The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(50)

Rochelle fought to control her grief, willing back the tears that clogged her throat.

“He’s—Daniel’s really dead, then?”

“Are you Mr Hepple’s next of kin?”

“I-I was…no, we weren’t married,” she whispered. “Look, I can’t stay on the line. I have to—I have to go. Please, don’t call this number again.”

“Wait! What’s your name?”

There was a short silence.

“Rochelle.”

“Rochelle, listen to me. We’re investigating Daniel’s murder and it’s important we find out more about his life and the people around him. Maybe you could help us with that.”

How could she help? she thought, hysterically. She couldn’t even help herself.

“I have to go. Please. He’ll kill me if he finds out.”

Lowerson knew he was about to lose her, maybe forever.

“Look, Rochelle. We can help you. I’ll meet you anywhere you like, somewhere neutral. You name the place. Please, if you’re in fear for your life, let us help you.”

Across the room, the others fell silent—including Ryan and Phillips, who had returned bearing cartons of food and drink.

Rochelle thought she heard the outer bedroom door opening and, in another moment, he would be banging on the bathroom door.

“The petrol station in Corbridge,” she said quickly. “Tomorrow at ten.”

“I’ll be there.”

After the line went dead, Lowerson stared at his mobile phone for a long moment and wondered if the woman would make it to the petrol station the following morning.

“Well done, Jack.”

He looked up to find Ryan standing beside his desk, holding out a fresh latte. He wrapped grateful hands around the paper cup and nodded.

“Thanks. I forgot my crisis training. It’s been a while—”

“Sounded pretty good to me,” Ryan argued, and clinked his paper cup against Lowerson’s. “To avoiding crises.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

*

While Lowerson and Yates discussed strategy ahead of their meeting with Rochelle the next day, on the other side of the room, Ryan and Phillips discussed murder.

“We’ve got DNA swabs from everyone at the circus who’d offer one voluntarily,” Ryan said. “Which was a surprising number, when you consider they’re generally predisposed to hate us.”

Phillips nodded sagely.

“Anybody refuse to give one?”

“Only a couple of the circus hands, and I expect that’s because they’ve got a sheet,” Ryan said. “All the same, we’ll check them out.”

Phillips took a slurp of his milky tea.

“Did you see the e-mail from Faulkner? He’s going to run the swabs through the system and then we’ll be able to see if there’s a match to any known DNA profiles,” he said. “Worth a shot.”

Ryan nodded, then turned to look at Esme’s face looking out at them from her photo on the whiteboard.

“What did she do, Frank? What did she know? You don’t just kill a person for no good reason, not with that level of planning and execution.”

“How d’you mean?”

Ryan leaned back against his desk and folded his arms, while he thought.

“We’ve seen frenzy killings and serial murderers, as well as the kind they’re dealing with,” he said, bobbing his chin in the direction of Lowerson and Yates. “But Esme O’Neill? This feels simpler; old-fashioned, somehow.”

Phillips followed his train of thought.

“She was set alight before she was buried, and strangled long before that. It suggests some serious commitment to the killing,” he said. “It suggests some sort of deep-rooted feeling, not a contract kill.”

“I agree. A professional wouldn’t have left the child.”

Phillips experienced a sharp, unexpected ache in his chest as he imagined Samantha having been murdered, too.

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “They slipped up, there. Probably thought she was far too young to remember and, since she couldn’t talk properly, she couldn’t tell anyone what she saw. By the time she grew old enough to be heard, they’d already planted the idea that her mum had left her, so the memory was buried.”

Ryan thought of the person they hunted, trying to build a mental picture.

“It takes a very specific kind of person, not only to kill, but to maintain that level of deception for so long,” he said. “They’d have seen Samantha every day, probably talked to her each day, watching out for any sign that she was remembering. She told us she had the flashback when she was looking after the horses—but what if she’d gone to someone she trusted and told them about it? She might never have lived to turn up on my doorstep.”

Phillips ran a hand over his chin, feeling a sense of relief.

“Aye, I know. But it must have been one of the men in her life, at least we know that much—”

“Do we?”

Phillips stopped short.

“Eh? How else would they have managed to hulk a dead body out of the caravan, especially quickly, in broad daylight? They had to have sheer physical strength and, looking at the women in the circus, they’re all slim, almost petite.”