Belinda Bauer - Darkside

Slow sleet started to fall straight down from the sky like broken plumb-lines, and the boys got up as one and hurried off. Marvel pulled the collar of his overcoat up around his ears and ventured out on to the grass. Past the side of Margaret Priddy’s home and round to the bottom of the garden, which was enclosed by buckled sheep wire on concrete posts and – now – a strip of police tape which an over-enthusiastic somebody had used to wrap around the entire house and garden like a birthday bow. Pollard, most likely. He lacked the imagination to make a bad job of anything.

The sheep wire sagged and bowed in several places, loose between the posts, and he had no trouble stepping over it. As he did he noticed that his dull-brown brogues were going dark with water, and made a mental note to buy some boots. He walked up the overgrown back garden, ridiculously trying not to put his feet down in the wet grass. He passed broken terracotta flowerpots showing dead roots, a pile of old metal door strips, a couple of plastic carrier bags pressed against the boundary fence, while a ramshackle kennel spoke of a long-ago dog. As if on cue a small brown terrier started to bark at him from next door, running up and down the line of the fence as if it might break through and tear him limb from limb, even though it was barely taller than his shin.

‘Piss off !’ Marvel feinted towards the dog and it yelped and rushed behind a garden shed, from where it peered and growled.

‘All mouth and no bloody trousers,’ muttered Marvel, then swore and lurched sideways to avoid stepping in what looked like vomit in the grass between the back door and the lean-to. He stood for a moment staring down at it while large wet drops of ice plopped into it like little meteorites. Vomit! There was vomit at the murder scene and no one had spotted it! Not surprising – the vomit was only really visible from directly above – splashed through the tufty, unkempt grass like modern art. Marvel stood hunched over it, protecting it from the sleet, then realized that he couldn’t do that for as long as it would take for someone to get down here from the lab. They were lucky it had been pretty dry since the body was discovered.

There was an old steel dustbin on its side and he looked around for the lid. When he found it he put it carefully over the splash.

He pulled out his mobile phone and glared at the lack of signal bars on it. He’d discovered that they came and went here, seemingly on a whim, sometimes lingering for hours, sometimes teasing with a fleeting appearance and then winking out as quickly as they’d come.

The bloody sticks.

He looked up at the bedroom window. From here he could see how easy it had been for the killer to get into the house. The green wheelie bin that must have been used as a ladder had been carefully wrapped and taken to the lab for examination. His eyes traced the obvious path from the lean-to roof to the window. A man would have to be fit to pull himself up to force the latch and then over the sill, but he wouldn’t have to be Superman.

Marvel tried the back door and felt a little stab of irritation when it opened, even though it saved him having to go round to the front door and using the key he had. He’d find out who had been responsible for leaving the house secure and give them a bollocking.

Inside, the place already felt abandoned. The kitchen where he and Reynolds had drunk tea just the day before yesterday was now cold and dingy. Their mugs were still in the sink with the dregs in the bottom. He wondered whether Peter Priddy had found the Jaffa Cakes after they’d left.

He tried the lights and they came on, although even they seemed dull and sickly.

Upstairs he stood in the bedroom doorway and stared for several minutes at the bed where Margaret Priddy had died. The linen had been stripped from it and taken away to the lab. All that was left was a blue mattress with an old yellow-brown stain on it. On the bedside table was a lamp with a stand made of a chipped plaster cherub, and a shade the same colour as the stain.

There was also an alarm clock, a box of tissues, and a dog-eared copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune . Distant planets, spice wars and giant worms. One of the nurses was a man, he remembered. Gary Something. Liss. Gary Liss. Marvel guessed that the book belonged to him.

Lightning flickered and the lights went out with a resigned click. There was a long second when Marvel missed the tiny sound of electricity, and then he adjusted. With the fading light and the storm clouds, the house was all but dark now and Marvel could feel his heart pumping more urgently. Marvel had never liked the dark. Stupid! It was a power cut – that was all. Nothing to be afraid of. He took a rechargeable penlight from his pocket and switched it on. Strangely, it made him feel worse, not better. As if everything outside the narrow beam was now even blacker and more dangerous than it had been before.

Half a dozen Christmas cards were curling with damp beside the bed. He glanced at each; they said safe, meaningless things and were signed with the names of old people.

Love from Jean and Arthur. Best wishes from Dolly, Geoff and Family .

He opened the drawers and the wardrobe and examined the detritus of a life. The wardrobe contained few items of clothing but what there was smelled of damp. A winter coat, two dresses, a skirt, two blouses, carefully folded underwear, two pairs of sensible shoes speckled with mould. Enough to be going on with had Margaret Priddy ever been the subject of a miracle rather than a murder. The drawers were mini scrapyards of single earrings, old lipsticks, foreign coins and what looked like a pair of spurs. Right at the back of the bottom drawer was a jewellery box, which he opened with a modicum of anticipation, but all it held were yellowing invitations to weddings and christenings and a few fragile letters. He unfolded one… wasn’t at the Ridge when we arrived so we had coffee in the conservatory and waited… the going was bottomless so we all got into a fine mess and I was glad to hand the nappy beast back at the yard and walk away without a backward glance… naturally Raymond opened the ’63 – always the snob…

Marvel refolded the letter, closed the drawer and flicked off the penlight. His fingers were covered in fingerprint powder, which he wiped on the chintz curtains. Debbie would have gone mad to see him do it.

The window sill and frame were similarly daubed with powder and he ran a practised eye around the square of the frame, seeking anything the CSIs had missed. He always thought he might and was usually disappointed. They knew their job and did it well. The vomit was a rarity, but it wouldn’t stop him giving Jos Reeves an earful first chance he got.

Outside the sleet had turned to rain.

He looked out at the moor, which rose so steep and close behind the houses that it stole the remaining light from the room.

What a place to live.

What a place to die.

He shivered and turned away from the window. Before he came back he’d get Grey to check the fuses; the man fancied himself handy.

Halfway down the stairs he heard a sound. He froze and held his breath. It came again – a scrape, a clink. His eyes followed his ears to the front door and he started to move again – with surprising stealth for a man his age and size. Another scrape. Someone was at the door. Trying to be quiet. Trying to break in? He put his hand to his pocket, felt his phone, but knew there was no signal… knew he’d have to deal with this alone… felt his heartbeat pick up again and adrenaline spurt into his guts at the thought.

Despite his job, it had been a long time since Marvel was in any actual personal danger. Homicide detectives, by their very nature, arrived after the killer had done his deed, and retro-engineered the crime from there. Sure, sometimes the killer was still at the scene – in the shape of a glazed-drunk teenager or a husband who had snapped and was already confessing. But being in imminent threat of violence was so rare that – if pressed – Marvel would have had trouble remembering when it had last happened.