The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(70)

Ryan watched the puddles form, from his position beside Phillips’ kitchen window.

“What is it, Tom? Got an update?”

“Yes, and, before I tell you what it is, I asked for the results to be verified and checked three times.”

“Understood,” Ryan said, intrigued as to what could be so important to warrant the special treatment. “What did you find?”

“It’s the charm bracelet—the one that was discovered in the grave beside Esme O’Neill’s remains.”

“I remember.”

“We’re still going through all the Low Copy Number DNA,” he said, referring to the tiniest samples of DNA they were able to work with. It accounted for the smallest of skin cells but was notoriously difficult to rely on in court, owing to the high risk of contamination.

“Ryan, we found a match, but it’s not what we thought.”

“Tell me.”

“The LCN DNA profile we managed to isolate was a fifty per cent match to Samantha’s DNA profile, but it doesn’t belong to Esme—we already checked.”

“It must be Charlie, then.”

“No, that’s just it,” Faulkner said. “When we compared it with the profiles we took from everybody at the circus, we found the match. It’s not Charlie, it’s Marco D’Angelo.”

Ryan was quiet for a moment, taking in the enormity of what that meant for the little girl next door, and what it might mean for her mother’s killer.

“You’re sure?” he said, while Phillips looked up from his paperwork with a curious expression.

“As sure as we can be, yes. We applied the same process to the fresh DNA samples we took from Charlie’s caravan, last night, to be sure it wasn’t a fluke result. The samples we found in the caravan were much larger and easier to work with, and we got the same result. Charlie’s DNA bears no genetic similarity to Samantha’s, except the tiny percentage we all share as fellow human beings. When you compare it with Marco’s profile, the connection is undeniable.”

“Have we got our smoking gun, after all?” Phillips asked, after the call ended. “Let’s hear some good news, for a change.”

Ryan looked at his friend and wondered whether the news he was about to impart would be considered ‘good’.

It was a breakthrough, at least.

“It turns out, Samantha’s father isn’t dead, after all,” he said bluntly. “He’s alive and well, and goes by the name of Marco D’Angelo.”

Phillips stared at his friend for an endless moment, then injected a note of false cheer into his voice as he thrust upward from the kitchen table.

“Well, what are we waitin’ for? Let’s go and speak to the new father.”

Ryan knew that his friend had begun to hope that, now Samantha had been orphaned, there might have been a possibility of them adopting her for the long-term. Phillips had never spoken of it, but he didn’t need to. Ryan had seen it coming, the first moment his friends had laid eyes on the little red-headed monkey with the mile-wide grin.

But now, it appeared there was somebody else to contend with, and their hopes were scuppered.

Nobody wanted an ageing murder detective with a receding hairline, when they could have a handsome acrobat for a father, Phillips told himself.

*

Oblivious to the latest piece of news set to rock her young life, Samantha lay on the sofa in the living room, while her mind stood just inside her parent’s caravan as it had been eight years ago.

“Turn to your right, Sam. What do you see?”

“It’s my mum, doing the dishes at the sink,” she replied, in a dreamy voice. “The radio’s playing.”

Gregory looked across to MacKenzie, who gave a nod and prepared to press ‘PLAY’ on a pre-recorded version of the radio jingle they’d procured earlier, to jog the girl’s memory.

“What’s playing, Sam?”

“It’s a radio presenter talking, I think. I can’t remember.”

At Gregory’s nod, MacKenzie pressed ‘PLAY’ and the sound of the Tyne Radio jingle surrounded them.

Samantha’s body tensed, and her feet began to push against the cushions on the sofa as she grew more agitated.

“Remember, Sam, you’re safe,” Gregory said, nodding again for the recording to stop playing. “You can step back outside and leave the caravan, at any time.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Tell me what your mum’s doing now, Sam?”

“She’s blowing a kiss to a baby in the pen,” Sam said, not fully aware that the baby had been her, which made it easier to continue. “She’s drying her hands, now.”

“Then what does she do?”

“She’s disappearing into the corridor,” Sam whispered. “I can’t—I can’t see her, anymore.”

“Does she come back?” Gregory asked.

Samantha nodded.

“She’s carrying two bags,” she said.

This was also new information, and MacKenzie strained to hear the girl’s softly-spoken account of what they looked like.

“One was black, a rucksack,” Sam explained. “The other’s the baby’s changing bag. Pink with white stars on it.”