Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(37)

Phillips blew out a gusty breath.

“I’m gettin’ too old for all this excitement,” he said, wondering why it seemed that, everywhere he went, he could smell bacon.

Must be crackin’ up, he thought. Either that, or wasting away.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to ask him about that case you’re working on,” Hassan said. “Pentonville is a tough place—these things do happen.”

Ryan thought about what he could and could not tell his old friend. As far as Hassan was concerned, they were in town to interview Lareuse about his relationship with fellow forger, Edward Faber, whose death was already a matter of public record. Just another routine interview, to the outside world, but perhaps not to the person who had ordered Lareuse’s death.

“They do happen,” he agreed. “But, as you say, I wonder why anybody would want to kill a forger? They’re the pen-pushers of the underworld; the computer geeks, not the muscle.”

“Maybe he stole from one of them, or their boss,” Hassan offered. “Lareuse was inside for historic dishonesty offences—wide-ranging ones, too. It seems he was quite creative with art and money, so maybe one or the other caught up with him.”

“The riot will hold everything up, now,” Phillips said, as they wandered back towards the train station. “Might not be much of a crime scene left, by the time you get in.”

Hassan nodded, dispirited.

“The timing is interesting, isn’t it?” Ryan said. “Some might say, very convenient.”

“Rioting isn’t exactly unheard of in Pentonville,” Hassan said. “You’ve got overcrowded, unsanitary conditions, understaffing, drug, alcohol and mental health problems, all wrapped up in a group of angry, confined men. If they sense any weakness, like when a prison officer has to deal with an emergency, more often than not they’ll try to capitalise on it.”

Ryan could see the logic in what his friend was saying, but the doubt remained.

“There’ll be questions to answer,” Hassan went on to say, as he read a series of e-mails coming through to his mobile phone. “Lareuse’s lawyer has just sent through some more demands—he obviously hasn’t heard the news, yet; it’s too soon.”

“What demands?” Phillips asked.

“This and that, but most importantly, that his client wants to be transferred to solitary confinement because he’s in fear for his life.”

Hassan swore softly, and ran an agitated hand over his neck.

“Too late, man. We were too late.”





CHAPTER 18


At precisely the same moment Ryan and Phillips were dodging a prison riot in London, MacKenzie was called upon to dodge a different kind of threat—the kind that came from within.

“Denise?”

Chief Constable Morrison caught her on the fly, as she was returning from lunch in the staff canteen.

She pasted a professional smile on her face and spun around like a marionette.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I was looking for Ryan and Phillips. Have you seen them?”

MacKenzie took a casual sip of the tea she was gripping between her sweaty palms.

“Mm? No, I think they took a call…something to do with the Faber case,” she replied. That last part was true, at least.

Morrison tutted. “Pity, I was hoping to have a word with them about a couple of things,” she said. “If they come in, would you mind telling them to pop into my office?”

“Of course, no problem.”

Morrison narrowed her eyes, having only just noticed how hot and bothered MacKenzie seemed to be.

She lowered her voice so they would not be overheard.

“Denise.”

“Yes?”

“You really should have told me.”

MacKenzie swore she felt her heart stop beating. “T—told you…what?”

Seconds ticked by.

“Peri-menopause is nothing to be embarrassed about,” Morrison said, at length. “If you’re struggling, you should ask your GP about hormone replacement, because it changed my life. Honestly, I was sweating like a pig on market day…”

MacKenzie didn’t know whether to be offended at the imputation that she was old enough to be peri-menopausal—she wasn’t even fifty, yet, for goodness’ sake—or grateful that Morrison had misread her guilt sweats as being something more benign.

Gratitude won out.

“Thank you,” she said gravely. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

As she walked off, Morrison smiled, and wondered when they would ever learn.

One down, two to go, she thought, and went in search of her next victim.

*

Ryan and Phillips left DCI Hassan to await his team outside Pentonville Prison, having first elicited promises that he would contact them if anything of interest turned up in his investigation, and furthermore that he would make himself available for a well-earned pint just as soon as they were able to take the time.

“Nice feller,” Phillips said, once they were on their way back to King’s Cross. “Shame it’s been a bit of a wasted journey, though.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ryan argued, and cut down to a pathway alongside Regent’s Canal, which ran east to west behind the King’s Cross complex. “Now, we know that Lareuse was involved in the making of the replica cross. That has to be the reason he’s dead.”