Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(11)

Ryan frowned. “You’re sure this was Frank Phillips?”

“One and the same,” Stevie said, and crooked a finger to beckon Ryan closer. “There’s somethin’ else, n’all.”

Ryan’s interest was piqued, a matter he put down to the fact he’d been spending far too much time watching episodes of Peppa Pig with Emma.

“What?” he asked, in a stage whisper.

“He hasn’t ordered a bacon stottie for two weeks, now,” Stevie said, triumphantly. “I asked him if there’d been owt wrong with the bread…but he said he just didn’t fancy one.”

Ryan could hardly believe his ears. “You’re having me on,” he decided.

“God’s my witness,” Stevie said, crossing his chest. “I was so shocked you could’ve knocked me over with a feather.”

Ryan felt much the same way, and he accepted a tray of hot drinks with the look of a man who had been told the Earth was not round, but flat, after all.

Frank Phillips not wanting a stottie cake?

Peppermint tea?

Had the world gone completely mad?

There was only one way to get to the bottom of it, and that was to go to the source.

*

When Ryan entered the large, open-plan office that was home to the Major Crimes Unit, he found several familiar faces but none belonging to his sergeant.

“Jack? Mel? Have either of you seen Frank?”

Lowerson spun around in his desk chair with a friendly smile.

“Morning, boss! No, I don’t think he’s in yet—”

“I saw MacKenzie’s car parked outside,” Yates interjected, and smiled her thanks when Ryan passed her a steaming cardboard cup from the tray he still held. “Frank and Denise usually travel in together after dropping Sam off at school, unless they need two cars for some reason.”

At that moment, Frank’s wife—and professional senior, in the workplace—wandered back into the office, having taken a few minutes in the ladies’ room to remove the black mascara that had been smeared liberally across her face.

“Denise?”

“Morning!” she said, shrugging out of her woollen coat. “How’s the new parent doing, today?”

Momentarily distracted by thoughts of Emma, Ryan’s face softened into a loving smile.

“Tired, which is an ironic thing for a lifelong insomniac to feel,” he joked. “Pity it’s taken me this long to appreciate the value of sleep.”

Denise grinned. “Too late now,” she said. “Mind you, we have the opposite problem with Samantha. It’s more of a problem trying to get her up in the mornings. I thought it was only teenagers who liked to lounge around in bed all day.”

“Teenagers, and me—if I could,” Lowerson put in, with a wink for Mel.

“Chance would be a fine thing, with that feral cat running about the place,” she shot back, with good humour. “Ryan, if you ever want to do a swap, just let me know. I have a feeling Emma is much easier to handle than Sir Pawsalot.”

Ryan’s lips quirked. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said, and turned back to Denise. “Actually, Mac, I was looking for Frank. Is he in the office, yet?”

MacKenzie dropped down into her chair and took a grateful swig of the coffee he’d brought her.

“Yep, he’s gone down to the gym for a quick, twenty-minute run before the briefing starts.”

Three faces turned to her in shock.

First the stotties, now this, Ryan thought. Perhaps there was something seriously wrong.

“Is Frank ill?” he asked bluntly.

MacKenzie shook her head in amusement.

“No, he’s just decided to start looking after himself a bit more,” she explained. “I’ve already told him that I love him just the same, but he thinks that, now we have Samantha, there’s even more reason for him to stay healthy. He’s still a strong man and a good boxer, so he’s started heading back to Buddle’s every once in a while to spar with some of the old crowd.”

Buddle’s Boxing Gym was a legendary establishment located in the historic west end of Newcastle, in an area that was now run-down following the closure of all the old factories that used to operate on the waterfront. Although the place had seen more nefarious criminals than world-class boxers, it was also true that it had been a community lifeline for decades of youths—including a young Frank Phillips, who’d learned to channel his energies rather than roam the streets without hope or aspiration. Buddle’s had little in the way of kerb appeal, according to Ryan’s own recollection—which was somewhat outdated, as it had been three years since he’d stepped inside the crumbling seventies prefab—but what it lacked in that department, it more than made up for in heart and soul.

“Frank always had a solid right hook,” he mused, lifting a hand to rub a phantom ache in his jaw. “Anything I can do to support the Health Drive?”

MacKenzie’s lips twitched. “Apart from keeping the biscuits under lock and key? Have you got any chickens he can chase around?”

Ryan flashed a smile, which transformed the hard lines of his handsome face into something extraordinary.

“We’ve got a cat he can chase,” Yates threw back over her shoulder. “Although, I can’t promise it won’t chase him, instead.”