Darkside_ A Novel Part 21

Now Marvel found that, while Paul Angell asked why he hadn't been kept advised of the status of the hunt for Gary, he was suddenly transfixed by the hand of the old lady who had asked Trinny if she remembered 'Cheek To Cheek'. The hand had been clapping and Marvel had seen its palm. Just briefly. He wasn't even sure why his eye had been caught. Now he listened with half an ear and answered Angell with half a brain, while both his eyes watched the old, lined hand touch the arm of the chair, then reach for the biscuit tin, then poke at the selection with one bony finger, then lift the biscuit to the old-lady mouth-- Marvel stepped around Angell and gripped her by the wrist.

'Oh!' she said and dropped the biscuit. It fell on her chest and then to her lap. A Bourbon.

Marvel turned her palm up as though he were about to read it. There was a dirty smudge in the middle of it. Red-brown. It might have been chocolate.

'Reynolds!'

Marvel turned and looked at Angell. 'Get my sergeant for me. Now!'

He looked back at the scared-looking old woman. 'What's your name?'

'Mrs Betty t.i.thecott,' she answered tremulously.

'Here, leave her alone,' said Trinny next door.

Marvel ignored Trinny and softened his tone, but still held the squirming hand in his. 'I just need to have a look at your hand, all right, Betty? I'm not going to hurt you.'

She met his eyes and nodded. Her hand relaxed.

'This mark,' he said. 'What have you touched?'

'Nothing,' said Betty, her eyes watery and confused.

There was a similar, smaller stain inside her thumb.

Lynne Twitchett approached a little nervously. 'Is something wrong?'

'No,' said Marvel curtly and heard Reynolds hurrying into the room.

'What's up, sir?'

Marvel turned the hand up so Reynolds could see it, and was gratified to hear a surprised expletive. He rubbed his thumb across the smudge and a small amount of colour transferred itself. Whatever Betty had touched, she had touched it recently.

'She says she hasn't touched anything. Look around, will you?'

Reynolds did, checking the arms of the wing chair, the head-rest, the handles of a Zimmer which was on standby for take-off a few feet away.

'Can you hold your hand up for me, Betty?'

She nodded and he let go of her wrist.

Everyone in the room was watching them now. Behind him Marvel could hear a hum of low mutterings: 'What's going on?' 'What's going on?' ... ... 'What's he doing to Betty?' 'What's he doing to Betty?' ... ... 'Where are the biscuits?' 'Where are the biscuits?'

Betty shifted in her seat, careful not to move her hand much, and Marvel saw her walking stick hooked over the arm of her chair, right near the back where it would be out of the way.

He looked around for something to pick it up with and started to lift the rug off Betty's knees. Her smudged hand clapped down to her lap to keep her rug and her modesty in place, so instead he yanked his own tie off and used it carefully to pick up the stick.

'Reynolds.'

Reynolds came over and Marvel held the walking stick up to the light. It was made of stout wood, the handle of tooled bra.s.s - stained brownish-red.

And near the end was a small but unmistakable clump of white hair.

He had his murder weapon.

He had his suspect.

Marvel thought of the line from 'Amazing Grace'.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

That was him. Lost, then found. Dark, then light. Drunk, then sober. The moment he saw those strands of white stuck to the end of the cane, Marvel knew he didn't have to drink any more. He would would, but he didn't have have to. Not on this case, at least. to. Not on this case, at least.

It had been getting out of hand anyway. Last night he and Joy had had a barney because she'd got all maudlin about Something with an R and, instead of sympathizing, he'd asked if she had any ice. She'd thrown a gla.s.s at him and he'd said something mean about Dubonnet ...

What the h.e.l.l was he doing getting into an argument with some lonely old drunk over ice and Dubonnet? He should have his head examined.

Lost and found.

As long as things progressed in that order, Marvel felt he was doing a reasonable job with his life.

All day long, while he clambered over debris and peered through shed windows on the off-chance of finding Gary Liss, Jonas worried about the notes.

The first had been oblique: Call yourself a policeman? Call yourself a policeman?

The second had been personal: Do your job, crybaby Do your job, crybaby.

The third - in the wake of a triple murder - could no longer be seen as anything but a warning: If you won't do your job, then I'll do it for you If you won't do your job, then I'll do it for you.

But he was was doing his job! This time the killer was wrong! He'd started his night patrols, and now he was properly part of the investigation by day, too. They even had a suspect lined up. How could the killer - or anyone - accuse him of no longer doing his job? doing his job! This time the killer was wrong! He'd started his night patrols, and now he was properly part of the investigation by day, too. They even had a suspect lined up. How could the killer - or anyone - accuse him of no longer doing his job?

But the threatening tone of this note was unmistakable, and Jonas knew he could no longer hide behind previous ambiguity.

The time had come to speak to Marvel.

The killer couldn't keep hiding for ever. Things were closing in. Things were catching up with him. Memories pressed against the ceiling of his subconscious like desperate sailors in the hold of a doomed ship.

He was no longer sure he could hold it all together. Some part of him had once imagined some connection with the policeman/protector; there had been times when he had wondered if they might one day be on the same team. Work side by side.

But Jonas was still stubbornly ineffective where it really mattered.

The bodies were piling up.

The wrong people were dying and it just wasn't fair fair. It just wasn't right right.

Something had to give.

Elizabeth Rice called Marvel - ostensibly to say she hadn't yet had an opportunity to compare the Polaroid of the shoe-print with all the shoes in the Marshes' house, but really to find out what was going on at Sunset Lodge.

Marvel told her not to bother. They had a suspect.

'Does that mean I can join you up there?'

'No,' said Marvel. 'Stay put for a bit. Might need you to break the news of an arrest to the Marshes.'

'OK. Good,' said Rice, although she felt like throwing something in frustration.

Preferably at Marvel.

When Jonas arrived, the residents of Sunset Lodge had just started to make their arduous journeys from the garden room to the dining room for supper.

Although it was dark already, the room was as hot as ever, and smelled of sweet decay under hairspray and talc.u.m powder. After the bitter outdoors it was suffocating. He wondered if they ever opened the windows so people could breathe-- The memory hit him like a ghost train ...

He and Danny Marsh had bought maggots for fishing from Mr Jacoby's shop. In the late summer the stream behind the playing field had sticklebacks and the occasional brown trout, and there were schoolyard rumours of a pike that might - or might not - have eaten Annie Rossiter's missing cat, Wobbles. Jonas did not really buy the Wobbles theory, because why would a cat be in the stream in the first place? But he did did fantasize about catching a pike. Or a trout. fantasize about catching a pike. Or a trout.

A stickleback would do, to be honest.

So he and Danny had bought a pot of maggots. A little white polystyrene cup with a not-quite-clear plastic lid, which had to be lifted to see the fat white worms properly. Mr Jacoby took them from the fridge - from a shelf alongside the cans of c.o.ke and Dandelion & Burdock, which Jonas could never quite make up his mind whether he liked or not.

Jonas was stunned that he could recall such details. He even remembered now that the maggots had cost 55p and that Danny had paid because he'd owed Jonas for a comic.

They'd only had one rod between them - Jonas's little starter rod which had come in a blister-pack last Christmas, with its fixed-spool reel already loaded with line and permanently attached between the cork grips, along with two red-and-white ball floats and a bag of small, unambitious hooks.

They'd fished for one long, hot day, eating cheese-and-pickle rolls and taking turns to hold the rod for when The Big One bit.

By the time dusk fell and they went home empty-handed, they had only used maybe twenty of the hundred or so maggots, most of which had simply wriggled off the hook and made a break for it, or had been discarded for becoming waterlogged, limp and - the boys agreed - unattractive to fish.

Probably because the rod was his, when they parted ways Jonas had taken the remaining maggots home with him and put them in the fridge for the next day.

They'd never gone fishing again.

Other stuff had happened.

The little white pot had first been hidden behind the jam and then pushed to the back of the fridge by yesterday's spaghetti Bolognese.

And it was only weeks later, when his mother complained that that fridge - which was only four years old - was making a strange buzzing noise, that Jonas had remembered ...

Through the cloudy lid of the pot, Jonas had seen that the pale maggots had been replaced by something amorphous, black and expansive, which now filled the pot so comprehensively that he could see darker patches under the plastic lid where things things were actually pressing up against it. The whole pot vibrated in his nervous hand with a low, menacing buzz - and it was with a sick shock that Jonas realized that the small maggots had slowly turned to much bigger flies that were now squeezed together so tightly in the pot that they seemed to be one angry ent.i.ty. were actually pressing up against it. The whole pot vibrated in his nervous hand with a low, menacing buzz - and it was with a sick shock that Jonas realized that the small maggots had slowly turned to much bigger flies that were now squeezed together so tightly in the pot that they seemed to be one angry ent.i.ty.

Angry at him him.

He'd wanted to let them go. He was a good-hearted boy who loved animals. And flies were animals - of a sort. The thought of them inside the pot - packed so close that their wet wings could not even unfurl, while their neighbours ate them and vomited on them and ate them again - made him feel ill.

But they were angry at him him. He could feel it in the vibrating fury running up his arm as he held the pot in his hand.

He had thrown it away without removing the lid. And until the bin men came three days later, Jonas could hear the angry thrum of the flies leading their short, trapped, nightmarish lives.

Jonas stopped thinking of it. He had to before it made him sick.

Standing at the threshold of the Sunset Lodge garden room, he wiped sweat off his face and forced forced himself to stop remembering ... himself to stop remembering ...

'It smells in here,' he said from the doorway.

Marvel and Reynolds were sitting silently in the two wing chairs closest to the piano and both turned to look at him as he approached. Marvel with his sagging jowls, and Reynolds with his patchwork hair: Jonas thought they both looked quite at home.

'Yes,' said Reynolds. 'It's impending death.'

An old woman so doubled over her walking frame that she looked as if she was searching for a contact lens turned her head like a tortoise and fixed Reynolds with a withering glare.

'We're not all deaf deaf, you know!'

Reynolds reddened and mumbled an apology and she continued on her way to the dining room, following the map of the carpet.

'Plonker,' Marvel told him.

'We found a weapon,' said Reynolds. Seeing Jonas's surprised look, he continued, 'Walking stick. He just took it from a bedroom, killed them all, and then put it back.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,' said Jonas. 'Prints?'

'The lab's got it now, but I doubt it. Still ...' Reynolds shrugged. 'Any luck today?'

Marvel snorted sarcastically. 'Yes, Reynolds, he's just playing hard to get.'

'No luck finding Gary,' said Jonas. 'But there's something I need to tell you.'

There. He'd said it now and couldn't back out. He took a deep breath and told them about the notes. He was deliberately vague about the content. He told them that the first had said 'something about the police not protecting Margaret Priddy' and the second had told him 'Do your job.' He was too ashamed to tell them about the 'crybaby' accusation. He handed the final note to Reynolds inside a plastic freezer bag he'd taken from the kitchen drawer.

He'd expected Marvel to be annoyed that he'd said nothing before now. He'd expected him to tear a strip off him. What he hadn't expected was that the overweight, over-the-hill DCI would listen all the way through with a stony face - and then come out of his wing chair like Swamp Thing and knock him backwards into the piano with a clanging post-modernist crash. One second Jonas was telling his story, the next he was half sitting on the keys as Marvel jammed fistfuls of his shirt up under his chin, trembling with rage and shouting angry things that Jonas couldn't quite comprehend. Behind Marvel, Reynolds was trying to pull his boss off, and behind him him, Jonas was aware of a gaggle of old folk clutching each other's forearms as the three of them wrestled on and around the piano. Jonas staggered as the instrument rolled sideways under the weight of the discord. He could have shoved Marvel off him easily enough, but he was his senior officer. Plus, he understood the man's frustration, and couldn't muster the necessary affront to get really strong with him. Even as Marvel jabbed his knuckles into his throat, some part of Jonas was thinking, 'I deserve this.'

Staff rushed in, shouting and demanding a halt, but it was only when Mrs Betty t.i.thecott started a high, papery screaming and began pointing that they finally ended the shoving match and looked around, dishevelled and breathless.

Half wrapped in thick cloth - and stuffed between the now-displaced piano and the low wall of the garden room - was the body of Gary Liss.

Marvel was falling apart.

Reynolds had always known he would, but now that it was actually happening, the experience was more disconcerting than he'd expected it to be.

Even before their prime suspect had been found wrapped up like cod and chips and stuffed behind a piano, Marvel had been on a slippery slope. He'd seen Marvel's hands shaking while they examined the Sunset Lodge bodies and bedrooms. Then there'd been the crying at the press conference. Reynolds had seen the shine in his eyes, and the light had had nothing to do with it.

And losing it with Jonas Holly like something out of The Sweeney The Sweeney.

It wasn't shock and it wasn't because Marvel cared so much.