Darkside_ A Novel Part 29

Grey sn.i.g.g.e.red and Marvel's fist itched. Reynolds was always such a f.u.c.king clever clogs. Marvel knew the writing on the notes was never going to be a match. h.e.l.l, Stevie Wonder could see that that. But as he saw it, it was Reynolds's job to support his decisions and to pretend to be surprised and disappointed when the expert failed to make a connection - especially in front of other people. Of course, he'd long ceased to expect such support from his DS, but just once just once would be nice. would be nice.

Especially in this case.

There was still a chance, of course, that the notes written to Jonas Holly had not come from the killer - although that seemed unlikely. But if the note left on Holly's gate was was written by the killer, and Danny Marsh written by the killer, and Danny Marsh hadn't hadn't written it, then two plus two made four and Danny Marsh could not be the killer. written it, then two plus two made four and Danny Marsh could not be the killer.

And that that made Marvel feel that he might be going quietly crazy. made Marvel feel that he might be going quietly crazy.

By this stage in an investigation, Marvel was used to feeling as though he were in complete control. But here he was so far from control that he couldn't quite remember what control felt like.

It was the village; he was sure.

In Shipcott he felt cut off and lost. He was in this glorified horsebox, or he was staring at static in a stable. People told him everything and nothing. Everyone knew everyone else - except that n.o.body knew the killer. Evidence was there one day and gone the next. Suspects fell into his lap and then slipped through his fingers. Mobile connections were made and lost in the twinkling of an eye - and the cold, the rain, the snow were active and malicious partic.i.p.ants in the slippery deception.

It was like investigating a murder in Brigadoon Brigadoon.

Every morning he got up and drove down the hill into the village and was somehow surprised to find it still there. Every day was another dose of secrecy and fuzzy disconnection, and it was only his now nightly sessions with Joy Springer that seemed to anchor him in time or s.p.a.ce.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the two notes from Reynolds, and when Pollard held out his hand for them, he ignored him and banged them back into the battered filing cabinet euphemistically marked 'Evidence'.

Jonas got home and found that Lucy had changed into another person who wore Lucy's smile and Lucy's eyes like a poor facsimile of the real thing.

'What's wrong?' he asked her in bed.

'Nothing,' she said. 'I love you.'

He wanted to tell her not to change the subject, but couldn't find it in his heart - not even in that very small and stony corner where he kept all that was not kind, responsible and selfless.

'I love you too,' he agreed sadly.

Jonas thought he was strong, but the killer knew her was as weak as a kitten.

You can't fall apart now.

But Jonas was was falling apart. falling apart.

He left the house every morning and some nights to satisfy his own fragile ego in the name of protection - all the while leaving the most important person in the world alone and in peril. He seemed to have no idea no idea about how to do his job. No about how to do his job. No idea idea who it was that he should who it was that he should really really be protecting ... be protecting ...

The killer got shivers at the thought.

Those shivers kept him focused - his eyes on the prize.

The killer liked Lucy Holly.

Loved her, in his own way. her, in his own way.

But it didn't mean he wouldn't kill her given half a chance.

Two Days

As soon as Jonas left in the Land Rover the next morning, Lucy Holly got the number of the mobile unit from Taunton HQ, then called it. When a man picked up, she said she wanted to make a formal complaint about DCI Marvel.

There was a pregnant silence at the other end of the line and Lucy braced herself for a hostile request for her address so that the appropriate form could be sent. She was prepared to argue the toss; she didn't want an appropriate form; she wanted to drop Marvel in s.h.i.t right up to his foul, hurtful, b.a.s.t.a.r.d mouth.

Instead of turning cold and official, the policeman - who identified himself as DS Reynolds - started to ask her quite pertinent questions, which allowed her to vent in the most satisfying way imaginable. She told Reynolds about Marvel nearly hitting her with the car; she told him how he had s.n.a.t.c.hed the photograph of Jonas from her; she took a deep breath and told him that Marvel had said, 'f.u.c.k you' and called her a name.

'What name?' asked Reynolds.

'A horrible name,' said Lucy.

'I am writing these things down,' said Reynolds. 'It would be helpful if you could be specific.'

There was a pause. 'He called me an angry cripple.'

Another long silence, which the words expanded to fill.

'And are are you disabled, Mrs Holly?' asked Reynolds gently. you disabled, Mrs Holly?' asked Reynolds gently.

'I have MS,' she told him, filling up unexpectedly. 'I use sticks to help me walk.'

'I'm very sorry to hear that, Mrs Holly,' said DS Reynolds. And Lucy was amazed to hear that he did did sound sorry - not just as if he was giving a required response. sound sorry - not just as if he was giving a required response.

It allowed her to collect herself and deliver what she considered to be her piece de resistance. She told him that throughout the encounter she could smell alcohol on Marvel's breath.

'Whiskey?' inquired DS Reynolds, as if he had some experience of Marvel in drink.

'No,' said Lucy. 'Something sweeter. But definitely alcohol.'

'And what time was this?'

'About nine. In the morning.'

DS Reynolds was quiet for a short while and Lucy a.s.sumed he was writing. She tried to keep a lid on her optimism; she still had a suspicion that her complaint would disappear into the black hole of Masonic secrecy that she believed held sway among senior officers. But at least she'd said her piece. Even if DS Reynolds now told her that he'd be sending her a complaints form, she'd still had that that satisfaction. satisfaction.

But DS Reynolds didn't say he'd send her a form. Instead he said in a serious voice, 'Mrs Holly, would you be happy to make a sworn statement about these matters?'

Lucy almost laughed with surprise.

'Happy?' she said. 'I'd be absolutely delirious.'

When Reynolds hung up on Lucy Holly he was actually shaking.

He had the contemporaneous notes in his notebook; he had his private logs, he had his own detailed reports showing that John Marvel was an unprofessional, bullying p.r.i.c.k who shouldn't be left in charge of a chimps' tea party, let alone a murder inquiry, but until this very moment, he hadn't had the d.a.m.ning independent evidence that would tip the balance in a disciplinary case against the DCI.

He'd always known it would come. Always. People who behaved like Marvel were on borrowed time. For a start, he knew that Marvel had left the Met under a cloud. Quite what kind kind of cloud he'd not been able to determine, but the police grapevine had whispered of Marvel squeezing the facts to make them fit a suspect - or squeezing that suspect to make him fit the facts. Reynolds believed it. He would have believed almost anything ill of Marvel. He hated the man's archaic approach - his reliance on 'hunches', his relaxed att.i.tude to procedure, his personal whims and illogical vendettas; his secret drinking - none of these had any place in modern law enforcement. of cloud he'd not been able to determine, but the police grapevine had whispered of Marvel squeezing the facts to make them fit a suspect - or squeezing that suspect to make him fit the facts. Reynolds believed it. He would have believed almost anything ill of Marvel. He hated the man's archaic approach - his reliance on 'hunches', his relaxed att.i.tude to procedure, his personal whims and illogical vendettas; his secret drinking - none of these had any place in modern law enforcement.

Since he'd started working with Marvel, Reynolds had been shocked by his fixation on certain 'suspects'. In Weston last year, Marvel had held a nineteen-year-old homeless man for two days because he'd been near the scene of the crime and 'looked guilty'. Before that the married boyfriend of a strangled Asian teenager was terrified into a confession which took seconds to collapse once the girl's father haughtily confessed to the 'honour' killing a few days later.

Sure, Marvel did get results - even Reynolds had to admit that - and those results had kept him grudgingly secure ever since he'd left London. There was a kind of inferiority complex going on at the Avon & Somerset force which had allowed the big-city cop to bulldoze his way through conventional practice and on to cases that should have belonged to others. Even senior officers were only human, and - Reynolds knew - most just wanted things to run smoothly. Attempting to rein Marvel in and put him in his place would have taken more effort than any of the current inc.u.mbents were prepared to expend - even from behind a desk.

From his place at Marvel's side, Reynolds had been convinced that the man deserved to be kicked out. But because of Marvel's constant, dogged results, he'd always known he would also need to get good, sworn, hopefully civilian evidence of serious wrongdoing to bring the man down.

The kind of evidence that Lucy Holly had just dropped into his lap like manna from heaven. The kind of evidence that he could see the Independent Police Complaints Commission putting right at the top of the pile. The disabled wife of a serving officer alleging conduct unbecoming and being drunk on the job.

Superb.

Reynolds signed and dated his notes of the conversation and tucked them neatly into a folder with a sense of self-satisfaction. He was hara.s.sed and balding, trying to do his job and and Marvel's, but as soon as he had a spare moment, he would go and see Lucy Holly, take her sworn statement and add it to the rest of the case he had built against his DCI in the past year. Marvel's, but as soon as he had a spare moment, he would go and see Lucy Holly, take her sworn statement and add it to the rest of the case he had built against his DCI in the past year.

Sergio Leone, eat your heart out.

One Day

It was gone five o'clock and Marvel was in the Red Lion nursing half a pint of p.i.s.s masquerading as alcohol-free lager.

He hadn't invited anybody else along for an after-work drink. He was heartily sick of the lot of them and even more sick of being stuck here in Shipcott with what appeared to be trench foot.

Jos Reeves called to say that the prints inside the plastic bags they'd found in the courtyard were unidentifiable. Little more than muddy smears.

Marvel didn't even have the energy to be rude to him.

Someone walked through his line of vision with a lurching gait and Marvel focused. The young man had the look of someone who had put his weight and his drink on fast - florid, and with all the excess fat around his belly and his chin.

'What are you are you looking at?' said Neil Randall. looking at?' said Neil Randall.

'You got a wooden leg?' said Marvel.

The young man was taken aback. He was used to people blushing and stammering when he confronted them.

'Yes,' he said.

Then he remembered his hostility and added, 'You want to make something of it?'

Marvel resisted the urge to snap back something about whittling a toy boat, and just shrugged. The young man was obviously defensive. Must be s.h.i.t to lose your leg. Give up your job, maybe. Collect disability. Be a burden-- A burden. Margaret Priddy had been a burden. That was, after all, why he had 'liked' Peter Priddy so much, wasn't it? Yvonne Marsh had been a burden to her husband and son. But the three victims at Sunset Lodge ... couldn't they also be considered burdens on their families? A financial drain, if nothing else?

Maybe the killer couldn't bring himself to kill his own own burden and was taking it out on others? burden and was taking it out on others?

Marvel felt his skin actually tingle. He felt so sure that he was on the right track, and his instincts rarely let him down.

Hand in hand with that came the uncomfortable feeling that this was Reynolds's territory. Reynolds and his beloved Kate Gulliver with their namby-pamby, touchy-feely b.o.l.l.o.c.ks about childhoods and transference and repression and guilt.

He stared unseeingly at Neil Randall's gammy leg as the man limped across the pub and propped himself up in front of the fruit machine.

And then DCI John Marvel got another, even bigger tingle as he put two and two together and made what looked very much like four to him ...

Wasn't Lucy Holly a burden burden to her husband? to her husband?

He put his so-called beer down on the table so fast that it slopped over the rim, and stood up.

He had to get back to his room. He had to be really alone so he could think about this clearly. He needed to write things down and draw little boxes and connect them with biro lines of reasoning. He needed to be absolutely sure absolutely sure before he exposed his theory to Reynolds, to give that b.a.s.t.a.r.d the smallest possible chance of poking holes in it. before he exposed his theory to Reynolds, to give that b.a.s.t.a.r.d the smallest possible chance of poking holes in it.

And, more than anything, he needed a real drink to help him.

Jonas was pulling a ewe's head out of a tree.

He'd spent several minutes trying to get a good grip on the struggling, ice-covered sheep without luck, and made a new effort to focus before his hands got too cold to function.

The snow was falling again in a silent blizzard that threatened to obscure his view of Shipcott below. Jonas had done his best to get over to Edgcott to do his rounds but he'd had to turn back at the top of the hill when he lost the road completely. He'd spotted the sheep twenty yards away and decided to do his good deed for the day.

He spoke soothingly to the ewe but she didn't believe him for a second, and bleated in terror, while now and then raising her tail to vent hard marble-sized droppings in machine-gun bursts, as if paying out a s.h.i.t jackpot.

Jonas Holly cursed under his breath but he understood the ewe's fear. He had learned to live with fear.

It didn't mean he wasn't scared.

All the time.

All the f.u.c.king time! H He could hear Danny saying those words again. could hear Danny saying those words again.

Jonas felt that if he could only keep all his fear separate and compartmentalized, then he would be able to manage it, like a lion tamer performing tricks with just one lion at a time - carefully twisting his head into the sharp, fetid maw, feeling the p.r.i.c.k of teeth on his cheek, and then herding the beast back to its cage, before bringing out the next lion, whose job was to jump through hoops.

At times, though, Jonas got the feeling that the catches on the cages were loose, that the lions were plotting behind his back - and that there was imminent danger of a great escape, during which he would be torn to pieces in his top hat and red tails.

Which was probably what this poor ewe thought was about to happen to her.

Don't be scared. I'll protect you. That's my job.

The words rushed at him from nowhere and for the first time in decades he remembered the face of the policeman who had told him that. The man had looked like a father. Not like his his father, but like the kind of father Jonas had seen on TV - middle-aged, greying at the temples, slightly overweight. Jonas could even remember the shiny b.u.t.tons on the policeman's tunic and being overwhelmed that this exciting uniform was actually in his mother's cramped little kitchen. father, but like the kind of father Jonas had seen on TV - middle-aged, greying at the temples, slightly overweight. Jonas could even remember the shiny b.u.t.tons on the policeman's tunic and being overwhelmed that this exciting uniform was actually in his mother's cramped little kitchen.

The policeman had asked his parents to stay in the front room. Jonas had panicked then, and imagined the policeman taking him out of the back door to prison while his parents waited trustingly in front of the TV that was showing Grange Hill Grange Hill. Or he might hurt him to find out what he wanted to know. Jonas didn't want to be hurt any more. But he also didn't want to tell. If he told on Danny about the stables, it would all come out. All the horror and the shame would come out and everybody would know about it, even his parents parents. And n.o.body n.o.body must ever know that Jonas even must ever know that Jonas even knew knew that pathetic child - let alone used to that pathetic child - let alone used to be be him. Even him. Even he he, Jonas, had learned to leave that weak little boy to his fate and go somewhere else while unspeakable things were happening.

The big policeman had bent his head and asked quiet questions about the fire. Jonas had told him the truth - that he knew nothing. But he didn't tell him the truth of what he suspected suspected.