The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(19)

Ryan looked down at the woman’s hand and covered it with his own in a gesture of solidarity.

“I’m terribly sorry for your loss, Mrs Spruce, Mr Cooper,” he said quietly. “I admired Sharon very much and she will be missed by everyone here at the Constabulary.”

They were trite words, but that didn’t make them any less true. As he held her fragile hand, he felt it tremble as she fought to remain lucid, to face a reality that was every mother’s nightmare.

In contrast, her grandson hadn’t uttered a word and remained outwardly unmoved by the gravity of the situation.

“I can’t tell you who killed your daughter, or why, but I will seek out the answers, Mrs Spruce, I promise you that. I won’t rest until whoever killed your daughter is behind bars.”

Eileen searched his face and whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her.

“We’ve been trying to get hold of Mr Cooper,” Ryan began. It was always awkward, contacting a former spouse but, more often than not, they grieved just the same for the person they had once loved. No matter the reason for their marital breakdown, rarely does a person genuinely wish the other to be brutally murdered, regardless of what might be said in the heat of anger.

“He’s with wife number three,” Will said bluntly. “They’re cruising around the Med and won’t be back for another few days.”

“Do you have the details of the cruise line? We can contact the ship directly.”

“Haven’t got a clue.”

“I’ll—I’ll see if I can find out,” Eileen said, overriding her grandson.

“That would be very helpful. You can contact me on this number at any time,” Ryan said, fishing out one of his business cards.

“You’ll never find him,” Will said softly.

Ryan frowned at him.

“Your father?”

Will’s lips twisted.

“No, you can find him sniffing around the cabaret girls somewhere between Cyprus and Rhodes,” he said nastily. “I’m talking about whoever killed my mother. You’ll never find him.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They’re saying on the news that it’s the same guy who killed that woman a few weeks ago. It’s the one my mother was looking for,” he said, with a slight shrug. “It was all she could talk about, last time I saw her.”

“And when was that?” Ryan asked, smooth as you like.

“A couple of weeks ago, maybe?” He shrugged again. “I can’t remember.”

“Will,” his grandmother chided him. “You need to remember. We need to do everything we can to help this young man find out who…” She took a shuddering breath and swiped a hand over her eyes. “We need to help him find who killed your mother.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Gran. Mum thought it was the bloke who fell off the bridge yesterday, but it couldn’t have been him who killed her, could it?”

Ryan watched the old woman’s face begin to crumple and cut in quickly.

“We don’t know anything for certain, Will. As soon as we do, we’ll be in touch.”

The young man actually laughed at that, his lip curling in contempt.

“My mother was the same as you, remember? I’ve heard all the standard lines, but the fact is, you don’t have a bloody clue who killed her. Do you?”

There was an arrogance beneath the outburst that Ryan didn’t like but he reminded himself that those who were left behind didn’t always cry. Sometimes they grew angry and lashed out, the last bastion of denial before reality set in.

“Killers always leave a trace,” he said. “Even the ones who plan everything down to the finest detail overlook something small, some factor they couldn’t control. I’m doing everything in my power to find it, Will, but it takes time.”

“What if this one thought of everything? What if there’s nothing to find?”

This time, it was Ryan’s turn to smile.

“It’s just a matter of knowing where to look.”

*

Will Cooper took off without a thought for his grandmother, so Ryan commandeered a squad car to transport Eileen Spruce safely back to her sheltered housing bungalow. It had been an eye-opening experience meeting the man of whom Sharon had spoken so often and so proudly, her loving son and star pupil who was fast becoming the best dental surgeon in his graduating class.

After a moment’s thought, Ryan went in search of DC Lowerson and found him bent over a stack of papers at his desk. As reader-receiver, he had been entrusted with the dubious responsibility of sifting through all the telephone calls and statements compiled during their investigation and sorting the wheat from the chaff. It was critical, important work.

It was also mind-numbingly boring.

“Jack?”

He looked up in surprise.

“Yes, guv?”

“You ready to chew your own arm off, yet?”

Lowerson made a strangled sound and gestured vaguely to the mountain of different accounts from eyewitnesses on the Tyne Bridge the previous day.

“You could say that. We’ve had a hundred and forty people ringing the emergency number, all of them claiming responsibility for Sharon’s murder.”

“Any of them sound legit?”