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Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery(96)



“Yes, very.”

Ryan licked dry lips and fell back on training. Develop rapport; use the subject’s first name.

“Colin, it’s getting pretty cold out here, why don’t we head somewhere warmer? We could grab a cuppa and talk things over. What do you say?”

The man’s chin wobbled. He couldn’t leave, not until his friend came for him. Besides, Claire was here. He could smell her, he thought, lifting the material to his nose.

“Colin?”

“No!”

Ryan held both hands out, in appeasement.

“OK, Colin, just relax.” He tried another line. “Why are you here?”

Colin butted out his chin, stubbornly.

“Can’t tell you,” he said, childishly, as his mind began to regress.

“How about I take a guess?”

Colin glanced over at him. The rules only said that you couldn’t tell tales on your friends, but it was different if somebody happened to guess.

Ryan took the silence as an invitation to try.

“I think your friend, Doctor Edwards, sent you a postcard. Am I right?”

Again, no answer, but Colin continued to watch him, waiting for the next guess.

“I think he told you all about how real men break free, all about how to get a woman. Isn’t that right?”

“He’s got swarms of them,” Colin mumbled, enviously.

“He told you that you could be just like him,” Ryan continued, edging a little closer while he spoke in smooth, rounded tones.

Colin nodded.

“He told you there was something to find up here, didn’t he?”

Colin remembered the gaping jaw of Amy’s skeleton and he shuddered visibly, bile rising to his throat as he tried to block the images.

“I found her,” he cried, clawing at the pink material like a comfort blanket. “I found her.”

“That’s right, Colin, you found Amy Llewellyn’s body hidden inside the wall.” Ryan spoke very, very gently. “Did you kill her, Colin? Do you know who did?”

The other man was rocking on the spot, back and forth, back and forth.

“No-o,” he wailed. “No, I didn’t. I’m sure I didn’t.”

“All right, Colin,” Ryan was closer now, within touching distance. “What have you got there?”

He indicated Claire’s uniform and Colin looked down at what he held in his hands with disconnected fascination before he wrapped his arms tightly around the material, fearful that it would be taken from him.

“It’s Claire’s. I’m looking after it, for her.”

Ryan sought to make eye contact with him, but Colin’s eyes were aloof and spaced out, as if he had been doped.

“Where is Claire?”

Colin’s chin wobbled again and he shook his head, a spasm of movement while his mind tried to rid itself of the awful truth.

His jaw worked, struggling to form the words.

“She’s … she’s de-ad,” he managed, voice breaking and tears blurring his vision.

Ryan’s voice remained soft.

“Did you kill her, Colin?”

The other man shook his head vehemently.

“I loved her. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t kill her.” But the tears started to fall as he remembered how angry he had been, how he had considered the possibility of ending her and then ending himself. Soft, encouraging words spoken over the telephone from a man who understood that terrible need.

“Maybe I did,” he burst out, his voice carrying over the tranquil air, out into the night.

Behind him, Ryan made a brief gesture to Phillips, who stepped forward. Together, they each took an arm in a gentle, but firm grip.

“Come on, mate,” Phillips urged to the tearful man who was around the same age. “Let’s go and get a digestive to dunk in a sweet cup o’ tea. I’m freezing my bollocks off, out here.”

Colin looked between them and allowed himself to be led over the padded earth, towards reality again.



DC Lowerson’s black Fiat pulled into an empty space on a wide, leafy avenue on the western edge of Jesmond, not far from the Town Moor. He pulled the hand brake and turned to his passenger with a nervous air.

“You sure you don’t want company?”

“No,” Denise MacKenzie took a moment to check her appearance in the side mirror. “You know I have to go in alone, if this is going to work.”

“The others aren’t here yet,” Lowerson argued, glancing again at the digital clock on the dashboard, which now read 20:14.

“They’ll be along soon. Ryan said eight-thirty,” MacKenzie replied, with a calmness she didn’t feel.

“Phillips will lynch me, if anything happens,” Lowerson mumbled, and MacKenzie turned to him with a laugh.