The Moor (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #11)(72)

He shifted in his seat, clearly unhappy at the thought.

“I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but I went across to visit her, one day while Leonie was away and Charlie was off somewhere. It was while the circus was in Edinburgh, I remember that,” he said softly. “Everything rekindled again, and we saw each other almost every day after that, around the same time.”

“What happened, the day she disappeared?”

“I don’t know, I swear,” he said, in a shaking voice. “We planned to go away together and take the baby, but she disappeared before that could happen. We’d planned to meet at her caravan, at the usual time, and we’d take my car. But Duke found the baby crying about an hour beforehand, so I never got there. When I heard Charlie had found that note, and people started to say she’d left with someone else…I’m ashamed to say it, but I believed them. It was easier to believe it.”

He took a tremulous sip of his water.

“How did you find out?” he asked.

“Through your daughter,” Ryan replied.

Marco’s mouth formed an ‘O’ of surprise, then his brows drew together in an angry line.

“My what? What are you telling me?”

“Samantha O’Neill is your biological daughter,” Phillips said, very calmly. “A comparison between her DNA profile and yours has confirmed a parental match. From that, we were able to deduce that you obviously had an intimate relationship with her mother.”

Marco leaned forward, resting his head in his hands.

“Is it—is it really true?”

Both men nodded.

“She never told me,” he said, softly.

“Does your wife know about your affair, and the plan to leave with Esme?” Ryan asked.

Marco shook his head.

“Of course not. Do you think she would have stayed with me, if she’d found out? Leonie never knew a thing. The two of them carried on as friends, and our marriage continued as normal.”

He swallowed, imagining what she would say now, and what harm it might do the baby if she were to find out.

“Please…does she have to know? Can’t we carry on as we are, for the baby’s sake?”

“And what about Samantha?” Phillips asked. Not once had this man thought of anyone other than himself. “Don’t you care about her, and what she might want?”

“Look, she’s a good kid, but what difference would it make to tell her? She thinks her father is dead; can’t we leave it at that?”

Ryan looked at him with extreme distaste.

“No, Mr D’Angelo, I’m afraid we can’t avoid telling your daughter that she has a father. It will be her decision whether she wishes to have any contact with you.”

With that, Ryan terminated the interview and let the man go home, to break the news to his wife. Marco D’Angelo had confessed to having an affair with Esme, and that they intended to leave together, but he’d made no further admissions. Without that elusive smoking gun, there were no charges to bring against him—it wasn’t a crime to have fathered a child.





CHAPTER 41


Lowerson and Yates recovered themselves sufficiently to continue with the day job, first in delivering the news of Evan Parker’s death to his mother, and then, in speaking with the drugs squads across several command divisions and, in particular, with their colleagues down in Middlesbrough. It seemed that the trend of male bodies being found with their fingertips sliced off was spreading, with two further bodies being found in Richmond and Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The pathologist had already sent a preliminary report on Parker’s body, confirming what they had already surmised: Evan had died long before his face hit the pavement, and even longer before his brains spattered young Emi-Lee’s freshly tanned legs. The lack of blood upon impact, combined with a series of deep stab wounds to the man’s torso, suggested he had died and bled out elsewhere.

The additional information helped to confirm a consistent MO across the three known killings and, once they received the reports from their colleagues in the other divisions, they may find more victims whose bodies displayed the same signature markings.

“Do you think it’s the same person doing it all, or several people contracted to make it look the same?” Yates asked, as they made their way back into Police Headquarters.

“Could be either,” Lowerson said. “But there’s another consistency, which is that two potential witnesses state they saw a very tall, very broad man with distinctive facial features in the area around the time two of the bodies might have been dumped.”

“What was so distinctive?”

“Apparently, his skin was heavily pock-marked and scarred.”

Yates frowned, wondering why that description was setting off a distant alarm bell.

“I’ll run it through the system,” she decided. “Is there anything else you want me to look into?”

“How about looking to see if there’s anything playing at the theatre, next Saturday night?” he asked. “I was thinking we could go on our first date, if you’re not busy.”

Yates sent him a slow smile.

“I love the theatre.”

“I know,” he murmured. “I do listen, sometimes.”

*