Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(4)

Irritated by his own fanciful thoughts, Father Jacob trudged downstairs in the vague direction of where he’d heard the glass shatter.

“Who’s there?” he called out, flicking on the lights as he went. “Honesty is the best policy, remember—”

A stream of cold air touched his face, and Jacob turned to find its source.

“You’ve been warned about this kind of thing before,” he began again, for the benefit of any child who might be skulking in the shadows. “Come out now!”

Nothing moved except the rustle of Jacob’s long, black habit as he wandered from room to room, following the stream of air which seemed to grow colder with every passing step. Eventually, he came to the laundry room, which carried the faint odour of adolescent sweat and dried mud. Rounding the corner, he was met with a strong gust of icy wind rushing through a gaping hole in the window, whistling past shards of jagged glass that clung to the pane while the rest lay scattered across the peeling linoleum floor. The window latch was open, leaving the frame to rattle on its hinges, swinging back and forth to clatter against the wall.

If he’d been a different kind of man, Father Jacob might have sworn.

As it was, he took several deep, nourishing breaths and picked his way carefully across the floor to shut the offending window. The air continued to flow through the break in the pane, and he cast around for a board of some description to prop against it until the janitor could be called. He thought of the notice board hanging in the common room and sidestepped the glass on the floor, thinking he would leave it there as the evidence of wrongdoing and ask the offender to clean it up themselves.

Preoccupied by thoughts of how best to uncover the guilty party, he did not see the figure at the end of the corridor until they were less than ten metres apart.

“Oh!”

Father Jacob came to an abrupt halt.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you—”

He peered along the corridor, struggling to make out the face of his brother. Their hood was drawn and the lights in the corridor had been extinguished, which he found strange.

“Brother John? Is that you?”

The figure said nothing, but began to walk towards him, very slowly.

“There’s been another breakage, I’m afraid,” Jacob said, gesturing to the room he’d recently left. “Sixth formers, I suspect. They’ve been using the wood store on the other side of the rugby pitch to meet the girls and smoke. Some things never change…”

As the figure drew nearer, Jacob’s unease grew stronger.

“Brother Simon? Are you feeling well—?”

But it was not John or Simon who came to stand in front of him.

Outside, the security lights flickered on again as one of the children ran beneath its sensor, not stopping to look inside the darkened windows of St. Cuthbert’s House.

The light burst through a nearby window, casting a bright shaft of white light upon the floor between the two robed figures.

“Who—?”

Whatever Jacob had intended to say died on his tongue, the words turning to ash as the figure before him stepped forward into the light, illuminating a face that was not a face at all, but a grotesque mask, cut to resemble the image of a man who’d been dead for a thousand years.

But the eyes…

The eyes shone with madness.

“Help! Help me, please!” Jacob stumbled backwards, shouting and tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away.

Behind the mask, the figure smiled and said a single word.

“Run.”





CHAPTER 2


Elsdon, Northumberland

Monday 7th December

Doctor Anna Taylor-Ryan awoke with a start.

The room was in darkness and she was disorientated for a moment, unsure of whether it was late evening or early morning. Automatically, she turned to her left, where a white-painted cot stood empty beside the bed.

Empty.

Rearing up, she let out a sharp cry as the action tugged at the scar across her abdomen, then struggled out of bed.

The baby was gone.

Oh, dear God…

“Emma,” she whispered, gripping the edges of the empty cot.

Shaking hard now, Anna ran across the room, pulling open the bedroom door to search the other upstairs bedrooms, but found them empty, too.

Tears began to fall as she hurried downstairs and into the kitchen…

Where she nearly collided with her mother-in-law.

“Shh!” Eve warned her, pressing a finger to her lips. “There, now, everything’s all right.”

She took Anna’s cold hand in her own warm fingers and led her through the kitchen to the conservatory area, which remained in darkness but for the gentle glow of the fairy lights hanging from the Christmas tree they’d put up the day before. There, Anna saw her husband sleeping in one of the easy chairs, his long legs crossed at the ankles while he snuggled their baby daughter warmly against his chest, his capable arms supporting her tiny body while they both slept.

Anna felt relief wash over her, followed closely by a fierce wave of love.

Emma Natalie Sara Ryan had been born on a sunny day in July, by Caesarean section. Whilst her mother was indisposed on the operating table, it had been her father who’d been the first to cradle her in his arms and whisper that he loved her, before holding her against Anna’s chest so that she might hear her mother’s familiar heartbeat. That first, special bond had only strengthened over the passing months and, more often than not, it was Ryan who volunteered to change nappies or do the late evening feed, so that he could sit quietly with his daughter and marvel at how he could possibly have been party to creating something so perfect. For these reasons, Anna should have known that no harm would have come to her little girl while she slept; not while Ryan had breath inside his body to prevent it.