by David Mark
DARKNESS FALLS
DAVID MARK
CONTENTS
Praise for David Mark
Other books
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Epilogue
Copyright © 2020 by David Mark.
All rights reserved.
PRAISE FOR DAVID MARK
‘Dark, compelling crime writing of the highest order’ — Daily Mail
‘Brilliant’ — The Sun
‘Exceptional... Mark is writing at the top of his game’ — Publishers Weekly
‘A wonderfully descriptive writer’ — Peter James
‘A class act. Utterly original and spine chillingly good, when it comes to crime fiction, David Mark is in the premier league’ — Abir Mukherjee, author of A Rising Man
‘One of the most imaginative crime writers in the business, David Mark knows how to tell a good story - usually one that will invoke feelings of extreme horror and awe... in a good way, of course!’ — S J I Holliday, author of The Lingering
'Aector McAvoy, Mark’s gentle giant, is one of the most fascinating, layered characters in British crime fiction. Mark is an outstanding writer’ — M W Craven
‘Masterful’ — Michael Ridpath
‘A true original’ — Mick Herron
‘To call Mark’s novels police procedurals is like calling the Mona Lisa a pretty painting’ — Kirkus Reviews
‘Mark writes bad beautifully’ — Peter May
OTHER BOOKS
Other novels by David Mark
The DS McAvoy series:
Dark Winter
Original Skin
Sorrow Bound
Cruel Mercy
A Bad Death (eBook)
Dead Pretty
Fire of Lies (eBook)
Cruel Mercy
Scorched Earth
Cold Bones
Published by Severn House:
The Mausoleum/The Burying Ground
A Rush of Blood
Borrowed Time
As D M Mark:
The Zealot’s Bones
Exclusive to Amazon Kindle:
Blood Money
For Steve P. A good man.
“I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light.”
From ‘Darkness’, by Lord Byron (George Gordon)
‘”The dog that digs deepest finds the bones”.
Gypsy proverb
PROLOGUE
Shane is feeling good. Shane is feeling great. Shane is feeling downright smashing, now you’re asking. There’s a giddiness to him; a fizz – a general sense of ebullience and joie-de-vivre. Shane is rather proud that he knows the phrase joie-de-vivre. A horse of that name had won a minor steeplechase at Uttoxeter in 2005 and earned a decent payday for the Francophiles swigging their supermarket champagne in the county stand. Shane’s own nag, Maple Stirrup, is still running.
Shane had learned that joie-de-vivre means ‘joy of living’, and is French. Shane can understand the joy of living, if one is French. They have very good bread. Shane also knows that to be a Francophile means to love French things. Shane struggles to understand how that lends itself to ‘paedophile’. He doesn’t love ‘paedos’ at all.
Shane is standing in the kitchen of his small flat. He rents the top floor of a narrow, red-and-brown house halfway along an overcrowded terrace in Hull’s grandly named Garden Village. A damp, anaemic-looking sunlight oozes in through the porthole that Shane has cleared in the grime which varnishes the kitchen window. The filth now stains the sleeve of his dressing gown. The gown, once white, is now largely sepia toned and mottled with assorted stains. Pizza, at the lapel. Piss, at the hem. Ella …everywhere. The garment hangs loose, cordless. He is naked beneath: his rotund belly nosing through the curtains of his robe like the head of a bear snuffling in through a tent-flap.
Shane whistles as he pads across the kitchen. It’s a new song – something about poking faces. He likes it. Likes the video too. He opens the refrigerator door. Considers the possibilities. The top shelf is all spices and pickles. He likes his food hot, does Shane. He cannot taste very well. His nose has been broken and broken again, and his sense of taste was wiped away along with the snot and blood. He has to squirt obscene spurts of super-hot sauce onto his daily tin of baked beans if he wants to be able to receive any pleasure from his food. The sauce makes his nose run and his eyes water but he enjoys both feelings. It is the closest he gets to crying.
Shane scans the contents of the other shelves, looking for something befitting his lady-friend. The thought of her warms him. Excites him. Delights him. Fills him with so much joie-de-fucking-vivre he wants to rub himself against the kitchen wall. She’s in the bedroom, spooned up on her side, cradling the space he has just vacated. Worn out, poor thing. Already missing him. Deserves a treat.
He allows his thoughts to linger. Sucks his cheek as he considers his lover. She’s definitely not his usual sort. She’s a bit out of his league, if he’s honest with himself, and he always tries to be. He knows he’s not the best-looking lad. He sometimes catches sight of himself and cannot help but be disappointed in his likeness. He’s ungainly. He can’t help but see himself as a bit… well, mismatched, as if he were a person put together from the unwanted bits of other people. He doesn’t like to analyse himself too closely but he does wonder whether it is a sense of general futility that stops him taking any care over his personal hygiene. A washed pig is still a pig. One of his friends told him that and had expected him
to laugh about it. He could be mean, sometimes, could his friend. Thought he was just being funny, but some of the barbs struck home. Last summer Lewis had told him that he looked as if somebody had stepped in his face while it was still hot. That had upset Shane. Upset him so much that Shane had been forced to follow him home and stamp on his cat. Things had been okay after that. He’d even commiserated with his poor friend. Who could do such a thing? Who could treat an animal like that? Shane had been rather proud of his performance. Mum always said he could have been an actor, if he’d had the discipline and could read well enough to learn his lines.
Shane looks up at a sudden sound from the window. Rain. Later afternoon rain, hitting the kitchen window. He hadn’t noticed the coming of the rain or the darkening of the sky. He has been marvelously indolent today. It has been a languid, lazy, sensuous day, for him and his lady-friend both. These past days have flowed over one another like a shoal of silvery, slippery fish: a glorious tumult of pleasure. He cannot remember eating very much but he is not particularly hungry. He smokes 60 cigarettes a day and they suppress his appetite. He is obese largely because of the pills that the doctors insist he takes. Weight-gain is a side-effect. So too is nausea. Headaches. He hears ringing sounds in his ears when he takes them too late in the day. He can’t hear the sounds now so he presumes he has taken them already. Perhaps this morning. He seems to recall having risen from his bed already today. Had there been a visitor? Perhaps one of his friends had come to call. Shane is not popular, not like Lewis, but he doesn’t suffer for company. His friends frequently pop over to play computer games or watch a porno or to cut up their powders and potions on the low coffee-table in the living room. Sometimes they bring him lager or shoplift him a six-pack of Lion bars as a thank-you. Shane likes Lion bars. He hopes his mum will get him a Lion bar Easter egg this year. Last year she got him a posh one, from the fancy chocolate shop. With his dead taste buds it had been like eating slime.
He closes the fridge door, tutting at himself. He’ll have to get better at taking care of himself. He needs to clean the place up a bit. Buy some groceries. Some fruit and veg, maybe. A toothbrush. Toilet roll. There’s never been much point living on his own. But since meeting his new friend he has become aware of his own shortcomings. His house is filthy. Grotesque, even. There is a patch of carpet in the living room that has begun to rot down through the wood beneath. There had been a cat’s litter tray there when he moved in and he had taken to using it himself when he was too pickled to make it to the bathroom. It smells bad. Sometimes he can’t sit in the lounge without two twists of dishcloth up his nose, reclining in one of the mouldy, pilfered deckchairs that face the cracked plasma TV.
Shane was delighted to find that his new friend had been into the same things he was. She’d been too polite to mention the smell as they sat together in their matching chairs, watching as he blitzed through the levels in God of War 3, hacking and slashing through a great swathe of monsters. She’d been impressed with his speed. Didn’t flinch at the more shocking visuals that flickered on the cracked screen. Limbs ripped, heads removed, bowels gutter – she had sat and drunk it in. She’d been the same when he slipped the disc into the DVD player. Hadn’t offered a word of protest as the screen filled with skin.
Shane becomes aware of a new sound: something irritating, just at the edge of his perception. He wonders if it’s the rain, coming down harder now, turning to snow, the way it did in February when the world turned white.
And then he hears his name.
“Mr Cadbury, this is the police, sir. Could you let us in, please – we really would like to talk to you...”
Shane is not used to being address as ‘Mr Cadbury’. He does not really care for the name. At school, people called him all manner of names, each inspired by some form of chocolate or confection. He has answered to Cocoa. To Shit-Kat. Fudge-Packer. Willy Wanka. He hopes his girlfriend has heard him being addressed with such respect and reverence. He doesn’t mind being her bit of rough but if they are to have a future together he will have to become a little more refined. He’s quite excited at the prospect. He’s always wanted a reason to improve himself. He doesn’t know very much about her yet, but he fancies she will object if he continues to wipe his arse on the shower curtain.
Another voice now. Low. Soothing – the sort of voice you might use to pacify an angry dog.
“Shane, my name is Aector. Hector, if it’s easier for you. It’s Scottish. Your friend Lewis said you were the chap to talk to about something really quite important. I don’t want to bother you but if you could just open the door for a moment I can get out of your hair.”
Shane considers it. On balance, he fancies it would be rude to turn down such a reasonable and politely-made request. He is the sort of chap who might help somebody out. He is the sort of gentleman who would make room in his schedule so as not to inconvenience somebody unduly. And his voice had been nice. Soft. Sort of up-and-down, like a friendly giant in a fairy-tale.
“Won’t be a moment, pet,” he shouts through to the bedroom. There’s no response. He smiles as he imagines her dozing, dead away: no doubt dreaming of the life they will make together and the things they will do when her batteries are fully recharged.
His bare feet squelch across soggy carpet. He takes a handful of his gown and wraps it around himself. Unlocks the door and pulls it inwards.
On the doorstep stands a tall, broad police officer. He has red hair, damp at the fringe and temples, and a neat beard. He’s wearing uniform. So are the two men who stand behind him, their hands to their noses and mouths, each taking shallow breaths and flinching as the haze of flies rise and settle, rise and settle: making the pile of rotting food and slippery bin bags seem as though they may be alive.
“You’re a big man!” says Shane, looking up at the officer. He has brown eyes. Sad eyes, really: like a cartoon cow. “Are you strong? I bet you’re strong. There’s a man on World’s Strongest who looks a bit like you. He’s foreign. Are you foreign?”
“I’m Scottish,” says the man on the doorstep, gently. “Have you been to Scotland?”
Shane thinks hard about the answer, wanting to get it right. “I think so. We went ice-skating, once. A day-trip. When I was at BridgeView. It was nice. Tell me your name again.”
“It’s Aector, Shane. Aector McAvoy. You can say ‘Hector’ if it’s easier.”
Shane licks his lips. Tries it the proper way, with a little cough in the middle. He smiles, hugely, when he gets it right. “Aector,” he says, again, and sticks out a large, dirt-smeared hand. “I’m Shane.”
The big police officer takes Shane’s hand without hesitation. Shane feels the strength in his grip. He senses how much restraint he is using. How much work is going into not squeezing his grimy, fleshy paw. He appreciates it.
“Who are these two, Aector? The coppers behind you?” He peers past the big man’s shoulder, at the two constables. One has turned a funny colour: a weird marbling of grey-and-green, like moss on an old stone wall. The other is glaring at him: his eyes tiny pin-pricks, radiating a kind of bad energy that makes Shane think of the way roads shimmer with heat haze on a hot day. He doesn’t like them.
Aector is speaking again. Shane reminds himself it’s rude to ignore somebody when they are trying to be polite. Tunes himself in to the right frequency.
“….I’d love to see your place, Shane. Those stairs almost did me in and a sit-down would do me the world of good. We could even stick the kettle on, eh?”
Shane makes a show of considering it. He doesn’t have a kettle, as far as he can remember. But he does like the big police officer and wants to be liked in return. He wonders if his girlfriend will object to these unexpected guests. Hopes she won’t make a fuss about it. He’s heard that girlfriends can moan if their needs are overlooked. He wants to be a good boyfriend. Wants to get everything right.
“It will have to be quick,” concedes Shane. “I’ve got a lady-friend.” He gives a wink, two old friends, t
alking. “Proper looker. Goer, too. Got better things to be doing, if you know what I mean.”
The police officer gives a nod. Manages a little smile. Follows Shane into the flat.
“Sorry about the state of the place,” he begins. “I’ve been meaning to sort some stuff out but you just don’t get the chance, do you? Life’s a full-time job.”
Behind Aector, the policeman with the hard eyes is muttering. Coughing now. Raising his hand to his mouth and retching,.
Aector ignores the man, who strikes Shane as unnecessarily rude. He gives Shane a kindle smile. “What’s your lady-friend’s name, Shane?” he asks, softly.
Shane hesitates, unsure if he wants to reveal too much. But the giddiness rises up and he finds himself talking, the way he had when Lewis popped by earlier and asked to meet the new lass he had bragged about over the phone.
“It’s Ella,” he whispers, quietly. “Goes nicely, doesn’t it? Shane and Ella.”
There is movement behind the big man. The copper with the hard eyes pushes forward, growling something unfathomable, but Aector puts out a hand and holds him fast: his arm like a fence-post.
“Is she here, Shane?” he asks, quietly.
Shane nods, eager to please. “Bedroom,” he says, motioning over his shoulder towards the closed door: its whitewashed surface covered in scribblings; graffiti, a multi-coloured diorama of obscene words and pictures – each made more grotesque by the childishness of the hand.
“Keep it down,” mutters Shane, as he opens the door, beckoning the police officers behind him. “Poor love’s exhausted...”
Shane stands aside and allows his new friend to squeeze past him, his big frame part in and part out of the room. Shane is close enough to feel him stiffen, as if an electrical charge had just surged through his body.
Shane looks past him, considering again the feast for the eyes that his lady-friend is serving up to the newcomers. He’s a lucky man. Luckiest man alive.
Aector’s voice, low, his breath hot, up close to his left ear.
“What have you done, Shane?”