Darkside

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.