The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(34)

Better yet, she’d do the driving next time and perform a perfect parallel park.

One-handed. In heels.

Smiling at the thought, she caught up with him.

“What are you so happy about?” he asked, but didn’t bother to wait for an answer. They had no time for small-talk; not when the scene inside Hepple’s home could be deteriorating with every passing minute.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Yates asked, taking in the smart front door with its potted plants and stained-glass panels. “Doesn’t seem to suit the man we found in the dumpster.”

“We don’t know who he was, except that he liked to earn money by selling drugs, and that he was killed violently. Probably because of his choice of profession,” Lowerson said. “Who’s to say what he was really like? He might have been a fan of musical theatre, for all we know.”

“Every drugs-pusher I’ve ever dealt with lived in a poky flat lined with thousands’ worth of electronics and branded clothing,” she said. “They usually had a fancy car, too.”

“Maybe this one was a bit higher up the ladder than your average,” Lowerson mused, and walked up to the front door.

“No sign of forced entry,” Yates breathed, almost making him jump when he realised how close she was standing.

He was mortified to learn that the simple effect of having her warm breath on his neck was enough to…

To…

To play havoc with his body, that’s what.

The embarrassing knowledge had a flush spreading across his face.

“I’ll check around the back,” he muttered, almost stumbling in his haste to put a safe distance between them. “You stay here.”

“Why?”

Why? Because he needed to recover himself, that’s why.

“Ah, in case anybody comes along.”

Yates looked up and down at the empty street, unconvinced.

“I don’t think—”

“Back in a sec,” he told her, hurrying around the side of the house.

As soon as he did, she smiled. If she made him just a teensy bit uncomfortable, maybe there was hope, yet.





CHAPTER 19


Ryan and Phillips arrived at O’Neill’s Circus just before eleven, to find it closed. Sweet wrappers moved lightly on the breeze, left by the people who had trampled over the moorland the previous day, and a couple of circus hands wandered around making a half-hearted attempt to clear them up.

“Help yer?” one called out.

“We’re here to see Charlie,” Phillips bellowed, sending a flock of nearby birds flapping into the sky.

“He’s not here,” they replied. “Him and Duke have gone off for a meetin’ or somethin’.”

Ryan filed away that nugget of information.

“Marco can pass a message on, if y’ like,” the man offered. “He’s in his caravan. It’s the black one, over there.”

The one he’d admired, Phillips thought, with some excitement.

“Thanks,” Ryan called out, and paused for another minute or two to take down their names and any other information they were willing to give, which didn’t turn out to be much. There was a culture of silence amongst those who worked for O’Neill’s, and it was not easily broken.

“They say they didn’t know Esme,” Ryan confirmed, as they walked across the uneven ground towards the caravan park. “They only started working for the circus a couple of years ago, and they’d heard the ‘Big Man’ had a wife who left him, but it’s never spoken of.”

Phillips grunted.

“He wields a lot of respect,” he said. “I have to ask myself, what did he do to earn it?”

“Perhaps it isn’t respect he commands, but fear,” Ryan murmured. “And the question therefore becomes, what did he do to earn that?”

They were approaching the caravan park now and decided to put their conversation on hold, since there were several people sitting on camp chairs and sun loungers, enjoying the intermittent shafts of sunlight that occasionally burst through the clouds. Their chatter died as they spotted the two police officers, and they stared openly in a manner Ryan found vaguely unnerving. It was mostly women and children milling around and he wondered where all the men had gone.

“This is the one they said belonged to Marco,” Phillips said, as they approached a large, polished black motorhome.

Ryan scanned its metal edges for the door, then tapped on it.

When there was no answer, they were drawn to the sound of laughter coming from the other side, where a gazebo attachment had been set up. Beneath it, a small group of people had gathered and were enjoying cups of tea and an animated discussion.

“I’d watch Huge Jackman in anything,” one woman declared.

“You mean, Hugh Jackman,” a male voice replied, and there came the sound of laughter in response.

As Ryan and Phillips rounded the corner, they could see that the group consisted of three people—a man and two women—one of whom stood up to confront the new arrivals.

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking between them with suspicion etched all over her face.

“Maybe,” Ryan said, in what he hoped was an unthreatening tone. “We were looking for Marco?”