Darkside Read online

  ‘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. Bullshit, 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’.

  At least you could pick up a burger with your hands, thought Lucy ruefully as she struggled to cut her fake steak. Sometimes her hands could do these things and sometimes they just couldn’t. Jonas leaned over and did it for her, without missing a beat and – somehow – without making her feel patronized or pathetic.

  He told her he was now involved in the investigation. He didn’t tell her how it had come about, or that the Senior Investigating Officer apparently thought he was a moron. He also didn’t tell her that his involvement would consist of standing on a freezing doorstep with the wholly spurious aim of spotting the killer as he sauntered compulsively back and forth past the scene of the crime.

  Basically he didn’t tell her any of the details that he knew would get her so angry on his behalf.

  And although she knew he was hiding something, Lucy didn’t ask. She just squeezed his hand as well as she could, told him she felt safer because he was on the case, and thanked him for bringing home the extra milk.

  Nineteen Days

  Jonas was on Margaret Priddy’s doorstep by 8am, which meant a trickle of schoolchildren had nearly an hour to stare and whisper and giggle at him on their way to school. The cordon of tape had been attraction enough; Jonas standing there like the policeman outside 10 Downing Street was a black hole of fascination that sucked kids in from all over the village.

  Linda Cobb from next door brought him a cup of tea at eight thirty. He accepted politely and then had to stand pointless guard while sipping now and then from a mug which read World’s Best Mum. It was just fuel on the irritating little fire that was the Schadenfreude of the mocking children. They were nice children; Jonas knew all of them. And he knew too that it was only the odd alignment of the murder, the cordon and his sudden silly vigil that had made them bratty – but right now he wished the lot of them would quietly disappear. His wish came true when the school bell dragged them to the other end of the village at a collective run.

  At nine thirty it started to rain – icy droplets that drummed off his helmet. Jonas had worn his black waterproof windcheater but his legs from the thighs down were soon soaked. Linda Cobb collected the mug and brought him an umbrella. With flowers on it.

  At 10.01am Jonas decided to walk the perimeter to keep warm. After all, he reasoned, if the killer returned to the scene he might just as easily return to the back of the house as the front.

  He trudged through the muddy grass of the playing field at the side of Margaret Priddy’s home, and round the back – much as Marvel had the day before. Just as Marvel had done, he made his way up the garden, past a small pile of metal strips at the end, noting the old kennel as – right on cue – the terrier next door rushed the fence, its whole body quivering every time it barked.

  ‘Hello, Dixie,’ said Jonas calmly and the dog wagged and stopped barking to hear its name.

  The wheelie bin was gone – to the lab, most likely – but in his mind’s eye he saw it there still beside the lean-to, the easy route on to the flat roof and from there through the bedroom window.

  Call yourself a policeman?

  Jonas swallowed hard. How easy it had been. Everything the killer needed was right there. Even the smaller steel dustbin that was left behind would probably have been enough to allow a fit man on to the lean-to roof. He took the lid off and turned it upside-down, then stepped on to it, keeping his feet close to the edges so he wouldn’t punch a hole right through the base, teetering like an elephant on a beach ball.

  The felt of the lean-to roof was gritty under his hands but it was no great feat to pull himself on to it. Then he took a few creaking paces across to the window, where dusky fingerprint powder still clung to the paintwork. It was a sash-style window and the latch was at the limit of Jonas’s height. A shorter man – which he assumed the killer must be – would have had to work with his hands over his head, looking up. Awkward but possible. All it really required was a thin strip of metal forced between the paintwork and pushed against the latch to shove it aside. A knife – or a piece from the little collection of junk at the end of the garden might have done just as well. From here the grooves and nicks in the paint around the latch were more obvious than they had been from the inside, and Jonas noticed that flecks of lemon-coloured gloss had sifted to the dark roof below. Once the latch was conquered it would just be a matter of sliding the window up. Jonas put his hands against the frame to see what kind of resistance it afforded. Not much, but maybe this was an easy slider. His palms squeaked slightly against the glass. The window going up might have woken Margaret Priddy, but who cared? Even if she heard, she could not move, could not raise the alarm, could not call for help …

  Horrific.

  Jonas stepped back slowly, hardly seeing the window any more in his mind’s eye. He looked up to the sky to let the rain fall on to his face. Big drops on his eyelids. He opened his mouth and let it fill up, then walked to the edge of the roof and spat on to the garden, feeling cleansed.

  As he swung himself off the roof back on to the upturned dustbin, Jonas noticed a small curve of something plastic in the gutter. He cocked his head to get a better look and saw it was a button lying half covered in the muck; if it hadn’t been at eye-level he wouldn’t have seen it. It was maybe half an inch across, four holes, black – very like the button on his own uniform trousers. He quickly checked that he had not pulled a button off while climbing on to the roof, but he was all present and correct. Jonas resisted the urge to pick the button up and turn it in his fingers, but he could see from here it was nothing special – apart from the fact that it was here on the roof outside the window of a room where a woman had been murdered. Apart from that.

  ‘Hello,’ said a voice and Jonas looked down to see a middle-aged, bespectacled man.

  ‘Mike Foster,’ the man said, with a cheerful smile. ‘I’ve come for the vomit.’

  ‘Vomit?’

  ‘Outside the back door, apparently,’ said Foster.

  Jonas felt a pang of irritation that Marvel had not told him there was something back there; he could have stepped in it, ruined it.

  ‘Nobody told me,’ he confessed as he dropped back to the concrete.

  They both looked for it, treading carefully now, exchanging pleasantries, mostly about the lousy weather.

  Foster was remarkably upbeat for a man who’d come sixty miles in the rain for the sole purpose of scooping sick into a bag. Jonas said as much.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely stuff, vomit!’ Foster exclaimed. ‘If the vomiter is a secretor then you can get DNA. Or diet, at the very least.’

  ‘Even after it’s been rained on?’

  ‘It’s not the rain so much as the age. The acid in the vomit eats at the DNA, fragments it. Still, you never know your luck.’

  They couldn’t find it.

  Foster called the office and then called Marvel, grimacing to try to hear the DCI over the terrible connection.

  ‘There is no bin lid,’ he said, looking questioningly at Jonas.

  ‘Only on the bin,’ said Jonas.

  When Foster relayed this information to Marvel, Jonas could hear the man’s blood pressure rising with his voice. It was funny really, even though it was serious.

  Foster listened and covered the mouthpiece. ‘He says he covered it with the bin lid.’

  Jonas shrugged. ‘The lid was in place when I came round here. I had to take it off to turn the bin upside-down.’

  Foster relayed this to Marvel, then frowned at his phone before saying to Jonas, ‘I think he got cut off.’

  There was a short silence while Jonas felt bonded to Foster through the common experience of being hung up on by DCI Marvel, then Jonas told him about the button on the roof. Foster said he was the vomit guy really but then seemed quite excited about taking a look anyway.

  He wasn’t
short but neither was he fit, so Jonas cupped his hands and boosted him on to the roof and pointed out the relevant section of guttering.

  ‘Ooooh,’ said Foster with a happy smile. ‘Did you move it at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  He asked Jonas to hand him his field bags and bemoaned his own stupidity at only bringing plastic instead of paper bags too.

  ‘Only expected vomit, you see?’ he reminded Jonas. ‘But you should always be prepared.’

  He continued to chat happily as he took several minutes measuring and photographing the button in situ, then he picked it up with tweezers and put it in an evidence bag before lowering himself gingerly off the roof and on to the upturned bin which Jonas held steady for him.

  He held the plastic bag up to the questionable light and they both examined the button as if it were a goldfish they’d won at the fair.

  ‘Nice spot,’ smiled Foster and, for the first time in days, Jonas felt like a real policeman.

  ‘It was right here!’ Marvel stood in the freezing rain holding the dustbin lid like a riot shield and pointing at his feet. ‘Right here!’

  He glared at Jonas, who deflected the look to Mike Foster, who shrugged for them both.

  ‘Maybe someone moved it,’ said Foster in a helpful tone that showed Jonas he had no first-hand experience of DCI Marvel.

  ‘You think so?’ said Marvel furiously. ‘The lid’s on the grass covering the vomit. Then the lid’s on the bin and the vomit is all washed away. You think someone moved the lid? You think so? You’re wasted at this forensics shit! You should be a fucking psychic!’ He hurled the bin lid across the garden. Dixie rushed from his hidey-hole all noise and thunder and little white teeth as the lid rolled into the fence and toppled to a standstill.

  ‘Couldn’t we have fingerprinted that to find out who?’ said Reynolds tentatively.

  ‘Shit!’

  While Marvel stomped across the wet grass to retrieve the bin lid, Jonas and Mike Foster exchanged guilty looks, as if they were jointly responsible for whatever it was Marvel wanted to blame them for.