The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(67)

“No helpful names?”

MacKenzie shook her head.

“Nope. He says his role was to move the stash from one place to another. His only contact was a bloke named Hopper, who is already known to us. He’s small-time but looking to expand.”

“How about that pharmacist? What’s her role in all this?”

“Drugs Squad are with her now,” Lowerson said. “She’s totally clammed up, sir. We worked on her for a good couple of hours but she’s like a vault.”

“We’ve still got the pharmacy records, although they appear to have been heavily doctored,” MacKenzie said. “So, we went all the way back to the pharmaceutical companies, who sent through a record of what they’ve supplied for the last six months. It’ll take some time because there are several different companies and we’re still waiting for some of them to come through with their disclosure. But from the ones we’ve already received, it’s obvious there are significant discrepancies.”

Ryan nodded.

“Good work,” he told them. “What about CCTV?”

The enormous task of reviewing the footage collated from several agencies and businesses had been split into smaller teams, each tasked with managing a different portion of the relevant victim’s timeline.

“Let’s start with Isobel Harris. We already know there was no CCTV to be had from her previous visit to the hospital and most of the cameras along her journey home were out of action. How about vehicles? Have we found any footage of a vehicle crossing paths with all three victims?”

Lowerson started to raise his hand, then remembered what Ryan had told him about speaking out.

“We haven’t found a vehicle belonging to anybody from the Emergency Medicine Department, but we have found something interesting,” he said. “We might have found a bicycle.”

“A bicycle?”

Lowerson nodded.

“Yes, sir. Snapshots of footage along the high street in Tynemouth have captured partial images of a male riding a bicycle in the direction of DCI Cooper’s home just after midnight.”

“Can’t have been long after her son left,” Phillips put in.

“Yes,” Lowerson nodded.

“Have you picked up a bicycle on any of the other footage?” Ryan asked, but Lowerson shook his head.

“Not yet, sir—and the footage we do have is so blurry it’s next to useless. It’s mostly guesswork that the rider is male because all we can see is a dark shape on wheels. I’ve forwarded the footage to the tech team to see if they can sharpen it up.”

Ryan gave him an encouraging smile.

“That’s good work. Keep looking.”

“Who do we know who rides a bike?”

“Nearly all of them,” Phillips said, testily. “It’s the council to blame, putting in all these bike lanes, pretending to be Amsterdam. Everybody and their grandma is riding a bike, these days—weaving all over the place, too.”

“Don’t you just hate it when the council tries to curb your unhealthy lifestyle?” Ryan mused.

“Aye, I do. My car gets me from A to B without any bother. Can’t see who’d want to gad about in all weather wearing a bleedin’ Lycra jumpsuit—”

“I would, for one,” MacKenzie interjected. “Unlike some people, I take an interest in my health and keeping fit. Besides, the Lycra helps with the aerodynamics.”

Phillips was lost for words, largely thanks to a delectable vision of Denise MacKenzie in skin-tight Lycra.

“On that note, let’s take a break and douse ourselves in coffee,” Ryan suggested, and was glad they could still find something to smile about.

*

Natalie Finlay-Ryan meandered along the riverbank with a large, multi-coloured umbrella to protect herself from the freak monsoon rainfall that covered the city in a blanket of water. She didn’t mind the rain so much; it was the isolation that was the most difficult thing to bear.

She paused to look across the swollen river, wondering how Ryan could stand it.

He was enigmatic at the best of times and always had been, she supposed. He was like their father, bred to be a stoic and toughened by years at one of the country’s most famous boarding schools. It was a family tradition, just as it had been traditional for her to attend an equivalent establishment for Young Ladies. Had it not been for their mother, whose natural warmth softened the situation to a degree, either or both of them might have ended up very differently.

She turned her face into the wind, feeling it rush through her hair, and she began to understand what had drawn Ryan to the North. Here, the elements reminded you that you were truly alive; your body hardened to the colder temperatures and, before you knew it, anything more than a few degrees became almost tropical.

Natalie smiled as a pair of rowers skimmed across the water, uncaring of the downpour, and raised their hands to wave.

She waved back, then straightened up again to continue her journey to Ryan’s apartment building. As she walked, she worried for him and whether he was coping with the extra demands that went alongside a career as a senior murder detective. There were things he must have seen that haunted him at night and that he may never want to tell her about, she knew that much. She was twenty-five years old but, to him, she would always be his little sister, just a kid.

But there were things she longed to tell him, too.