Darkside

by Belinda Bauer

  Jonas stared numbly at the pony in its death throes. It must have been injured internally because blood was now spurting from its nose as it made bubbly, squealing sounds, still trying to heave itself upright in a pointless but instinctive bid for survival. In the wild, the horse that could not get up was doomed. This one was doomed anyway, but still tried to get to its feet in a terrified panic at being left behind by its herd to be picked off by predators.

  To watch it suffering was sickening. To smell it was worse. Under the fear and the blood Jonas could smell its olde-worlde horse smell of dusty pelt and grass and sweet manure. For some reason he couldn’t explain, those smells disturbed him more than anything.

  Finally it gave up.

  Its head flopped heavily to the tarmac at Jonas’s feet while blood continued to run out of its nose. Its flanks heaved more shallowly, and its eye started to lose focus.

  Jonas felt nauseous without the capacity for vomiting. He felt tired without the capacity to sleep. And the embers of the headache had flared to white heat in his brain.

  Distantly, he watched the blood from the dying pony’s nose pool towards his shoe; in this light it looked black and oily. The animal grunted once, then sighed hugely as the last of its breath left it.

  ‘Is it dead?’ said Marvel.

  The younger man said nothing; Marvel took that as a ‘yes’.

  ‘It kicked the shit out of my hand.’ Marvel’s voice was shaky and he leaned over to study his hand by the lights of the car. In the redness he couldn’t see anything wrong with it but it hurt all along its outer edge. He straightened up and looked left and right to where he knew the narrow ribbon of road draped over the moor.

  ‘Suppose we’d better get it out of the road.’ Marvel bent down. ‘You want to take a leg?’

  Jonas didn’t bend down. ‘It’s too heavy,’ he said instead.

  ‘You think so?’ Marvel grabbed a hoof and leaned back. The leg stretched but the horse didn’t budge. ‘You going to help me?’

  ‘No.’

  Marvel squinted at him as if he hadn’t heard Jonas correctly. ‘What?’

  ‘I said no. I don’t like horses.’

  ‘You don’t have to like it, for fuck’s sake! It’s dead! Just grab a bloody leg!’

  Jonas didn’t move; Marvel dropped the leg and the hoof hit the road with a clunk. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’

  Jonas shrugged.

  Marvel nodded at the Land Rover. ‘You got a winch on that thing?’

  While Jonas prepared the winch, Marvel had a cigarette. He didn’t smoke often – it was all so bloody awkward nowadays – but out here in the middle of the moor in the middle of the night, he puffed furiously, loving the way the end of the cigarette fired up in the darkness every time he sucked on it.

  He thought about touching the pony’s living skin through its thick fur, and remembered Margaret Priddy. How warm she once was, and how cold she was now.

  And there was the little stir he always got sooner or later. There was the moment when her death stopped being a job for him and became a personal crusade. It had taken a dying horse to remind him of how every murdered body he stared down at was once alive and terrified and facing lawless death. Marvel was relieved to find that rudder of personal affront, which he knew would keep him steady now throughout the investigation.

  Jonas drove slowly and bumpily into the heather, then got out and walked around to free the pony, hardly noticing the deep, wet vegetation forcing water through his trousers, socks and work shoes. His only thought, drubbing in time to the jackhammer in his brain, was to get it over with before his head exploded. He wound out some slack and nudged the cable loose enough with his toe so he could lift it back over the muddy fetlock.

  The pony lay stretched out as if bounding easily across the moor, looking strangely fleet of foot in death. Jonas knew that within hours foxes would have found it, and at first light the crows would take its eyes, which were already fading to dull grey pebbles in its skull.

  He got back in the car and turned towards Shipcott.

  ‘What about the pub?’ Marvel said a little petulantly.

  Jonas said nothing.

  They drove in silence to the stables and the Land Rover swung round in the yard and gravelled to a halt.

  Marvel snorted when he saw that Reynolds was back with the car. He could have waited an hour, avoided getting kicked by a dying horse, and still have had a couple of pints.

  He got out of the Land Rover and peered back in at Jonas. He hoped he wasn’t going to start up about Peter Priddy again, but the man looked distant and tightly wound. Probably thinking about the paperwork he’d have to do tomorrow on the police Land Rover.

  ‘Thanks for the drink.’ Marvel was half joking, but because Jonas said nothing in ironic response, the words hung there and then soured into something far more sarcastic – even bullying.

  What the fuck. The night had been a disaster from start to finish. He should have stuck with Tracy Barlow.

  Marvel swung the door shut and watched the young policeman drive away.

  It felt like four in the morning but it was only 10.30pm. Through a chink in Reynolds’s curtain he could see his DS was watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Marvel almost laughed out loud. Typical! The bloody clever clogs! Showing off even when he was alone! Still, he felt like company – felt like sharing his adventure. He was about to knock when he saw Joy Springer’s kitchen curtain twitch. On a whim he went over and knocked on her door instead. She opened it a hair’s breadth and glared at him.

  ‘We hit a horse up on the moor,’ he said.

  ‘So?’ she said, while ash drooped dangerously off the end of her cigarette.

  Marvel wasn’t in the mood to beat about the bush.

  ‘I’m a bit shaken up. You got anything to drink?’

  She poked her head outside so she could make sure he wasn’t about to bring in a whole legion of freeloaders, then opened the door.

  The kitchen was stiflingly hot – just the way Marvel liked it. Joy Springer got two odd mugs off the dresser and poured from a bottle.

  ‘Sit down if you want,’ she said.

  Underfoot were flagstones covered in a virtual rug of cat hair. There was a cat on the kitchen table and, with only a brief glance, Marvel noticed another four dotted about on various mismatched armchairs and a sofa. He chose one end of the sofa and almost fell through its sagging bottom. She handed him a drink and he took a sip and grimaced.

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Dubonnet,’ she said spikily. ‘If you don’t want it, you can pour it back in the bottle.’

  He shrugged and took another sip. ‘I’ve got some Jameson’s in my room.’

  ‘We’ll have that tomorrow then,’ she declared.

  *

  The bathroom at Rose Cottage was quick to steam up and slow to clear, so that the moisture hung in the air for ages, like an extension of the moor itself. It was so thick that the windows were curtained with steam, and they never bothered with the blinds, even at night. Jonas stood utterly still and let the shower cleanse him of the night’s activities, just as he let the sound of the water drown out his memory, leaving him pristine and empty. He stood like that until he felt the chill of death leave every part of him, then turned the water off, grabbed a towel and stepped over his clothes, which lay in a damp pile on the bathroom floor.

  He wrapped the towel around his waist and did his teeth. Habit made him stare into the mirror while he brushed, but the glass was opaque and he didn’t bother wiping it. Instead he watched the diffuse half-shape that was also him moving in time to his own ablutions. It was hypnotic and comforting, like a distant twin who was living another life behind the steam, similar but different to his, where all the edges were comfortingly fuzzy and nothing had to be faced in harsh focus. Jonas brushed for longer than normal, until his mouth burned with minty freshness. He stuffed his clothes into the laundry basket and – despite the hour – cleaned the bath and the basin
. It was one thing to tick off his list of chores.

  Lucy was asleep in bed. She liked to make the effort to get upstairs even if he wasn’t there to help her. Sometimes she could crawl up quite fast; sometimes it took her half an hour. She’d taken to leaving a book halfway up the stairs so she could stop and rest without getting bored. The book there at the moment was a novel called Fate Dictates. Like his woolly thinking on the afterlife, Jonas was unsure about whether or not he believed in Fate. Who knew how life was going to work out? What weirdness was just around the corner? Could it be controlled? And if it could, would you want to control it?

  He towelled his short, dark hair hard and fast and slid into bed beside Lucy before he could lose the wonderful warmth of the shower.

  As he did, she stirred and rolled towards him.

  ‘Where were you?’ she murmured sleepily.

  ‘Wet and cold and not with you,’ he whispered, stroking her hair.

  ‘I’m glad you’re home.’ He could hear the lazy little smile in her voice and felt her hand sneak on to his hip. He smiled in the darkness at the way it made the night’s events disappear behind him as if they’d never been.

  She lifted his hand and placed it over her small round breast.

  ‘I’m glad you’re home too,’ he said, and kissed her with intent for the first time in months. At the same time, he whispered into her mouth: ‘I’m sorry.’

  Fifteen Days

  Jonas walked down into the village at eight o’clock the next day feeling truly happy for the first time in many weeks.

  The morning was so bright it hurt his eyes. The sky was already a pale Mediterranean blue, while the moor below it sparkled like quartz under a thick frost. Every breath he took was menthol in his nostrils. His work shoes were still soaked from the drama the night before, so he’d put his walking boots on, with three pairs of socks for warmth.

  The fall-out from last night had been minimal. The Land Rover’s bull bars had protected the lights and bodywork, and he’d reported the dead horse to Eric Scott, the local park ranger, first thing this morning. Then he’d called Bob Coffin, the huntsman with the Blacklands Hunt, to tell him where he could find the carcass. His headache had gone so completely that Jonas could barely imagine what a headache felt like, and although Marvel had not exactly said he’d leave Peter Priddy alone, at least Jonas had raised the alibi with him as he’d promised he would.

  Mostly, though, he felt better for having failed to take Marvel to the pub. It was a childish victory but a victory none the less. Of course, thanks to Marvel he now had all day to stand on the doorstep and savour it, while waiting for that wholly predictable killer to return like iron filings to the magnet of the crime scene.

  Jonas smiled ruefully.

  Oh well. At least it wasn’t raining.

  The boys were skating as he came down the hill. In the quiet air he heard them before he saw them – a sound like little trains on short journeys, each ending with a clatter, a laugh, a sound of approval or a sharp expletive that floated faintly upward from the playing field. The ramp came into view below him. Three boys. Steven Lamb, Dougie Trewell and one of the Tithecott boys. Chris? Mark? He couldn’t tell from here.

  Jonas stood and looked down on them for a moment, admiring their lazy grace – even all bundled up in their thick winter jackets, their motions were elegant. He’d seen plenty of bad skaters on that ramp since coming back to Shipcott – had taken Lalo Bryant and his broken ankle to hospital himself – but these three boys were good to watch, especially on a morning like this, where the white playing field around them was painted orange by the late-rising sun, and their tracks through the frost gave the scene a festive feel. The reminder of the Christmas just past made Jonas uneasy. The silence; the tight white face of Lucy’s mother bustling up and down stairs; the false smiles and season’s greetings, the unwrapped gifts under the unlit tree. Most of all, the sight of Lucy – wan and silent – in their bed, when she could just as easily have been dead. Before Christmas Day even dawned, Jonas had pushed the tree nose-first into the bin, lights, tinsel and all.

  As he started to walk again, Jonas’s eye was caught by something yellow at the edge of the playing field. He backed up a couple of paces to regain the view through a gap in the hedge.

  There was something in the stream that bordered the field close to the ramp. Probably a plastic bag, but Jonas’s gut stirred uneasily.

  He hurried fifty yards down the hill to where the hedge was interrupted by a rusty five-bar gate, bent from the time Jack Biggins had roped a cow to it without using a baler-twine loop.

  Now Jonas climbed those same bent bars until he’d gained another three feet to add to his existing six-four. From this height – and closer to the stream – he could see it was not a plastic bag.

  Jonas leaped off the gate into the field and ran down the hill. The bright morning suddenly seemed surreal. He shouldn’t be running with this fluttering in his guts on such a morning, with frost crackling under his feet. At the bottom of the field he vaulted the stile on to the playing field and ran faster. Now he was on the flat he couldn’t see the yellow thing any more, but he’d taken bearings in his mind, and ran straight and true past the swings and then the ramp, towards the crooked blackthorn that leaned drunkenly over the stream.

  He reached the bank and there it was.

  The body.

  Yellow T-shirt bunched around the waist, pink knickers, blue-white skin.

  He knew. He knew!

  Jonas slithered down the bank, half falling, feeling the frozen mud on one cheek of his backside. The boots he’d worn that day for warmth cracked through the delicate plates of ice that had formed at the edges of the stream, and filled with water as he splashed the few feet to the body and turned it over.

  ‘Mrs Marsh! Yvonne!’

  Jonas dropped to his knees in the icy water and cleared her mouth, then started to breathe into the woman he knew was already dead.

  Shit.

  He dragged her to the water’s edge. He couldn’t get her up the bank – not alone – but he needed a firm surface. He balanced her awkwardly, knelt over her and pumped her chest, then breathed into her again.

  ‘Mrs Marsh!’

  He slapped her face hard, then breathed again, pumped her chest, then breathed again … felt everything in the world going awry.

  The three boys from the ramp were above him, pale-faced and big-eyed.

  ‘Call an ambulance!’ he yelled.

  The Tithecott boy fumbled his phone open and said, ‘No signal.’

  ‘Run to the houses!’ Jonas yelled, before forcing more air into Yvonne Marsh’s spongey lungs.

  The boy took off, running. Without a word, Dougie Trewell slid down the mud into the stream and helped to keep Yvonne Marsh’s upper body on the bank while Jonas worked on her. Steven Lamb sank to his knees in the white grass and just watched.

  Jonas knew it was pointless. Yvonne Marsh was dead and had probably been dead for hours. Now he thought about it, there had been a little crackling sound as he’d tugged her body over on to its back – the sound of ice breaking around it. She had been there for a while, held still by the branches of the blackthorn and by the delicate ice that had embraced her. Maybe overnight. Who knew?

  Danny Marsh might know. Or his father. And even if they didn’t know that, thought Jonas wearily, they would know this for sure – that all their vigilance and their locks and their love and their care had not been enough to stop one vulnerable woman from wandering out into the freezing winter in bare feet, knickers and a baggy T-shirt, to drown in a freezing stream.

  Everybody had to sleep some time, and that was the truth.

  It was this thought that finally made Jonas give up. He looked across the stream at the rising moors, keeping all his air for himself now.

  ‘Is she dead?’ said Dougie Trewell tremulously.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jonas. All the energy he’d been filled with this morning had gone. ‘You’d better get out of the water, Do
ugie.’

  Dougie let go of the body and Jonas felt how much of its weight he’d taken in trying to help. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and the boy nodded mutely. He was Ronnie Trewell’s younger brother and so always skirting the edges of delinquency – but he’d shown some character today. Something to hope for. Jonas turned to the other boy, who looked a million miles away. ‘You want to help Dougie home, Steven? Make sure he gets warm?’

  Steven focused slowly on him again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Help Dougie, Steven. Take him home.’

  ‘OK.’

  Steven reached out and helped Dougie up the bank, and they walked away in a daze.

  Jonas realized he hadn’t given them instructions on getting help for him. The ambulance could take ages on icy roads. The boys might not have the presence of mind to think about him. He tried to manoeuvre his phone from inside his jacket, but the operation proved impossible while he was holding Yvonne Marsh. Finally he knew he’d have to let go of her body to do it, so he did, and felt the slow current start to pull it away from him. Her legs were still in the water. Jonas clutched at the yellow T-shirt with one hand while he flipped open his phone. There was one bar of signal. Miraculous. Maybe he should make all his mobile-phone calls from running water. He had been half kneeling on the bank, but now stood up in the water; his legs almost gave way under him, they were so cold. He stood in the way of the body and called Marvel while the current pressed the dead Yvonne Marsh insistently against his legs.

  It wasn’t until he spoke to Marvel that Jonas realized he might be standing up to his knees in a crime scene. He’d only called him because he was police and there were no police closer to Shipcott than Marvel was, and he needed help getting the hell out of this water before his legs fell clean off. But Marvel was immediately suspicious. Jonas figured that was how it was to be a homicide detective – every death was guilty until proven innocent.

  ‘Don’t touch the body!’ Marvel snapped as soon as Jonas told him he’d found one.