Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(42)

That brought a reluctant smile.

“You’re welcome,” she said, in a more measured tone. “Safety has to come first, doesn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Ryan put in, and her smile fell again. “Which is why I’d like to put another call through to my superior to ask about searching the passengers’ belongings.”

Phillips slapped a palm to his face, because he already knew what the outcome of that conversation would be—but he also knew that Ryan had to try.

*

“Absolutely, categorically, out of the question,” Morrison told him, a few minutes later.

“Ma’am, the gospel book must be on the train. There was no realistic opportunity for anybody to leave before it turned around. If our perp has changed his appearance, that’s one thing, but he can’t hide the book.”

“First of all, Ryan, have you heard yourself? What’s all this about suspects changing into different costumes, now?”

“It’s happened before,” he reminded her.

“Even so, you’re wrong about not being able to hide that book. The point is, it could be anywhere on the train, inside any number of bags, slipped down the side of a chair or God only knows what. You’re expecting me to authorise a full search of that magnitude whilst six hundred or so people twiddle their thumbs as you interfere with their private belongings—without a proper warrant?”

She was incredulous.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I can’t allow it. Stand down, and come home. If you’re lucky, there might be a seat for you both on that train and, if you’re luckier still, you’ll have a job to come back to, tomorrow morning.”

Ryan sighed, and looked across at the stationary passenger train.

He understood that Morrison was considering the impact of another failed search attempt, and the domino effect that would have on their public relations efforts, amongst other things. Nobody liked to be held up, especially not people at the end of a working day who were eager to get home.

“At least send a couple of officers to meet the train, in Newcastle,” he begged her.

“And, if I do, who would they hope to see? Do you have a description of the perpetrator?”

Ryan only had a description of a dead man.

“Exactly,” Morrison said, when the silence dragged on. “Do your homework, Ryan. Work with the Met to acquire the CCTV footage, get some eyewitness accounts…then come to me with demands about search and seizure warrants, and not before.”

*

Ryan and Phillips spent some considerable time on site at the British Library liaising with the Met team, who were in attendance taking statements from material witnesses, and overseeing the forensic investigation into the theft of St. Cuthbert’s Gospel. Finally, they boarded a train home at seven-thirty, world-weary and exhausted.

“Well,” Phillips said, slumping back in his chair. “That was certainly an eventful day.”

Ryan closed his eyes—not to sleep, but to think.

“You know what this calls for? A bacon butty,” Phillips said, his mouth watering at the prospect. “Can I get you one?”

Ryan wasn’t about to deny the man any carbohydrates at that juncture; they’d spent much of the day on foot, walking or running, and had barely eaten or drunk a thing.

“Make mine a ham and cheese toastie,” he said, embracing the risk of a heart attack, in later life. “I’ll get them, it’s my turn.”

“Nah, stay where you are. You look as if you might keel over,” Phillips said.

Soon after, he returned with Ryan’s food, a couple of bottles of water, a coffee and a peppermint tea.

“Where’s yours?” Ryan asked.

Phillips held up a small, plastic-wrapped salad.

“I felt too guilty when I got to the counter,” he confessed. “I went for the egg salad.”

Ryan chewed the first bite of his toastie and tried not to look like he was enjoying it.

“I heard from Hassan, while you were gone,” he said, between bites. “He had an update about Lareuse.”

“What did he say?”

“There was a full-scale riot, after we left,” Ryan replied. “Four prison officers injured, nine inmates hurt, too, but no other casualties. But that’s not even the bad news.”

“It gets worse?”

“Laueuse’s body was damaged during the riot,” Ryan said. “They didn’t move him because the forensics team hadn’t attended, and the electronic cell doors remained open throughout—apparently, they had a hell of a task trying to get all the prisoners contained.”

“I bet,” Phillips murmured, and took a reluctant bite of his egg salad, finding it depressingly un-meaty.

He liked animals, he really did, and agreed that the circumstances of killing them for food should be as humane as possible, whilst upholding the highest standards on all fronts. But there was no escaping his basic biology: Frank Phillips was a carnivore and, much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, boiled eggs just didn’t cut it.

“The whole crime scene was compromised,” Ryan said. “That’s not counting the obvious fact that Lareuse’s cell was hardly The Ritz—the standards of cleanliness were already atrocious, so there would’ve been multiple historic samples to wade through and make sense of. The chances of the CSIs being able to find meaningful evidence that could be relied upon in court have drastically reduced, as have our chances of finding out who was paid to do the hit.”