The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(61)

CHAPTER 33


Wednesday, 5th June 2019

After a disturbed night, Samantha slept late the following morning, and MacKenzie and Phillips were happy to let her. It delayed the inevitable task that lay ahead, which was to inform her that her father had died. They’d discussed the best way of doing it, the form of words they might use or the places they could go, to make it better for her.

But there was no way to sugar-coat it.

First, her mother, and now, her father.

“I have an idea,” MacKenzie said, as he heard the girl’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Morning.”

Samantha was still embarrassed by the side-effects of her nightmare, the previous evening, but MacKenzie had already washed and dried the sheets. They were folded away in a linen cupboard—out of sight, and out of mind.

“Are you hungry?” Phillips asked, but, for once, she shook her head.

“No, thank you,” she said, still hovering in the doorway.

It was as though she already knew something was wrong, MacKenzie thought. Perhaps she had sensed it, in the atmosphere.

“Can I show you something, Sam?”

The girl looked across, instantly curious.

“What is it?”

“Come with me,” MacKenzie murmured.

A door led from the kitchen to their attached garage and she paused beside it to check Samantha had something on her feet—in this case, fluffy slippers in the shape of unicorns—before pushing it open. Inside, part of the garage had been converted into a home gym area, with a boxer’s punchbag hanging in the centre of it all.

“Cool!” Samantha said, and went across to look at it. “My dad knows how to box, but he’s never shown me. He says it’s only for boys.”

On another day, MacKenzie might have cracked a joke about that, but not today.

“It’s because of your dad that I brought you here, Sam,” she said softly, and looked across to where Phillips had seated himself on an old garden chair. “I’m afraid we have some very bad news.”

Samantha looked down at the foamy matting beneath her feet.

“What is it? Was he—is he the one who killed my mum?”

MacKenzie was thrown off guard, unsure of how to answer. The fact was, Charlie O’Neill might still have been responsible for his wife’s murder, but now they may never know.

It was bad news, whichever way you looked at it.

“We don’t know that yet,” she answered, then ordered herself to look the girl in the eye. It was a mark of respect she afforded the family of any victim of crime, and now was no exception. “Something else has happened that we need to tell you about. I’m so sorry, Samantha—your dad died last night.”

As they’d expected, the first emotion she felt was anger, not grief.

“How? How did he die?” We’re not finished, yet! You can’t leave me, too!

“We’re looking into that,” MacKenzie said, having judged it inappropriate to go into the gory details. There was a time and a place for everything.

“Here,” MacKenzie said, handing her the smallest pair of boxing gloves she could find. They were too big, but they’d protect her hands. “Try taking a swipe at the bag. It won’t change what’s happened, but it might help.”

Samantha looked at the gloves and then shoved them on, strapping them at the wrists.

She stood in front of the bag, staring at it with tear-glazed eyes.

Then, she went for it, pouring out all her fury, her grief, her disappointment. MacKenzie held it steady for her, watching for any signs of injury, while Phillips looked on at the two women in his life and remembered his own childhood. Just like Samantha, he’d gone down to the boxing ring whenever life became too much and there was nowhere to put all the anger, nowhere to expel it without hurting somebody else.

There were many times in life when the world was not fair; people didn’t always play by the rules they’d made, and there was often nothing you could do about it. Not a blasted thing. But, usually, a person reached a certain age before life robbed them of both parents, especially with such brutality. There was only one other person he knew who had lost both parents, in equally sad circumstances.

Anna.

He decided to call her, as soon as he could. At times like these, they needed friends around them, and so did Samantha. Especially ones with a unique understanding of what she might be going through.

In the meantime, they waited while Samantha worked it out of her system as best she could, knowing it was the start of a long, rocky journey that might get worse before it got any better.

But right here, right now, she was cared for.

She was not alone.

*

Ryan had scheduled a briefing for nine o’clock and, this time, the Major Incident Room was looking more like its usual self. A bank of printers hummed against the back wall while representatives gathered from the forensics, analytics and tech teams to go over the information they’d gathered the previous day. Although the crime scene suggested that Charlie O’Neill had taken his own life, and therefore would not warrant the services of the Criminal Investigation Department, Ryan was a firm believer in the old adage that there was no such thing as a coincidence. There were too many questions that remained unanswered, and too many inconsistencies for him to overlook. He’d therefore taken the executive decision to treat Charlie’s death as ‘suspicious’, and to investigate it beneath the umbrella of ‘OPERATION SHOWSTOPPER’.