Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery(78)

Jasmine looked away, embarrassed to talk about some of the content she had seen, even though it was her job to wade through it.

“Well, um, he seems to write confidently about how, um, masterful he is in the bedroom. There was a lot about how he’d like to dominate the women he spoke to.”

“All right, Jasmine. Forward the transcripts through to us and we’ll take a closer look.”

Relief crossed the technician’s face.

As she headed back into the house to continue her search and help with the transportation of Colin’s computer back to CID Headquarters, she paused and turned back, clearly worried.

“There was one other thing, sir. We found another folder, all about you.”

Ryan was silent for a long moment then he offered the girl a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Thanks for letting me know. Just forward the content to my office desktop and I’ll take a look at it.”

Phillips opened his mouth to say something, but Ryan had already taken out his phone to place a call.

“Steve? Yeah, this is Ryan. How’s your subject today?”

“Hasn’t moved from the house, sir, since you left this morning.”

“Nobody in, or out?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“OK, thanks. Keep a sharp look-out and let me know if there are any developments.”

Ryan let the phone fall into the back pocket of his jeans before he turned to face the inevitable criticism from his sergeant.

Phillips regarded him steadily.

“Look, I don’t need any more nagging from you,” Ryan said sharply.

“Aye, that’s because you already know what I’m going to say.”

“That I should tell Anna that she’s under observation. I know. I agree with you, on one level. On another more important level, I have to think about her safety. If I tell her she’s being watched, she’ll kick off, exactly like she did the last time. This way, she can carry on as usual, but I get peace of mind.”

“She knows Colin is AWOL.”

“Yes, I’ve told her that much. She knows to be on her guard, just like every other woman in Newcastle and Durham. The only difference is, she has more protection than most.”



Faulkner looked done in by the time he emerged from the scene at Number 32. Before heading across to where Ryan and Phillips stood huddled, deep in discussion, he swigged a few gulps of water and wished that it were something stronger.

Eagle-eyed, Ryan zoomed in on Faulkner’s progress across the gravel driveway.

“What have you found?”

There would be no pleasantries, no building up to the incisive questions which needed to be asked. Faulkner understood that.

“Only one set of prints on the syringe, or murder weapon as I’m minded to call it, and they’re not Geraldine Hart’s. Can’t check remotely with the database, so I’ll have to cross-check when we get back to CID, but I’ll venture to say the prints will belong to Colin Hart since there are matching prints all over the house.”

“Looking less like suicide by the minute,” Phillips observed.

“Indeed,” Tom agreed, shaking his mop of mid-brown hair out of its protective cap. He enjoyed the feel of cool air washing over him, washing away some of what he had just seen.

“On the understanding that you’re looking for any indication that Colin’s house had been a kill site for Claire Burns before transportation, I have to tell you that we’ve gone through each room with UV sensors. There’s no large-scale blood spatter, or any blood spatter at all.”

“Would you be able to pick it up, even if he’d cleaned the place thoroughly?” Phillips asked.

“Yes, chemical cleaning seldom removes all traces. It soaks into the fibres.”

Ryan moved onto the next point of information.

“So, you’re telling me there’s no obvious kill site. What about his car?”

Faulkner shook his head.

“Still going over it, so I can’t say for certain, but I can tell you there’s no large blood loss anywhere around it. The interior is clean, but not freshly cleaned, which I would have expected to be the case if he’d recently transported a body.”

“Prints?”

“Of course,” Faulkner affirmed. “The car is covered with the same two sets of prints as the house, but also a third set of older prints which look different. I’ll need to check the database, because they don’t match anything we’ve got for any of the victims.”

“That’s interesting,” Ryan said.

“That’s not all,” Faulkner said. “The remnants of medical tape we found on Claire’s body matched a common brand of surgical tape known as ‘Micropore’. It’s widely available –”