Darkside

The playing field had goalposts without nets, and sloped alarmingly towards the furthest corner flag. In London the flags would have been stolen. Behind the posts nearest the village were three swings, an old metal slide of the type that most council Health & Safety committees had long since sold for scrap, and a low half-pipe skateboard ramp with a railing along each end – presumably to keep the village children from loop-the-looping into the narrow stream that ran along the back of the field, marking the foot of the moor. While Marvel watched, a lone fat collie meandered over and took a shit on the penalty spot.

Marvel could see dark footprints in the frosty grass leading to and from the swings and more to the ramp. Skating before school. Or maybe instead of school. Truants? Drop-outs? Or something more sinister? Apart from his good nose for a killer, Marvel’s greatest gift was that he could see the bad in anyone. He had already seen enough in his career to justify a healthy dose of misanthropic suspicion and, in his mind, a half-pipe ramp and a crime scene in anything like close proximity was good enough reason to pull in any passing skater for a grilling. If the killer wasn’t Peter Priddy, he’d put good money on it being some zit-covered hoodie with his fake Calvin Kleins poking out of his half-mast jeans.

‘You skate?’ he asked the boys, then – when they looked confused – he jerked his thumb at the ramp. They all turned round and stared at it as if it had suddenly materialized from outer space.

‘Nah,’ said one. ‘We smoke.’

Slow sleet started to fall straight down from the sky like broken plumb-lines, and the boys got up as one and hurried off. Marvel pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his ears and ventured out on to the grass. Past the side of Margaret Priddy’s home and round to the bottom of the garden, which was enclosed by buckled sheep wire on concrete posts and – now – a strip of police tape which an over-enthusiastic somebody had used to wrap around the entire house and garden like a birthday bow. Pollard, most likely. He lacked the imagination to make a bad job of anything.

The sheep wire sagged and bowed in several places, loose between the posts, and he had no trouble stepping over it. As he did he noticed that his dull-brown brogues were going dark with water, and made a mental note to buy some boots. He walked up the overgrown back garden, ridiculously trying not to put his feet down in the wet grass. He passed broken terracotta flowerpots showing dead roots, a pile of old metal door strips, a couple of plastic carrier bags pressed against the boundary fence, while a ramshackle kennel spoke of a long-ago dog. As if on cue a small brown terrier started to bark at him from next door, running up and down the line of the fence as if it might break through and tear him limb from limb, even though it was barely taller than his shin.

‘Piss off!’ Marvel feinted towards the dog and it yelped and rushed behind a garden shed, from where it peered and growled.

‘All mouth and no bloody trousers,’ muttered Marvel, then swore and lurched sideways to avoid stepping in what looked like vomit in the grass between the back door and the lean-to. He stood for a moment staring down at it while large wet drops of ice plopped into it like little meteorites. Vomit! There was vomit at the murder scene and no one had spotted it! Not surprising – the vomit was only really visible from directly above – splashed through the tufty, unkempt grass like modern art. Marvel stood hunched over it, protecting it from the sleet, then realized that he couldn’t do that for as long as it would take for someone to get down here from the lab. They were lucky it had been pretty dry since the body was discovered.

There was an old steel dustbin on its side and he looked around for the lid. When he found it he put it carefully over the splash.

He pulled out his mobile phone and glared at the lack of signal bars on it. He’d discovered that they came and went here, seemingly on a whim, sometimes lingering for hours, sometimes teasing with a fleeting appearance and then winking out as quickly as they’d come.

The bloody sticks.

He looked up at the bedroom window. From here he could see how easy it had been for the killer to get into the house. The green wheelie bin that must have been used as a ladder had been carefully wrapped and taken to the lab for examination. His eyes traced the obvious path from the lean-to roof to the window. A man would have to be fit to pull himself up to force the latch and then over the sill, but he wouldn’t have to be Superman.

Marvel tried the back door and felt a little stab of irritation when it opened, even though it saved him having to go round to the front door and using the key he had. He’d find out who had been responsible for leaving the house secure and give them a bollocking.