The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(23)

But Lowerson would not be swayed.

“I’ve got a bit of paperwork to do here,” he said, in an overly formal voice that befitted his new position of responsibility. “Thanks anyway.”

Yates looked crestfallen, so MacKenzie considered it her civic duty to step into the breach.

“Well, if you won’t, I will,” she said. “C’mon, Mel. Let’s go and see if that good-lookin’ barman is working this evening. The one that looks like a long, tall glass of pinot grigio. Course, if you tell Frank I said that, I’ll call you a dirty liar.”

Since Yates knew it was all for her benefit, the smile she gave was warm and genuine.

“What barman?” she said, deadpan.

With a parting sigh for the back of Lowerson’s head, MacKenzie bundled her friend out of the office.





CHAPTER 13


The sun shone brightly through the avenue of trees lining the road, sending dappled light streaming across the car windscreen as Ryan and Phillips made the journey back to Police Headquarters. On days like these, it was hard to do the job they had sworn to do; to set aside the beauty that was all around them and focus instead on the worst side of humanity. It took a toll, one that couldn’t easily be measured, and it was part of Ryan’s job to look out for the signs that it was becoming too much; either for himself, or for his team.

He glanced at his friend, who had become withdrawn since they’d left the circus.

“Don’t let O’Neill get under your skin,” he murmured, breaking the heavy silence. “He’s arrogant and aggressive, but we’ve seen his type before.”

Phillips shifted in his seat.

“Aye, and worse,” he agreed.

As always, Ryan’s patience was the catalyst. The quiet air he carried around him like a forcefield managed to be both comforting and unsettling at the same time, drawing Phillips out of his solitary reverie.

“When I think back on some of the characters we’ve known and some of the God-awful things they’ve done, I often think it’s a wonder we haven’t turned into a couple of crackpots,” he said.

“Speak for yourself,” Ryan shot back, to make him laugh.

“True enough,” Phillips admitted. “You’re well past saving.”

Ryan smiled and made the turn onto the Coast Road, heading west towards Wallsend and Police Headquarters.

“The thing is, I’ve met countless types like Charlie O’Neill. I knew them from the old days, when I was a kid. Some of them were my mates and some…well, some of them ended up in prison.”

“Does it play on your mind?”

Phillips blew out a gusty breath.

“It can help to know the right people,” he admitted, thinking of when Denise had been kidnapped by a dangerous killer and he’d called in every favour he could. “But, aye, it doesn’t sit well to know that the boys I used to scrap about with are rotting away while I’m living the good life.”

“You call picking over dead bodies ‘the good life’?” Ryan said, with a raised eyebrow.

“It beats the nine-to-five,” Phillips grinned, then grew serious again. “It beats being on the dole or living at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, like some of the lads I used to know.”

“Free will,” Ryan said. “They were free to make their own choices, just as you were, Frank. Don’t beat yourself up for having made the right ones.”

Phillips looked across at his friend’s hard profile, silhouetted against the passing landscape, and thought that life had taught him a lot since the first day he’d walked onto the job. But, beneath all that experience, there remained the beating heart of an idealist, one who expected people to make the right choices and was disappointed when they didn’t. Ryan hadn’t known what it was like to live hand to mouth; hadn’t known the shame of needing to beg, borrow or steal. It didn’t make him uncaring; in fact, Maxwell Finlay-Ryan was one of the kindest people he knew. It didn’t make him na?ve or unrealistic, either. A grown man of his years, having seen what he’d seen, was long past being either of those.

But it did make him a perfectionist, one who demanded everything of others that he demanded of himself—and, sometimes, the bar was just too high.

Phillips cleared his throat.

“The problem is, son, what’s the ‘right’ decision? We live by the laws of the land; we enforce them every day. If we don’t, the place would go to rack and ruin. I joined the police because I wanted something different for myself—I wanted law and order and stability, and I’ve made a good life,” he repeated. “But who’s to say all those others made the ‘wrong’ decisions? If they were starving hungry with bairns to feed, they’d have done anything to put food in their mouths. Was it wrong?”

“And what about the other ones?” Ryan argued. “The ones who didn’t have a good reason to lie, or steal, or maim, or kill? We’ve seen their kind, too.”

Phillips nodded.

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Take whoever killed Samantha’s mam. What kind of low-life would kill someone, right in front of a baby girl?”

Ryan simply shook his head.

“I can’t answer that yet,” he said. “But we’re going to find out, Frank—and, when we do, they’re going to feel the full force of the law.”