The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(42)

He could see her, even now, all decked out in a sparkling leotard, her hair shining beneath the lights as the crowd cheered.

“How soon were you two an item?”

Charlie snapped back to reality, as the memory faded.

“She held me off, for years,” he said, remembering his old frustration. “Said I had a bad rep.”

He ran a hand over his neck, and half laughed.

“I s’pose she was right. Anyhow, things didn’t really get going between us until, maybe, sometime in 2007? Must’ve been around Christmas,” he said. “It felt like something changed and she was looking at me differently.”

“What changed?” Ryan asked.

O’Neill’s face became ominous again.

“It’s true my dad signed the circus over to me around then, and there were some who held it against her; said she only started showing any interest in me after I took it over. Esme was many things, but she wasn’t a money-grabber,” he said.

Ryan listened, watching the man’s face closely, and realised something important.

Charlie O’Neill had loved his wife.

It had been by no means clear, until then—and it wasn’t necessarily a point in his favour. There was a safety in being ambivalent, whereas, in his long experience, fools in love were much more likely to behave irrationally in the heat of passion. More likely to make mistakes—for love, or through jealousy.

More likely to kill.

“And so, you were married in June of 2008?” he prompted.

Charlie nodded.

“14th June,” he said quietly. “We just decided to go for it. No sense in waiting, is there? Besides, she was old-fashioned, like that.”

“Old-fashioned?”

“She’d been brought up religious,” Charlie explained. “That’s why it came as such a shock, thinking she’d gone off—”

He folded his arms, cupping the elbows in a gesture of self-comfort.

“What’s the use in going over all this, now? She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is,” Ryan murmured. “And she isn’t here to defend herself. That’s why we need to build up an accurate picture of her life; to try to understand what happened.”

He nodded, then reached for a glass of water, which he downed in one gulp.

“How was married life?”

“Fine,” he said. “Good, I s’pose.”

When he thought of it, he realised how lucky he had been. He’d had a beautiful young wife at home, one who tended to his every need, scrubbed his floors and cooked his meals. He was the one who’d always demanded more, who’d made her feel unattractive after the baby had been born.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the memory to pass.

“You were happy?”

“Yes. No. Look, we were just young. The baby came along too quick; we hardly had any time just as a couple, you know? I wasn’t ready to deal with her crying and feeding all the time. I was sick of her being too tired.”

Phillips thought, once again, that the man was a real prince.

“That must have been very trying for you,” he said, with thinly-veiled sarcasm. “Weren’t you happy, when Samantha was born?”

Charlie thought back to that day, in the hospital. Esme had wanted a home birth, with candles and whatnot, but the baby had other ideas. He’d never forget the fear he’d felt driving them both to the Accident & Emergency department.

He’d never forget the tiny little bundle they’d placed into his arms, and how he’d felt. The beginning of something, maybe love, had tugged around his heart.

And then she’d started to cry, her tiny face screwed up tight until she was back in her mother’s arms. He’d watched them both and felt resentful, knowing from that moment onwards that he was no longer at the top of Esme’s list of priorities.

And knowing something else, too.

Esme had never, ever, looked at him the way she was looking at Samantha.

“Mr O’Neill?” Ryan’s voice brought him back to the present.

“I was glad there was nowt wrong with her,” he snapped.

Phillips shifted in his chair, working hard to remain calm in the face of such a lack of feeling.

“I’m sorry I have to ask, but it’s a standard question in cases such as these,” Ryan continued. “Did you have any reason to believe Esme was having an affair?”

Charlie almost laughed.

He’d asked himself that question time and time again, coming up with the same answer every time.

He hadn’t known a thing.

“No,” he muttered. “She was the perfect little wife. If she had someone on the side, I never knew about it, and nobody else did, either.”

“How can you be so sure?” Phillips asked.

“Because the whole bloody circus was in shock,” Charlie replied, in a tired voice. “Nobody saw it coming.”

Ryan decided to change tack.

“We already know Esme didn’t have much in the way of family,” Ryan said. “Why don’t you tell us about her friends?”

“She was always close with Sabby and then, when Leonie joined, they hit it off as well,” Charlie replied. “Leonie was Maid of Honour at our wedding, and Sabby was a bridesmaid.”