Darkside

There was an assortment of jewellery: a few ladies’ watches, some diamond earrings, an enamelled brooch with an ornate gold setting, five or six strings of pearls, which even Marvel’s untrained eye could see were good, with clever clasps and that slight unevenness of shape and tone that marked them out as natural.

‘His mother’s stuff, maybe?’ said Singh.

‘How many watches can one woman wear?’ said Marvel. He picked up the nicest of them – an art-deco face on a rose-gold bracelet – and turned it over. On the back was an inscription: To Viola from your Best and Last.

* * *

Jonas got to Withypool a little before eight, having taken twenty-five minutes to make the ten-minute journey. He dropped off the common and down the steep hill into the village, on a sweeping road of virgin snow. He hoped he’d be able to get back up it, but at least the Land Rover would give him every chance.

Like Shipcott, Withypool looked as if it had tumbled down the sides of the moor and landed haphazardly at the bottom. Houses stood where they fell – a few here, a few there, a dozen scattered along the river either side of the stone-walled humpbacked bridge that was sneakily only wide enough for one car at a time, despite the broad approaches.

Paul Angell was already in his shed. Jonas knew he would be as soon as his knock went unanswered. He went round the side of the cottage, but not before he’d cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the downstairs windows. Paul had Venetian blinds rather than nets, so it was easy to see between the slats. Jonas had no expectation of seeing any sign of Gary Liss, but it was only sensible to be wary. He watched nothing move for five minutes before going down the narrow alleyway into the garden.

The shed was warm and smelled of gas and glue. Paul was hunched over an old school desk wearing a torch on his forehead and a magnifying visor which made the top half of his face look cartoonishly big and brainy; the bottom half was covered by an impressive salt-and-pepper beard. Jonas’s eyes were drawn to a 00-gauge model of the Flying Scotsman that Paul held in his left hand. The desk was covered with tools, and the interior walls of the shed had been cleverly contoured and customized so that various trains ran around them in layers, each tier with a different landscape and different type of train. Jonas was no enthusiast but even he could identify the Orient Express on one circuit and an old Western locomotive with a cow-catcher, pulling cattle wagons and a caboose through a painted landscape of buttes and marauding

Apaches. Paul Angell’s shed was a 00-gauge Guggenheim for geeks.

Paul was fifty-eight – a retired lecturer in Astrophysics. Jonas had asked him about it once and then stood in a nebula of confusion as Paul had talked for fifteen minutes straight about string theory. Jonas had loved the sciences at school, but all he’d managed to cobble together from Paul’s big-eyed excitement was a vague idea that all matter was made up of little vibrating hula-hoops. By the end he’d just been nodding, smiling and thinking of what he’d cook for tea. Cheese on toast, most likely.

Now Paul’s magnified eyes lit up as Jonas opened the door, then changed fast when he saw his face.

‘Hi, Paul. You know where Gary is?’

‘Work,’ said Paul. ‘He doesn’t get off until three. Why?’

Jonas took a breath; there was no easy way to break the news. ‘There’s been some trouble at the Lodge,’ he said. ‘Three residents are dead and Gary is missing.’

Paul said nothing. His huge eyes blinked at Jonas.

Jonas waited but still Paul did not respond, although the Flying Scotsman shook almost imperceptibly in his hand.

‘Paul?’ he inquired softly.

‘Yes,’ said Paul – then after another long pause, ‘I don’t know what to say. What can I say? I don’t know. Or to think. What do you mean? What am I supposed to think?’ He put the little engine down without looking at it and repeated, ‘What am I supposed to think?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jonas. ‘It’s quite possible Gary wasn’t involved, but I think we should do everything we can to find him as quickly as we can, don’t you?’

‘He’s a suspect?’ Paul was confused, with an edge of outrage. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

He got up suddenly and Jonas realized he had been holding a tack hammer in his other hand; Jonas took a slow step backwards.

‘I thought you meant you were concerned for his safety! He wouldn’t do anything to harm those people, Jonas. Never.’

‘I know that, Paul.’ Jonas badly wanted to glance at the tack hammer but stayed focused on the man’s face. ‘And I am concerned for his safety. Truly. That’s why we need to find him.’

He thought of Marvel’s offer of back-up and felt a twinge of regret that he’d been too keen to wait for it.

Paul seemed unaware that he was holding the hammer. He stood stock still for at least a minute. Jonas gave him the time. Didn’t know what else he could do really.