Darkside

‘Yes. Assuming this is murder and it’s the same killer. What’s the link?’

Reynolds thought for a second. ‘Both in their sixties. Both women …’ He dried up.

Marvel looked at Reynolds directly now. ‘Both a burden on their families, wouldn’t you say?’

Reynolds nodded his thoughtful agreement.

‘Could be two families finally snapping. But if it’s not, then what’s the link? More important, who’s the link?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Well nor do I,’ said Marvel. ‘Yet.’

He told Pollard to bag up PC Holly’s clothes for Jos Reeves at the lab. The crime scene here was a joke – in the open air and on a field that half the village used, trampled by Holly and the skateboarders at the very least, and the body had been in water and then moved, just to add to the complications – but he might as well preserve everything he could, if only for the purpose of elimination. He walked back towards the car, his feet making a satisfying crunching sound on the frosty field, and called Jos Reeves to tell him to be sure to compare forensics in the Yvonne Marsh case with Margaret Priddy’s. Reeves got in a huff with him. Got all offended that Marvel thought he didn’t know his own job. Prima donna. Next time he’d have Reynolds call Reeves.

He sent Singh, Pollard and Grey to do another house-to-house, asking all the same questions but about a different time, place and victim. It was a chore but it had to be done.

Later he took Elizabeth Rice to meet the Marshes. He told them she would be their family liaison officer, staying with them twenty-four hours a day for support, and keeping them informed of how the investigation was progressing.

‘Anything you want, or anything you need to know, you just ask her,’ he said with surprising kindness.

He told her they were both suspects until further notice.

* * *

After Jonas had given a preliminary statement to one of Marvel’s DCs, the paramedics dropped him off at home so he could finally get some trousers on. They wanted their scratchy blanket back, and Lucy looked up in surprise as he walked into the cottage wrapped from the waist down in silver foil. She made a mermaid joke, then saw his face. He told her what had happened and watched her get quiet. More quiet; Lucy was always calm – even when told about what looked like the village’s second murder in eight days.

‘You need to get warm,’ was her verdict. She insisted on coming upstairs with him, so he carried her on legs that throbbed painfully now, cramping as the blood got going again. Without her sticks she moved carefully and with a break in her stride that made it look as if she might fall at any minute. Still, need gave her strength, and she bossed him and ran him a bath while he stripped off and bundled his clothes into the laundry basket. He thought he might as well be a mermaid, he’d been so wet in the past twelve hours. His good shoes and another pair of work trousers were still on the radiators from last night. He could hear Lucy painstakingly laying out a fresh uniform on the bed – doing her wifely thing in jerky slow motion – while he stepped into the bath, sending needles of hot pain up his legs.

Their bath – which had a view of the moor on one side and the fields sloping up to Springer Farm on the other – was the biggest that would fit into the tiny bathroom, but it was no match for Jonas. It was why he preferred the shower; in the bath he had to sit up to keep both his legs submerged. As his legs warmed and he listened to Lucy moving around – making all that effort for his benefit – he slumped back against the cold enamel and a great weariness overtook him. The shock of last night, and the bigger shock of this morning. Two murders. Two murders! Perhaps if he’d watched more American television, he wouldn’t feel so appalled. Perhaps being a policeman and having two murders in quick succession on his patch would not feel so surreal if only he’d tuned in to NYPD Blue a bit more dutifully in his formative years.

Somewhere out there was a killer. It seemed unbelievable, but a killer had come to town and – like the shark in Jaws – had apparently decided to stick around.

Call yourself a policeman?

The words hit him again, but this time they seemed to be not just an accusation but a warning. Was it the killer who had left him a message? The idea jolted him. Was the killer taunting him? Letting him know how ineffective he was? Was Yvonne Marsh another display of his dubious skills? If so, how many more people might the killer be planning to murder? Where would his appetite end?