“Why don’t we sit down?” he urged Simon Chapman into the chair beside his wife, before the man keeled over. “Can I offer you anything? Tea? Coffee?”
“She’s really gone, isn’t she?” Carol whispered, ignoring the question while tears fell silently down her face.
Ryan looked her in the eye.
“Yes, I’m afraid she is. I’m sorry.”
Carole let out a low, agonised moan unlike anything he’d heard before. She crumpled against her husband, who wrapped his arms around her and began to rock them both.
Ryan reached for a nearby box of tissues and placed it on the table in front of them.
“I saw—I saw on the news, some people are saying she killed herself,” Simon stammered, with sudden anger. “My daughter would never have done that. Never.”
“I know that,” Ryan told him quietly, and it opened another floodgate.
“I—I can’t…I can’t believe somebody has taken my daughter,” he choked out, sobbing openly now. “What kind of animal did this to her?”
His eyes were wild now, almost mad.
“I’m working hard to find them, Mr Chapman.”
“What’s taking you so long?” Simon burst out, his voice cracking on the last word. “Surely, you must know who?”
Ryan felt his throat working and bore down hard.
“We’re investigating a number of leads…” he trailed off, unable to bring himself to tell a lie, however well-intentioned. He looked up and his eyes burned silver. “We have a suspect, Mr Chapman. We are working around the clock to find the evidence to charge him and, as soon as we do, you will be the first to know.”
Carol Chapman raised shaking fingers to brush the tears from her face while she gathered the strength to ask him something she needed to know, for the sake of her own sanity.
“Was she—was my baby hurt, like that?”
Ryan understood immediately and, on this occasion, could take small comfort in telling her that there had been no sexual assault.
“There’s no sign that your daughter’s murder was sexually motivated, Mrs Chapman,” he answered in a carefully neutral tone, designed to cushion the blow.
“Then—then, why?” she asked brokenly.
Ryan faltered. How could he tell this woman that her child had died because of something so paltry as money, or greed?
How could he tell her that the person who had considered his own entitlement to be greater than Alice Chapman’s life had walked free from the very building where they sat, earlier that same day?
“We are doing absolutely everything in our power to bring her killer to justice,” was all he could tell them.
They looked at him mutely, faces ravaged by grief.
“I trust you,” her father said.
After Ryan requisitioned a squad car to take Simon and Carol Chapman back to their hotel, he watched them leave and felt that heavy burden weighing against his heart.
*
Martin Henderson felt invincible. Since arriving back at Cragside just after the lunchtime rush, he made a point of going back to work as usual. The estate had returned to full capacity, with staff and visitors being allowed to return now that the CSIs had completed their work with only the pathways near the burn remaining closed pending further enquiries, whatever that meant. He watched families roaming the forest and gardeners pruning the rhododendron bushes and could almost believe nothing had ever happened.
Life went on as normal and people would forget, eventually.
He strolled beneath the stone archway leading to the courtyard where Victor had been found and stood for a moment looking down at the ground, which was spotless after a thorough clean-up.
Rest in peace, he thought nastily.
As he rounded the edge of the house, he saw Cassandra Gilbert chatting with her housekeeper and she waved him across.
“Hello, Martin,” she said and he was delighted to hear genuine pleasure at his return. It would make his job all the simpler, when the time came. “How did your errands go in town?”
“Oh, fine, fine,” he said vaguely.
“Was it the opticians or the dentist?”
“The, ah, the dentist. Have to keep these teeth pearly white,” he said, lying through them. “It looks like everything’s running smoothly here?”
“Oh, yes, everyone’s really pulled together these last few days,” Cassandra said. “It’s been an awful time but Maggie and I were just saying, the police might have it wrong, mightn’t they? Alice’s death could have been an accident, after all?”
“I just don’t know anyone who could have hurt that lovely girl,” the other woman chimed in, her lips quivering. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Henderson made noises of sympathy and agreement but felt his stomach rumble and wondered what was on the dinner menu at the tea room.
“I’m going to speak to Ryan the moment he gets back today,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to give us an update on their investigation. Surely, they must be getting close.”
Henderson felt a shiver, despite the warm weather.
“Why don’t you leave that to me?” he offered, magnanimously. “I’ll have a word with him and see what progress has been made.”
“Would you? You’re so kind.”
“Don’t mention it.”
As they turned to leave, his mask slipped just for a moment as he wondered whether either of the two old women might have been responsible for sending him that note. If they had, they needn’t think age would be any barrier to the kind of punishment he had in mind. He would protect himself against anybody who posed a threat, young or old.
It could be any of them, he thought.
He watched Dave Quibble step outside the house with one of his student conservationists, who had returned to work. His eyes narrowed as the man paused to give him a civil smile that held no real warmth. They’d never liked one another, Henderson had known that from the start, and the man was intelligent enough to dig into his past and look in all the right places.
He spent the next hour greasing his way around the other staff in the house and grounds before making a perfunctory appearance in his office on the ground floor. Henderson watched people closely, looking for signs that they might be the mysterious sender, but eventually he gave up and settled down to wait.
He’d find out at nine o’clock.
CHAPTER 29
The call came through at precisely eight thirty-six p.m.
Ryan and his team continued to work solidly in one of the smaller conference rooms at police headquarters, where they had barely risen from their seats other than to cater for life’s basic needs, when Faulkner rang.
Ryan snatched up the phone.
“Tom? Give me some good news.”
“The LCN DNA is a match for Martin Henderson. It was a complex job, because the sample was so small and we had to extract it from Alice Chapman’s own cells, then amplify it so we could do a proper analysis. Even then, it was only a fraction of the size of a grain of salt.”
“But you’re sure?” Ryan pressed.
“As sure as modern science allows us to be,” Faulkner replied. “But yes, I’m confident.”
“That’s good enough. Thanks Tom, I owe you a pint.”