Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [13]
'They'll catch him, Mrs Peters,' he said now, and tried to put as much feeling into it as he could. More than anyone in Shipcott, she deserved to be reassured that she was safe - that her family was safe.
She didn't look reassured. 'Poor Margaret,' she said by way of goodbye. Then she turned into the house and closed the door.
He really should be doing something. Or at least come up with a better answer than 'nothing' the next time somebody asked him. He hadn't realized how bad it sounded until he said it out loud.
Up ahead he saw the milk float bump on to the pavement ...
Will Bishop told Jonas that he'd been paid a month in advance.
'But there's nobody there, Will.'
'Yur, but her's paid me to provide a service, see. Can't just take the money and then stop doing the job just on account of Mrs Priddy being dead, can I?'
Jonas knew that the 'her' who had paid Will Bishop was Peter Priddy. Older locals still blurred their genders that way. He looked at the milkman. He was seventy if he was a day. Whip-thin, weathered, and as crumpled as a brown paper bag. Been delivering milk on this part of the moor seven days a week for over fifty years.
Jonas admired his devotion to duty but he also knew that the logical option - halting the deliveries and giving Peter Priddy his money back - had not even crossed Will Bishop's mind. If there was a tighter fist on Exmoor, Jonas would not have liked to have felt its grip. Had Margaret Priddy's house been picked up and swept away by a twister, Will Bishop would have continued to place a pint on the lonely doorstep every day until he'd discharged his duty. And the very day the bill was overdue, he'd have left a note instead: Pay yor bill or I will see you in cort, or Pay yor milkman or pay the consuquenses. Jonas and Lucy had had such a note themselves which read: Milk bill dew. Pay up OR ELSE.
Jonas hated to pull rank, but ... 'You're not supposed to cross the police tapes, Will. It's a crime scene.'
Will looked up at him witheringly with his small, bright-blue eyes: 'I seen them roller-skate boys bang on the door plenty.'
'I know, but they don't leave a pint of milk there as proof that they've been.' Jonas sighed. 'I don't mind. I know it's harmless. But Taunton is handling the investigation now and they will mind.'
Will waved a hand of dismissal and hopped back into his float. 'Let 'em sue me then! I'll see 'em in court!'
His getaway was slow and electric, but Jonas still felt as if he'd been left eating the milkman's dust.
*
The CSIs had finished with Margaret Priddy's home and so, in the absence of a local police station - and with the stables too far from the village to make an effective base - Marvel had arranged to meet her son there. Once foul play was confirmed, he'd be able to call in a mobile incident room and work from that.
In any case, Marvel liked to question suspects or would-be suspects at the scene of the crime whenever possible. He had seen too many guilty men crack under the weight of memory to discount it as an investigative tool. So he got Reynolds to tell Priddy to meet them outside, and then Marvel led them into the kitchen.
Peter Priddy was a tall, broad man, but with the unfortunate face of a toddler. His cheeks were too rosy, his chin too pudgy, his eyes too blue and his hair too wispy-yellow to fake adulthood, even when perched atop such a frame. But Marvel noted that the man's hand engulfed his own when he shook it. He also noted the shiny black work-shoes that spoke of a uniform in another context.
'Prison officer,' said Priddy when he enquired. 'At Longmoor.'
'Interesting,' said Marvel, which was what he always said when he had no interest.
Priddy spoke slowly and carefully and in the country twang Marvel hated so much. He made tea - thick and milky - and then searched pointlessly through the cluttered kitchen