The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(56)

She smiled, and pulled him in for a better kiss.

“That’s just to keep you going.”





CHAPTER 30


Twenty minutes later, Ryan looked upon the wasted body of Charlie O’Neill with calm grey eyes. He stood on the extreme edge of the doorway, covered entirely in overalls, and made no attempt to enter the room. He would have liked to step inside, but to do so risked contamination, so he took his turn to view the body as a mourner might view a relative, in state.

“Has anything been moved?”

The first responding police constable shook his head.

“No, sir—not that I’m aware. The witness who discovered the body says they broke open the door to be sure the victim wasn’t alive and needing medical attention, but quickly left again when it was clear nothing could be done.”

Ryan nodded, continuing to scan the area.

O’Neill lay sprawled on the floor, a small amount of blood spattered in a fan around his head, which bore a fist-sized hole on the right side of the crown. He wore his costume, but he’d discarded the overcoat, hat and gloves, which were folded neatly on the edge of the sofa.

A small pistol lay on the floor beside his right hand.

In short, everything pointed to suicide.

“Where’s his brother?” Ryan asked.

“Waiting in his caravan with one of the other PCs,” came the reply. “He was distraught, when he heard.”

Ryan took a final, sweeping glance around the room and then turned away to allow Faulkner to make the most of what could be found, putting a grateful hand on the man’s padded shoulder as he passed.

“It’s like a revolving door, today,” the other man complained. “Why can’t the dead choose to end it all between nine and five?”

Forensic humour, Ryan thought. It was a killer.

“I appreciate you putting in the overtime, Tom.”

“At least we’ve already started work on the swabs you sent over,” he replied. “Once we’ve swept over the caravan, here, we’ll compare the findings and it should be a lot quicker than usual.”

Ryan nodded, and moved across to join Phillips.

“Have any preliminary statements been taken?” he asked.

“The PCs are going around the caravans in the immediate vicinity, now. I’ve got a PC with Marco and Leonie, another one in with Duke and there’s a community support officer in with Sabina,” Phillips replied, then bobbed his head towards Charlie’s caravan. “Looks pretty cut and dry, doesn’t it? Short-range gunshot wound to the skull. Pretty old-fashioned, but it gets the job done.”

Ryan stuck his hands inside his pockets and rocked back on his heels, thinking aloud.

“Did you notice the position of the exit wound? It looked a bit off to me, but I can’t put my finger on ‘why’. It’ll probably come to me,” he muttered. “And why the hell wouldn’t he have been sitting down, when he did it?”

“Eh?” Phillips said, eloquently.

“I mean, why would a man who intended to kill himself decide to do it standing in the middle of his living room? Why wouldn’t he sit down, comfortably, somewhere?”

“I’m not sure he’d be thinking straight, at the time,” Phillips said. “But I take your point. It sounds like you’re not convinced it was suicide.”

“Probably because I’m not,” Ryan said. “I won’t say there’s a suicidal ‘type’, because there isn’t. But I will say that, if there was a type, he most definitely wasn’t it.”

A man less likely to off himself, he was yet to meet.

“Aye, but the door was locked from the inside,” Phillips argued. “There’s no way somebody could have picked the lock to close it, after they left. There wouldn’t have been time, because anybody could have wandered by and seen them. Besides, there was no sign of a struggle, and there would have been if Charlie was taken by force.”

Ryan smiled.

“That’s the mystery, isn’t it?”

*

As the clock struck quarter-to-eleven, they tapped on the door to the D’Angelo’s sleek black caravan, which was answered by a tired-looking police constable they half-recognised from the Tyne and Wear Command division.

“Thanks, Constable. We’ll take it from here.”

Inside, they found Marco and Leonie sitting on a plush, L-shaped sofa. He, with his feet resting on the coffee table and, she, with her head resting on his lap. A blanket had been draped across her midriff and she appeared to be dozing.

“Sorry, it’s been a long day,” Marco said quietly, and gave her arm a gentle pat to wake her. “Love? The police are here to ask us what happened.”

Leonie’s eyes were bloodshot when they opened, and she rubbed at them with a tired hand.

“I can see you’re tired,” Ryan said. “I’ll make this as fast as I can.”

“Thank you,” Marco said. “I think we’re both a little…shell-shocked, to be honest.”

“Cup of tea?” Phillips offered. “I don’t mind making it.”

Ryan gave him an accusing glare, knowing fine well he wanted to test-drive the facilities inside the motorhome.

“That would be lovely,” Leonie said. “There’s some decaf tea, for me, in the smaller jar. The normal stuff is in the bigger jar, beside the kettle.”