Darkside

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 time Ronnie would drive at breakneck speed across the moors, and when he wasn’t actually driving the stolen car, he was modifying, tuning and customizing it in his dad’s garage. Given that he didn’t steal the cars to sell – and that the cars were always recovered eventually – it was this curious aspect of the crimes, coupled with his youth, which had so far kept nineteen-year-old Ronnie Trewell away from hard-core custodial sentences. Owners who had their cars returned in better condition than when they were stolen were disinclined to press charges. The owner of an old but sporty Honda CRX discovered a rusty wheel-arch had been excised, welded and expertly re-sprayed. A woman in Taunton was delighted to have her Toyota MR2 returned with a new, satisfyingly throaty exhaust fitted, and the owner of an Alfa Romeo GTV was so impressed by his reclaimed car’s improved performance that he sent Ronnie a thank-you note.

Clive knew that Ronnie couldn’t help himself. He had tried to teach him right from wrong but, when it came to cars, it just hadn’t taken. Something in his son needed those cars the way other people needed braces or spectacles. Each car Ronnie stole became part of him; he put his heart, soul and all his meagre spare cash into it. And every time the police sent a tow truck to take away a stolen car, Ronnie stood in the road and cried.

PC Holly had made half a dozen visits to the Trewell home in the past two years, so Clive was prepared.

‘Them other police already talked to Ronnie!’ he said – and was taken aback when Jonas started to talk not about Ronnie, but about Dougie.

‘Did he tell you what happened yesterday?’

Clive’s heart sank. Not Dougie too! But then he listened in amazement as Jonas told him about the part his younger son had played in the drama down behind the playing field.

‘Didn’t say a word!’ he said.

When he’d first stood up, Jonas had fully intended to quiz Clive Trewell about Ronnie. Where he was. Where he’d been. What he’d been doing. But when he’d got close to the man and seen the sad, wary look in his eyes as he approached, he’d lost the stomach for it.

Instead he talked up Dougie – told Clive what a good lad he had there – and then brought the surprised man a drink before saying goodnight and heading back out on patrol.

Before he did, he went into the gents’ toilets.

There was no message.