Darkside

* * *

Jonas kissed Lucy goodnight and felt like a bigamist.

She’d said she didn’t mind. No, she’d been more generous than that – she’d encouraged him to go, even though she was confused about his reasoning.

‘I don’t think anyone was blaming you yesterday, sweetheart.’

‘I could tell,’ he said.

‘You don’t think you’re being a little paranoid?’

‘Why? Do you think I am?’ Obviously the answer must be ‘yes’ or Lucy wouldn’t have asked the question, but Jonas was always interested in hearing what she had to say.

‘A little.’ She shrugged. ‘I can understand how you must feel you’re somehow responsible … that you failed Margaret and Yvonne in some way … even though I don’t see how. But all I saw at the pub was worried people turning to you for information.’

Jonas was silent so he didn’t have to disagree with her. He didn’t want to voice dissent that might turn into an argument that might lead back to the question of children. He had no stomach for it. He just hoped her contention wasn’t going to turn into a suggestion that he stay at home, because his mind was made up.

Instead Lucy said, ‘But I know it’s not about them as much as it is about the way you feel about it, Jonas, and I agree that that’s what’s important. If going out at night makes you feel better, then you should do that.’

He didn’t deserve her. He never had and he never would.

He got up and took their best knife from the block in the kitchen.

‘Promise me you’ll keep this with you all the time when I’m not here.’

She laughed. ‘Jonas!’

‘I’m serious, Lu. I have to do this, but I hate leaving you here alone—’

‘Mrs Paddon’s a foot away through the wall.’

‘I know. And I don’t want you to be nervous. But please. For my sake, so I’m not nervous.’

He held it out to her, grip-first, and after another moment’s hesitation she took it.

‘Promise me,’ he said.

Lucy drew a Zorro-esque Z in the air and faked a Spanish accent. ‘You have my word, amigo! Any mad dog will feel the edge of my blade on his balls.’

‘Promise me,’ he said seriously.

‘I promise,’ she said, and didn’t smile this time because she wanted him to know she did take him seriously, even if she felt it was an overreaction.

Then he kissed her and left to spend the night with the village.

After he went, Lucy smiled at the knife, then took it through to the lounge with her.

She put Scream into the DVD player, cursing her own unsteady hands that dropped the disc twice before she managed to load it correctly; sometimes the sheer force of will it took not to be feeble was beyond her.

Ten minutes into the movie, she started to feel uneasy.

She heard a sound at the window.

She knotted her fingers into the tassels of the cushion.

She made sure the knife was close at hand.

She told herself not to be stupid.

Twenty minutes in, she realized she was missing Desperate Housewives.

Lucy hadn’t watched it for a while but thought it would be nice to catch up, so she switched off the horror and lost herself instead in a place where bad things were made laughable by sunshine and great shoes.

* * *

It was only when he started to walk up one side of Barnstaple Road a little after 9pm that Jonas realized how lost he had been.

The fact that it was dark made no difference; he was back on the beat, back where he should be, and – more importantly – back where people expected him to be. The street was pretty empty but for a few late-night dog-walkers. He said hello to Rob Ticker and his spaniel, Jerry, and John Took – the Master of the Blacklands – thanked him for the dead pony and told him there were saboteurs in the area. They’d laid a false trail for the Tiverton hounds, which had ended up in a Tesco car park. Typical hunter, thought Jonas even as he made the right noises – two women murdered and John Took was worried about missing a fox. He asked Took whether he’d heard about Yvonne Marsh and Took said, ‘Bloody awful. But that’s care in the bloody community for you’ – to which there was no answer except to tell Took he’d do his best to be at the next meet just in case of trouble.

Then he stopped to chat to Linda Cobb with Dixie.

‘I still have your umbrella,’ he told Linda.

‘Drop it in when you’re passing,’ she said.

Jonas said he’d be back on the doorstep tomorrow and would drop it by then.

‘And you’re doing this too?’ she said, waving her arm at the street.

Jonas agreed that he was, and the look she gave him made everything worthwhile – even having to leave Lucy alone. With any luck the news would be all round Shipcott tomorrow that he was making night patrols. If a killer was out there, maybe it would make him think twice.

For the same reason he dropped into the Red Lion and was greeted so warmly that yesterday’s impressions did seem to be no more than paranoia. He felt foolish. Everyone in the bar now seemed to know that he had jumped into the freezing stream and tried to revive Yvonne Marsh, and clamoured to buy him a drink. When he told them he was on duty and explained about the night patrols, the atmosphere grew even warmer.

‘Good thinking, Jonas,’ said Mr Jacoby to general agreement, and Graham Nash brought over a coffee on the house.

The talk in the pub was all about the deaths. Murders, they called them both already, because nobody believed that Yvonne Marsh had lived all her life in Shipcott but had chosen this week to fall into the stream and drown. Jonas couldn’t disagree, although he wouldn’t speculate out loud for them. They didn’t mind; having Jonas be the voice of reason would only have spoiled their theories.

‘I reckon it’s some nutter from Tiverton,’ said old Jack Biggins of the cow-and-gate incident. His macro- xenophobia meant that everyone beyond Dulverton was a suspect.

‘Could be anyone just passing through,’ suggested Billy Beer, vaguely enough for the others to feel confident in disagreeing with him.

‘Now if that were it,’ said Graham Nash, ‘we’d have noticed him.’ Which was true, thought Jonas, because a stranger in a village this size in the middle of winter stuck out like a sore thumb.

‘Maybe one of our own turned bad then,’ shrugged Stuart Beard.

Beard was the kind of man whose opinion usually attracted sage nods all round, but Jonas noted that this time there were only a few careful grunts of agreement, noticeably half-hearted enough for him to look up and see that Clive Trewell – father of Skew Ronnie – was sat in the window nursing a half.

Jonas went over to him and said hello.

Ronnie Trewell had been a good kid but was growing up all wrong, and Clive Trewell was not used to speaking to Jonas Holly in anything other than an official capacity.

Clive blamed himself; he’d encouraged his son to take driving lessons, and driving lessons had been like lighting a blue touch paper for Ronnie Trewell. Some people had a calling. They were called to be missionaries in Africa; they were called to find delicate art hidden in marble blocks; they were called to open their homes to hedgehogs or stray cats. Ronnie Trewell was called to drive. Very fast. And because he couldn’t afford anything faster than a thirteen-year-old Ford Fiesta with the weekly wage he earned at Mr Marsh’s car-repair garage, he was called to steal those very fast cars.

Teased away from school because of his lopsided walk, caused by an uncorrected club foot, Skew Ronnie had achieved the wherewithal to steal cars, but not the guile to hide the fact. He would simply drive around in his Fiesta until he saw a car he wanted to drive. Then he would steal it, leaving his Fiesta in its place, keys in the ignition for convenience’s sake. It did not take Sherlock Holmes to work out whodunit. But depending on where Ronnie Trewell had stolen the car from, it did sometimes take a little while for the police to come knocking on the door. During that