Darkside

‘Why would anyone want to make mischief with you, Mr Priddy?’ said Marvel. ‘You’ve just lost your mother in the saddest of circumstances. Why would anyone want to make life harder for you?’

Peter Priddy got up, not looking at Marvel or Reynolds. ‘I don’t know. Like you said, people are sick. I have to get back to work.’

‘Mr Priddy,’ said Reynolds soothingly, ‘we’re just going through a process of elimination. We’re speaking to everybody like this.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘We are,’ said Reynolds, hoping it would be true before too long. He looked at Marvel for confirmation and got a grudging nod. ‘It’s our job. You’re in law enforcement, Mr Priddy; you understand. We’re on the same team here.’

The flattery worked and Priddy softened a little. ‘Yeah. OK.’

Some of the tension drained from the room.

Reynolds cleared his throat. ‘Before you go, I wonder if I could ask you for a DNA sample?’

Priddy stared at the two men with undisguised disgust. Reynolds looked away and got out the kit. In silence he got the swabs from the sterile plastic. In silence, Peter Priddy opened his mouth and allowed Reynolds to scrape the inside of his cheek.

‘I’ve got to get back to work. And you do too, because the more time you waste with me, the more time you’re not trying to catch the man who killed my mother. And that really pisses me off.’

In the silence that followed him slamming the door behind him, Reynolds closed his notebook, turned his palms upwards and sighed. ‘Can’t blame him, I suppose.’

‘I’ll blame him for whatever the bloody hell I want,’ snapped Marvel.

As if Reynolds didn’t know that.

On their way out, the prison staff were noticeably less friendly than they had been on the way in.

Eighteen Days

Annette Rogers had been interviewed at the scene and had already moved on to care full-time for an elderly man in Minehead, but Gary Liss and Lynne Twitchett both worked part-time in Shipcott at Sunset Lodge, a large detached stone house in its own grounds set back from the road and conveniently adjoining the graveyard behind the church. As they got out of the car, Marvel wondered at the horror of growing old and infirm within a geriatric stone’s throw of your final resting place.

The home’s owner, Rupert Cooke, was a chubby, happy-faced man with the habit of bending slightly forward and turning his head attentively when he listened, even though Marvel wasn’t seated in a wheelchair. He offered Marvel and Reynolds his office for privacy and Reynolds thanked him politely.

‘I’ll give Lynne and Gary a shout,’ he said.

‘Don’t,’ said Marvel. ‘We’ll find them. Have a look around at the same time.’

‘If you don’t mind,’ added Reynolds hurriedly.

‘Of course,’ said Cooke. ‘Be my guests.’

‘Not for a while, I hope,’ said Marvel drily. Too drily, apparently, as nobody laughed.

He and Reynolds wandered through the large airy rooms where a few residents sat and did jigsaws or knitted. An old man with an oxygen mask on and ears so big he looked like a spaniel peered fixedly at an enormous television with the sound down so low that it was all but inaudible. Seemed that past a certain age, one functioning sense at a time was all any resident could really expect to enjoy.

Reynolds peered into a large aquarium. ‘They’ve got a Japanese fighting fish in here. Beautiful.’

Marvel ignored him. Ridiculous hobby, fish-keeping. Making yourself a slave to guppies.

A middle-aged woman in a blue uniform bustled towards them and Marvel stopped and raised his eyebrows. ‘Lynne Twitchett?’

‘In the garden room, I think,’ smiled the woman, pointing in the direction they were already heading.

The majority of the residents were in the garden room and Marvel understood why the moment they entered. It was hot. Saharan hot – even in the middle of winter. With its long windows and glass roof, the garden room was no more or less than a greenhouse for cultivating old folk. And it seemed to be working. At least two dozen old women with identical hair sat around the perimeter of the room, sunning themselves like lizards in wing chairs, sucking up the heat as if they’d outlived the capacity to make their own. Several of them wore hand-knitted cardigans and crocheted knee-rugs just to be on the safe side. A large tin of cheap biscuits was being passed around the room and examined at each station as if it were the Holy Grail. Ahead of the tin was all craning white heads and expectant muttering, behind it was silence and crumbs.

Lynne Twitchett sat at the upright piano against the far wall of the room, playing a faltering version of ‘Jingle Bells’ while perched on a piano stool. At least, Marvel assumed that was what she was sitting on. From behind it looked as if Lynne Twitchett’s giant blue arse had simply sprouted four spindly wooden legs, so completely had her bulk consumed the rest of the furniture.

Reynolds leaned in to him and murmured, ‘Who ate all the Jaffa Cakes?’ – the first funny thing Marvel had ever heard come out of his mouth.