Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(50)
Funny, she thought. It was only hair, and would grow back, but how she’d cried about it in the privacy of her own company. A trivial and superficial thing to be concerned about, perhaps, yet so much a part of her identity for so many years, and what she expected to see when she looked in the mirror.
Now, she had a short pixie crop, which some might say suited her.
It was certainly more practical, but…
Really, the problem was that she hadn’t had the freedom to choose whether or not to cut her hair; the hospital had been forced to make that decision in order to facilitate an operation to stem a blood clot on her brain. In those circumstances, she’d have gone Full Britney if necessary, but that didn’t mean she was happy about it.
“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself. “It’s only hair.”
Anna turned her mind to reading through her old notes surrounding the cult of Cuthbert, and refreshed her memory about the journey Cuthbert’s body had taken following his death in 687AD. According to the Venerable Bede’s Life of St. Cuthbert, the saint’s body was transported the short boat ride from Inner Farne to Lindisfarne, where it was buried on the same day. Eleven years later, his sarcophagus was opened and the body found to be completely preserved, which kickstarted the cult whereby people attributed miracles to his intercession or to intercessory prayer near his remains. Then, when the Vikings took the monastery at Lindisfarne in 875, the monks were forced to flee with Cuthbert’s body, which they carried around with them for seven years. The reason generally given for this was a desire to evade capture, but it was also the ninth century’s equivalent of a rock star touring the North East, blazing a trail of miraculous power wherever the monks went and leaving countless churches named after Cuthbert in their wake.
After seven years, the body stayed for around a hundred years at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Chester-le-Street, whereupon yet another Viking invasion forced the monks to hit the road again and transport his body to Ripon, in Yorkshire. Interestingly, Crayke Abbey was reputedly one of the saint’s resting places, while in that part of the world, and that must have been something the late Father Jacob Jamieson would have known about. Finally, the monks’ coffin cart got stuck in some mud near the riverbend at Durham, and legend has it this was the saint’s way of letting his guardians know that’s where he wanted to stay put. They set up camp at the top of the hill and built a simple ‘White Church’, which was the first predecessor to the enormous cathedral that now stood in its place.
Over the centuries, all manner of things were buried with Cuthbert, including the body of Bede, King Oswald’s head and other gruesome keepsakes, like some sort of macabre travelling circus.
Amongst those things was a red leather gospel book, painstakingly created for him by the monks at Jarrow.
Anna read a brief history of the book, marvelling at the survival of a tiny book through the course of centuries, until one day in 2012 the British Library paid Stonyhurst College a princely sum to acquire the book so that it might be cared for and admired by anyone who wished to see it. Now, a person had stolen it, unable to see beyond their own beliefs and desires to appreciate the selfishness of their actions, and it was far from certain whether the little gospel book would survive the next stage in its journey.
Feeling an acute sense of loss, she accessed the digital archive copy of the gospel, which was accessible through the British Library’s website, and sipped at a cup of tea while she flicked through the pages.
At some point during the second hour, she heard the family return and Anna stepped away from the computer to be with her daughter, but not before noticing something unusual.
Perhaps it was nothing, she told herself.
On the other hand…
While breastfeeding Emma with one strong, secure arm, she used her other free hand to go back to the beginning and scroll through the digital pages of the book, zooming right in so she could see the very grains of parchment up close.
So easy to miss, Anna thought. Unless you were looking for it.
She smiled down at her daughter, who was falling asleep in her arms after enjoying a belly-full of milk.
“I think your daddy is going to be very pleased, when I tell him what we’ve found,” she whispered, and placed a soft kiss to Emma’s forehead.
*
Back at Northumbria Police Headquarters, Ryan was in the process of managing the logistics of a wide-ranging investigation that crossed over four different command areas, and counting.
“I want regular lines of communication between our team here, North Yorkshire CID, Durham CID and the Met,” he said, and divvied up the tasks to one of the liaison officers. “If there are any updates on the investigation into Father Jacob or Mathieu Lareuse’s death, I want to hear about it. Understood?”
This was met by a vigorous nod of the head.
“Now that we have some recent activity to work with, we can use it to our advantage,” Ryan said. “Jack? Melanie? Previously, I know you said it was difficult to try to interview or extract information from the list of people who had access to Cuthbert’s cross during the renovation works, three years ago. I want you to go back over that list now and interview everyone, one-by-one, beginning with those who can’t account for their whereabouts on Sunday evening or Monday morning, and all day yesterday.”
“Consider it done,” Lowerson said, while Yates made a swift note.