The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(19)

“It’s incredible,” Ryan murmured, but dragged his eyes away to scan the surrounding area through force of habit.

The main structure of the tent appeared to be supported by four enormous poles which, on closer inspection, consisted of two pairs connected by a bar at the top. These poles provided the base units for the rest of the show, and extensive high-level rigging had been erected around them including a long walkway and several smaller platforms. He watched as one of the male acrobats swung back up to one such platform and a pair of arms flashed out of the darkness to catch the swing, allowing the acrobat to dismount in safety.

“Look at that,” Phillips nudged his friend, and they watched a woman on a unicycle make her way along a tightrope, almost over-balancing before she corrected herself at the last moment.

“You almost fell on your arse!” somebody bellowed, taking the words out of his mouth.

They scanned the arena until their eyes fell on a man standing in the centre, decked out in a red dress coat and tight black trousers tucked into polished black riding boots. He held a loudspeaker in his hand and Ryan knew instinctively that this was the man they were looking for.

The ringmaster.

“Marco! You were a couple of seconds out on that last turn,” Charlie called up to the rooftop. “Keep on like that and you’ll end up in the net!”

A stream of what sounded like French or Italian profanities wafted down from the ceiling.

Charlie laughed to himself and was about to turn away when his keen eye spotted the three spectators standing in the aisle. As Duke had done, he made a lightning-quick assessment of Ryan and Phillips, coming to similar conclusions.

“Take a five-minute break!” he called out to the performers, and stepped into the epicentre of the arena, where the spotlight circled him in a blazing halo of white light. If the police had come for him, they’d have to come all the way.

They were on his turf now.

*

Since he showed no intention of coming across to greet them, Ryan and Phillips made their way towards the owner of O’Neill’s Circus via a safety gate at the end of the gangway. Duke lolloped behind them, his clown feet squeaking loudly as he went.

“Charlie, this is Detective Chief Inspector Ryan and Detective Sergeant Phillips,” he said, as they stepped beneath the blazing lights. “They want to talk to you.”

At first glance, the brothers appeared similar. They were both around average height with wavy, mid-brown hair, but that’s where the similarities ended. Where Duke was verging on thin, Charlie had a hard, muscular physique. His skin was tanned and tattooed down to his wrists, whereas his brother was pale and freckled. They both had greenish-brown eyes, but only one set was sharp and calculating.

“Oh yeah?” Charlie said, and reached inside the breast pocket of his immaculate red coat for a packet of cigarettes. “What about?”

Phillips watched him retrieve a cigarette and had a fleeting sensory memory of when he used to smoke, too. His fingers began to twitch, so he shoved them inside the pockets of his trousers and reminded himself sternly about things like emphysema and, even more terrifying, what MacKenzie would say if she caught so much as a whiff of smoke on his breath.

“We’re from Northumbria CID,” Ryan was saying, and watched the brothers’ faces for any reaction.

There was none.

“Nobody’s died that I know of,” Charlie said, with a negligent shrug. “We only got here on Friday night, so we wouldn’t know what’s been happening around these parts. Would we?”

He turned to his brother, who shook his head vigorously in agreement.

“No—no idea.”

Ryan smiled thinly.

“We’d like to ask you some questions regarding Esmerelda O’Neill,” he said. “We understand you were married in June of 2008, here in Newcastle. Is that correct?”

Charlie’s face was frozen in surprise, the name conjuring up an icy blast from the past. He deliberately relaxed his muscles again and took a long drag of his cigarette before answering.

“Yeah, I married her,” he said, then let out a harsh laugh. “She’s got herself in trouble with the law, has she? Well, she better not be thinking she can palm anything off on me,” he growled, jerking a thumb towards his chest. “That privilege ended when she walked out the door, eight years ago.”

He remembered it. He remembered everything.

“Can you tell us when you last saw Mrs O’Neill?” Ryan asked, deciding not to mention murder, since the penny didn’t seem to have dropped for either man. Besides, he hadn’t received DNA confirmation of a match between Samantha and the unidentified female, so it was best to play his cards close to his chest for the time being.

Charlie dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with more force than necessary.

“Look, why d’you want to know?” he asked, making no attempt to hide his irritation.

When no answer was forthcoming, he shook his head.

“The last time I saw Esme was on 3rd June 2011. It was a Friday and she was in the caravan seeing to the baby. I left in the morning to look over the rigging and, a few hours later, Duke came running up to tell me somebody’d found the baby alone in the caravan, bawling her eyes out. That’s the last any of us saw of her and, far as I’m concerned, a cat’s a better wife than she was.”