Belinda Bauer - Darkside

‘We have no idea if the button is even connected to the murder of Mrs Priddy,’ he said stiffly.

‘That’s not the point,’ she shot back. ‘The point is, why would Jonas be revealing evidence or possible evidence if he’s been trying to hide the truth? Is he finding evidence or is he hiding it, Mr Marvel? You can’t have it both ways. It makes no sense.’

It made no sense to Marvel either, but he’d be damned if he was going to concede that point to Lucy Holly.

‘Mrs Holly—’ he started officiously, but she cut him off.

‘Come on, Mr Marvel. Everyone knows there’s a million bits of forensic evidence that you can use to convict somebody.’

‘True,’ said Marvel. ‘And if that vomit hadn’t disappeared, we might have it.’

‘Or you might have a pile of vomit without a DNA match,’ countered Lucy defiantly. ‘And you have no proof that Danny threw it up or Jonas cleared it away. The point is, you don’t have it at all. Jonas said it was there overnight, which is pretty lax, if you ask me!’

Marvel knew it was too, of course, so he changed tack, hoping to wrong-foot Lucy.

‘Did you know that twenty years ago there was a fire up at Springer Farm?’

‘No.’

‘Well, there was. The owner, Robert Springer, was killed.’

‘So? What does this have to do with you bullying Jonas?’

He ignored her and ploughed on: ‘Mr Springer’s body was found in the only stable that had the door shut. The other doors had been opened – presumably to let the horses out, although they didn’t go.’

He let the fact hang there, hoping for some indication that she knew about it, or had something to hide. She just looked at him neutrally.

‘The coroner ruled misadventure, but I’m not sure that’s the whole story.’

Lucy waited again for him to go on. He collected his thoughts before he continued. He’d only heard of these events hours earlier, and wasn’t sure how they affected his case, so he was even less sure of what – if anything – to tell Lucy Holly.

‘When I told Joy Springer about Danny Marsh’s death last night, she was happy.’

He could read the surprise in Lucy’s eyes, along with the questions she didn’t ask. He answered them anyway.

‘Seems she always suspected Danny of starting the fire.’

‘Why?’

‘Apparently local kids would work up there in exchange for rides, but her husband was always getting at Danny for not pulling his weight, forgetting to put water in the stables, stuff like that. I don’t know what; I don’t know shit about horses. She says he resented it. When the fire happened, the police interviewed all the kids who rode there, but they never came up with any evidence that any of them played any part in the fire.’

‘Maybe she did it,’ interrupted Lucy. ‘Aren’t spouses always the first suspects? Maybe she was pointing the finger at Danny to distract from the fact that she killed him.’

‘I’m just telling you what she told me,’ said Marvel impatiently.

‘Maybe she wore surgical gloves,’ Lucy murmured with a wry raise of her eyebrows.

Marvel ignored the dig. ‘You know Jonas and Danny Marsh were childhood friends?’

‘That doesn’t mean he’d cover up for him if he knew Danny had done something wrong,’ said Lucy quickly. ‘Jonas would never do that.’

Marvel smiled without humour. ‘You know, every wife of every criminal I’ve ever caught has said exactly the same thing – he’d never do that.’

‘Well, it’s true,’ she said defiantly.

‘You knew him as a boy?’ he inquired sarcastically.

‘I know him now,’ she snapped back.

‘You and your husband are well matched.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You both think you know people. Know what they’re capable of.’

‘I suppose you think you know people.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Marvel. ‘And what I know is that people are capable of anything.’

Lucy looked at him with a small smile. ‘I think you know the wrong kind of people, Mr Marvel.’

He shrugged and let her score that point. Proving her wrong would take time he didn’t want to waste. He changed direction again. Maybe he could get something out of Lucy Holly without her even knowing it.

‘Your husband tell you what happened the other night? When we hit the horse?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wouldn’t touch it.’

‘Jonas doesn’t like horses.’ She shrugged.

‘Not now,’ agreed Marvel.

He reached into his inside coat pocket and handed her the photo.

‘What’s this?’ she said, but he thought he’d let her work it out for herself.

She did, but it took her a lot longer than it had taken him. He saw the exact moment she recognized her future husband – the tiny intake of breath and the way she dropped her head to get closer to the photo.

‘Jonas,’ she said.

‘And Danny Marsh.’

She didn’t say anything, her head bowed.

‘Seemed to like horses plenty then, didn’t he?’

Nothing.

‘You know what changed?’

She shook her head, unable to tear her eyes away from the photo.

‘I’m thinking it might go back to the night the stables burned down. Someone they knew died. All the horses died. Must have been traumatic for a kid.’

Lucy nodded silently.

‘Maybe he even felt guilty,’ he suggested carefully. ‘Maybe Danny burned the stables down and Jonas knew about it.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, to his surprise. Seeing the photo seemed to have knocked all the spirit out of Lucy Holly, all the defence and all the defiance.

‘What did he say about it?’ It was worth a shot – tricking her into blurting out something by behaving as if his theory was already established fact.

‘He never told me. I don’t know. I never knew this.’

Her voice was dull. Dead. Marvel was a little concerned, despite himself, at the radical change in Lucy Holly. Her feisty spirit had seemed real, but he saw now that it had been a mere soap-bubble which, once popped, had disappeared so completely that he could not even see where it used to be.

He stood up, feeling oddly guilty that he had done something to her that might be irreparable.

‘I’ve never seen a picture of him as a boy,’ she said, still not looking at him.

‘Why is that?’ Marvel was surprised. Even in his fucked-up relationships he could remember the mother-bearing-photo-album routine as an early step in the courtship dance.

‘I don’t know. Can I keep it?’

‘I’m afraid I need it.’

But she held on to it in hands that shook just a little.

Marvel stood undecided for a long moment. Lucy Holly stared at the photo in her wasted lap, as if he’d already left.

Jonas looked so happy!

That was Lucy’s overwhelming first impression. She had almost not recognized him because of it. His brow, his nose, his lips – all were younger but definite versions of the Jonas she had fallen in love with. But his eyes… his eyes were completely different. Across the years, ten-year-old Jonas Holly grinned at her – without shyness, without caution.

Without fear.

It was all she could think of.

Nothing bad has happened to him yet .

She had never thought of Jonas as fearful until she’d seen this picture. She might have, if she’d seen others, but there were none to see that she could find. No reminders for her of how he had been as a child.

The photo was a tunnel in time. Danny was taller and bigger than the friend who would eventually tower over him and they held two proud little ponies – no doubt long dead. Lucy could see that this was a snapshot of the boys’ whole lives at that moment, plucked from the past and shown to her now: they were at a summer show; they had won; they were happy. That was all that shone from their faces.