Danny had known it was the beginning of the end for him; that he would never make it alone.
His mother had known him. One of only two people who did.
For years she had let him know – by her look, by her touch, by the stories she pointed out casually in newspapers – that she knew, and even understood. And although they’d never discussed it properly, knowing that had helped.
Boy, 15, Admits School Arson in Exam Dodge.
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She would toss down the newspaper beside him on the table and mutter darkly, ‘Got what he deserved!’ or ‘Poor boy. If only he’d told someone.’
Danny would say nothing. He had nothing he cared to tell. Just knowing she still loved him was enough. All through the bitter tears, the dark-tempered years and the razor-blade at the wrist, she loved him. While others started to walk away from him in the schoolyard, stopped passing him the ball, whispered as he left a room … Through all that, Yvonne Marsh had loved him like a big anchor on a small boat in a wild sea.
And then she’d started to just … forget.
Forget that she loved him.
Forget that they shared a secret.
Forget even that she was his mother and he was her son.
It happened slowly and in patches, but it happened. And Danny found that he was supposed to be the anchor now. Dressing her, feeding her, watching her, locking her in, following her out, fetching her back …
A boat is not an anchor. Yvonne Marsh was deep beneath the waves with a broken rope that swayed with the tides. Sometimes he could grasp that rope and feel the old tug of her. But, mostly, once his mother’s mind was lost at sea, Danny Marsh was set adrift.
Even Jonas had let go of the line that had tethered him to the rest of the world.
Now, as Danny sat in the little room where he had grown up – where the back of the door still showed a faded poster of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction – he thought about Jonas Holly.
Instead of a secret strengthening their bond, Jonas had been the first to withdraw.
No more fishing, no more crazy dares, no more galloping about the moors. Once, when Jonas had brought an injured baby rabbit to school in a shoebox, he’d looked wary and turned away so that Danny couldn’t stroke it the way all the other kids had.
When Danny had finally summoned up the guts to ask him what was wrong – even though he knew – Jonas had bitten his lip and tried to go around him. Jonas was smaller then, younger by almost a year, and Danny had stopped him with a hand in his chest. Jonas had knocked the hand away, and before Danny realized it, they were fighting. A proper fight. Not some spat over a penalty kick or a broken Tamagotchi – a fight with bruises and blood and kicking and gouging, which went on long enough for teachers to be summoned and then to arrive. Even after Mr Yates the PE teacher had yanked them apart, they had both tried their hardest to lash out with their feet, and Jonas had pulled a handful of change from the pocket of his grey flannels and hurled it at Danny.
Nothing had ever hurt him so much. Not then, at least. Not until the day his demented mother had screamed in terror and threatened to call the police if he didn’t get out of her house.
He could still feel the coin slicing his brow and the feeling of shock and the sheer unfairness of it all. He knew he’d done the right thing. Even if it had been in the wrong way. It wasn’t his fault it had all got fucked up. Why couldn’t Jonas see it like that?
Danny sighed and got up now and looked in the cracked mirror of the wardrobe. The scar was still there above his left eye.
Danny wondered if Jonas still remembered that, at least. He always acted like he didn’t remember anything, but surely the scar would remind him of that? Remind him of being friends, and of what that really meant. It wasn’t just for good times, it was for bad times too. It was about sticking together and sacrifice. It was about doing something for somebody and expecting nothing in return.
Except maybe gratitude.
Danny Marsh stared into the mirror and watched his face fight tears. Despite her inconstant love, losing his mother was like losing the last part of himself that was a blameless boy. There was nobody else in the world he could turn to now. Not even his father, who could not be expected to catch up with reality so late in life.
And Jonas Holly – who owed him everything – had never even thanked him.
*
Jonas gave Lucy her stuff. He’d got better at it over the years, but it was never routine to finish the washing up and then plunge needles into your wife’s hip. The little bruises never faded, just went brown and got covered up by new ones.
He looked down at her now, lying curled on her side with her bruised backside exposed, and could hardly bear her vulnerability. He wished Dr Wickramsinghe could be here, wished he could feel what he felt when he looked down at Lucy, wished he could feel the fear that simmered inside him that he never dared show.
She raised her head and looked round at him, a gentle smile on her lips.
‘Stop looking at my bum, pervert!’
Jonas smiled. He pulled her pyjamas back up her hip, then slid on to the couch behind her, tucking his long legs against hers, tugging her tummy towards him so they were touching everywhere. She covered his hand with hers and he buried his nose in the back of her neck. She smelled like fresh laundry.
‘Are you still going out?’ she said softly.
Jonas froze. Why was she asking? Was she planning something? He experienced a moment of pure panic as his memory of that day crashed through his brain like a breaker in a rock-pool. Her half-open eyes and her cold, cold hands, and the lifetime it took for the ambulance to come, while all the time he sat on the floor behind the front door and begged her not to leave him. The memory was so strong that he felt his stomach flip-flop in fear and tears burn his eyes.
He cleared his throat and made a huge effort to sound normal. ‘I don’t have to go.’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said, squeezing the back of his hand.
It sounded like the truth, but who could be sure?
They lay like that for a while and he knew that they were thinking different things in different ways and that a universe separated their minds even while their bodies shared heat.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, so low that if his lips hadn’t been against her ear she would never have heard him.
She paused almost imperceptibly, then said, ‘I love you too.’
*
It had snowed and stopped again during the afternoon, leaving just a couple of inches on the ground. The moon was getting big and the fields looked ice blue under its gaze, but in the village itself the snow had been trampled to slush which had then frozen in the dropping night temperature, making for treacherous conditions.
Jonas walked carefully up the street, past the pub and the church and Mr Jacoby’s shop to the school, without seeing anyone.
On the way back he stopped at the shop and looked in the window at the little cards stuck there advertising free kittens and bikes for sale. They made him think of the note that had been left under his wiper, and once again he got that unpleasant feeling of being watched. He turned but saw no one. Then, feeling slightly foolish, he backed into the alleyway beside the shop, where he could not be seen. From there he looked at the houses opposite.
Straight across the road was the Marsh home – a little two up, two down, which he knew was pale green but which looked merely grubby in the orange light of the streetlamps.
There was a light on behind the curtains in Danny’s bedroom – or what used to be Danny’s bedroom when they were boys; Jonas thought it probably still was. Next door to that was Angela Stirk’s house, where Jonas knew Peter Priddy spent every Saturday night that her husband was away. Jonas guessed it was one of her neighbours who had split on him to Marvel, sick of the noise. On the other side of the Marshes was the home of Ted Randall, who grew giant vegetables for the county show, then the P
eters’ house, to which Billy Peters had never returned and where Steven Lamb lived now like a replacement … Jonas realized he could travel right down the street with his eyes, naming the residents of each little home, knowing their stories, keeping their secrets.
He saw Neil Randall limping his way home from the pub on the opposite pavement. He wondered what it was like to wake up in the sand and see your leg beside your head, which is what he’d heard had happened to Neil. How curious. How strange. How much easier to tie your shoelaces. Jonas smiled, and felt guilty.
He looked back up the street, but all was calm.
‘Shit!’
The word was accompanied by a scrape and a thud, and Jonas looked across the road to see Neil on his back in the gutter between two parked cars. He hurried over.
‘All right, Neil?’ said Jonas, offering his hand.
Neil looked at it, then ignored it and tried to sit up by himself. Jonas withdrew his hand and let him struggle. The smell of booze came off him in waves, over an undertow of profanity.
Jonas remembered Neil Randall at school. He had been a star on the football field – quick on his feet and tough in a tackle. That was with two legs, of course.
‘Fuck,’ said Neil, and Jonas became aware that he was groping at his own thigh. He looked down and saw that Neil’s right leg had grown about a foot longer than the left. For a second his brain couldn’t adjust to the anomaly – then he realized that Neil Randall’s prosthetic limb had come loose and was slowly working its way out of his trouser leg. By the orange light of the streetlamp he could see the edge of a thick sock and the start of a shiny plastic shin.
Jonas bent and started to try to push it back up, but it just bunched Neil’s jeans at the empty hip.
‘No’tha’way!’ slurred Neil, shoving his hands off. ‘Take it off.’
Feeling surreal, Jonas pulled carefully on the slush-covered boot. The limb came so far and then stopped, the thigh caught in the narrow leg of Neil Randall’s jeans.
‘It’s stuck,’ he informed him.
‘What?’ said Neil aggressively, as if it was all his fault.
‘It’s stuck in your jeans, mate. You want me to push it back inside?’
‘Get it off!’ said Neil.
‘It’s stuck,’ said Jonas, getting impatient. He was supposed to be on anti-killer patrol, not playing tug-of-war with a fake leg.
‘Fuck you, get it off!’
Jonas stood up and yanked hard. Neil Randall bumped off the kerb and into the road on his back with the violence of the tug, but his leg stayed in his jeans.
‘Watchmefuckinhead!’
‘You want me to pull it off or not?’ said Jonas.
‘No, leave it. Jus’ fucking leave it.’
Jonas let go of the leg and it splashed down in the slush in the road. He thought immediately of Marvel dropping the leg of the dead pony.
It made him brusque enough to walk round behind Neil and grasp him under the arms.
‘Leave off!’
Jonas ignored him and pulled him back on to the pavement and towards his house, as Neil twisted and flailed. ‘Bastard! Ge’yofuckinhandsoffme y’bastard!’
Something hit Jonas hard in the side of the head, making him stagger sideways and fall to one knee, dragging Neil Randall with him. They both grunted at the fall and Jonas’s helmet landed in the snow.
Groggily he put one hand down to steady himself and touched his ear with the other, as he looked up and down the street to see who had hit him.
For a second he couldn’t grasp what he was seeing.
Then it all became horribly clear.
Suspended above the snow-covered, orange-flavoured street by what looked like a sheet was Danny Marsh. His kicking foot was what had caught Jonas in the ear.
Jonas got up in a dream.
A nightmare.
‘Jesus!’ said Neil Randall.
One second Jonas was just watching, the next he had Danny’s shoes and ankles in his big hands, trying to take his weight, trying to push him upwards and against the cottage wall as he jerked, and someone was shouting, loudly and incoherently, and Jonas knew it was him but he had no idea what he was saying because his whole world was a jumble as he held his old friend’s feet and tried to keep the pressure off his neck, tried to keep him alive, kept losing his grip … as Danny bobbed and writhed in the frozen air.
Jonas saw a yellow light and knew that the door had been opened.
He heard people shouting and rushing towards him.
He was dimly aware of Elizabeth Rice’s shouts to get to the bedroom and pull Danny up from there, and the sound of men thudding upstairs.
But before they even made it to the window, the kicks turned to spasms and he felt the hot trickle of piss running up his sleeves – and Jonas Holly knew that Danny Marsh was dead.
They lowered him from the window on his own bedsheet, recalling a less deadly childhood adventure, and Jonas felt his friend’s body pass solidly through his arms, head lolling and knees buckling as his feet touched the pavement.
Jonas knelt beside him in the icy snow and pumped the still-warm chest, and pinched the still-warm nose, and sealed his lips to the lips of the son, just as he had to the mother. All the while Neil Randall watched wide-eyed, propped on his elbows and with one leg six feet long.
Too late. Too late. Too late. The words ticked like a clock, low and calm inside his head, and finally Jonas heard them. And from somewhere, his neglected memory salvaged the fact that the hearing is the last sense to leave the dying consciousness.
He stopped trying to bring Danny back and instead – for the second time tonight – bent so close to a warm ear that he could feel his own breath coming back at him.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Then Jonas Holly got slowly to his feet and asked whether someone had called an ambulance.
They had.
He took off his jacket and laid it over Danny Marsh’s face and asked people to please step back.
They did.
He watched Alan Marsh come out of his house, saw his eyes roll back and his knees buckle, just as his dead son’s had done mere moments before, then Jonas heard the soft crunch as the man’s head dropped almost silently into the snow.
*
There was a note.
‘What do you know about this?’
Jonas stared dumbly at the note they had found in Danny’s room, then slowly shook his head.
‘Nothing,’ he said.
It was 3am. They were in the mobile unit. The ambulance had taken Danny’s body away. Jonas’s sleeves were still wet up to the armpits with piss; he could feel it every time he moved and smell it every time he drew breath.
‘Bollocks,’ said Marvel. ‘You knew it was him all along.’
‘That’s not true!’
It wasn’t! Jonas felt panicky that Marvel could even think it! He was an officer of the law and if he was aware of wrongdoing, he would take action – whoever the hell it was doing the wrong.
Apart from Lucy.
Probably.
But that was all!
‘I don’t believe Danny killed anyone.’
‘He cracked,’ said Marvel. ‘Under the pressure from his mother going bananas. Killed Margaret Priddy as a kind of trial run most likely, then his own mother. Then the people up at Sunset Lodge.’
‘Why?’ said Jonas. ‘Why kill anyone after he’d killed his mother, if that was the problem?’
‘Maybe he passed the tipping point,’ said Marvel, pleased that he’d remembered without recourse to Reynolds. ‘Maybe once he cracked, the floodgates just opened. We were about to pull him in. The night of the killings at Sunset Lodge, he got out of a window at his house. We’ve got shoe prints on the sill. Didn’t know that, did you?’
‘No,’ said Jonas, and thought of the voice calling his name from the shadows beyond the garden gate that very same night, luring him out into the freezing dark …
Jonas!
It had sounded like D
anny.
But it had been a dream. Hadn’t it?
If you won’t do your job …
He had no idea what Marvel meant. … then I’ll do it for you.
The mobile unit was cramped, damp and smelly. A flickering fluorescent strip made this feel like a Stasi interrogation.
‘Sir, even if I believed he killed those people, which I don’t, why would I cover it up?’
‘You two were mates. I saw you on the playing field after we dragged his mother out of the stream. Good mates, I’d say. If he had something to hide, I reckon either you knew about it, or you’ve got something to hide too.’
‘What?’ demanded Jonas. ‘What am I hiding?’
From the look on Reynolds’s face, he’d only just beaten him to the question. Reynolds looked embarrassed even to be there.
‘You tell me,’ said Marvel, and sat back in his chair with an air of dogged certainty. ‘First,’ he continued when he got no response, ‘first tell me why you hit Danny Marsh the other day.’
‘He swung at me!’
‘So arrest him. Don’t beat the shit out of him!’
‘I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, sir,’ said Reynolds, and refused to look at Marvel so he could not be disciplined by a glare.
Jonas barely heard him. He recalled that feeling of threat that had come off Danny. While he laughed and joked about old times, Jonas had been consumed with fear, desperate for him to back off and stop … In hindsight it seemed very minor.
‘I felt threatened, sir,’ he said truthfully. ‘If I over-reacted, that’s why.’
‘Why did you fall out with him?’
Jonas was confused. ‘Fall out?’
‘When you were kids,’ Marvel insisted.
‘When we were kids?’ Jonas gave a small laugh.
‘Yes,’ said Marvel, deadly serious. ‘When you were eleven or so.’
Jonas looked blank.
‘Ten or eleven. You were best mates. Then one day you weren’t. What happened?’
The smell of burned things. Burned wood … burned hair … burned flesh.
Only confusing fragments.
‘I don’t remember, sir.’
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