Free Taboo by Casey Hill Page B

say that again, Chris thought.
    ‘Even so, we can’t go ahead and bury his sister without him,’ the man continued. ‘It just wouldn’t be right. He adored Clare and, despite the fact that he was rarely at home, she adored him.’
    The detectives exchanged a surreptitious glance.
    ‘Would Justin have ever stayed at Clare’s place when he came home from his travels?’ Chris asked. ‘Maybe without you knowing he was home? After all, her apartment is much closer to the city and the airport than here, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ Torn between anger at his son and grief over his daughter’s death, Bernard Ryan’s emotions were clearly shot to pieces. ‘I suppose he could have – who knows what he might do? He may have preferred that to coming all the way out here. As you can probably tell, my son and I don’t always see eye to eye.’
    Did that make Bernard Ryan a possible suspect then? Chris wondered. Did he find out that Justin had been corrupting Clare in the most deplorable way and, repulsed and ashamed by his children, decide that he had no choice but to take matters into his own hands?
    Reilly had been trying from the start to convince them that something wasn’t right about this shooting. She was convinced that a third party was involved in both this, and the Jim Redmond suicide. But he and Kennedy weren’t yet in a position to share her view that the unexplained paint and animal fibers common to Clare Ryan’s apartment and Jim Redmond’s front room meant that these cases were somehow connected.
    Still, he decided to try a bit of speculative fishing. ‘ Mr Ryan, do you know a man called Jim Redmond?’ he asked, ignoring Kennedy’s surprised glance.
    After a beat, Bernard replied. ‘You mean Johnny Redmond who plays bridge with us now and then?’
    ‘The person I’m referring to is a businessman from Donnybrook.’
    ‘No. Johnny lives just up the road from us here …’ Ryan looked blank, genuinely blank, and Chris knew instinctively that if there was a connection between Clare Ryan and Redmond’s death, it was unlikely it had anything to do with Clare’s father. Their Redmond clearly meant nothing to him.
    ‘Who is he?’ Bernard demanded, glancing in surprise at his wife. ‘And what has he got to do with my daughter’s murder?’
    ‘Nothing as far as we can tell,’ Kennedy interjected, smoothly. ‘We’re just making further enquiries, that’s all. But what we would like to do now is help you locate your son Justin. Have you reported him missing?’
    ‘Missing?’ Bernard Ryan was dismissive. ‘He’s not missing – he just hasn’t bothered to contact us in a while, which, believe me, is nothing new.’
    ‘Do you have any recent photographs of him? Something that might help us locate him for you?’ Chris asked.
    Gillian Ryan headed for the sideboard at the other end of the living room, where a small selection of family photographs was displayed. Chris remembered briefly running his eye over these pictures the first time they’d visited, but he hadn’t really studied them. He certainly hadn’t figured on them helping him identify Clare Ryan’s dead companion.
    ‘Here,’ Gillian handed them a photo. ‘This is probably the most recent one we have of Justin. It was taken at Clare’s twenty-first birthday party last year.’ Clare looked happy and carefree, sitting on the sofa alongside a young guy playing the guitar. ‘That’s our son there,’ Gillian clarified.
    Not that her clarification was necessary. Because almost as soon as he’d laid eyes on the photo, Chris realized that the guy in this picture was the same man they’d found in bed with Clare. He knew this because on his right upper arm, Justin Ryan was sporting the very same oriental-style tattoo as the body they’d found.
    But as he continued studying the photograph, something else jumped out at him – something that hit him with all the force of a ten-ton truck. And while the first realization