Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(32)

“It isn’t a decision she’s qualified to take—”

“Anna isn’t some simpering little woman,” Ryan said, and his eyes flashed a warning. “She’s far more intelligent than either of us, and is perfectly capable of weighing up the risks of the situation.”

Charles hissed out a breath and turned away to pace to the window.

“I’m well aware of what you’ve found, in Anna,” he said, after a minute or two slipped by. “Anna is to you what your mother has been to me, all these years.”

Ryan scrubbed a hand over his face and let it fall away again.

“It isn’t that I haven’t considered the danger,” he said. “It’s all I’ve thought about, for nine solid months. Devon or Northumberland—it makes no difference, except that you’d be further away for me to be able to help, if need be.”

Charles looked into his son’s tired eyes and finally understood.

“Safety in numbers? In that case, let me do something else for you. Let me arrange for some private security—I still have all my old contacts.”

Ryan thought of the dark-suited men and women who’d followed them around when he’d been a boy, and barely held back a shiver. He’d hoped for a different life for his own family.

Yet, here they were.

“We can’t live that way,” he said. “There’s still no specific threat, no prime suspect we’re hunting. If we call in a security team now, there’s no telling how long they’d need to be here, watching our every move.”

Charles thought for a moment. “Where d’you keep your weapon, son?”

Ryan blinked.

“Your service revolver? Where do you keep it?”

It wasn’t regulation for a firearms officer to keep a police-owned weapon at home, and Ryan wasn’t much of a fan of guns at the best of times. However, that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken it upon himself to purchase and register a rifle, ostensibly for use on the land.

“Under lock and key,” he replied.

Charles nodded. “Mine’s in a locked box in the boot of my car. Meet me there in a few minutes, and we’ll see how well you’ve kept your eye in.”

*

The first shot rang out as the sun rose, its fiery rays bursting across the Coquet Valley like rivers of molten gold as the world awakened. Father and son had removed themselves from the house, walking far out of sight and range of another living soul, to set up a makeshift shooting gallery in one of the fields that formed part of Ryan’s smallholding. Now, they stood side by side, two generations of Ryan men on a patch of ancient earth that had borne the heavy tread of soldiers’ footsteps hundreds of years before.

Charles emptied another five rounds, secured his rifle and then walked the hundred yards to the tree where he’d carved a circle with a cross in the middle.

The cross now bore six neat holes.

Satisfied, he walked back to where his soon stood with a rifle in his hand, his tall body framed by the rising sun at his back. All his life, he’d wanted Max to be strong, to be self-sufficient…but now, as he stood there looking like all of those things, Charles realised he wanted something else, much more.

He wanted his son to be safe.

Keeping his head bowed until he was in command of himself once again, Charles covered the ground and went about the business of correcting Ryan’s stance.

“How long’s it been, since you fired a gun?”

“A couple of years,” Ryan said, honestly. “I was planning to head down to the range, to keep my certificate up to date—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Charles said. “It’s like riding a bicycle.”

Ryan wasn’t sure that was entirely the case, but he humoured his father and allowed his posture to be altered this way and that. Northumbria Police Constabulary preferred a Glock semi-automatic revolver as its service weapon of choice, but a rifle was a different kind of beast.

“Keep the butt of the weapon tucked into your shoulder,” he said. “Elbow nice and flat. Aim about half an inch above the cross, to get a bullseye.”

Ryan closed his mind to all else, unhooked the safety and rested his finger on the trigger of the bolt-action rifle. As he lowered his face to look through the sights there was not a sound other than the gentle whirring of insects in the brush, and the whisper of the wind as it whipped over the crusted earth.

Breathe, he told himself.

He pressed the trigger, and felt the thrust of the recoil hit his shoulder as the sound echoed around the valley and sent a small flock of birds squawking noisily into the sky.

“You’re a quarter of an inch too low,” his father murmured, raising a hand to shield his eyes against the sun.

Ryan raised an eyebrow.

“You can see that, from here?”

Charles gave him an enigmatic smile and, for a moment, it was as though he was looking in the mirror.

“You can’t?” he shot back, and flashed a sudden smile. “Maybe you need to make an appointment at Specsavers.”

Ryan paused in the act of reloading the rifle, wondering if he’d misheard.

“Did you just crack a joke?”

“Yes, son, I believe I did. Think you can take it?”

Ryan gave him a lopsided grin.

“I can take it, if you can—grandad.”