Belinda Bauer - Darkside

It had taken almost a year before Steven had even engaged in conversation beyond a flushed and mumbled ‘Hello,’ but he took his gratuity seriously and, on the occasions when Lucy failed to answer his knock, he would wait and knock again, or go round and check the garden. He never left without finding her, and once had called Jonas to tell him his wife was crying upstairs, and then waited for nearly an hour on the chilly doorstep for him to come home.

Now Steven would come in and say, ‘I brought your paper, Mrs Holly,’ then Lucy would ask him to sit down for five minutes and he would do that – always on the most uncomfortable chair in the room – and he would face the TV and watch with her whatever was on. Sometimes it was Countdown , sometimes it was one of those shows about buying houses or selling antiques, mostly it was a horror movie and they would flinch together in companionable silence. Lucy no longer minded that Steven saw her using her tasselled cushion for protection, and she never mentioned that she often saw him gently shut his eyes in moments of extreme tension.

Steven had eyes that often looked distant, as if something was troubling him. She imagined it must be his homework or girls, but she never asked. She was afraid that if she did, he would shy away from coming again.

And Lucy loved having him there.

She’d been a kindergarten teacher before the disease had taken hold of her, and missed children with a passion – their fresh openness, their honesty and lack of guile. The way they would look to her for comfort, or come in with a joke they’d been saving up for her, give her misshapen lumps of painted clay for her birthday, and the way they didn’t mind being babied if they skinned their shins on the jungle gym.

Over the years Lucy had tried offering Steven a cup of tea or a biscuit, in the hope that he would extend his stay, but he had never accepted. He would get a little frown line between his eyes as if he was really considering it, and then always say the same thing: ‘Ummmm… no thank you.’ So she’d stopped asking that and instead now and then asked him about himself. He would answer briefly without turning away from the TV, and with a refreshing indifference to his own ego that made his life so far sound like the most tedious sixteen years in human history. He lived with his mother and grandmother and little brother Davey. They did nothing and went nowhere. School was all right, he supposed. He liked history and he wrote a good letter. Once he’d brought her a bag of carrots he and his Uncle Jude had grown. Another time it was beans. ‘I don’t like them, but they’re fun to grow,’ he’d said, watching police frogmen drag a bloated corpse from a river. ‘Water destroys all the good evidence,’ he’d added sombrely at the screen, making Lucy look away to smile.

Occasionally, as time wore on, Steven would volunteer something even if she hadn’t asked.

His mother had a new job cleaning at the school and now was always there when he got home. He was planting onions, which his nan had promised to pickle. ‘Makes my mouth go funny just thinking of them.’ It was his friend Lewis’s birthday and Steven had bought him a catapult. ‘And ammo,’ he added mysteriously.

Lucy was fascinated by it all.

Now she hit mute on The Antiques Roadshow in the hope that Steven would fill the space with random boy-speak.

After a few dead-end questions from her, she struck gold when Steven mentioned that his nan had bought slippers at Barnstaple market and then insisted on keeping them even though they were both left feet. ‘She looks like she’s always going round corners,’ he said seriously, and seemed pleasantly surprised when Lucy laughed.

He turned back to the telly. ‘I’ve seen this one,’ he sighed at a woman with an ugly Majolica pot, and stood up. Ten minutes a week – maybe fifteen – was all Steven Lamb ever gave her, but Lucy cherished the time.

‘Bye, Mrs Holly,’ he mumbled.

‘Bye, Steven,’ she said and listened to the squeak and then the rumble that was him leaving for another week. She thought about his life unfolding – somewhere else away from her – and sighed. Now she understood why her mother called so often.

When she switched back from The Antiques Roadshow she’d missed The Exorcist’s head-spinning scene and rewound. Then she watched the demonic girl’s neck twist and creak in sickening circles – while all the time she yearned for a child.

The heating in the stable was on the blink and short flurries of overnight snow seemed to have come through the TV aerial because even the few available channels were now only visible through a white swirl of static. After cursing the tepid water and aborting a shave, Marvel decided he needed to yell at someone, so called Jos Reeves a good hour before he was due to arrive at the lab.

‘Well,’ said Reeves calmly at the other end of the line – and Marvel itched as he heard the man light up a cigarette before continuing – ‘we’ve got seven hairs, dozens of fibres and we rushed through the saliva on the pillow.’

Marvel didn’t acknowledge the rush. ‘Is it hers?’

‘Yes. Looks like you have your murder.’

‘Good,’ said Marvel, devoid of tact. ‘Prints?’

‘No fingers, no feet.’

‘Fuck,’ said Marvel. ‘Semen?’

‘Nope. No blood, no semen. Some urine though.’

‘She had a bag. It burst.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Reeves.

Marvel was now irritated anew by the fact that he’d chosen to call and yell at one of the few people he couldn’t intimidate. Jos Reeves was so laid back he was supine. Not for the first time, Marvel wondered about the contents of the cigarette he could hear Reeves sucking on now and then. He wished he’d called Reynolds instead and demanded something unreasonable. Watch his head get all patchy. He told Reeves to keep him updated when they had results on the hairs and fibres and hung up while he still had a reasonable reserve of vitriol.

Marvel walked across the wet concrete courtyard and knocked officiously on Joy Springer’s door. Even though it was 7am and still dark, the old woman was up and dressed and had a hand-rolled cigarette clamped in her drawstring mouth. Another setback in his quest for the upper hand.

‘There’s no hot water,’ he snapped.

‘Well it’s not cold , is it?’ she snapped back.

Marvel was wrong-footed. ‘It’s lukewarm,’ he said feebly.

‘Lukewarm in’t cold. Did you let it run?’

‘No,’ he said grudgingly.

‘You got to give it a chance to come through, bay. Specially when there’s a freeze on.’

Marvel glanced past her and saw the bottle on the kitchen table. It looked like breakfast.

Joy Springer saw his gaze and moved forward to hustle him backwards. She clutched her big old woollen cardigan with leather buttons together at her wrinkled throat and gestured at the open door with one gnarled hand. ‘And now you’m be letting my heat out.’

Marvel withdrew gracelessly and went back to his quarters, wishing he could start the morning again. He let the water run and it finally came through hot, but only if he almost closed the tap to a trickle. Finally he boiled the inadequate travel kettle and shaved with the proceeds.

He banged on Reynolds’s door half an hour before they’d agreed, but his DS was ready to go.

‘I’m arresting Priddy,’ Marvel said by way of good morning.

Reynolds knew better than to openly disagree. ‘OK,’ he said neutrally as they walked to the car.

‘If it was burglary gone wrong then the killer knew the nurses’ routines and he knew what he was looking for, in which case it’s got to be one of the nurses or a friend or family. If it was murder, then it’s personal and ditto.’