Darkside (9 page)

He looked out at the moor, which rose so steep and close behind the houses that it stole the remaining light from the room.

What a place to live.

What a place to die.

He shivered and turned away from the window. Before he came back he'd get Grey to check the fuses; the man fancied himself handy.

Halfway down the stairs he heard a sound. He froze and held his breath. It came again - a scrape, a clink. His eyes followed his ears to the front door and he started to move again - with surprising stealth for a man his age and size. Another scrape. Someone was at the door. Trying to be quiet. Trying to break in? He put his hand to his pocket, felt his
phone, but knew there was no signal ... knew he'd have to deal with this alone ... felt his heartbeat pick up again and adrenaline spurt into his guts at the thought.

Despite his job, it had been a long time since Marvel was in any actual personal danger. Homicide detectives, by their very nature, arrived
after
the killer had done his deed, and retro-engineered the crime from there. Sure, sometimes the killer was still at the scene - in the shape of a glazed-drunk teenager or a husband who had snapped and was already confessing. But being in imminent threat of violence was so rare that - if pressed - Marvel would have had trouble remembering when it had last happened.

Now he was shocked by how nervous he felt. How his breathing got too short and too loud and how he was suddenly aware of how
noisy
he was! His shoes creaked, his palm squeaked on the banister; his thigh-length coat scraped the woodchip wall in papery warning. Everything gave him away. And in a way he wanted it to. In a way he wanted the person who was now trying to gain access to the scene of Margaret Priddy's murder to hear him and run off. Then Marvel could open the front door and stare belligerently up and down the narrow street and pretend he was sorry to have missed his chance.

He suddenly remembered how a lot of people in Quentin Tarantino movies ended up.

He reached the bottom stair, the gloomy tiled hallway, ran his eyes over the door catch - bog-standard Yale - and braced his feet apart for balance. He raised his hands and saw that they were trembling like a drunk's. Outside, the scrape came again. A little whisper of cloth on the other side of the wooden door. He held his breath. All he had to do was quietly twist the knob, grip the handle and
pull
...

The brass knob slipped from his sweaty grip, the door hit
his foot and rebounded, making him shut his eyes; he grabbed at it and caught the tip of his finger between it and the frame, sending a needle of pain running up his shoulders and neck like voltage.

Fuck!

Marvel finally gripped the door and focused.

Jonas Holly stood on the doorstep with a guilty look on his face and three pints of milk clutched to his chest.

'What the
fuck
are you doing?'

Marvel slammed the door behind Jonas and strode through the dim house to the kitchen. As he did, his fear and pain segued seamlessly into an anger that was fuelled by the dread that the younger man might have seen the panic on his face in the seconds he took to fumble the door open like some crappy amateur magician bungling a trick.

Jonas followed, as the DCI's angry stride demanded of him, still holding the icy bottles.

In the kitchen Marvel turned on Jonas.

'Explain yourself.'

Haltingly, Jonas did. He explained about Will Bishop, the relentless milkman. He tried to lighten the mood with the joke about the twister but it went nowhere. He got back on track by suggesting that the cordon of tape was doing nothing but flapping a challenge to local boys who were daring each other underneath it and annoying the neighbours; he dangled a comradely escape route in front of Marvel in the shape of a comment about how everyone in the village was understandably on edge with the killer still at large. Marvel ignored the comradeship
and
the escape.

And so - because he didn't really know what else he could usefully say - Jonas Holly made a serious mistake.

He apologized.

'I'm sorry, sir,' he said, 'if I gave you a fright.'

The glamorous assistant with a sword through her leg, the dead rabbit in the hat
.

'You didn't give me a
fright
, you fucking moron! I almost fucking
killed
you, that's all! You don't know how close you fucking
came!'
Marvel bumped round the Formica table and held his thumb and forefinger a hair's breadth apart an inch from Jonas's nose.

'This
close! This fucking close!'

'Yes, sir,' said Jonas, unable to meet Marvel's eyes to lend honesty to his answer.

Marvel glared up at him and Jonas felt himself starting to detach. He'd done all he could here. He'd done the right thing. If it hadn't worked then he would just have to let Marvel decide how this would play out.

Marvel watched Jonas's face go blank and knew he was hiding his real feelings. Knew he was hating him inside. Somehow that made Marvel feel a little better - that Jonas had to hide his feelings, while he - as the senior officer - was allowed to give vent to
his
.

'What was your name again?

'Jonas Holly, sir.'

Jonas felt cool now. Felt no need to justify himself or his actions. Felt comfortably distant. He'd seen the panic in Marvel's eyes as he cocked up the simple task of opening the door. He'd offered the man a graceful exit from embarrassment and Marvel had not only declined to accept that offer but Jonas had the distinct suspicion that the DCI was going to make him suffer for it.

'What's your take on this, Holly?'

'On what, sir?'

Marvel rolled his eyes and waved a brief arm at Margaret Priddy's house. 'This! What do you think of this case?'

Jonas was careful. He shrugged. He looked around. 'Um, I'm not sure, sir.'

'None of us are
sure
, Holly. If we were sure, we'd have caught the killer.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You think it's a local?'

'No, sir.'

Marvel raised his eyebrows. 'Interesting,' he said.

Jonas didn't like Marvel questioning him. He felt like a calf being corralled into the corner of a barn. Nothing bad was happening right now, but a veal crate was always a possibility. 'I only mean that I know everyone in Shipcott. Pretty much. Not everyone in the other villages, but in Shipcott I do. And I can't think of anyone who might have done this.'

Marvel pursed his lips and nodded as if it was all sinking in. Which it was.

'What about this Ronnie Trewell?'

'Skew Ronnie? He's a car thief.'

'Maybe he's moving up in the world.'

Jonas couldn't help smiling. 'Have you spoken to him, sir?'

'Not yet.'

'He's not moving anywhere. He's harmless. He's not ... quite ... right.' Jonas waved at his temple with his forefinger. 'You know?'

'The Yorkshire Ripper wasn't
quite right
, Holly.'

'Yes, sir.'

'What about Peter Priddy?'

'As the
killer
?'

'No, for president.'

Jonas ignored the sarcasm. 'I think it's highly unlikely.'

'Because you know him?'

'No, because I know what he's
like
.'

'And what is he like, Holly?'

'He's all right. Nothing special. He's just a good bloke.'

'So Trewell is harmless and Priddy's a good bloke. Convincing,' said Marvel waspishly.

Jonas was sick of standing in the corner of the barn. 'Don't you have any forensic evidence, sir?'

'That you didn't put your grubby great mitts all over?'

Jonas flushed deeply and realized he'd backed into the crate all by himself. Marvel wasn't being nice. He wasn't sharing. He'd just been waiting for his chance to get Jonas back for the fright at the door - he could see that now, but it was too late.

'And now I hear you've been doing our fucking
job
, Holly - bumbling about asking questions before we can go in.'

'People keep asking what we're doing, sir. What
I'm
doing. As the local officer I thought I should be doing
something
. That's all.'

After their first encounter Marvel had marked Jonas Holly down as spineless and stupid. Now he expanded his opinion of him to encompass spineless, stupid, and with ideas above his station. There was something about Jonas that brought out the bully in Marvel - made him want to cut the lanky young man down to size.

'You think you should be
involved
, do you, Holly?'

'Sir, I only--'

'Be part of the investigation? Get a bit of glamour in your life? Local bobby catches killer?'

'That's not what I--'

'OK then!' Marvel clapped his hands together and rubbed them as if he was about to partake in a truck-pull. 'Far be it from me to keep a good man down, Holly. I've got just the job for you.'

Jonas said nothing. He felt he could only make things worse.

But even his silence fed Marvel. 'Killers,' he said, 'like to return to the scene of the crime. Right?'

'Some do,' said Jonas warily.

'Then I want you to wait for him.'

Jonas was confused.

Marvel headed back to the front door, gesturing for Jonas to follow him. He opened the door and pointed at the now-empty step.

'I
want you
to stand
there
until further notice.'

'You're joking!' The words burst out of Jonas before he could stop them. He almost added 'sir' in an attempt to mitigate them, but that bird had flown.

Marvel was unruffled.

'Maintain the integrity of the crime scene. Report suspicious activity. Consider yourself
involved.'

Jonas said nothing. Marvel cocked his head and put a hand behind his ear. 'I didn't hear you, PC Holly.'

Jonas had one last stab at resistance: 'What about
my
job? I'm not under your command. Sir.'

'What job? Cats up trees and taking fags off school kids? Do me a fucking favour. This is a murder investigation and I'm the senior investigating officer so you're under my command if I say you are. Got it?'

Again he cocked his head. Again the hand behind the ear.

'Yes, sir,' said Jonas. 'I got it.'

*

Marvel's shoes were ruined and they were the only pair he had with him. He turned the heating up to Full and put his brogues on the radiator, stuffed with the sudoku and horoscope pages from the
Daily Mail;
each as pointless and confusing as the other. Debbie used to read his stars to
him. at him, really. Taurus. The Bull. Bull
shit
, more likely. She'd always said they were a perfect match. Well look at them now: him sat in a stable with wet shoes, her back with her mother like some impecunious student, having chosen the retro couch over him and his growing collection of empty Jameson bottles. A match made in heaven.

Fuck
. He suddenly remembered the vomit. He pulled his phone out of his pocket more in hope than expectation, but was surprised to see five full bars of signal inviting him to make the call while he still could.

'Reeves?' he said. 'It's me.'

Jos Reeves had obviously been asleep and Marvel glanced at his watch. It was only 11.10pm, the bloody stoner.

'Yeah,' said Reeves. 'What?'

'I found what looks like vomit outside the vic's back door.'

'Vomit?' said Reeves through a yawn.

'Yes. Your boys must've missed it.' Marvel didn't say he'd have missed it himself if he hadn't almost stepped in it.

'OK, I'll send Mikey down in the morning.'

'What's wrong with tonight?' said Marvel, uncomfortably aware that he'd forgotten all about it until this minute.

Jos Reeves laughed as if he'd meant to make a joke and Marvel hoped this case never came to hang on the freshness or otherwise of said vomit, or he'd have to do some serious verbal sword-dancing to avoid the whole bloody thing collapsing around his ears. He knew that Jos Reeves wasn't going to send a man down at this time of night, and knew it was unreasonable to ask him to do so.

'Well it's not getting any fresher,' he said petulantly, 'and it's pissing down.'

'Yeah, it's raining here too,' said Reeves mildly in that conversational way that got under Marvel's skin so badly.

'It's a lot wetter here,' he said, and hung up before Reeves could further irritate him with some eyebrow-arching clever remark about the wetness of water.

Marvel wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air like a dog, before realizing that the reek came from his steaming shoes releasing pungent foot-smell into the room.

Tomorrow he would get some wellington boots and put them on his expenses.

*

Jonas had cleaned the bathroom and kitchen, put on a load of washing, ironed a shirt for the morning and made supper of fake steak, oven chips and broccoli. The only real meat Lucy insisted on nowadays was bacon and the occasional McDonald's, which she craved as if pregnant. The nearest outlet was a forty-minute drive away in Minehead, but sometimes they'd make a day of it, laughing at their own bumpkin quest for what Jonas always called 'the fabled Golden Arches'.