Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(70)

“…Bishop Hatfield asked some of his monks to travel to the Vatican and measure the height of the Pope’s throne. When they returned, he told them to make his throne one inch higher, so that it would be the highest throne in Christendom…”

Ryan’s lips twisted into a smile, and he looked across to where Phillips stood, waiting.

“She found the answer for me, Frank.”

“The answer? To what?”

Ryan explained the significance of the gospel book, and the coded message it contained. Until then, they’d been in the dark about what it meant to ‘look atop the highest throne’, but now he knew exactly where to look—or rather, where the man who had his wife would be looking, for he was also in possession of the clue Father Jacob had left inside St. Cuthbert’s Gospel.

“We need to know what’s on top of that throne,” Ryan said. “I want a team over there, right now.”

Phillips nodded, and reached for his phone so he could put a call through to Morrison.

“We need a surveillance team watching that throne, at all times,” Ryan added. “He’ll want to know the answer, too, and we need to be waiting for him, if he’s stupid enough to try.”

“Let’s hope he is,” Phillips said, and raised the phone to his ear.

Ryan doubted it, but there was no harm in hoping.

*

Cancer services for those with an established diagnosis were centralised through the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, based out of the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. It was a full-service clinical directorate, offering radiotherapy, palliative care, chemotherapy and complementary services and more, and its comprehensive care facilities confirmed their understanding of the perpetrator’s reason for being at the canteen at the University Hospital of North Durham—namely, that he had no reason at all to be there, except to conduct a fishing exercise, targeting vulnerable people who may be prone to indoctrination.

Lowerson spoke with the Clinical Director of Oncology, Dr Chowdhury, on the dot of nine o’clock, and proceeded to have an illuminating conversation with the woman in charge of the largest cancer services facility in the North East. After Lowerson forcefully set out the ways in which she and her team were legally compelled to share medical information in order to facilitate the prevention, detection or prosecution of one or more serious crimes, she was disposed to be generous with the information at her disposal. Given that he had no specifics to give her, including either a name or date of birth, it was impossible for her to produce a medical record. However, based on the unique patient history this man had given to Kim, from the support group, Doctor Chowdhury promised to ask all of the staff in her directorate whether they remembered any such patient having been in their care.

As soon as he ended the call, Yates came to find him.

“Morrison’s just heard from Frank,” she said, hurriedly. “Before she was taken, Anna figured out the answer to a coded message she found inside the gospel book.”

“Wait—what message?” he asked.

“Never mind that, now, there’s no time to explain. Ryan needs us to go over to the cathedral, right now, and have a look on top of the Bishop’s Throne.”

Lowerson had never been shy of acting first and asking questions later, and made a grab for his coat.

“Any joy with the Clinical Director?” she asked, as they jogged downstairs and out into the staff car park.

“No, but she’s asking around as a matter of urgency. I think we’ll hear back from her, if anything comes through—she seemed to be on the ball.”

“There are plenty more people on the list of potentials,” Yates said, as she climbed into the driver’s seat of her car. “Hopefully, if Chowdhury comes through for us, we won’t have to go through that process of elimination.”

“For Ryan’s sake, I hope not,” Lowerson said. “I can’t imagine what he’s going through, right now. They don’t deserve this to happen—he and Anna have already been through enough.”

“It seems to come with the territory,” Yates said, sadly. “He’s like Icarus, isn’t he? If he flies too high, too close to the sun, he gets burned.”

“Some people are born to fly high,” he said, and thought that Ryan just wasn’t suited to a life of comfortable mediocrity. “But you’re right. The more cases he solves, the higher he flies, and the more of a target he becomes.”

“Him, and his loved ones.”

They were quiet for a moment as Yates manoeuvred them through the morning rush hour towards the Tyne Tunnel, which would take them beneath the river to Gateshead, and from there, on towards Durham.

“Mel, what if—”

“Don’t say it, Jack. Don’t even think it.”





CHAPTER 37


The ‘highest throne in all Christendom’ had been built for one of the longest serving ‘Prince Bishops’ of Durham Cathedral, namely Thomas Hatfield, who held the office from 1345 until 1381. At that time in history, a Prince Bishop had nearly all the same powers in the ‘County Palatine of Durham’ as the King did in the rest of England, which made them all powerful in the important buffer region between ‘civilised’ England and the raucous, unpredictable land of Northumbria and the Borders, which was constantly at war with the Scots. In addition to all his ecclesiastical and secular powers, Bishop Hatfield was a vainglorious man who embarked upon an ambitious programme of architectural improvements, including the building of the Castle Keep in Durham and the erection of an ostentatious throne for himself, in order to remind others of his rightful place in the pecking order.