Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(40)

Determined, Ryan pushed his legs harder, sprinting full pelt through the piazza, passing beneath a shadowy sculpture of Sir Isaac Newton until he reached the pavement.

He searched left and right, examining the sea of passing faces, trying not to be distracted by the glare of headlights from the busy road.

“Shit,” he muttered, turning a full circle.

Which way?

West led towards Euston Station and, beyond it, Regent’s Park.

East led to King’s Cross and St. Pancras, only minutes away on foot.

He went with his gut and veered east, running through the commuter crowds making their way home from work, eager to catch their train home.

Bypassing St. Pancras station, Ryan continued on to King’s Cross, reasoning that, if their perpetrator was connected in any way with the cult of St. Cuthbert, he was most likely to be based in the North East and might be hoping to catch a train from there to Newcastle.

He might have been on the same train as them, earlier in the day.

Shoving that sickening thought aside, Ryan ignored a red pedestrian signal and, spotting a brief gap in traffic, bolted across the road towards the nearest entrance to the station concourse, horns blaring in his wake.

Inside King’s Cross, the place was heaving with people; faceless suits, mothers with children and everyone else in between, all lugging suitcases or backpacks behind them. They milled in clusters across the enormous concourse with its high curved metal roof, and fancy new shopping area.

How times changed.

But there was no time to think of local regeneration now; all his attention was on the passing faces of the crowd, remembering all the while that the man he hunted could be armed and dangerous.

When a minute ticked by without any sighting, Ryan began to think he’d made the wrong call and should have veered west…

Then, he spotted it.

Just a flash of black material, which was barely distinguishable from a small crowd of children all dressed in Harry Potter robes they’d bought from the Platform 9 ? souvenir shop, across the way.

“Move aside!” he shouted. “Move!”

The crowds parted as he made for another set of turnstiles—this time, giving access to the platform area.

“Hey! Stop right there!”

An officer from British Transport Police hurried over as Ryan pushed his way to the front, knocking over a large suitcase in his haste to catch up with the man who was making for the 16:26 from King’s Cross to Newcastle.

The time was 16:25.

Ryan felt the officer’s hand snatch at his jacket, but tugged free of it and surged forward, hearing the fatalistic sound of a train guard’s whistle on Platform 3.

A few more seconds, and the train would leave the station.

Rounding the head of the platform, he saw the figure board the train as the doors swished shut, and he let out a cry of frustration.

By the time he reached the doors, his frantic hammering on the ‘open’ button had no effect. He tried to wrench the doors open by force, but the automatic locking mechanism held firm.

“Open those doors!” he shouted. “Police! Stop the train!”

But it was already pulling out of the station.

*

Ryan had barely recovered when a couple of British Transport Police officers caught up with him.

“What the bloody ’ell was all that about?” one of them demanded. “You nearly knocked a woman off her feet, back there! It’s not on, you know, that’s common assault—”

Ryan tried to reach for his warrant card.

“Whoa there, mate! What’ve you got in your pocket?”

Both officers braced, ready to defend themselves against a knife attack.

Ryan raised his hands again in a non-threatening, palms-out position.

“I was going to reach for my warrant card,” he enunciated, through gritted teeth. “I’m CID, for God’s sake—”

“A likely story—"

Just then, Ryan caught sight of Phillips jogging down the platform towards him.

“Detective…Sergeant…Phillips,” he wheezed, coming to a jerky stop beside them. “Northumbria CID. This one’s with me.”

They checked his warrant card and nodded.

“All right, sir, if you’re sure you can handle him. He’s a lively one, mind you—and he made a grab for something in his pocket, a minute ago.”

Ryan stared, dumbfounded.

“Some blokes just can’t ’andle missin’ a train,” the other one said.

“I agree with you, son, but this one happens to be a DCI,” Phillips said. “We’re after a real criminal, and he’s gettin’ away on that train, while we’re standin’ round here chewin’ the fat. Any chance you two could shake a leg and get in touch with the train manager? We need to stop that train.”

The two officers looked amongst themselves, then at the two policemen.

“Right…bloody ’ell! Right…”

“Now,” Ryan snarled. “We need to stop it, now.”

“We can’t do that! It’ll be past Haringey, by now—”

“Howay, man, before I shove my boot up your arse!” Phillips roared, and it was enough to have the two of them scarpering towards the Controller’s office.

*

Chief Constable Morrison had spent much of the afternoon working on her anger management techniques. She’d sipped herbal tea, listened to ten minutes of a meditation podcast, and even tried something called an ‘Empty Chair Technique’ to think through what she might say to Ryan, if he were there in the room.