Darkside_ A Novel Part 18

Jonas stared down at his cup for a long moment. 'I can't believe he did this.'

Marvel spread his hands and said curtly, 'You can't believe can't believe anyone anyone did it - but there are three dead people upstairs and Liss has taken off. It doesn't look good.' did it - but there are three dead people upstairs and Liss has taken off. It doesn't look good.'

'I know,' said Jonas miserably.

'He ever been in trouble?'

'Not really. Once there were some things missing. From the residents' rooms. A few bits of jewellery, that kind of thing. I came round and spoke to staff members. There was no evidence even though I suspected it might be Gary, so it was more to let them know it had been noticed than anything else. It stopped. That was all.'

'Any items recovered?' asked Reynolds.

'Not to my knowledge.'

'Could've been Liss,' said Marvel. 'Petty crime leads to bigger things.'

'But not this this,' said Jonas. 'I don't understand what's happening here. Why this is happening happening ...' He stopped, realizing he sounded lost and feeble, and cleared his throat. ...' He stopped, realizing he sounded lost and feeble, and cleared his throat.

Marvel said, 'Grey and Singh are at Liss's house but it doesn't look as if he's been back home. You know where else he might be?'

'Paul's,' said Jonas, and then sat up quickly, clattering his cup and saucer on to the trolley. 's.h.i.+t. I have to tell Paul.'

'Who's Paul?'

'His partner.'

Marvel glanced at Reynolds. 'He told us he had a girlfriend.'

'He doesn't know you.' Jonas shrugged, getting up and picking up his helmet. 'Why would he tell you?'

Marvel felt a twinge of irritation. 'Hold on. I'll send a man with you. He could be harbouring Liss.'

But Jonas was impatient. 'He lives in Withypool. I can't see how Gary would have got there by now, sir. Not in this snow, and his car's still out the back. I don't want Paul to hear it through the grapevine.' He lowered his voice. 'Mr Cooke's wife is Dr Dennis's receptionist and she's best friends with Lisa Tanner who lives next door to Paul. She'll tell him if I don't get there first.' Jonas hesitated, then remembered that he was supposed to be on doorstep duty. 'If that's all right with you, sir?'

Marvel nodded curtly. 'Come to the unit afterwards. I'll need you on other things now.'

'Yes, sir,' said Jonas. 'Will you be treating Gary as a suspect? Just want to know how to handle Paul.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y right!' said Marvel. 'The only only b.l.o.o.d.y suspect.' b.l.o.o.d.y suspect.'

Jonas nodded neutrally.

'Get a picture of Liss,' Marvel said as Jonas left, then added, 'preferably one where he's not wearing leather shorts.'

Reynolds and Marvel sat for a minute in the soporific heat of the garden room. G.o.d knew what it was like in the summer. Reynolds wrinkled his nose. The room was clean and tidy but it smelled of old things.

'Liss lied to us,' said Marvel.

'Only about his s.e.xuality,' shrugged Reynolds. 'That's understandable in a small village.'

'Not in a f.u.c.king murder investigation, it's not.'

'Jonas seems to think it's beyond him,' said Reynolds cautiously.

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to him. He's a boy scout.'

Several old ladies looked round at the language and Marvel lowered his voice. 'You think Liss didn't didn't do it?' do it?'

'No, sir,' said Reynolds - and meant it. 'I was only keeping an open mind, that's all. As we haven't interviewed him yet.'

'Well when we have him behind bars, I'll keep an open mind too. Until then he's Jack the f.u.c.king Ripper in my book.'

One of the CSIs spoke from the door: 'We've got a trail.'

Reynolds got up, but Marvel didn't rise from the piano stool. Instead he pursed his lips and looked around at the remaining residents. They wept and held each other's hands - and stared into their own short futures with new fear.

'The old, the weak, the infirm,' he said in a low but harsh voice that Reynolds had to lean forward to hear ...

'This is not a killing - it's a cull.'

Jonas had no fear of going to Paul Angell's alone. He knew it wasn't Gary Liss. He couldn't have said how how he knew it. It was the same way he knew it wasn't Peter Priddy, and the same way he'd known the ident.i.ty of the body in the stream; the same way he knew that the killer of Margaret Priddy had also killed Yvonne Marsh. He he knew it. It was the same way he knew it wasn't Peter Priddy, and the same way he'd known the ident.i.ty of the body in the stream; the same way he knew that the killer of Margaret Priddy had also killed Yvonne Marsh. He just felt just felt it. it.

Big deal, he berated himself under his breath, as he drove carefully through the snow to Withypool. He seemed to know an awful lot about who the killer wasn't wasn't. But he felt no closer to understanding who the killer was was. And although he hadn't been involved in the investigation, he also had a gut feeling that Marvel had no more insight than he did. The man had the look of someone who has just realized he has wandered off a true path and into quicksand. Something in Jonas enjoyed knowing that the abrasive Marvel was suffering.

They were all suffering.

Jonas found it hard to grasp what was happening to his village; to his friends and neighbours; to the very life life he had always known. he had always known.

He had already called Lucy from Sunset Lodge. Woken her up to ask if she had the knife with her, less than an hour since he'd taken so much care not not to wake her as he slipped out of bed in response to the vibration of his phone. She had asked him to repeat the question, and said crossly, 'Wait a mo.' She had taken ages to groggily turn on the light and look for the knife, and, while she did, Jonas had the nutty idea that he should attach it to her with a piece of elastic the way surfers did with their boards. If an intruder broke in, she wouldn't be able to ask him to 'wait a mo' while she groped about on the bedside table for her only means of defence. to wake her as he slipped out of bed in response to the vibration of his phone. She had asked him to repeat the question, and said crossly, 'Wait a mo.' She had taken ages to groggily turn on the light and look for the knife, and, while she did, Jonas had the nutty idea that he should attach it to her with a piece of elastic the way surfers did with their boards. If an intruder broke in, she wouldn't be able to ask him to 'wait a mo' while she groped about on the bedside table for her only means of defence.

Finally she'd said, 'Yes, why?' still sounding irritated. He didn't blame her. Even without being woken in the early hours and ordered to seek out random cutlery, Lucy's moods could be erratic nowadays. Dr Wickramsinghe told them it was 'to be expected', but Jonas never quite did did expect it. expect it.

Briefly he'd told her what had happened, because not telling her would only have irritated her further, and she'd been shocked into silence.

'I'll be home as soon as I can,' he'd said.

'OK,' she'd answered in a voice that was not ratty or cross, only very small. 'Be careful, Jonas.'

'There's blood on the roof.'

Marvel followed the CSI's finger to what looked like a couple of thin smears on the gla.s.s between a small window above the garden room and the guttering over the water-b.u.t.t. He wondered how they could tell from down here, or whether they'd already been on the roof.

'Might be the killer's,' said Reynolds hopefully, even though they all knew that that was a very long and desperate shot. Still.

'Looks like the point of entry and exit,' said the CSI. 'And prints going that way.'

The narrow concrete pathway around the building's perimeter was flat and a perfect surface for snow. And the flat and perfect snow held the prints like a joke trail for them to follow, starting incongruously at the water-b.u.t.t.

'Can't see any patterns,' added the CSI with a petulant tone, flickering a torch over the treads. 'Maybe when it gets lighter ...'

Marvel didn't care about the tread pattern on the killer's shoes. Only where he was going.

In the half-dark, Marvel and Reynolds followed the trail out of the Sunset Lodge grounds and on to the main street. Despite the hour, the road outside Sunset Lodge was already lined with tyre tracks from their own cars and those of the scenes-of-crime officers, but the pavements were still mostly clear and the trail of footprints was ludicrously easy to follow.

'I feel like Elmer Fudd,' said Reynolds, and when Marvel showed no recognition, added, 'Where da wabbit?'

Marvel knew what he meant but ignored him. So what if they were following a cartoon trail of footprints? So what if they led them straight to the killer's front door? They deserved a break in this f.u.c.king case and it wouldn't be a moment too soon.

In a small pile of snow which had been cleared from a doorstep, they saw blood.

'Maybe he's injured,' said Marvel, unable to keep an edge of hope out of his voice.

'Maybe,' said Reynolds. 'Or maybe he washed the murder weapon there. Get the blood off it.'

Marvel nodded. They stood for a moment building the picture in their heads, then moved on briskly.

'We're heading for the Marshes' house,' Reynolds observed neutrally.

'And the b.l.o.o.d.y shop,' Marvel pointed out with an edge of annoyance as the snow started to show more prints.

They pa.s.sed the Marshes' house without stopping, then crossed the road - the strangely featureless prints disappearing in the churned snow, but picking up again on the opposite pavement. They glanced at each other as the snow became dark and slushy for the ten yards either side of the door of the Spar shop. It was 7am - plenty late enough for any number of villagers to have collected their morning papers or to have topped up with breakfast milk. They lost the footprints.

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,' said Marvel with real feeling.

's.h.i.+t,' said Reynolds.

They stood still - not wanting to risk inadvertently trampling over any print they might still pick up.

'There,' pointed Reynolds.

The killer's fragmented prints deviated into a narrow covered pa.s.sageway beside the shop, where no snow had fallen. There they simply disappeared.

Both men started warily up the alleyway. It turned into a courtyard.

n.o.body there.

'We f.u.c.king lost him,' said Reynolds. 'In the snow snow. How the f.u.c.k f.u.c.k?'

Reynolds lifted the lid on a green wheelie bin. There was nothing inside. They looked around the edges of the courtyard carefully but there was nothing of interest. Just sc.r.a.ps of paper, a couple of plastic bags rustling against the wall, and broken-down cardboard boxes gone soggy in the snow.

Reynolds realized that this must be the alleyway Jonas had told him about - the one where the stranger had given him the slip. He hadn't taken Jonas seriously. He'd dismissed the report as parochial paranoia, and he had only written it down to make Jonas feel he was being listened to. For that reason, he hadn't reported it to Marvel.

Reynolds regretted that, of course. But the idea of telling Marvel about it now and being shat on from a great height was less than appealing.

They walked back to the entrance to the alleyway. People were pa.s.sing regularly now, and the snow on the pavement around the shop was melting in dirty brown patches. The prints that they themselves had made were already all but obliterated. Prints made in the early hours of the morning would be gone by now for sure.

Marvel stepped into the road and stared glumly up and down as if he might still spot the killer.

'b.o.l.l.o.c.ks,' he said again.

'Hold on,' said Reynolds with sudden urgency. He pointed back into the courtyard, where the Spar bags fluttered against the wall.

'Two plastic bags.'

'You found some litter,' said Marvel. 'Well done, Reynolds. Have a f.u.c.king Blue Peter Blue Peter badge.' badge.'

Reynolds ignored him. 'Two bags, two feet! He puts the bags on his feet so he doesn't leave identifiable prints. Then he comes in here and takes them off--'

'And walks back into the slush and disappears,' finished Marvel, catching up fast and hurrying over.

Reynolds snapped on gloves and picked the bags up. 'That means there could be prints inside inside the bags.' the bags.'

Reynolds looked as pleased as punch, but even that couldn't stop Marvel feeling a lift in his own spirits.

They stared at the white bags with the green and red logo, and wondered whether this odd little scene would spell a change in their luck.

In the grey light of morning the snow on the moor looked dull and worn out, and the narrow strip of road was just a sunken impression in the b.u.mpy landscape. All the white was disorientating and Jonas had to work hard to keep focused on the route ahead. It was as if the moor and the murders were conspiring to confuse him, using optical illusions to obfuscate the truth of the killings and the landscape alike, and to blur the two into one. A blanket of snow had descended on s.h.i.+pcott, but under that coating of purity something dark and evil was going about its work, unseen and unchecked.

Jonas thought of the notes that had first alerted him to some undercurrent of discord.

He thought of that p.r.i.c.kly feeling that he was being watched. Observed.

Judged.

He thought of staring into the small yellow square of his own bathroom while standing like a cold giant under the starlit sky; of the stiff greyhound with the cloudy eyes; and of the man in the hat and the herringbone treads who had given him the slip.

He remembered the brittle hope in Danny Marsh's eyes as the dirty horse pranced behind him, and the irrational fear that he was personally under threat - that if the hope in Danny's eyes had shattered, the shards would pierce him too; and that he must stop Danny at all costs, even if it was with his fists.

Jonas fought sudden panic and the Land Rover slewed sideways and b.u.mped over the invisible heather. He lifted his foot and gripped the wheel and slammed on the brakes. The car stalled and Jonas sat for a moment, high above Withypool, and listened to his own harsh breathing ruin the silence, while he slowly kept himself from falling apart.

After giving the plastic bags to a CSI back at Sunset Lodge, Marvel and Reynolds met Grey and Singh at Gary Liss's home - this time to break in. They had taken a battering ram with them but after they had knocked, even Marvel felt self-conscious about getting it out in the middle of a village like s.h.i.+pcott and breaking down the door of a crooked little cottage with a black wrought-iron door knocker in the shape of a pixie.

'Fairy,' he grunted at Reynolds, who resolutely didn't laugh.

Instead they efficiently broke the small pane of gla.s.s in the door and Grey, who was the tallest - and had 'the arms of a rangatang' as Marvel put it - leaned awkwardly through to open the Yale.

Inside was neat and decorated with a deft touch, which made the most of the bowed walls and limited light.

'You've got to give it to these gays,' said Marvel. 'They do know how to tidy up.'

There was no sign of Liss - or that he had been here since leaving for work last night.