The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(37)

Still, he kept up the pretence to put her at ease.

“The thing is, somebody at the hospital told us Will’s been suspended. He didn’t mention it and, to be honest, we can’t understand why he’d lie to us at a time like this. It doesn’t look good, does it?”

She looked between them, then at the door at the far end of the hallway.

“Do you—do you mean you’re thinking he might be involved?”

Phillips sucked in a breath and shook his head sadly.

“We don’t know what to think. Do we, Jack?”

“Um, no. We don’t.”

“If—If Will’s been suspended, I’m sure it’s got nothing to do with his mum,” she said, the words rushing out in her haste to defend him. “He would never hurt anybody.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

She opened her mouth as if to speak and Phillips held up a single finger.

“Let me stop you there and remind you that if you lie to us, we can charge you with perverting the course of justice. That’s the kind of thing that can ruin your career prospects, just like…oh, something like drugs. I’m sure a smart lass like you has a long way to go in life and wouldn’t want to get mixed up in anything like that.”

Her eyes began to well up and she nodded.

“Will!”

She called out to him and, finally, his bedroom door opened. He stood there, fully dressed in chinos and a designer polo shirt, looking intensely displeased.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “I didn’t know what to do.”

He looked straight through her.

“Since you’ve already barged your way in, you might as well make yourselves at home,” he said.

“Thanks,” Phillips said brightly. “We thought you’d never ask.”





CHAPTER 14


A late morning deluge had left clear, cornflower-blue skies in its wake. The sun beat down on Ryan’s back through his office window at Police Headquarters and gave his hair a blue-black shine. The tie he’d worn earlier was draped across the back of his chair and he’d rolled his sleeves up to reveal lightly tanned arms, from Sunday morning spent down by the riverbank. It seemed a lifetime ago that he and Phillips had whiled away their time chatting about this and that, debating politics and arguing about the merits of football versus rugby as they soaked up the beauty of the countryside.

That was then.

Now, his eyes were trained on his computer screen as he watched the CCTV footage of John Dobbs’ altercation with Isobel Harris at Fenwick. He’d seen it several times before but found himself drawn to it again as he went back over the girl’s movements leading up to her death. The footage was slightly grainy and in black and white, but he could make everything out clearly enough. At twelve-seventeen on 19th June, the CCTV captured a man of average height and build entering the beauty hall. He might have been anybody; a father, a brother, an estate agent or a civil servant. There was nothing to set him apart from the rest. John Dobbs didn’t need to find his bearings; Ryan watched him move directly to the far corner where Isobel Harris worked on the Lola counter. He was clutching an enormous bouquet of flowers in his hands—red roses—and the overhead lights bounced off the top of his balding head.

Less than ten seconds later, another camera captured Dobbs’ profile as he made his way down the aisle and, finally, a third camera trained above the Lola counter caught Dobbs full in the face as he shuffled up to greet the object of his desire.

Although there was no sound, Ryan could read the body language very easily.

It began innocently enough, with Dobbs smiling and presenting his bouquet to Isobel. The angle of the camera only captured the top of her dark head, but she shook it and held up her hands to wave him away, stepping back from the counter and turning to her friend, Amaya, presumably calling out for help to move Dobbs along.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed on the screen as he watched Dobbs’ face change from an unthreatening, middle-aged man to something else entirely. There was menace there, he thought, and Isobel had felt it.

Dobbs walked quickly around the counter to invade her space, this time forcing her to take the flowers. Ryan knew from the statements given by Amaya and the security guard that Dobbs had been wild, shouting at Isobel to take the flowers and be grateful.

“Ungrateful bitch! I came all the way here to give you these! You’re just like all the rest!”

He’d made a grab for Isobel’s arm and at that point, a security guard waded in. Ryan watched the burly man in a black suit appear at a run, speaking into his lapel, before clamping an arm around Dobbs and dragging him away. Another guard came from the opposite direction to help remove him.

The last of the footage showed Isobel in Amaya’s arms. A couple of passing customers stopped to pat her back and congratulate themselves on witnessing the drama. It would make for something to talk about over the dinner table, wouldn’t it?

Ryan sat back in his chair and thought again that there were very few innocent people in the world.

“Mac? Got a minute?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

Ryan walked across to MacKenzie’s desk and picked up a stray biro, fiddling with it as he spoke.

“I’ve just been reviewing the footage we have from Fenwick again,” he told her. “I know that Dobbs had a history of depression, a couple of pops on his sheet for drunk and disorderly, but I still don’t understand why that would lead a man to suicide. If he was innocent, he would have defended himself rather than running like that. Wouldn’t he?”