*
They agreed to separate, with Ryan taking the ground and basement levels of the house while Phillips concentrated on the upper floors, telling himself the stairs were good for his constitution. They searched with a single-minded intensity, leaving no door unopened and making a note of any that were locked. In the end, there was no need to trouble the housekeeper or the Gilberts for a key, because Ryan found the body almost as soon as he descended from the kitchen into the cellar. The lift shaft was located directly to the left of the stairs, in the chilly depths of the basement. There was no lift, since it had been removed to a specialist restoration company for refurbishment, leaving the shaft empty from the basement all the way up to the second floor. At first glance, there was no way of knowing how far Henderson had fallen, or from which floor, but his skull had smashed against the stone like an eggshell and he lay in a rapidly congealing pool of his own blood.
Ryan stared at Henderson’s corpse, hardly believing his eyes.
What the hell was happening?
He felt a sudden chill and glanced over his shoulder, half expecting to find someone standing beside him, but the basement was empty.
*
A few minutes later, Phillips joined him. “Lowerson and Yates are upstairs taking statements,” he said. “Faulkner’s on his way.”
Ryan nodded, moving to look at the body from a different angle.
“He must’ve jumped,” Phillips declared. “It’s the only explanation.”
“Is it?” Ryan wondered.
“It has to be!” Phillips burst out, gesticulating toward Henderson’s lifeless body. “Because I’m damned if I know who’s going around popping people off like flies if it wasn’t him.”
Ryan continued to take photographs for his file while they waited for the local doctor to pay her third visit of the week.
“The fact Henderson is now dead doesn’t make him any less of a killer,” he said quietly.
Phillips grunted.
“All the more reason for him to jump, if you ask me. The bloke knew we were onto him and couldn’t stand the thought of going to prison.”
“It doesn’t fit his personality,” Ryan said.
“He was a coward,” Phillips argued.
“Yes, but too much a coward to take his own life. He valued himself too much and was arrogant enough to think he’d walk away from his crimes.”
Ryan took another careful step, leaving a wide berth around the body. He studied the placement of the limbs and torso, the pattern of the injuries that he could see, and swore softly.
“Henderson fell face-up.”
Phillips frowned and edged forward until the full effect of blunt force trauma came into view.
“Aye, it looks that way,” he admitted, swallowing hard.
“The coroner will have the final say but in every case of suicide by falling I’ve seen in the past fifteen years, the body was found face-down, not face-up like this.”
Phillips nodded slowly.
“The jumper normally steps out, or leaps off whatever they’re standing on, so they land feet first or face-first,” he agreed thoughtfully, craning his neck to look up the dark lift shaft. “It’s a straight drop, too.”
They heard a sound echoing around the walls of the basement and then the tread of footsteps, signalling the arrival of the doctor. Before she joined them, Phillips spoke in an urgent undertone.
“If he was pushed, then we’ve missed someone or something along the way.”
“Oh, yes,” Ryan let out a short, mirthless laugh. “We’ve been fools, Frank.”
*
Killing had been so terribly easy. It had been a surprise to find just how easy it had been. They’d worried whether it would play on their conscience or deprive them of a portion of their own soul in exchange for the taking of another. Was ‘an eye for an eye’ really the best way to avenge the deaths of all those who were lost so long ago?
But they needn’t have worried.
Their eyes had locked with Henderson’s in the darkness, just as he’d fallen backward into the abyss of his own making, and it had been beautiful. To see his fear, his comprehension—too little, too late but an awareness all the same—would surely be worth every momentary regret they might feel for the rest of their lives.
He was gone, obliterated, destroyed, as he’d once destroyed so many others.
They felt no guilt, only a deep and abiding sense of peace they hadn’t known in over forty years.
“Do you think it’s all over now? Martin killed Victor and Alice and now he’s killed himself. Surely that’ll be an end to it?”
They turned to look at the frightened face of the person seated beside them.
“I hope so,” they murmured. “I really hope so.”
And it was true.
They hoped Ryan would leave it to rest now, to move on with his happy life. He had so many years ahead of him, untarnished by tragedy of the kind they’d been forced to live with each day. How could he understand the kind of pain they’d suffered, that their whole family had suffered? It was right and proper for him to step back and leave it be.
But as Ryan re-entered the room, they recognised the fierce expression he wore. It spoke of incorruptibility and an unyielding, uncompromising search for the truth, however unpalatable.
Their eyes closed briefly and when they re-opened, they were resigned.
So be it.
CHAPTER 31
Thursday 18th August
“I want you to forget everything you thought you knew about this case.”
Ryan’s bald statement was addressed to his team, who had assembled for what he had unsmilingly termed a ‘crisis briefing’. Each of them had worked long past midnight and showed signs of fatigue but they’d arrived at his cottage promptly at eight o’clock just the same.
“I’ve had some news from Jeff Pinter already this morning,” Ryan told them. “He’s finished Victor Swann’s post-mortem and his findings put a very different complexion on matters.”
Ryan stood with his back to the wall, where he’d tacked up a line of five photographs, consisting of the Gilberts, Maggie, Charlotte Shapiro and Dave Quibble, beside images of Victor Swann, Alice Chapman and Martin Henderson. Beneath that, he’d created a list of secondary suspects, including the serving staff and guests who had been present in the house the previous evening.
He moved across to tap a finger against Victor’s face.
“Pinter believes the evidence points to an accidental fall. There were no marks of aggression on Victor’s body and no indications of forced impact. Added to which, Pinter found something Victor didn’t even know himself: his brain showed all the classic signs that he was developing Parkinson’s Disease, which often leads to a disordered gait and regular trips or falls.”
There were murmurs around the kitchen table.