Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [85]
'It smells in here,' he said from the doorway.
Marvel and Reynolds were sitting silently in the two wing chairs closest to the piano and both turned to look at him as he approached. Marvel with his sagging jowls, and Reynolds with his patchwork hair: Jonas thought they both looked quite at home.
'Yes,' said Reynolds. 'It's impending death.'
An old woman so doubled over her walking frame that she looked as if she was searching for a contact lens turned her head like a tortoise and fixed Reynolds with a withering glare.
'We're not all deaf, you know!'
Reynolds reddened and mumbled an apology and she continued on her way to the dining room, following the map of the carpet.
'Plonker,' Marvel told him.
'We found a weapon,' said Reynolds. Seeing Jonas's surprised look, he continued, 'Walking stick. He just took it from a bedroom, killed them all, and then put it back.'
'Bloody hell,' said Jonas. 'Prints?'
'The lab's got it now, but I doubt it. Still ...' Reynolds shrugged. 'Any luck today?'
Marvel snorted sarcastically. 'Yes, Reynolds, he's just playing hard to get.'
'No luck finding Gary,' said Jonas. 'But there's something I need to tell you.'
There. He'd said it now and couldn't back out. He took a deep breath and told them about the notes. He was deliberately vague about the content. He told them that the first had said 'something about the police not protecting Margaret Priddy' and the second had told him 'Do your job.' He was too ashamed to tell them about the 'crybaby' accusation. He handed the final note to Reynolds inside a plastic freezer bag he'd taken from the kitchen drawer.
He'd expected Marvel to be annoyed that he'd said nothing before now. He'd expected him to tear a strip off him. What he hadn't expected was that the overweight, over-the-hill DCI would listen all the way through with a stony face - and then come out of his wing chair like Swamp Thing and knock him backwards into the piano with a clanging post-modernist crash. One second Jonas was telling his story, the next he was half sitting on the keys as Marvel jammed fistfuls of his shirt up under his chin, trembling with rage and shouting angry things that Jonas couldn't quite comprehend. Behind Marvel, Reynolds was trying to pull his boss off, and behind him, Jonas was aware of a gaggle of old folk clutching each other's forearms as the three of them wrestled on and around the piano. Jonas staggered as the instrument rolled sideways under the weight of the discord. He could have shoved Marvel off him easily enough, but he was his senior officer. Plus, he understood the man's frustration, and couldn't muster the necessary affront to get really strong with him. Even as Marvel jabbed his knuckles into his throat, some part of Jonas was thinking, 'I deserve this.'
Staff rushed in, shouting and demanding a halt, but it was only when Mrs Betty Tithecott started a high, papery screaming and began pointing that they finally ended the shoving match and looked around, dishevelled and breathless.
Half wrapped in thick cloth - and stuffed between the now-displaced piano and the low wall of the garden room - was the body of Gary Liss.
*
Marvel was falling apart.
Reynolds had always known he would, but now that it was actually happening, the experience was more disconcerting than he'd expected it to be.
Even before their prime suspect had been found wrapped up like cod and chips and stuffed behind a piano, Marvel had been on a slippery slope. He'd seen Marvel's hands shaking while they examined the Sunset Lodge bodies and bedrooms. Then there'd been the crying at the press conference. Reynolds had seen the shine in his eyes, and the light had had nothing to do with it.
And losing it with Jonas Holly like something out of The Sweeney.
It wasn't shock and it wasn't because Marvel cared so much.
He knew Marvel was off the wagon. Even though it was a wagon he'd only ever been hitched to, never really on. It didn't take a genius to work it out when Marvel emerged from his cottage every morning