker jumper, Frank. The forecast said there was a good chance of snow this weekend.”

  These wise words were spoken by Detective Inspector Denise MacKenzie, the other occupant in the back seat of Ryan’s car, who also had the dubious honour of being Phillips’ wife.

  “It’s not a jumper I need, it’s a bit of winter padding,” he replied, rubbing his belly. “It’s this new-fangled diet you’ve had me on—”

  “If you think ‘reducing your bacon stottie intake’ is new-fangled, I dread to think what you make of things like ‘the wheel’ and ‘motorised tractors’,” she drawled.

  “Har har,” he said. “You’ll not be saying that, when you want to snuggle up later and find I’m nothing but skin and bones—”

  Ryan hurriedly turned up the radio to drown out the rest of their conversation.

  “Thank God,” he said, as George Michael began to croon about having given someone his heart last Christmas. There were some things in life he didn’t need to know about, and snuggling in the Phillips-MacKenzie household was one of them.

  In the passenger seat beside him, his own better half, Anna, wrapped her arms around her chest and peered through the windscreen. It had seemed like a good idea to make a day trip to Edinburgh with their closest friends; to enjoy a rare moment of respite from the all-consuming work of fighting crime, in their case—and academic history, in hers. The foursome had spent a happy few hours wandering around the festive market nestled at the foot of Edinburgh Castle, laughing and nibbling toffee apples as they immersed themselves in the season of goodwill.

  But now, as the city lights receded and the road stretched out in a blanket of white before them, she felt a moment’s fear. It was after five, and darkness had fallen. Somewhere to the east, the North Sea crashed restlessly against the shore, while the stark landscape of the borderlands lay off to the west. Snow fell heavily as they wound their way through the gloomy landscape and the windscreen wipers swished back and forth to clear the gathering flakes.

  Anna had been born in that far-flung corner of the world, on the tidal island of Lindisfarne, which was cut off from the mainland twice a day. Winters on the island had been harsh, with winds so penetrating they cut to the bone, and she knew that storms like these could set in quickly and take root for hours—sometimes days. The main road from Scotland hugged the rugged coastline and was therefore exposed to the worst of the elements; even now, the wind battered the side of their car, as though some pagan god had flicked it with the edge of their mighty finger. She cast a grateful eye towards Ryan, whose face was a hard mask of concentration as his hands steered a steady course over ground that was growing more treacherous by the minute.

  As if he’d read her mind, Ryan reached across to lay a hand briefly over hers, which was curled tightly on her lap.

  “Are you alright?” he murmured.

  “I’ve seen storms like these before,” she said quietly. “I think we should find somewhere to stop, until the worst of it passes.”

  Ryan opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut again. Visibility was reduced to a few feet, scarcely beyond the twin beams of his headlights, and he didn’t dare go above thirty miles per hour or risk skidding into the path of oncoming traffic.

  That’s another thing, he realised.

  There hadn’t been any oncoming traffic for the last few miles.

  “What does the GPS say?” he asked. “Is there somewhere nearby we could ride it out for an hour or two?”

  Anna reached for her mobile, only to pause when a traffic update interrupted the track playing on the radio.

  “This is BBC Radio Newcastle, and the time is ten past five. The Met Office has upgraded its previous weather warning from yellow to red for the North East of England, as well as parts of Central Scotland and the Highlands. Extreme weather conditions are expected to set in over the coming hours, and travellers are advised to take action now to keep themselves safe. The A1 motorway will be closed in both directions between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Morpeth following an accident…”

  Ryan swore softly. They had already passed Berwick some miles back, which me
ant the road must have closed sometime after.

  “Keep a lookout for any signs of a diversion,” he said. “There must be one coming up soon, unless we’ve already missed it.”

  Anna nodded, and MacKenzie leaned forward in her seat to speak to them both.

  “Did I just hear something about the road being closed?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “What time do you need to be back to collect Samantha?”

  He referred to the little girl Phillips and MacKenzie were in the process of adopting; a wiry, red-headed ten-year-old who had taken their lives by storm and stolen their hearts in the process.

  “She’s staying overnight at her friend’s house,” MacKenzie said, with some relief. “There’s no need to rush on our account.”

  “No chance of rushing anywhere, more’s the pity,” Ryan said, and then narrowed his eyes against the white mist outside.

  Flashing lights.

  He slowed his car as a line of yellow hazard cones came into view. They stood across the breadth of the road, and illuminated arrows guided motorists towards a B-road leading off the dual carriageway, signposted for West Kyloe and Wooler.

  Ryan glanced at the road behind them for any signs of life, but no other headlights emerged from the darkness and it was impossible to see whether there were any tyre tracks on the road ahead, which might have offered some encouragement that other drivers had passed that way before.

  “If we can get to Wooler, there’s bound to be a pub,” Phillips said, in a voice laden with false cheer. “Might even have a bed for the night.”

  “It’s getting there that’s the problem,” Ryan replied.

  The road ahead was blocked, and he considered turning back in the direction they had come, but another strong gust of wind rocked the car and decided the matter for him. Away from the coast, they would at least be sheltered from the worst of the gale.

  “Hold on to your nuts, Frank.”

  Carefully, he steered them off the main road and into the unknown.

  CHAPTER 2

  They might have been sheltered from the wind, but there was no shelter from the snow, which covered the county of Northumberland in a layer of white, obliterating the usual landmarks and road signs that might have guided their way.

  “How long since we came off the A1?” Anna wondered aloud.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Ryan said, having already asked himself the same question. “There should have been another sign for Wooler by now. What does the map say?”

  But there was no data signal in that part of the country, which was isolated, remote and surrounded by distant hills that loomed over them like sleeping giants.

  “I can’t get a signal,” Anna replied. “But, from memory, I think we might have veered too far south.”

  There was a short, tense silence as they considered the implications of that. There had been some hairy moments since leaving the dual carriageway, with the car struggling to make it over the hidden peaks and troughs of the country lanes, skidding once or twice as an unexpected bend loomed out of the darkness. Roads that were usually so familiar and unthreatening seemed alien to them now, and filled with danger.

  To make matters worse, they’d turned down a single-track road flanked with high hedgerows on either side and no hope of turning or reversing, should the need arise.

  The only thing to do was forge ahead.

  “If we’ve gone south, at least that’s in the right direction,” MacKenzie offered.

  “Yes, and we can’t be far from Chatton,” Anna said, thinking of a large village with at least one pub—less than a mile away from where they crept through the snowy darkness, if they’d only known it.

  Ryan checked the fuel gauge and a muscle ticked at the side of his jaw.

  Ten-mile range.

  He’d planned to top up the fuel at the petrol station in Alnwick, further down the A1, never imagining they’d be forced to take a seemingly endless diversion into the depths of the countryside.

  “Ah…not to worry anybody, but we’re low on fuel.”

  “That does it,” Phillips said, throwing up his hands. “Next thing, you’ll be telling me we’ve got a flat—”

  He broke off as Ryan brought the car to a sudden emergency stop. Its rear end swung dangerously towards the hedge, and sent Phillips lurching against the car door with a soft thud.

  It couldn’t be helped, for standing in the middle of the road was the most unusual cow they’d ever seen.

  * * *

  As far as cattle went, this one was majestic.

  Until it had been caught in the car’s headlights, the cow had been well camouflaged, its downy coat an off-white colour that blended perfectly with the present climate.

  “That’s part of the Chillingham herd,” Anna whispered, as if it could hear them.

  “What does that mean?” Phillips whispered back.

  “Wild cattle,” she explained. “The rarest breed of cattle in the world, dating back to before the Domesday Book.”

  Realising she was surrounded by friends who didn’t necessarily share her love of all things historical, she decided to elaborate.

  “Their lineage goes all the way back to the thirteenth century,” she said. “They exist without any interference from mankind—apart from chucking them the odd bale of hay, the park rangers don’t even touch them, and nobody else is allowed to. They breed, live and die by the land.”

  “You said ‘Chillingham’,” Ryan said, focusing on the most important piece of information. “I’ve heard of the castle. Are the two connected?”

  Anna turned to smile at him through the darkness.

  “They’re not only connected,” she said, “the parkland where the cattle graze is in Chillingham village, across the road from the castle grounds. If that cow managed to break out, it can’t have roamed far from home.”

  Four sets of eyes turned back to the road.

  “That still doesn’t solve our immediate problem,” Ryan said. “How the hell are we going to get past it?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “I can tell which one of us grew up in the country,” she said. “They’re wild cattle, Ryan, which means they’re frightened of cars and humans. Honk your horn and it’ll run back the way it came.”

  “Or charge straight for us,” Phillips said, ominously.

  “Only one way to find out,” Ryan replied, and leaned on the horn, which ricocheted around the silent countryside.

  As it happened, the cow neither ran away nor charged, deciding instead to saunter back through a hole in the hedgerow to re-join its fellows.

  “That was a close shave,” Phillips muttered, and three sets of eyes turned towards him in disbelief.

  “Frank, we face murderous criminals on a daily basis,” Ryan said. “Surely you’re not afraid of a fluffy moo-cow?”

  Phillips held his ground, having had an unfortunate run-in with one of the cow’s bovine cousins many years before.

  “All I’m saying is, let’s get going, before they find our frozen bodies out here in three weeks’ time, half-mauled by the moo-cows.”

  * * *

  Without any GPS signal—or the friendly jingle of a Christmas ballad on the radio, which had crackled and cut out shortly before their stand-off with the cow—it was another ten long minutes before they reached any sign of civilisation, which came in the form of a long, stone-built boundary wall.

  “The castle must be over that wall, which means the village must be somewhere nearby,” Ryan said, and dared to hope for a cup of coffee in the not-too-distant future.

  “I don’t remember there being much in the way of a village,” Anna said, and was sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings. “It’s mostly farmland and a few residential cottages and houses, I don’t know about a pub or a hotel.”

  “Maybe somebody’ll take pity on us,” Phillips said.

  “What about the castle?” MacKenzie asked.

  “I think the castle is privately owned, but it has quite a few guest
apartments where people can stay overnight,” Anna said. “They run ghost tours—”

  “Ghost tours?” Ryan said, with a healthy dose of scepticism.

  “Mm hmm,” she replied, and smiled at the look on his face. “It’s known for being the most haunted castle in England.”

  “Well, that’s just dandy, that is,” Phillips muttered, and folded his arms across his burly chest. “It’s not enough to be stranded out here in the snowy wilderness, or to survive a near-death experience with an angry bull…now you tell me there’s poltergeists knockin’ around the place!”

  “We’re not stranded just yet…” Ryan started to say, as the car suddenly coughed, spluttered, and came to a shuddering stop outside a set of enormous iron gates rising up from the darkness.

  Ryan tried the ignition a couple of times, but the car refused to start.

  “I guess the fuel gauge was wrong when it told me we still had another ten miles in the tank,” he said, and twisted around in his seat to face the other three.

  “Any clever ideas?”

  “We must be close to the village, now,” MacKenzie said. “Why don’t we take a walk and see?”

  “Have you seen the ground outside?” Phillips said, pressing his nose against the window. “Snow must be over a foot deep already, and, if it’s cold in here with the heating on, it’ll be bloody Arctic out there.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here all night,” Ryan told him.

  “Look,” Anna said softly, and pointed towards the gates. “There are lights in the windows of the castle.”

  They followed the direction of her gaze and saw that she was right. At the end of a long, sweeping driveway, they saw the distant glimmer of lights shining through the snowfall.

  “Seems like the best option so far,” Ryan said, and then cleared his throat. “There’s only one problem.”

  He turned the ignition key to activate the headlights and illuminate the castle gates, which were easily twenty feet high to match the perimeter wall.

  “They’re padlocked,” he said simply. “And, I don’t know about you lot, but I don’t fancy my chances of being able to scale that wall.”