Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [96]
'Bollocks. Again.'
Marvel pushed his chair away from Jonas and went over to the fridge. He opened it and took out a can of cola. Generic cola.
'I think I said, "Thank you."'
'Why?'
Jonas frowned. 'I don't know.'
It was the truth. He had no idea. He'd taken his lips from Danny's mouth and slid them round to his ear without any thought of why or of what he was going to say when he got there. There was just something inside him that had to be said. Had to be said. And when he'd said it, it had felt right.
Jonas!
The voice at the gate had been Danny Marsh, he was sure.
He'd wanted to talk to him.
Had Danny left him the note?
If so, what was the job Danny wanted him to do?
The dead eye of the pony. The prickle of hay against his cheek. The woman's face at the dusty window ...
Pfffftt! Marvel opened the cola and Jonas came back with a start to find him and Reynolds regarding him with interest.
'He's dead, Holly. You can't protect him. Not if you call yourself a policeman.'
Jonas couldn't breathe.
Call yourself a policeman?
How did he know? How did Marvel know? He'd never told him what the first note said!
Jonas sat there, staring wide-eyed at Marvel while his mind screamed at him, Don't stare! Don't look at him! He'll know that you spotted the slip! But he couldn't move - even his eyes.
'Get out,' Marvel said. 'I'll speak to you tomorrow.'
*
Lucy Holly was sitting halfway up the stairs when she felt death approaching.
She had known for a while that she was dying. Every new symptom was a reminder of the fact that she wasn't going to just snap out of it one day; that this thing inside her had come to stay and planned to kill her, like a psycho in the spare room. That craziness had become routine.
But she had never felt like this before.
She did not often go up and down stairs during the day. It was a chore that could take half an hour sometimes. Jonas had plumbed a toilet into the little shed outside the back door of the old cottage, which she used in all but the coldest weather. But she had woken at 5am to find Jonas was not beside her. Immediately, she knew she would not get back to sleep, so she edged downstairs in the darkness to make tea and to get her book and then decided to take both back to bed with her.
On the bottom step she'd put the luggage for her journey - the cup of tea, her book, a new tube of toothpaste, and the knife Jonas had made her promise to keep with her, even though she felt like a neurotic New Yorker every time she touched it. The thought of having to answer the door to somebody while holding it filled her with English embarrassment. But she'd promised Jonas, and mostly remembered to carry it from room to room with her, even though she thought there was more chance of falling off her crutches on to the knife than there was of it being of any use in repelling an invader.
She'd leaned her downstairs sticks against the banisters, lowered herself to the third step and started her little adventure, moving each item up a step before she levered herself on to the next tread. She got into a nice rhythm - almost laughing at how silly it was to feel that way about inching upstairs on your backside. She had good days like this, where her arms and legs felt stronger, and it always made her happy. Ever the competitor, Lucy got faster and faster, moving, hoisting, sipping tea, moving, hoisting, sipping tea ... until suddenly she slipped, lurching sideways and banging her arm and her head painfully into the wall. She'd put the heel of her hand on Fate Dictates, which had skidded off the stair and now lay open and face-down in the hallway.
'Shit! ' Lucy bit her lip while her funny bone grinningly punished her for being careless. She'd dropped the knife down a few treads too, and knocked her mug so that some tea had dotted the carpet.
Lucy had slipped before; she had fallen before; she had hurt herself worse than she was hurt now.
But this time ... This time she understood death.
With the house wrapped in the cocoon of snow that made it quiet as a tomb, Lucy became aware that her own breathing