Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [90]
Steven made to go around him, and Jonas put out a hand to halt him, but the boy stopped before he could be touched. He looked away from Jonas, his chest heaving and his cheeks high with colour.
'Nothing!' he said with low vehemence. 'You see nothing.'
*
Marvel and Reynolds sat side by side on a velveteen sofa so small that their thighs touched. Alan Marsh sat opposite in a matching easy chair.
Reynolds looked around the room.
The mantel held four or five sympathy cards and a couple of Christmas ones between family photos and a repeating motif of snub-nosed ceramic Dickensian boys, doing boy-stuff like whistling jauntily or selling newspapers. On the table there were more cards - opened but left in a pile. There was also an old photograph of Yvonne Marsh propped against a jumbled pile of clean laundry, like some kind of shrine to the memory of housework.
'So what was that all about the other day with Danny and Jonas Holly?' said Marvel, jerking his thumb randomly at the ugly striped wallpaper behind him.
Alan Marsh sighed and opened his hands in a 'beats me' gesture.
Elizabeth Rice had taken Danny Marsh to the pub. It wasn't difficult - she'd told them he had a little crush on her and she'd promised to buy.
Marvel said nothing further, allowing the aching silence slowly to reveal to Alan Marsh that this was not a social call.
'Well ...' the man started haltingly, then stopped. He was in overalls even though Rice had reported that he wasn't working. Apparently the habit was just too much to break while his mind was already distracted by the murder of his wife. He was wearing slippers rather than steel toe-caps though, Reynolds noticed - as if he'd remembered halfway through dressing that his wife was dead and he wasn't going to work after all.
Reynolds sighed and wondered why Marvel was going all round the houses before asking more relevant questions about Danny. It wasn't like him.
He wished he couldn't feel Marvel's hip against his.
'Them used to be friends. When 'em were nippers. Dunno what happened there ...'
He trailed off again.
Marvel realized he was going to have to tweeze information out of Alan Marsh like splinters. It was a job he hated. He preferred blunter tools.
'How old were they then?'
''Bout ten, I suppose.'
'Were they very close?'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, were they best friends?'
'I don't know,' said Alan a little dismissively. 'I was working mostly. Yvonne would know that.'
Yeah, but she's dead, Marvel felt like pointing out, but didn't. He could be pretty sensitive when he tried.
'Would they play here much?'
Again Alan Marsh made an all-purpose gesture of 'who knows?' 'It was a long time back,' he said. 'Seemed like it. Why do you want to know, anyway?'
Marvel hadn't expected the question and was annoyed that he hadn't anticipated it. He blustered a little. 'We're always concerned when a serving officer gets into a public brawl, Mr Marsh. Aren't you?'
The man shrugged. 'Danny was mazed. And he took the first swing.'
That was the countryside for you, Marvel supposed. In town, Jonas Holly would already have been suspended and have a lawsuit pending. Here the victim's own father thought he deserved a good beating by the police.
Refreshing.
Reynolds sighed again and Marvel glared at him before turning back to Alan Marsh, who looked disinterested in life itself, let alone this particular conversation.
'Have you ever seen Officer Holly behave in that way before, Mr Marsh?'
'No, but I seen Danny behave like that plenty!'
'Well, he's just lost his mother in tragic circumstances.'
'Bollocks to that,' said Marsh. 'Just the way he is. Has been for years.'
Marvel was surprised and looked it, so Alan Marsh went on.
'He'd bin under the doctor sometimes. Psychiatrist. You know.'
Marvel did know. His nose for motive started to quiver.
'What's wrong with him, Mr Marsh?'
'Not much. Just a bit here and there, you know. Not dangerous or nothing like