Darkside

‘I should apologize,’ he whispered to Lucy.

‘Not today,’ she whispered back. ‘Today is about his mother.’

Jonas nodded but felt uncomfortable. Marvel had hissed at him that he’d be lucky to keep his job, but all he had seen in Marvel’s eyes was relief that someone had stepped up to the mark and done something to end the stand-off.

He looked around and caught Marvel’s eye at the back of the church. No doubt he was there because of the chance that the killer might attend the funeral of his victim. Margaret Priddy had not yet had a funeral service, at the request of her family, but Alan Marsh had insisted on one.

‘She’s gone,’ he’d told the Reverend Chard. ‘She’s gone and I want to say a proper goodbye.’

So here they all were.

Jonas hadn’t asked Marvel if it was OK to come, and half smiled at the thought that the killer might be running up and down past Margaret Priddy’s house while he was here, banging on the door and taunting the little brown dog. It was all bollocks anyway, and he no longer felt any guilt about leaving his post. The business with Danny had jolted things into new focus for him. Although he felt guilty about hitting him, at least he had taken some action at last. At least he had made a decision – even if it was probably the wrong one.

The service was sombre. They sang ‘Abide With Me’ and then ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful’, which made Lucy squeeze his hand. It brought a hard lump to his throat and he dared not look at her.

Afterwards there was tea in the church hall. Linda Cobb and the other ladies had done it; they hadn’t even consulted Alan and Danny Marsh – they’d just gone ahead and spent the money that the Reverend Chard had given them from the poor box bolted to the church door. Everyone thought it was money well spent.

Jonas and Lucy did not go to the church hall. They watched Alan Marsh support his son out of the church and then left. Jonas drove Lucy home carefully up the gritted lane, changed out of his black suit and into his uniform, then walked back down into the village to resume his doorstep vigil.

The darkening village seemed especially still. The blanket of snow and the fact that almost every adult was off eating egg sandwiches in the church hall added to Jonas’s sense of isolation. Not even Linda Cobb was there to hand him his World’s Best Mum mug.

On days such as this he felt like the last man on Earth. Sometimes he felt that way up on the moors, where it was so quiet you could hear a car coming a mile away. Last summer he’d walked up to Blacklands and sat down on the cushion of heather that covered the mound there. He could see the roofs of Shipcott in one direction, but otherwise no sign of civilization – or that civilization had even been invented.

He remembered now how the sun had warmed his eyes through his closed lids, and smiled even though he was standing in the snow on the doorstep of one murdered pensioner and had just attended the funeral of another.

If only all memories could be as sweet.

It was already dark when Jonas saw the stranger.

In summer, a stranger was a faceless part of a bigger whole, which invaded like an army, wore uniform hiking shorts and map bags, and cleared Mr Jacoby out of milk and sandwiches. But in winter, a stranger was a curious and somehow sinister thing. Why would anyone come to Shipcott in winter? Their motives must be suspect. If the stranger were a woman or child it was easy to imagine them to be a visiting sister or niece; if it were a man, it was tempting to imagine them to be so much more – and not all good and friendly. Prime among those winter strangers were hunt saboteurs, who came armed nowadays with everything from placards to Mace.

Jonas did not have Marvel’s experience or cynicism, but even his suspicions were raised when the man saw him, then blatantly turned and walked hurriedly back the way he’d come.

After only a very brief inner tussle, Jonas left his post.

He followed the man at a distance of about a hundred yards, taking in all he could about his appearance. Shortish, thinnish, wearing a long green waxed jacket over dark trousers and town shoes, with a waxed Stetson which marked him out as a likely customer at Field & Stream as he’d passed through Dulverton; locals did not wear waxed Stetsons. The wide brim shadowed his face as he passed under the orange streetlamps.

The snow showed Jonas that the man’s shoes were small – probably a size seven or eight – with a distinctive herringbone tread.

The man bustled along quickly, glancing behind him once – which only made Jonas more determined to keep following him, even if he felt a bit as if he was doing this for no other reason than because he was bored and cold, and the man was a stranger in a stranger’s hat.

The man walked into the alleyway beside Mr Jacoby’s shop, which Jonas knew was a dead end. Jonas approached more slowly now, waiting for the man to turn around and come back out, but he didn’t. After a couple of minutes, Jonas followed him into the alleyway.

He was gone.

The dark little courtyard behind the shop contained a few wheelie bins, some old beer barrels filled with soil which Mr Jacoby laughingly referred to as ‘the garden’, and a recycling box filled with glass bottles. The back of the courtyard was hemmed by a high fence, above which a spray of brambles formed an effective barrier. The only way out – other than through the back door into the shop – was over a four-foot-high stone wall between this property and the next. Footprints in the snow showed that that was where the stranger had gone. Jonas’s heart started to race. The man had climbed over the wall and must have gone down the matching passage that ran along the side of the neighbouring house, rather than turn around to face him. It was not the action of a casual visitor who’d taken a wrong turning.

Jonas was about to vault the wall and go after him, when he heard a car burst into life out on the road.

Shit.

He ran back down the alleyway, slipping awkwardly on the cobbles. He overshot the pavement and skidded to a halt in the middle of the white road, looking up and down the narrow street.

There was no sign of the man or the car.

Shit again.

Jonas went back to the exit of the second alleyway and followed the distinctive herringbone footprints to a new gap between the parked cars. The fresh tyre tracks were still clear and snow-free – and had a loop in them before straightening up, which showed that the car had fishtailed. A quick getaway.

Jonas felt stupid. He should have got closer and followed the man into the alleyway immediately. Instead he’d assumed he would turn around and come back out. In his head he heard his old English teacher, Mrs O’Leary: Assume makes an ass out of u and me.

Jonas was just not used to being that suspicious – even of strangers. The thought that he might have lost the killer because he hadn’t wanted to face the social awkwardness of confronting him in Mr Jacoby’s ‘garden’ made him squirm.

He walked briskly up to the school, then back down to Margaret Priddy’s without catching a glimpse of another person, let alone the stranger. The snow kept everyone indoors. At least he’d got a look at the man: his stature, his clothing, his style of walking, with its short townie steps. Probably late thirties to early forties. He’d recognize him again. Maybe.

He considered telling Marvel, then immediately discounted the idea. On the face of it, all he’d done was desert his post on a smidgeon of a hunch and a barrowful of boredom – and he had nothing to show for it. All he’d be doing would be inviting Marvel to have another pop at him. So far the man hadn’t needed any excuse; Jonas didn’t feel like giving him one now.

Jonas sighed. The deaths of Margaret Priddy and Yvonne Marsh felt like his first real challenges as an officer of the law, and he was failing at every aspect of their investigation. He couldn’t even tail a suspect successfully in his own village – even in the snow.

As if to mock him, the snow started again, quickly filling in the herringbone footprints.

Jonas got back to his doorstep thoroughly defeated.

As though she’d known he would fail, Linda Cobb immediately opened the door and handed him his mug.

* * *

Reynolds felt well disposed towards Jonas Holly for no other reason than that Marvel didn’t.

He was on his way to get fish and chips at the Blue Dolphin when he saw Jonas standing on the doorstep