Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [25]
The window sill and frame were similarly daubed with powder and he ran a practised eye around the square of the frame, seeking anything the CSIs had missed. He always thought he might and was usually disappointed. They knew their job and did it well. The vomit was a rarity, but it wouldn't stop him giving Jos Reeves an earful first chance he got.
Outside the sleet had turned to rain.
He looked out at the moor, which rose so steep and close behind the houses that it stole the remaining light from the room.
What a place to live.
What a place to die.
He shivered and turned away from the window. Before he came back he'd get Grey to check the fuses; the man fancied himself handy.
Halfway down the stairs he heard a sound. He froze and held his breath. It came again - a scrape, a clink. His eyes followed his ears to the front door and he started to move again - with surprising stealth for a man his age and size. Another scrape. Someone was at the door. Trying to be quiet. Trying to break in? He put his hand to his pocket, felt his phone, but knew there was no signal ... knew he'd have to deal with this alone ... felt his heartbeat pick up again and adrenaline spurt into his guts at the thought.
Despite his job, it had been a long time since Marvel was in any actual personal danger. Homicide detectives, by their very nature, arrived after the killer had done his deed, and retro-engineered the crime from there. Sure, sometimes the killer was still at the scene - in the shape of a glazed-drunk teenager or a husband who had snapped and was already confessing. But being in imminent threat of violence was so rare that - if pressed - Marvel would have had trouble remembering when it had last happened.
Now he was shocked by how nervous he felt. How his breathing got too short and too loud and how he was suddenly aware of how noisy he was! His shoes creaked, his palm squeaked on the banister; his thigh-length coat scraped the woodchip wall in papery warning. Everything gave him away. And in a way he wanted it to. In a way he wanted the person who was now trying to gain access to the scene of Margaret Priddy's murder to hear him and run off. Then Marvel could open the front door and stare belligerently up and down the narrow street and pretend he was sorry to have missed his chance.
He suddenly remembered how a lot of people in Quentin Tarantino movies ended up.
He reached the bottom stair, the gloomy tiled hallway, ran his eyes over the door catch - bog-standard Yale - and braced his feet apart for balance. He raised his hands and saw that they were trembling like a drunk's. Outside, the scrape came again. A little whisper of cloth on the other side of the wooden door. He held his breath. All he had to do was quietly twist the knob, grip the handle and pull ...
The brass knob slipped from his sweaty grip, the door hit his foot and rebounded, making him shut his eyes; he grabbed at it and caught the tip of his finger between it and the frame, sending a needle of pain running up his shoulders and neck like voltage.
Fuck!
Marvel finally gripped the door and focused.
Jonas Holly stood on the doorstep with a guilty look on his face and three pints of milk clutched to his chest.
'What the fuck are you doing?'
Marvel slammed the door behind Jonas and strode through the dim house to the kitchen. As he did, his fear and pain segued seamlessly into an anger that was fuelled by the dread that the younger man might have seen the panic on his face in the seconds he took to fumble the door open like some crappy amateur magician bungling a trick.
Jonas followed, as the DCI's angry stride demanded of him, still holding the icy bottles.
In the kitchen Marvel turned on Jonas.
'Explain yourself.'
Haltingly, Jonas did. He explained about Will Bishop, the relentless milkman. He tried to lighten the mood with the joke about the twister but it went nowhere. He got back on track by suggesting that the cordon of tape was doing nothing but