Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [11]
He pulled the flimsy file towards him and checked. Lynne Twitchett and Gary Liss. A male nurse. Marvel would have snorted if there'd been anyone in the room to hear him pass comment on male nurses. In his head he knew Gary Liss was large, soft, blond - and camp as a row of tents. He'd lay good money on it.
He lost focus on the TV while he thought of how the investigation would proceed, all the elements that he needed to ensure worked together. When it came to leading a homicide investigation, Marvel liked to think of himself as a swan, sailing majestically along while under the surface his team paddled like crazy to keep the whole thing moving smoothly in the right direction.
Marvel mused on Margaret Priddy. It was a strange one. He had been working murders since he was twenty-four years old and his instincts were pretty sharp, but they didn't have to be honed to know that it's hard for a mute and bedridden old woman to make enemies.
But he also knew that friends could be just as dangerous.
In the morning he'd speak to Margaret Priddy's son.
*
After smothering Margaret Priddy, the killer had gone home, showered, and made himself a cheese and bacon sandwich. There was an old black-and-white film on TV - a wide-eyed Hayley Mills lying her earnest way out of trouble over the sound of his teeth on salty meat and sticky bread. He didn't like to turn the volume up. He watched the girl clambering over rocks, spying on a church picnic, jumping on the back of a white pony. The killer switched off the TV and threw away what was left of his sandwich. He curled into a foetal ball on the couch, slept like a baby, and when he awoke he felt like a new man.
Twenty-two Days
The first snow of this winter came in blustery little flurries, like handfuls of frost thrown across the moor by a petulant god. It gathered on the ground only in pockets and made the moor look merely wan rather than truly white. In the villages it made the pavements slippery without making them pretty first, and for that sin the hardy residents of Exmoor - ponies and people alike - hunched their shoulders and doggedly ignored the stinging flakes.
Despite getting off on the wrong foot, Jonas called Marvel before leaving the house, to offer his local knowledge to the investigating team. It was only professional.
There was a brief pause on the other end of the crackly line, then Marvel said, 'I think we'll manage without you--' before the line went dead. He might have been cut off - mobile signals were notoriously poor on Exmoor - but Jonas was pretty convinced he'd just been hung up on.
He put the phone back in its cradle and Lucy looked at him curiously.
'Business as usual then,' he shrugged, feeling like a fool.
By 9am the snow had stopped and by ten it had started to melt away.
Jonas had a routine. Park at the edge of each village he covered and walk up one side of the main street and back in a rough loop. He would pop into tiny shops or post offices, check on old folk, referee neighbour disputes, have a Coke in the pub. Only when he was sure all was well would he move on to the next village. It let the locals see what their taxes were buying in the way of policing. In winter each village took half the time it did in summer. Summer meant stopping to chat, giving directions to tourists, enjoying the sunshine, buying an ice cream. Winter was all brisk pace and hurried hellos so people could get back to their work or their hearths.
But the Exmoor grapevine had been active and today everybody wanted to talk about Margaret Priddy. Doors opened as he passed and warmth wafted from cottage doors as women stood on doorsteps and asked about what had happened, while passers-by hurried over to hear the latest.
There was no latest, of course. Not that he knew about anyway - and by early afternoon Jonas was sick of saying 'I don't know,' and seeing the surprised, embarrassed looks on the faces of the locals.
In Exford he asked old Reg Yardley to walk his dog by the river and not on the