Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(14)
“What I don’t understand is why they’d be so bothered about it,” MacKenzie remarked. “Why would anyone care? So what, if we discovered the cross was a forgery?”
“Prison is still a deterrent, to some people,” Yates said.
“Not to a career criminal,” Phillips disagreed, having known a few of them, himself. “They’d do their stretch and chalk it up as part of the game, knowing their families would be looked after on the outside.”
“True, but we’ve already looked into known operators,” Lowerson put in. “We checked out national and international watchlists, spoke to Europol and all sorts. The fact is, high level jewel thieves or gangs fulfilling black market orders wouldn’t wait around to be caught, and they wouldn’t return to the scene to try to cover it up long after the fact. They’d disappear off to Brazil or wherever and live it up on Ipanema Beach.”
“Doesn’t sound half bad, when you put it like that,” Phillips joked. “But I take your point, son. Career thieves might get nasty if they’re caught out, or disturbed in the heat of the moment, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to murder a police officer, or go and torture some poor old git who might have spotted the switch. It draws too much attention.”
Ryan nodded.
“Which brings us back around to our theory, which is that we’re not dealing with a regular career criminal, or even a high-calibre gang of jewel thieves. We’re looking for someone with a very specific reason to have taken the original cross in the first place. Your average criminal wouldn’t go to all the trouble of having the artefact copied—and not just any copy, either, but one that was good enough to fool ninety-nine percent of people.”
“Aye, it took another top-class forger to spot the difference,” Phillips agreed. “Faber threw a real spanner in the works.”
Ryan nodded.
“Whoever perpetrated this didn’t want to be discovered, but not necessarily because they fear prison. I think it has to do with the cult of Saint Cuthbert.”
The region’s most famous saint had died a thousand years ago on the tiny island of Inner Farne, off the coast of Lindisfarne. It was an area they were all well acquainted with; not least his wife, who’d been born on the tiny, atmospheric tidal island an hour or so north of where they were seated. In the years following Cuthbert’s death, his body had reportedly been found ‘incorrupt’ and it was hailed as a miracle. He was venerated as a saint and, thereafter, a cult developed around the dead man’s remains, which were said to have had miraculous healing properties. In Medieval times, to be in possession of a miracle-maker was a very powerful thing, bringing enormous wealth and prestige, so the Benedictine monks had guarded their brother’s body through the ages, to preserve what Ryan would have called an enduring fiction. Yet, there were many who had believed, and who may still believe, that Cuthbert’s relics had the power to heal, and that could be the key to everything.
“We need to find more connections,” Ryan said, battling his own frustration with the lack of progress. “If the original cross was stolen because of what it represents, we could be dealing with something similar to the Circle.”
He referred to a cult that formerly operated around the North East, consisting of prominent, influential people including their very own former Detective Chief Superintendent Gregson, who now languished behind bars at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
“There was one key difference there,” MacKenzie said. “Before it was disbanded, the Circle used to cobble together old Satanic and Pagan rituals, bastardising both to give themselves a kind of veneer of respectability and perpetuate the idea of there being otherworldly forces at work. It never had any substance; it was all smoke and mirrors, phony rituals that its followers could use to tell themselves that their actions were all in a higher cause, rather than admitting the truth—that everything they did, they did for their own personal gain.”
MacKenzie paused, thinking of that fraught time in their lives, before shoving the memories to the back of her mind.
“In this case, if you’re right about the original theft having something to do with the cult surrounding Saint Cuthbert, we might be dealing with a genuine case of religious fanaticism. Not something whipped up or mashed together to suit the moment, but a longstanding, historic belief system that’s endured for a thousand years.”
“I don’t see how it’s so different,” Yates said. “Surely, both cults are used as a means of control?”
“It’s true that any cult can exercise control over its followers,” Ryan said. “Groups forged together on the basis of a common belief system, no matter how ridiculous or untrue, allows its leaders to exert power over people using the same methods we see in other areas, like County Lines. There, you have drug dealers targeting vulnerable people, usually kids, to do their dealing well outside city limits. They bring them on board with freebies and promises, then keep them with threats.”
Ryan lifted a shoulder.
“Same applies to dirty coppers,” he said. “Some of them don’t flip because they want to, but because they’ve been caught out. Maybe they pilfer a bag of coke during a drugs bust because the other officers are all doing it, egging him on. Later, those same officers tell them they’re one of the gang, now, and owe a few favours, or else they’ll be reported and lose their job, the respect of their peers, their family…the lot. Of course, there are exceptions,” Ryan added, with a knowing smile. “Some people have more backbone than others.”