He settled beside her on the sofa and took her hand, rubbing his thumb across the softness of her palm.
“A body was found inside Hadrian’s Wall,” he began.
As he had anticipated, she could barely contain her excitement. She turned to him with shining brown eyes.
“Inside the wall? I was under the impression they had scanned it years ago. It was strictly forbidden, in Roman times, to bury the dead around built-up areas. But, if you’ve found a body, perhaps I’m wrong …” her brow furrowed.
“No,” he squeezed her fingers. “I don’t mean that we found the body of an old Roman soldier in there. The remains are female and roughly ten years old.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, quite.” He blew out a breath. “She was only twenty-one when she died. And she died badly.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly. “Do you know who she was?”
“Yes. Her name was Amy Llewellyn.”
Ryan knew that he could speak of such things to Anna. She had seen close up, the ravages of a murder investigation only six months earlier. She had been an unacknowledged member of his team while she had grieved for the loss of her sister and had been hunted herself. She was a survivor.
“It’s better that she was found. It’s better for her family to have the answers.”
Ryan exchanged another look with her, which she read correctly.
“What else haven’t you told me?”
He rubbed a tired hand over the back of his neck then looked at her again. His eyes were a turbulent grey, like the North Sea. She remembered being frightened of those waters as a child, because they often appeared peaceful but were also unpredictable.
“She was on the database of missing persons, although since last year we’ve been pretty certain that she would be found dead, if she was found at all,” he said frankly. “A photograph of her was amongst Edwards’ possessions, recovered after his arrest.”
Anna recognised the tone that had crept into Ryan’s voice and knew instantly who he was referring to.
“The man who killed your sister?”
“Exactly.”
They sat quietly, letting the music flow and comfort them both.
“It might not be,” she said hopefully. “He could have had a relationship with her, but nothing more.”
“That’s what Phillips said. I’m more realistic.”
She sighed. It was no use trying to debate the subject when she wasn’t in possession of all the facts and, besides, she hadn’t been there to witness the damage up close, as he had been.
“You’ll want to continue running the investigation,” was all she said.
“It’s a question of whether Gregson will allow it,” Ryan corrected. “He’s lassoed me into seeing the departmental psychiatrist as some sort of box-ticking exercise, but that’s because he doesn’t really think that Edwards will own up to it, or that we’ll find enough evidence to pin him with it. If Gregson really thought this case would lead us back along that route, he wouldn’t be letting me anywhere near it.”
“Bias? Protocol?”
“Yeah, all of that,” he said, taking a sip of his wine. “Looks bad, from whichever angle.”
“But..?” She waited.
“I know the man,” Ryan said, his voice suddenly hard. “He’s England’s answer to Ted Bundy. Edwards is charming, educated and intelligent. He exploited all three of those traits, not just to lure his victims but to mask what lies beneath. Because, underneath the well-dressed doctor, there was a rampant psychopath, a seething, wretched, animalistic mass which briefly passed for human.”
Anna could say nothing. Her throat was too tight.
“Do you know what’s funny?”
Again, she said nothing. The question was rhetorical, in any case.
“At first glance, you could have lined the two of us up and you would struggle to find the differences between him and me. We’re both from the south of England. We both attended highly academic schools and played rugby. We went to red brick universities, for God’s sake.”
Ryan looked away, his spine ramrod straight.
“I’ve seen the press pictures of Keir Edwards,” she spoke calmly. “I know that he’s tall and dark, like you, and he might have come from a similar background. But that’s where the similarity ends. I couldn’t say whether he had charisma, but I suppose he cultivated some sort of specious charm so that he could draw people into his web. You don’t play people like that, Ryan. If anything, you can be an offhand, miserable sort of git when you want to be.”
It took him a moment, but then he couldn’t help the laugh that welled up. Leave it to Anna, to keep his feet firmly on the ground. He turned to her with a wicked grin.