The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(82)

“Already spoken to them,” Lowerson said. “There’s been no activity on any of his bank cards since early this morning, when he bought a coffee on his way to work.”

“He’s smart,” Ryan said. “He won’t make it easy for us. He didn’t keep his bag of tools on site at the hospital and he didn’t leave them at home—or did he?”

MacKenzie shook her head.

“We found photographs hidden in his study but nothing that looks like a murder weapon. Best guess is, he keeps a storage box or locker somewhere and stores everything there.”

Ryan thought for a moment.

“Does his house have a garage?”

“No, it’s a terrace in Jesmond,” MacKenzie replied, referring to one of the city’s most expensive areas. “Most people park on the road.”

“Or buy garage space, somewhere,” Ryan suggested. “Jack?”

“On it, boss.” He bustled away to start searching.

“Let’s assume he keeps a ready-bag in a separate, secure location,” Ryan said. “It’d be the first place he goes after leaving the tunnel.”

“He might still be in there,” Phillips said. “Every exit is covered and there’s been no sign of him.”

“Even the one at St. Thomas’s? He could have found a way through,” Ryan said. “And we didn’t account for the sewage pipe that runs as an offshoot. One of the drain covers was ajar.”

“How could you tell?”

“It was the only light source in the entire place,” Ryan said shortly. There would come a time when he’d have to think about the time he’d spent inside that tunnel, but it would not be now. He could not allow the remembered fear to hinder the work they needed to do.

Phillips understood.

“We’ve already got a team doing a search of the area around that drain cover. I’ll get in touch with the team on the ground and tell them to check the other manhole covers for any sign of tampering. It’ll give us a starting point and we can look at the surrounding CCTV once we know his exit point.”

Ryan took a long drink of the lukewarm coffee in his hand.

“What we really need to understand is what he hopes to achieve. Does he believe he’ll get away, or does he have some other goal in mind?”

“We’ll find out, soon enough.”





CHAPTER 39


The city entered a state of lockdown.

The Lord Mayor conducted a televised conference alongside DCS Gregson and a number of local officials with the notable absence of DCI Ryan, who was of the view that his time was better spent searching for Edwards than merely talking about it. The people of Newcastle and the surrounding areas were warned to remain indoors and not to venture outside unless it was an emergency, and to report anyone acting suspiciously or matching Edwards’ description.

But, in their experience, there was nothing worse than well-meaning ‘do-goodery’, as Phillips called it. Armed with a very small amount of information, suddenly every man and woman in the city fancied themselves as Columbo and weren’t shy about it, either.

The telephones in the Incident Room rang off their hooks as people reported near-constant sightings of The Hacker, with conflicting reports of people claiming to see him at a pub in Gateshead whilst simultaneously claiming to see him stealing a car on the opposite side of town. It was a gruelling task to sift through all the reports and try to make sense of them, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Moments of panic and disorder were the perfect breeding ground for career criminals and there had been a spate of thefts reported in the last couple of hours as they took advantage of the city’s weakness. Police resources were already at breaking point and they could spare very few personnel to go through the motions of taking down statements and providing crime reference numbers.

Armed police guarded the railway station and the airport, and army reservists had come down from their barracks in the Otterburn Ranges in Northumberland to assist.

Throughout it all, Ryan couldn’t help but think of Stephanie Bernard, whose death had not yet been reported and had, in any event, been superseded by the manhunt.

How Edwards must be enjoying himself.

*

Natalie Finlay-Ryan watched the news from the comfort of Ryan’s large, corner sofa. Every now and then, she dipped her hand into a bag of crisps and munched while she listened to reports of a foot chase that had taken her brother down beneath the city. Photographers had captured images of him arriving back at CID, and he’d looked exhausted.

As if she had conjured him up, her phone began to ring.

“Nat?”

“Hey,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’ve just been hearing about it on the news. Are you hurt?”

Ryan thought of the bandage on his arm covering the small chunk Edwards had ripped from his skin, but it was minor in comparison to what could have been.

“I’m fine. Just a few scrapes.”

Natalie would believe that when she saw it.

“It’s going to be another long night here,” he said, and she heard him stifle a yawn. “I just wanted to check everything was alright with you. Did you remember to lock the doors and windows?”

She looked across at the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows and wondered how anybody would manage to scale a wall that high.