Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery(20)
“Yes, sir.”
“I need your diplomacy on this one,” Ryan softened, marginally. “I want someone I can trust not to let Freeman run amok and, right at this moment, I can think of nobody better than you.”
Considerably more cheerful at the prospect of handling the oversight of Freeman and her team of boffins, MacKenzie smiled broadly.
“Leave it to me.”
“Phillips,” he turned to his sergeant. “I want you to look into Amy’s file, alongside like crimes.”
“We looked into them fully, last year,” Phillips was bound to say.
“Then look again, with fresh eyes.”
“Aye, I’ll make a start.”
When the team began to file out, Ryan gestured Phillips to one side.
“While you’re at it, I want you to put the wheels in motion to set up an interview with Edwards. Keep it under your hat.”
Phillips grunted.
“You’re a man of few words, Frank. I’ve always liked that about you.”
CHAPTER 5
It was after nine when Ryan finally let himself into Anna’s cottage. It was conveniently located in the centre of Durham, not too far from the history faculty where she lectured and only a short drive from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The place was barely large enough to house one person, never mind two. Quaint, it may be, but practical, it was not.
Wary of the low wooden beams as he entered the tiny living room, he ducked his head at the appropriate times and slung his jacket over the back of the sofa as he passed through. The jacket still smelled faintly of lemons and he would have to remember to have it dry-cleaned.
Then, with a small sigh, he immediately went back to retrieve it because he knew that sloppy housekeeping was one of Anna’s major irritations in life. Apparently, he was being house-trained. Strange, how the prospect didn’t bother him as much as he might have imagined.
“Anna?”
He made another pit stop into the miniscule galley kitchen, which looked like a stall in a Turkish bazaar; colourful copper pots hung from hooks on the ceiling and green plants flourished on the window ledges. Ornamental bric-a-brac serving plates adorned the antique shelves on the only wall not fitted with kitchen units and the scent of some kind of roasted meat filled the air. He nabbed an apple in the meantime and continued his search to the first floor.
He found her in the smallest bedroom, which she had converted into a well-equipped study. Top-of-the-range technology met old-world charm in her little sanctuary and he thought, as he often did, about whether he would ever be able to entice her away from her hobbit hole into his more spacious penthouse apartment on Newcastle’s bustling quayside.
He paused in the doorway and tried to picture her there with all her books and the trinkets she seemed to like to collect from her travels. Somehow, it didn’t fit.
Sensing him, she spun around in her desk chair and smiled.
“You’ve had a long day,” she said simply, scrutinising his tired face.
He couldn’t have explained why the acknowledgement moved him. It was there in her eyes: warmth, compassion and an understanding that he needed his work, as she needed hers.
“Yeah, things got complicated.”
He leaned his tall frame awkwardly against the architrave and Anna smiled. The house was much too small for him. Watching him stalk around it was like watching a large panther scaling the perimeter of its cage. Yet, his home had no character. On the occasions she had visited the large, airy apartment in a prime spot overlooking the River Tyne, she had admired it in much the same way she would view an expensive show home. Very nice, but not for her.
Besides, the place held unhappy memories. She wondered how he could ever stand to be in the apartment where his sister had died. Her ghost was everywhere.
She wondered what they were going to do about it, but filed the thought away for now.
“Hungry?”
“Depends what’s on offer,” he quipped, favouring her with one of those show-stopping smiles he reserved only for her.
“Roast beef, for starters,” she replied primly, saving her work with a brief click of buttons before rising to meet his kiss. Slow, melting, but with just a thread of discord.
“Something on your mind?”
He tugged playfully at the long tail of dark hair she’d bundled at the back of her head and rubbed a small speck of blue biro from the tip of her ear. Lord knew how it got there.
“Read me like a book, don’t you?” he murmured.
She just smiled.
“Dinner,” he said, taking her hand. “I need to spend thirty minutes being normal. Then we can talk about murder.”
They worked their way through roast beef and half a bottle of a fairly decent Malbec. Ryan took an extra few minutes to clear their plates and set the dishwasher humming before he joined her in the sitting room. Nina Simone was turned down low on the stereo and he found that, for once, there was some music they could agree on.