Darkside

Those two things bothered Marvel, he realized with a little jag of annoyance. Why couldn’t he just enjoy the fact that they had identified the killer? Why did his memory have to bring up the kind of annoying details that he was more used to discounting from Reynolds?

The relief had been a con; a quick shot on a cold night, which could not keep him from frostbite – merely dull his senses while it ate his fingers and toes.

He had no time for relief.

Relief was for wimps.

He could do with a drink to focus his mind.

Marvel thought about the almost genteel murder of Margaret Priddy, compared to the efficient brutality visited on the three late residents of Sunset Lodge. The escalation was disturbing. It spoke of an increasing loss of control.

It was probably Gary Liss. He wished he could be sure. He was sure. The disappearance, the stolen jewellery. He was sure.

Soon they would know. Nobody was going to be able to stay hidden for long in this weather – not without at least trying to go home – and Jonas had assured him that Paul Angell was cooperating. Liss had no family to run to and Angell was also insisting that Gary Liss had no other lovers. Marvel wasn’t so sure about that but, either way, it had been thirty-six hours and Liss was without his car – a twelve-year-old Renault Clio which was sitting forlornly in the car park with a foot of snow on the roof and a flapping square of police tape around it. Marvel had moved all the new crew to house-to-house inquiries and searching outbuildings. It hadn’t made him popular, but very little he’d ever done had made him popular, so he wasn’t boo-hooing about that.

No, Liss would soon be discovered, and then they would know the truth within seconds. A single killing might be concealed for a short while, but five was the work of a madman, and this time Marvel would be able to sniff it on Liss like a dog trained by having a murder-rag rubbed over its nose. He could almost smell it now, the sour fear of a man trapped by the enormity of his own crimes; the self-justification for unjustifiable deeds. Marvel’s jaw clenched in anger, even before he had anyone to take it out on.

‘… in which case the killer may not even be aware of what he’s doing. She also says some killers just stop. They reach saturation point and don’t feel the need to kill again for years – maybe even never – depending on …’ Reynolds tapered off lamely under Marvel’s glare.

‘I stopped listening to you,’ said Marvel bluntly, and Reynolds shrugged. He’d gathered that.

Marvel got up and picked up the car keys. ‘This is bullshit. All these fucking theories aren’t getting us any closer to finding Liss. All we know for sure is that this bastard is escalating – fast.’

Reynolds nodded. ‘Knowing him is not the same as stopping him.’

‘That’s right,’ said Marvel, yanking open the unit door and letting winter rush in, ‘and we need to get our arses into gear, because something tells me that if we don’t stop him, he’s not finished.’

* * *

Lionel Chard’s room had been taped off as a crime scene.

Now as he stared into it from the doorway, Marvel felt like a visitor to a stately home. Here is the bed, ladies and gentlemen, where the King took the virginity of Catherine of Aragon; and here is the Sealy Posturepedic upon which Mr Chard was beaten to death by person or persons unknown.

Through the white window he could see flakes falling from the sky.

Even the snow was against him.

The manhunt had been stalled by snow, which could now only be traversed beyond the village boundaries by 4X4s.

The footprints outside the garden room had been methodically measured and photographed, but Marvel had seen more convincing yeti prints.

And finding a murder weapon in the snow was like … well, they might as well do it blindfolded. Grey had suggested as much after yet another Braille-like search of the graveyard, and Marvel had told him to do it again.

Marvel moved the few paces to the entrance to Gorse – Violet Eaves’s room. As he did so he thought of Gary Liss doing the same thing. He waved a casual hand across the doorway and heard the faint beep from downstairs. Lynne Twitchett and Jen Hardy had heard several beeps. They couldn’t agree on how many exactly. Had that stupid electronic sound been the straw that broke the camel’s back for Gary Liss? Had Violet Eaves sleepwalked one too many times, in his perverse view? Had his patience finally snapped and he’d hit her and then panicked, which had led to the massacre?

‘Shit,’ said Marvel. It didn’t fit with the careful murder of Margaret Priddy and the seemingly random choice of Yvonne Marsh.

If Gary Liss was not the killer, then that first beep may well have been the killer entering Violet’s room, rather than the old lady leaving it. Although she had left her room that night, one way or another.