The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(40)

As if he should expect better of himself.

“Get out,” he muttered. “You’ve seen what you wanted to see.”

“We’re grateful you’ve shown us where Esme lived,” Ryan said, with rigid politeness. “But we still need to take a formal statement from you, about the night she went missing.”

“I’ve already told you what happened,” O’Neill argued. “I’ve got nothing more to say.”

“I’d have thought you’d want to find out what happened to her,” Phillips said. “She was murdered. Don’t you care enough to help us discover who did it?”

O’Neill’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“Don’t start telling me what to think, or what to feel—"

“I’m not,” Phillips said, with a negligent shrug. “But it doesn’t look good, does it, if a husband won’t even make a statement to help the police investigate his wife’s murder? That’s the kind of thing that sets tongues wagging.”

O’Neill almost laughed because, in other circumstances, he might have liked the little sergeant with his sharp eyes and even sharper tongue.

Ryan, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish.

“What my sergeant’s trying to say is, you can either come down to the station of your own accord and make a statement to assist our investigation, or we can arrest you and slap on a pair of handcuffs, which won’t look good to your friends in the circus, will it?”

“I can phone the solicitor, Charlie,” Duke said, piping up for the first time since they’d been in the caravan. “I’ll meet you down there.”

“You can give a statement, too,” Ryan interjected, half surprised to find him still lurking in the hallway.

Afterwards, he was struck forcibly by the impression that, if Duke didn’t want to be seen or heard, he was the kind of man who knew how to make himself invisible. It was a skill that he’d developed, something that took time and care.

He wondered what he might have seen, from the shadows where he hid.





CHAPTER 22


The late Daniel Hepple had enjoyed a flashy lifestyle, if his home in Whitley Bay was anything to go by. Every floor was covered in expensive natural stone or thick-pile carpet; every wall was covered in marble or papered in expensive wall coverings that retailed for more than Melanie Yates spent on her annual summer holiday. The colour scheme was a combination of muted greys, navy and white which, although generally thought to be a masculine palette, seemed to resonate with femininity.

Plus, she’d spotted scatter cushions.

“Was he married?” she asked, to the room at large.

Lowerson looked across from where he stood beside one of the CSIs, who was snapping a series of photographs of the back door from all angles.

“Not that I know of,” he said. “Why? Did you find a photograph or something?”

Yates shook her head.

“No, it’s more of a…a feeling,” she said, and Lowerson gave her a look she didn’t much care for.

“We need evidence, Mel,” he started to say. “We can’t rely on feelings, that won’t help us to build a case. You see—”

“Ah, Jack? Can I have a word, please?” she interrupted him, and moved swiftly into the next room, which was empty of forensic staff.

“Wha—?”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence, before she rounded on him.

“Now, listen to me,” she said, in a voice that trembled with anger. “I know you’re Acting SIO on this, but that doesn’t make you some kind of big shot. You might be above me in the pecking order, but don’t you dare undermine me in front of my colleagues like that, ever again. I know fine well that we need evidence to build a case, but if you think lowly things like feelings are irrelevant, then you’re not half the man Ryan is.”

That struck a nerve, as she knew it would.

“Now, just wait a minute—”

“I asked if Hepple had a wife because the whole house looks like somebody with an eye for colours and shapes has helped him to decorate,” she blazed on. “I could be wrong; not all women like to decorate, and some men do have an eye for what goes together. Our gangland drugs-pusher might have had a subscription for Interior Design Monthly, or he could have hired someone to help him. Or, maybe—just maybe—he had the help of whichever woman these belong to.”

To his surprise, she held up a pair of slinky women’s knickers in her gloved hand.

“Where did you find those?” he asked, meekly.

“Upstairs, under his bed,” she muttered. “While you were wind-bagging about the correct way to approach a crime scene, I went upstairs to have a root around. I found these, and what looks like a burner mobile that’s password protected.”

“Let’s have a look,” he said, but she held it just out of reach.

“I mean it, Jack,” she said carefully. “I’ve always liked you. You’ve been my friend and, after what happened last year, I was prepared to cut you a lot of slack. But your free pass to be rude and misogynist has just expired. Speak to me like that again and I’ll slap a complaint on you, and request a transfer.”

She slammed the phone into his outstretched palm and turned to leave, before he saw how much the confrontation had affected her.