Belinda Bauer - Darkside

He wished he couldn’t feel Marvel’s hip against his.

‘Them used to be friends. When ’em were nippers. Dunno what happened there…’

He trailed off again.

Marvel realized he was going to have to tweeze information out of Alan Marsh like splinters. It was a job he hated. He preferred blunter tools.

‘How old were they then?’

‘’Bout ten, I suppose.’

‘Were they very close?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, were they best friends?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alan a little dismissively. ‘I was working mostly. Yvonne would know that.’

Yeah, but she’s dead , Marvel felt like pointing out, but didn’t. He could be pretty sensitive when he tried.

‘Would they play here much?’

Again Alan Marsh made an all-purpose gesture of ‘who knows?’ ‘It was a long time back,’ he said. ‘Seemed like it. Why do you want to know, anyway?’

Marvel hadn’t expected the question and was annoyed that he hadn’t anticipated it. He blustered a little. ‘We’re always concerned when a serving officer gets into a public brawl, Mr Marsh. Aren’t you?’

The man shrugged. ‘Danny was mazed. And he took the first swing.’

That was the countryside for you, Marvel supposed. In town, Jonas Holly would already have been suspended and have a lawsuit pending. Here the victim’s own father thought he deserved a good beating by the police.

Refreshing.

Reynolds sighed again and Marvel glared at him before turning back to Alan Marsh, who looked disinterested in life itself, let alone this particular conversation.

‘Have you ever seen Officer Holly behave in that way before, Mr Marsh?’

‘No, but I seen Danny behave like that plenty!’

‘Well, he’s just lost his mother in tragic circumstances.’

‘Bollocks to that,’ said Marsh. ‘Just the way he is. Has been for years.’

Marvel was surprised and looked it, so Alan Marsh went on.

‘He’d bin under the doctor sometimes. Psychiatrist. You know.’

Marvel did know. His nose for motive started to quiver.

‘What’s wrong with him, Mr Marsh?’

‘Not much. Just a bit here and there, you know. Not dangerous or nothing like that. Just a bit down sometimes, that’s all.’

‘Depressed?’

‘I suppose so. A bit down.’

‘Has he ever been hospitalized for depression or something like that?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Alan Marsh definitely. ‘He’s not a nutter , see? Just a bit up and then a bit down.’

‘Manic depressive,’ suggested Reynolds, who thought he’d have to get up and leave if Alan Marsh said ‘a bit down’ one more time.

‘If that’s what you call it.’

‘Always?’

‘Not always,’ said Alan Marsh, looking as if he was thinking about it for the first time. ‘Since he were about twelve or thirteen. About then.’

‘And that’s about the time he and Jonas fell out?’ said Marvel, back on track.

‘Suppose so.’

‘Can you think of any specific reason?’ said Marvel, without one single ounce of hope that Alan Marsh would.

‘No.’

Of course he couldn’t. That would be too bloody easy.

They left.

‘What’s this interest in Jonas, sir?’

Marvel clamped his teeth together. Trust Reynolds to leap to the right conclusion.

He thought his left little toe was getting damp – just on the short walk to the car! He’d have to throw these shoes away. Beyond the village the snow was a Christmassy white blanket. Here it was just ridges of icy slush and running water. Wherever they went, whatever they did, they were accompanied by the gurgling of drains working overtime. At night it all froze again and made every step a hazard. Damn the doglegs that kept him from wellingtons and dry feet.

‘He bothers me.’

Reynolds smiled. ‘We like him now, do we, sir?’

Up until that very second, Marvel had only had a suspicion. A hunch. An intuitive feeling that all was not quite right with Jonas Holly.

But the moment Reynolds said that – in that amused, condescending tone – Marvel decided that he really did like Holly after all. Liked him a lot .

And that he was right .

And that he would do almost anything to prove Reynolds wrong.

It was over.

Danny Marsh knew it.

He’d known it the moment he’d run across the playing fields behind his father and seen his mother lying in the frost like a downed footballer waiting for a magic sponge or a stretcher.

Danny had known it was the beginning of the end for him; that he would never make it alone.

His mother had known him. One of only two people who did.

For years she had let him know – by her look, by her touch, by the stories she pointed out casually in newspapers – that she knew, and even understood. And although they’d never discussed it properly, knowing that had helped.

She would toss down the newspaper beside him on the table and mutter darkly, ‘Got what he deserved!’ or ‘Poor boy. If only he’d told someone.’

Danny would say nothing. He had nothing he cared to tell. Just knowing she still loved him was enough. All through the bitter tears, the dark-tempered years and the razor-blade at the wrist, she loved him. While others started to walk away from him in the schoolyard, stopped passing him the ball, whispered as he left a room… Through all that, Yvonne Marsh had loved him like a big anchor on a small boat in a wild sea.

And then she’d started to just… forget.

Forget that she loved him.

Forget that they shared a secret.

Forget even that she was his mother and he was her son.

It happened slowly and in patches, but it happened. And Danny found that he was supposed to be the anchor now. Dressing her, feeding her, watching her, locking her in, following her out, fetching her back…

A boat is not an anchor. Yvonne Marsh was deep beneath the waves with a broken rope that swayed with the tides. Sometimes he could grasp that rope and feel the old tug of her. But, mostly, once his mother’s mind was lost at sea, Danny Marsh was set adrift.

Even Jonas had let go of the line that had tethered him to the rest of the world.

Now, as Danny sat in the little room where he had grown up – where the back of the door still showed a faded poster of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction – he thought about Jonas Holly.

Instead of a secret strengthening their bond, Jonas had been the first to withdraw.

No more fishing, no more crazy dares, no more galloping about the moors. Once, when Jonas had brought an injured baby rabbit to school in a shoebox, he’d looked wary and turned away so that Danny couldn’t stroke it the way all the other kids had.

When Danny had finally summoned up the guts to ask him what was wrong – even though he knew – Jonas had bitten his lip and tried to go around him. Jonas was smaller then, younger by almost a year, and Danny had stopped him with a hand in his chest. Jonas had knocked the hand away, and before Danny realized it, they were fighting. A proper fight. Not some spat over a penalty kick or a broken Tamagotchi – a fight with bruises and blood and kicking and gouging, which went on long enough for teachers to be summoned and then to arrive. Even after Mr Yates the PE teacher had yanked them apart, they had both tried their hardest to lash out with their feet, and Jonas had pulled a handful of change from the pocket of his grey flannels and hurled it at Danny.