Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(75)
Silent tears leaked from her eyes, but she kept saying the words.
I will not break.
I will not break.
Somewhere out there, she knew Ryan would be looking for her, and it gave her comfort. But, if their time was up and there would be no more tomorrows, she told herself to be grateful for all the time they’d spent together, and for all they had meant to one another.
It had been so much more than most.
“I love you,” she whispered into the confined space, and hoped her message would carry on the wind to find him.
*
I love you.
Ryan spun around, certain he’d heard Anna’s voice just behind him, but there was nothing there except open countryside and the solitary outline of his car.
“Going mad,” he muttered, and it wasn’t far off the truth.
He felt wild with anger that was barely contained; but the anger was directed at himself, for he had known, one day, that something like this would happen. You couldn’t work as he did, facing the darker side of humanity each day, and not bring any of that darkness home with you.
Today, the darkness had a name, but, next week, it would have another one.
Edwards, Walker, Moffa, Gregson, Freeman, Lucas, Singh, Chatterley…
So many names that swirled around the recesses of his mind, filtering to the surface from time to time, to remind him that evil would find him again, whether he looked for it or not.
It seemed poetic that he was seeking a sanctuary.
‘Seek out the sanctuary of sandstone, held aloft by a single pillar…’
It had taken less time to decipher the location referred to in that part of the Code, because St. Cuthbert’s Cave was a well-known local landmark. It nestled in the Kyloe Hills of North Northumberland, and was little more than an overhanging outcrop of flattened rock, framed by trees on all sides, with a limestone roof supported by a single stone pillar. ‘Cuddy’s Cave’ was reputed to have given shelter to the monks of Lindisfarne, who carried Cuthbert’s body there in 875 AD whilst fleeing the Vikings, and formed part of a modern-day walking route known as ‘Cuthbert’s Way’, which ran for sixty-two miles between the Borders town of Melrose to the west and the island of Lindisfarne to the east.
It was unremarkable, Ryan supposed, as caves went; he’d seen far more impressive rock formations on his travels, over the years. However, there was a certain quiet feel to the place…what some might have called, a spirituality. He wasn’t sure whether the atmosphere was projected by those who visited, or whether it was a quality inherent in the landscape, but he could understand why a person seeking solace would take themselves off to spend time at Cuddy’s Cave to commune with themselves, their god and nature.
After parking his car, Ryan made his way to the top of a gentle hill, where he crossed over a gate and stile and then turned right, following a grassy pathway lined with gorse bushes with a forest on one side. Reaching the corner of the wood, he spied a gate and made his way towards it, keeping his head bowed to the wind, which whipped through the trees and sent the branches swaying, howling like a woman in torment.
He stopped again, closing his eyes as the breeze rushed against his face and, for a moment, it might have been Anna’s fingers trailing through his hair; her voice calling to him across the valley.
Heart heavy with grief, Ryan hurried onward, ever conscious of the passage of time and of how every wasted moment could mean the difference between life and death.
Spotting Cuthbert’s Cave to his left, Ryan broke into a jog, eager now to find the ‘tribute’ to the man hailed as God’s most faithful servant, according to the message inscribed on top of the Bishop’s Throne.
The sun had already begun its long descent towards the edge of the world, and the light was beginning to fade, but he’d come prepared with a high-powered torch, which he used to guide his way as he approached the opening to the cave, and the pitch blackness within.
He stepped into the abyss, and went in search of a tribute.
*
Ryan stared at the wall, hands shaking slightly with an excess of adrenaline, which caused the bright light of the torch to flicker in the darkness.
Was this it?
Aside from the usual lovers’ hearts and other graffiti left by those with very little concern for future generations, or indeed the laws of the land, there was only one other wall marking that could possibly be relevant to the message.
It was a tiny, intricate carving of what looked to be a coat of arms, above which read:
In deepest gratitude to our brother, who rests forevermore by St Mary’s of Wooler, where once he used to play.
The frustration was acute.
There was no time for a wild goose chase, he thought, while his mind was flooded with nightmarish images of what Anna might be suffering, whilst he crouched inside an old cave, deep in the heart of Northumberland.
He lived his life by reference to logic and reason. He had no patience for conspiracy theories or fairy tales about castles in the sky; not when there were real problems in the world that required real solutions. Mostly, he kept his counsel, and let others live as they chose, so long as their flights of fancy weren’t dangerous. But now, given the situation he found himself in, Ryan was forced to ask himself whether all those years of polite silence had indeed been a mark of tolerance, or whether he’d been one of the many enablers in the world. For, if fantasies were left uncorrected, they became fact to the person that made them and allowed them to fester and grow. Worse still, they could take on new life.