Darkside

Jonas felt warmed physically and spiritually as he ate and listened to his wife recounting the minutiae of her existence. Here in the kitchen, with a fire in the hearth and food in his belly, it was easy to imagine that all was well with the world.

She told him about the robin that had sat on the window sill for almost ten minutes, staring in at her as she watched giant cockroaches munch New Yorkers in Mimic; she described the way she’d suddenly had a manic urge to bake a cake and had collected everything on the kitchen table, which had taken her over half an hour – and then there’d been a power cut which meant she couldn’t even pre-heat the oven. She’d taken another twenty minutes putting everything back much less tidily. She’d slept for an hour and been woken by Frank, who had come in and talked about Sunset Lodge. The postman knew almost everything there was to know, and Jonas and Lucy both rolled their eyes so they didn’t have to say out loud: Only in Shipcott!

She had watched Countdown, where the conundrum had been ‘residents’ even though the same letters also spelled ‘tiredness’, which wasn’t really fair, was it? Then she rambled on for ages about her letter from Charlie, her oldest school friend. Charlie’s husband had had adult mumps, her seven-year-old son, Luca, had been diagnosed as dyslexic, while her younger, Saul, had run away from the first kitten he’d ever seen, shouting, ‘Rat! Rat!’

They both laughed and Jonas stopped eating to stroke her face with the backs of his fingers.

She crumpled before his eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks so hard that they splashed on to the table as if from a faulty tap. Jonas dropped his fork and took her in his arms. There was nothing he could – or would – say that would make any of it better.

The illness, the murders, the baby-shaped hole in her life.

In the face of each of them he was overwhelmed and useless. There had been a time when he’d thought he could help, could be of some comfort; a time when he’d thought he could make a difference.

That was no longer true.

Sometimes you just had to accept what you were.

And what you were never meant to be.

He had never cried with her, but he’d never come closer than this, and they spent minutes like that, he kneeling beside her, she rigid in his arms, her hands over her face to keep her pain to herself – her refusal to let him share it properly an indication that he was to blame, in some part at the very least. He felt that burden settle like cold lead in his heart.

Slowly she quieted and disengaged herself. He gave her kitchen roll; she blew her nose.

‘OK, Lu?’ he asked softly.

‘Frank left the gate open,’ she replied without looking at him. ‘It’s been banging all day.’

Jonas put his boots back on and went down the dark garden path. More snow had fallen this afternoon and he needed to clear it again. He thought how frustrating it must have been for Lucy not to be able to venture the ten yards to her own front gate for fear of falling, while all the time the gate banged. The catch needed oiling really, so it would shut more easily. When he’d shut it he would get the shovel and clear the path, in case he didn’t have time in the morning. Now that he was off Margaret Priddy’s doorstep, he expected to be hectic instead of bored.

Oil the gate, empty the washing machine, do the ironing, clear the path, refill the bird feeders so that the robin would keep coming to keep Lucy company. He needed to remember the little things that kept their lives functioning, but he knew that by the time he went back into the house he’d have forgotten at least one of the items. He should make a list.

Home and work. Both needed constant maintenance, like an old British motorbike. Otherwise the oil squeezed through the casings and left ugly black stains on the floor of their lives.

He thought he’d keep up the night patrols. Just for an hour or so each night; give people a sense of security. A false sense, of course – events had demonstrated that only too well – but even a false sense of security was better than nothing when fear was uppermost in everybody’s mind. Yes, the night patrols were good for the village.

Jonas shut the gate.

As he did, his fingers touched something papery.

By the stars he could see it was a note pinned to the outside of the gatepost.

With his second underneath feeling of the day coiling like slime in his stomach, Jonas reached over and tugged the paper free of the shiny gold drawing pin.

_

Five Days

Elizabeth Rice watched the CSI pottering about with powder and gelatin lifts at her window, keeping up a muttered running commentary on his own methods like a fussy TV cook.