The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)
L.J. Ross
“O, beware, my lord of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”
—William Shakespeare, Othello
PROLOGUE
Saturday, 1st June 2019
“This is Tyne Radio Drivetime Classics, broadcasting across the North East…”
Samantha O’Neill took an involuntary step away from the disembodied voice on the radio, stumbling backward into a solid wall of fur. The horse let out a half-hearted whinny and craned its neck to see what all the fuss was about, while the girl’s head swam with the ripe scent of manure, warm and cloying on the summer air. The walls of the tiny makeshift stable were closing in, as though the muddied tarpaulin would engulf her, choke the very life out of her.
Dark spots swam in front of her eyes and she started to shake.
All the while, Boy George was signing balefully about karma and chameleons.
“This is Tyne Radio…”
She surged forward to end the offensive sound, groping for the switch with clumsy fingers.
But her arm froze, falling away in mid-air.
Fractured, blurry images from the past played around the edges of her mind as the door to her memory was quietly unlocked. Her body swayed as it remembered the same jingle she’d heard on a different radio eight years ago, and her heart pounded as she tried to snatch at the wisps of memories long forgotten. Tears fell in salty tracks down her cheeks as she heard the sound of her mother humming as she washed dishes. She could see her clearly now; a slim young woman in stonewash jeans with deep, rich red hair worn in curls down her back. She remembered Esme O’Neill as she had been, through the eyes of a child who had watched her from behind the wooden slats of her play pen.
“This is Tyne Radio…”
Samantha’s breathing began to hitch, coming in short sobs as she remembered the caravan door opening, before the monster stepped inside. She heard harsh, angry words, then the sharp slap of flesh hitting flesh. There was a struggle; something crashed. A child was crying, frightened by the noise and something else, something much worse.
Then, a dreadful stillness where nothing stirred but the tinny sound of the music floating on the air.
“Mama! Mama!”
She saw her chubby arm reaching through the wooden slats, trying to grasp her mother’s lifeless hand as it lay outstretched on the linoleum floor.
“Mama,” Sam whispered.
The memories faded, and ordinary sounds filtered back through her foggy brain. Outside the stable tent, the men and women of O’Neill’s Circus continued to set up camp on the moorland. She heard their occasional burst of laughter as they went about their business, oblivious to what had just happened to change her life irrevocably.
The horse wandered over to nuzzle her neck, sensing her disquiet.
“Shh, Pegasus,” she managed.
Long minutes passed until she scrubbed both hands over her face and stood up from where she’d fallen. All around, the moor bustled as people raised a series of brightly-coloured tents from the ground. She heard her father’s voice carrying on the air, barking orders as the Big Top rose in an elegant sweep of red and white.
Sam watched it happen from the shadows, heard the back-slapping cries as they hurried to secure the lines, and the occasional curse when one broke free. These people were her family, she thought. Theirs was an extraordinary world of magic, choreographed to entertain the masses—and, so long as the circus belonged to an O’Neill, hers would be the ruling family. Her father was the final arbiter of disputes, playing Solomon to every money quarrel and drunken brawl laid at his feet. By rights, she ought to tell him what she had remembered and thus break a lifelong taboo by speaking her mother’s name. For as long as she could remember, Charlie O’Neill had never spoken of his inconstant wife, long dead to him now.
But others had. The circus had whispered about the woman who’d left her man and child to run off with a rich country-man with a big house. Esme O’Neill had disgraced her family and dishonoured her faith. She wasn’t fit to be remembered, this woman whose character had been so maligned.
Except, none of it was true. Sam knew that now.
Her mother had not left them, she had been taken.
It was a heavy burden, this new knowledge. If she spoke out, it would be tantamount to betrayal; unthinkable and unforgivable. Fear curdled in her belly as she thought of her father’s anger and of the uproar that would follow if she went to the police. But she could not ignore what she had seen, and she could not allow others to continue as they had for so long, believing her mother to be unworthy.
She knew what she must do.
Heart heavy, she turned away and melted back into the shadows.
CHAPTER 1
Sunday, 2nd June 2019
Thirty miles north of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, Detective Chief Inspector Maxwell Finlay-Ryan watched a flock of birds swoop across a cloudless Northumbrian sky. Sunday mornings were made for this, and it had been far too long since he’d been able to enjoy a quiet moment of reflection and contented idleness while he watched the world go by. Life as a murder detective didn’t lend itself to lazy lie-ins or meandering walks along the riverbank but, at the none-too-gentle insistence of his sergeant—and his wife—he’d agreed to take some time off and recharge his batteries.