Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(47)

“I hope it’s not misplaced,” Ryan said. “I accept full responsibility for the decision-making in Operation Bertie—”

She waved a hand.

“Ryan, if I was going to dish out reprimands, I would have done it by now. I know it’s you leading that team, but I also know you’re not surrounded by a herd of sheep; if they didn’t believe you had good cause to act in the way that you did, they wouldn’t have gone along with it. That’s the reason I’m not suspending you, today.”

“Thank you,” he said, as meekly as he could.

Morrison jutted her chin in the direction of the coffee cups he’d placed on the desktop.

“Are they just for show?”

He shook his head, and gestured for her to help herself.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the first life-affirming sip. “The thing is, Ryan, for the vast majority of cases, you just keep your head down and get on with it, racking up closed case after closed case and generally doing exactly what you’re supposed to do, which is to make us all look good.”

Ryan smiled.

“But, every now and then, an unusual case comes along, such as the one we’re dealing with now—Operation Bertie. It’s less straightforward and carries much more risk to the department, including demands on its budget, as you know. From my side of the desk, I want it done with, finished, forgotten. In fact, I wanted that six months ago.”

“Me too,” he reminded her. “But for slightly different reasons.”

“I want to see justice done,” she said, with a tone to her voice. “But there are times when I have to make hard decisions; ones my heart may not agree with—but my head must have the final ruling.”

“I understand that,” Ryan said.

“Which brings me back around to my point, earlier. Really, we need to appoint a new superintendent to oversee the department, so I don’t have to start taking blood pressure tablets.”

“Still no suitable candidates?” he enquired.

“You know bloody well that you’re our first choice for DCS,” she muttered. “But you won’t do it.”

Ryan nodded, then he remembered an idea he’d had a while ago.

“I have a suggestion, if I may.”

“I’m all ears.”





CHAPTER 24


At ten o’clock, Ryan called a departmental briefing in the largest conference room at Police Headquarters with a full complement of CID staff, including Morrison, who had been persuaded to re-open Operation Bertie.

“All right, settle down,” he said, once they were all assembled. “There’s coffee and croissants at the back—don’t get used to it.”

There was a ripple of laughter and a scrape of chairs as people made a last-minute grab.

“I know some of you will be wondering why you’re here,” he continued, once the chatter died down and he had their full attention. “Jack? Hit the lights, would you?”

When Lowerson turned the lights off, Ryan fired up the projector screen.

“You’re here to mark the formal re-opening of Operation Bertie, which, for the past nine months, has been a covert investigation into the theft of St. Cuthbert’s pectoral cross and the murders of DCI Joan Tebbutt and Edward Faber. He was a well-known forger and informant to our colleagues in the Durham constabulary, with whom we’ll be cooperating and sharing information, as necessary. This is now a cross-constabulary exercise, and I expect the highest standards of cooperation, going forwards.”

One of the younger members of his team stuck their hand in the air.

“Sir? I don’t understand—I thought the cross had been recovered?”

There were murmurs of assent around the room.

“A cross was indeed recovered, but it wasn’t the original.”

He proceeded to set out their theory surrounding the replica cross, and the role it played in the deaths of Tebbutt and Faber.

“The key word here is discovery,” Ryan said, and leaned back against a desk at the front of the room, hands braced on either side. “Whoever perpetrated these crimes did so to prevent discovery of the replica and, I believe, more importantly, discovery of the reasons why the original was taken in the first place.”

He pressed his clicker, and a picture of St. Cuthbert’s shrine in Durham came up on the screen behind him.

“For any of you heathens who don’t know, this is Saint Cuthbert’s final resting place in Durham Cathedral,” he said, pointing at the image. “The bloke was a monk and a bishop a thousand years ago but, after he died, a cult developed around him because it was said his body hadn’t decayed, which was hailed as a miracle.”

He turned back to the room.

“Apparently, miracles were big business back then, because everyone with an ailment came to worship at the shrine and be ‘cured’. They brought offerings and, if they happened to be wealthy or noble, you can imagine that racked up. It also brought a lot of prestige for the Catholic Church and the monks who guarded Cuthbert’s body, and that’s not something easily relinquished. However, it was all change after the Reformation, and the cult surrounding Cuthbert gradually declined in popularity—but that’s not to say it died out, altogether.”

He took a swig of coffee.