The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(66)

Ryan let the tape continue to roll for the next twenty minutes, while they watched the tape closely and munched through half the packet of biscuits, stopping occasionally when the light was activated by another figure entering the screen and, once, when a cat wandered beneath the sensor.

“There’s Marco and Leonie,” Ryan said, coming to attention again. “They first pass beneath the motion sensor at 21:24, which is almost exactly when they estimated.”

A moment later, their figures disappeared in the direction of Charlie’s caravan and they leaned forward to scrutinize the action playing out on the edge of the screen, which Ryan had maximised as much as he could. They were disappointed to note that everything happened as the D’Angelos had described: they watched them knock on the door several times, then saw Marco angling his taller body to see inside one of the living room windows. A moment later, he jerked away in shock, and Leonie rushed across in concern. Soon, she was seen hurrying off the screen, in the direction of Charlie’s neighbour and they saw Marco trying the door handle again, before giving it a couple of hard kicks. They watched him edge inside, then a few moments later, he rushed back out again, bent over double as he threw up onto the grass.

He was leaning against the edge of the caravan when Leonie returned with the neighbour in tow.

“Nothing they didn’t already tell us,” Ryan muttered, pausing the footage before standing up to pace around a bit. “If only it captured sound, we might have heard when the shot was fired.”

“Is this the only camera?”

Ryan nodded, then wandered over to look at the murder board. He scanned each of the faces on the wall.

“What I can’t understand is why nobody heard the shot.”

“Silencer?” Phillips suggested.

“Not found anywhere with the gun,” Ryan replied. “And, if Charlie’s death was made to look like suicide, they couldn’t use a silencer, could they? A man who intends to kill himself doesn’t care whether anybody hears the shot.”

Phillips clucked his tongue.

“Well, the fireworks didn’t start until around half-past nine,” he said. “And Marco and Leonie found him before then, behind a locked door. If Charlie didn’t off himself, the killer had to get inside sometime after nine, but there’s nothing on the footage—”

“Maybe there is, but we can’t see it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they must have approached the caravan from the opposite direction without activating the motion-sensor light,” Ryan said. “If they avoided the ticket booth, the footage would stay dark, so we can barely see a bloody thing.”

Phillips gave a long whistle, running a hand over his chin in a nervous gesture.

“That’s reaching, lad.”

“Is it? It’s the only way I can think that somebody got inside without it being captured on the screen.”

“Aye, but how did they lock the door from the inside, and get out again?”

Ryan sighed heavily.

“I’m still working on that part,” he admitted, turning back to look at Phillips. “But I’ve been thinking about that trapdoor, Frank. Remember what Samantha said, about her mum seeming to disappear from the floor, without going through the door? We wondered how the hell anyone could dispose of a body in broad daylight, without being seen. But what if they didn’t have to? What if—”

A picture was forming in Phillips’ mind, and it turned his stomach.

“You think somebody killed that poor lass, then shoved her underneath the caravan for safekeeping, using the trapdoor?”

A muscle in Ryan’s jaw clenched, but he nodded.

“Yes, I do. Then, I think they returned to the scene later, once things had died down, and disposed of the body under cover of darkness.”

“That’s cold,” Phillips said, his button-brown eyes darkening with anger. “Cold, and pre-meditated.”

Ryan gave a slow nod.

“You know what I think, Frank? I think somebody wants us to believe Charlie killed his wife and was driven to suicide rather than facing prosecution for murder. At first, I wondered whether Esme was killed in the heat of the moment. But now, I realise something important: she was killed for a reason, that day in 2011, and we must be getting close to finding out what that reason was. Staging a suicide is a desperate act, and it must have taken some thought and planning to orchestrate, so I’m starting to wonder whether the reason for killing Esme is more important than the murder itself.”

“And Charlie’s a kind of collateral damage?”

“Maybe. We haven’t figured out exactly how they managed to lock Charlie inside, to mask the shot and make it look as though he was the only one who fired the weapon. But we will.”

“How are we going to do that?” Phillips asked. “Faulkner confirmed that the door was broken in, just as Marco described, and just as we saw on the tape. The CSIs went over the door with a fine-toothed comb, and it wasn’t tampered with.”

Ryan gave his sergeant an enigmatic smile.

“I’m going to start by asking the pathologist to expedite time of death,” he said. “If Charlie’s body has any more secrets to tell us, I want to know about it.”

Just then, the telephone in the incident room began to ring.