The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(24)

And that, Ryan thought, was the man’s biggest mistake. It wasn’t a question of who got the collar, it was a question of teamwork.

“You want to do this here, in front of all these people?” Ryan inclined his head. “Alright, we’ll have this out now in front of a roomful of witnesses. Let the record show I advised PC Jessop to follow HR procedures, which he declined.”

“Duly noted,” Phillips said.

Ryan moved around to the front of his desk and spoke directly to the gym-hardened man who stood a few feet away with aggression etched into every line of his body.

“You say you deserve to be on this team,” Ryan growled. “I say that’s bollocks. I’ve heard reports that you failed time and again to follow orders from your superiors and encouraged Dobbs to take his own life, thereby failing in your first duty to protect and serve the public.”

Jessop’s face lost some colour.

“That’s rubbish! Tell him, Hitchins!”

His partner’s silence spoke volumes. She looked away, remembering the words he had used on the bridge, how he’d told Dobbs there was nothing to live for.

Just as Ryan had suspected.

“Furthermore, ever since I took over the investigation, your behaviour has been obstructive. You have sought to undermine my position as SIO and created division in the team you seem so keen to be a part of. Why?”

Jessop’s lip curled.

“You’re nothing,” he spat. “You went to a fancy school and have a fancy name. That’s why you’re DCI while I’m still a pissin’ constable. I’m twice the man you are!”

“I’m your superior officer,” Ryan shot back. “And you are relieved of active duties pending a full investigation, effective immediately. Now, get out.”

Ryan watched the man’s face and saw it coming, even before Jessop’s fist swung out. He dodged and had Jessop’s arms pinned behind his back in one smooth motion.

“Get off us!” Jessop shouted.

“You’ve just added attempted assault to your list of misdemeanours,” Ryan said.

Phillips and MacKenzie jumped to their feet to give him a hand but Ryan shook his head. The others in the room watched without batting an eyelid as he strong-armed Jessop out of the room and thrust him down the corridor, only just restraining himself from planting his boot in the man’s backside.

“Go home and cool off,” he ordered. “If I don’t have a written apology on my desk by nine a.m. tomorrow, I’ll be straight down to the Super’s office. Think about it.”

When he returned to the Incident Room, twenty-three faces looked up at Ryan in a kind of wonder.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Phillips told Lowerson, sagely.

Ryan appeared completely unruffled as he stalked back to the front of the room.

“Where were we?”

“Fresh eyes,” Phillips supplied, folding his hands comfortably across his paunch. “You were saying we need to look at things afresh.”

Ryan blinked a couple of times and thought that he could use some eye drops to clear his own hazy vision, thanks to a spate of sleepless nights.

“Right. I want us to re-examine everything we have on Isobel Harris. She’s the key to working out what drives him.”

“We managed to decipher the card he left on Cooper’s body,” Faulkner spoke up. “It said, ‘CATCH ME IF YOU CAN’ and was written in ordinary black biro on thick cream card stock, available from any stationery retailer in the land.”

“Any prints?” Ryan asked.

Faulkner shook his head.

“No such luck, I’m afraid. Anything that might have been on there has been obscured by Sharon’s own bodily fluids. It was a hard enough job recovering the message, let alone anything else.”

“Alright,” Ryan said. “It’s still useful because it confirms what we already know: the man’s a peacock. He wants our attention, our praise, and he likes the thrill of the chase. Why else leave such a juvenile message?”

“It’s all a game to him,” MacKenzie said, looking at her friend’s face hanging on the wall. “If nothing and nobody matters to him, he needs to create his own sport, doesn’t he?”

There was a short silence as her words rang true.

“Thanks, Tom,” Ryan said eventually. “We appreciate you working around the clock on this and I need you to keep at it, for as long as possible. We need the answers.”

“Happy to.”

Ryan turned to the others.

“Phillips, Lowerson? Go back over the statements with a fine-toothed comb and re-interview anyone you need to. Look again at the CCTV. I want you to flag anything that strikes a chord with the Cooper investigation, anything that might connect the victims and give us a new line of enquiry. MacKenzie? You’re with me.”

Phillips watched them walk out of the room with an odd, sinking feeling in his belly. Ryan and MacKenzie were just a couple of colleagues working together, he told himself. Nothing to get riled up about. But the small, petty part of his brain whispered that they were the ‘beautiful ones’. She, with her mane of red hair that shone beneath the shabby industrial lighting, and Ryan, who looked like he’d just stepped off the front cover of GQ magazine.

He’d hate him for it, if he didn’t happen to like the bloke so much.