Darkness Looking Back, The (5 page)

Paxton hesitated. 'The thing is, I can't promise anything. I could go out to these places, but there's no guarantee I'll pick anything up. I can ask the spirits to talk to me, but if they won't, they won't. And they might not be able to help either.'

'But it's worth a shot. As it stands we haven't got much else to go on, and it looks like these killings aren't one-offs. This guy's just gonna keep on going. Officially we can't really accept anything you say as evidence — the law hasn't caught up with the trends these days. But you might be able to give us a few leads. Show us where to start looking.' Kirkpatrick looked bleak. 'We need all the help we can get.'

'I'll do what I can.'

'That's fantastic. Thanks, Mr Paxton.' Kirkpatrick stood, enthusiastically shaking hands. His pleased look made it all worse. 'Well, what we could do, if you want to visit the places, is arrange a time. Would you be able to go out tomorrow at any stage?'

'Er — sure. About ten? I'll be working again from five.'

Kirkpatrick glanced at Nielsen. 'Vicky?'

'Yeah, that should be fine.' Nielsen seemed pleased. 'I'll show you round a bit, make sure you have all the information you need. And then you could go out to the other woman's place after that, if you like.'

'See if you can close the DVD case.' Gardner gave a sarcastic grin. 'Meanwhile I'll get on with some digging. Who knows,
your
participation might even become a total waste of time.'

Kirkpatrick got in quickly. 'One thing I will say, though. You'll have to be discreet. Even if you don't talk about this to anyone, it's especially important that the press doesn't get hold of it. Don't let anyone near the houses see what you're up to. The DI was very strict about that.'

'I've learnt my lesson,' said Paxton, with absolute truth.

Gardner was last to rise, his eyes smiling. 'See you tomorrow, Miss Marple.'

He left without a backwards glance or a handshake.

IT WAS THE first time Paxton had seen the place in the daylight. A nice house, the Hiscockses had bought, but it'd probably be a hard sell.

The woman from next door wasn't home, Paxton was sure, and yet he still had that feeling of being watched. Even with DS Nielsen beside him as they walked up the Hiscocks' drive, on official business, he still felt guilty, a trespasser on sacred ground. The house's only occupant now would be its ghost, if she was home. Ian Hiscocks had gone; he hadn't wanted to spend another night in the house where his wife and then his illusions had died. Poor man.

Paxton hadn't told Lena what he was doing. He'd kept quiet about having been round here earlier as well — he didn't think she'd take his curiosity too kindly. No doubt she'd agree with Stirling. The whole murder investigation scenario was one she wanted safely in the past. His visit on Tuesday hadn't been entirely peaceful. Lena started by apologising in one breath, then admonishing him with the next. He shouldn't feel the need to run out every time Mandy came over. He was part of her life now, and she'd told Mandy so. It had ended with her accusing him of being a coward, or immature, and Paxton defending himself for trying to spare her feelings. Added to Stirling's phone call, it put him in a foul mood all day. He'd tried calling her on Wednesday, but she wasn't home. Belatedly he remembered that Wednesday morning meant grocery shopping. He'd left a message, but by the time he'd left to meet Kirkpatrick she hadn't called back.

His toe caught on a cobblestone, instantly jerking him forward a day.

'Ooh, careful,' said Nielsen, glancing back. She waited for him to catch up a step. 'Now, how do you want to do this? Just stand inside the room for a bit and see if anything comes to you? Do you need me to bring any particular items of clothing or something like that?'

'No, just going in there should be enough.' He was feeling a familiar surge of adrenaline in the depths of his belly, making him feel queasy and excited at the same time. His mind was in a tussle with his senses — stay and sort out what was wrong, or fee from what was waiting. These days it was growing easier and easier for his mind to take over.

Nielsen used the key Hiscocks had given her and led the way inside. The house had been shut up tight for two days. The summer heat had burnt away whatever oxygen might have lingered; the hallway was so close it might as well have been hermetically sealed. But that wasn't what made Paxton lose his breath as soon as he stepped over the threshold. He felt murder press against his chest, violent death beating at him from all sides. He
felt
rather than heard a scream in his head, and his stomach twisted with fear. It was fear above all else that lived here, pouring off every surface like nerve gas. The last terrified moments of a woman's life played over and over, at full volume, never to be erased.

Although he'd been preparing himself, Paxton instinctively flinched, hunching forward, struggling to suck in breaths of the air from outside. He nearly threw up.

'You all right?' Nielsen was looking at him in concern. She would only have had five years on him, at most, but he immediately felt like her kid.

'Yeah. I'm fine,' he said, shaking his head slightly to get rid of the weight of fear.

He took a step further, and an abrupt gust of ice reversed the temperature, clearing his thinking at once. Nielsen gave a sudden violent shiver, and he saw an instant of sheer terror in her eyes. Paxton took a few more steps forward, closer to the doorway on his right. There was an onrush of anger, and a crushing pain in his head. It was Charlotte.

'I'll try to help you if I can, Charlotte,' said Paxton aloud. He ignored the sight of Nielsen stopping in her tracks just ahead of him.

The pain in his head lifted, but a cramping feeling of nausea remained. He thought he heard a sound.

'You'll need to speak up. I can hardly hear you.'

Her voice sounded as if she were speaking from the bottom of a bathtub full of water. When she next spoke, it was a fraction clearer.
Nail the bastard
. . . Her voice strengthened with anger.
Why?

Paxton guessed this was a common complaint for murder victims, but his heart sank.

'Did you know him?'

There was silence. Paxton glanced at Nielsen, as if she too could hear. The detective was standing very still as if afraid to move, her eyes glued to his face.

'Charlotte?'

But Charlotte wasn't really in the right place to talk. Some weren't — either the shock or the newness of the situation kept them from communicating properly. It was almost impossible to understand them. Paxton began to feel frustrated, the pressure to perform. The sharp pain returned to his head. He blinked, trying not to wince.

'Could you give us a description? Can you remember? I know it's all been a horrible shock for you . . .'

The pause went on for quite some time. Nielsen had noticed the intense look of concentration on Paxton's face. She leaned forward, whispering. 'Is she —?'

Paxton held up a hand to silence her. Charlotte's words came in unintelligible strings of half-heard noise, with snatches of sense.

Dark . . . Why?

'Charlotte, please try, if you can, to tell me something about what he looked like.' He almost sent up a prayer as he listened.

Dark . . .

'The house was dark? Or he was? Did you know him?'

There was no response.

Nielsen finally managed to speak. 'Does she know who killed her?'

'Not that she can tell me,' said Paxton. 'I'm not really getting anything, except the word "dark".'

All of a sudden he had the impression of a necklace. He couldn't see it exactly, so much as sense it round his neck.

'I think she's telling me about a necklace. Was she wearing one when you found her?'

'No. Only her wedding ring.'

'I think the necklace is missing. I think he took it.'

'Are you sure it's a he?'

Paxton concentrated again. 'She's not giving me that either. Just keeps on about the necklace.'

He gave it a moment or two more, then shook his head. 'Is there anything else you want to tell me, Charlotte? Any message for your husband?'

Nothing.

'Your
grieving
husband? Perhaps you'd like to tell him you loved him? Set his mind at rest?'

He could have sworn there was a faint laugh.
. . . poor Ian.

Paxton felt a rush of dislike. 'I'll be sure to pass on your deepest regrets, Mrs Hiscocks.' He took a couple of steps towards the door.

It came as a half-giggled whisper.
No idea . . .

Paxton couldn't help himself. 'But he'll be going to a better place than you.' He looked over his shoulder. 'See you at Armageddon.'

He pushed open the door and stalked out.

Nielsen didn't say anything when she came out of the house, locking up while he waited for her in the drive. After testing the knob to see that it was secure, she joined him in a walk back to the car.

'Well, that was a bit unsettling, I must admit,' she said.

Paxton sighed. Whether he was more angry at Charlotte or at himself he couldn't have said. 'I'm really sorry I wasn't more help. That was a big waste of time, wasn't it?' He remembered Gardner's taunt, which didn't improve matters.

'What exactly did she say?'

Paxton told her what little there was to tell. Nielsen nodded, listening carefully and noting it all in a journal.

'She wasn't strong enough, basically,' Paxton finished. 'She didn't really want to come back. I guess when you're murdered you're in shock and you want closure, but we're not going to get it from that. I'm a medium, not a miracle worker.'

Nielsen gave him a reassuring smile. 'I wouldn't worry about it. That's the frustrating thing about this job. If you can't figure out the killer within the first twenty-four hours, you've usually got a really long slog ahead.'

Paxton was grateful to her for trying to cheer him, not to mention believing him without question. In the car she had made an effort with sensible questions, asking him how long he'd had his gift and how it actually felt. It made Paxton look forward with even less enthusiasm to the next task on the agenda — meeting up with Gardner at Helen McCowan's. He rubbed his arms. Even out here in the sunshine, he couldn't get warm. As they drove away, the feeling of nausea stayed with him, following him from the house.

NIELSEN ECHOED HIS thoughts as she pulled up behind Gardner's car in the driveway. 'Good luck.' From her smile, Paxton guessed she was talking about more than just the job.

'Looks like you feel the same way about him as I do.'

Nielsen wrinkled her brow, no longer joking. 'Ray's a good cop. His manner can be a bit off-putting, true, but you've just got to ignore him. His bark is a lot worse than his bite — and some of the things he comes out with are downright funny.'

'Yes, he's a funny kind of man.'

'Just don't let him bother you! Gosh, I can see why you and Andy Stirling are such good mates.'

Paxton grinned. Nielsen wound down the window to let Gardner lean in.

'Gidday Vicky, how'd it go?'

'Oh, not too bad. We got a
little
bit of information. By the sounds of things, the lover is out of the equation. Seems she spent the day with him.'

Paxton turned as he glimpsed other figures moving towards him. Andy Stirling had got out of the other car.

'Wasn't expecting to see
you
here,' Paxton told Stirling.

'I'm a nosy bastard. It comes with the job.'

Paxton smiled. He hadn't seen Stirling this relaxed in a while.

'Morning, James.'

Paxton jumped a little when the voice came so close to his shoulder. He didn't return Gardner's smile. It was the first time the sergeant had called him by his first name, and it grated on Paxton's ear. Deliberate, Paxton thought. The bastard was trying to catch him out.

Gardner was looking at Stirling, clearly not best pleased. 'Care to explain what
you're
doing here?'

Stirling said equably, 'I've never seen James at work before. Senior said I could come along and watch.'

'You expecting see-through people to float out of the walls? This isn't
Ghostbusters
, Andy. I hope.' He gave Paxton a derisive smile. 'Try not to produce any ectoplasm from your nostrils — it's still a crime scene.'

When Paxton said nothing, Gardner began walking towards the front steps. Behind his back, Paxton twisted a finger up his nose, making a face at Stirling, who gave a slight snort. Gardner looked round, his hand on the doorknob, and glared at Paxton.

'If you're going to play silly buggers, there's not much point in us being here. Maybe a blow-by-blow account of the woman's murder will change your tune a bit. If you can get a word out of her, you might soon wish you hadn't.'

The back of Paxton's neck prickled as he got near the house. An indistinct wrongness was alerting him to its presence, sending out dark tendrils that triggered something inside him. It grew stronger as he approached, its force almost turning him back. The door had swung shut a little, almost closing, as if it didn't want him to enter. By the time he forced himself up the steps to touch his palms to the wooden surface he was aware of nothing else. He found himself staring at the door, entranced, expecting blood to come leaching from the wood. He turned his palms over, surprised to see only pale pink skin. The house almost seemed like a live being, pushing him away, pulsing with fury, turning the sky around it dark. Whoever this Helen McCowan had been, she had a strong personality. Even with her passing, it lingered in the house like damp in the walls. And the smell . . .

'James?'

Paxton blinked, his eyes focusing on Stirling, who was looking back round the door. 'Sorry, what?'

'What is it? You getting something?' Stirling looked a bit apprehensive, as if he didn't quite know how he felt about this. 'The DS just wanted to know if you needed anything.'

'Electroshock, by the looks of it,' said Gardner.

Paxton ignored him. 'I don't need anything, thanks.'

'Coming in, or were you planning on holding your séance on the doorstep?' Gardner disappeared into the house.

Following, Paxton couldn't stop the nerves returning. He cast around a bit, soaking in the crackling atmosphere, but nothing else would come, other than that live-wire-in-water current of something deadly.

'Helen?' he called, testing. 'Helen, I'm listening.'

Stirling was holding his breath. Even, Paxton fancied, Gardner himself, standing with his arms folded. But no one responded. The event of her death was here, but the spirit had fled. Helen plainly wasn't the sort to look back. Paxton looked round at Stirling, shaking his head.

'I'm not getting much. There's a kind of record of what happened — she was surprised, I think. It was really sudden. But how often is murder expected?' Paxton sighed. 'At least it was quick. I'm not getting a whole lot of suffering. Thank God. I can sense
her
, but only the imprint. More what she left behind than a current presence. There's no spirit here to talk to, if that's what you were hoping. She's passed on. Sorry.'

'Well, can't you call her up or something like that?' Gardner looked as if he'd got exactly what he'd expected — a big gob of snot, dressed up as supernatural.

Paxton rubbed a hand down his face, mashing his nose towards his chin. 'Not unless you want me to call up a whole bunch of other things by mistake. Perhaps other people are comfortable with that, but it's something I've always avoided doing.'

Your gran could do it,
his mind said.

Your gran believed in God
, was the reply.
She believed in her own protection.

'What about if you picked something up?' Stirling looked surprised by his own question.

'I think it's about time we left,' said Gardner dismissively. 'We've got strong leads to follow up on.'

'No, I mean, an object that belonged to her. Wouldn't that tell you something about her — maybe why someone would have killed her? I dunno.' Stirling shook his head.

'It was a serial killer, Andy,' said Gardner. 'Pretty blood is red and shiny. There's your reason.'

'Well, seeing he's here, he might as well give it a go. See if we can get our money's worth.'

Mild though Stirling's voice was, Paxton caught the look in his eyes and recognised it at once — the innate desire to contradict anything Gardner said. Paxton felt like smiling. Nielsen had been bang on. More worryingly, however, he also sensed Stirling's desperate wish that Paxton would achieve something to give his sergeant the big finger. The weight of expectation was worse than the pressing sense of death. He didn't fancy telling them he seldom read objects. His mind went back to a game they'd made him play in the upper sixth, on the last day of term. Even his history teacher had got in on it.

Hey James, read my ring. It's really old.

Hey James, what does my watch say about me?

Here, try reading this old textbook — see if it remembers anything . . .

Or how about the chair? Or this 20p?

Yeah, brilliant!

He was at the centre of a classroom of laughing faces, eager to hear his stories, true or false, but just as eager to catch him out.
Ha, wrong! I got it on holiday. Yeah, Paxton's
wrong!
I got him!

A derisive noise from Gardner broke into his thoughts. 'What money's worth? We paying $3.99 a minute for this or something?' He gave Paxton a smile of contempt.

'How about something from her room? Jewellery, that usually has a story attached.' Stirling ducked into Helen's bedroom and the others followed without protest. It was in their natures to look around. Paxton wondered how many detectives justified fingering other people's underwear in the name of a pivotal lead. Despite himself, he felt a tugging of curiosity. Who
was
this woman with the character so strong the house was almost alive with it? The air grew even heavier as he entered the bedroom; it felt like a warning.

'I take it she wasn't married then.'

No one said anything. Some houses were unnaturally feminine, with pink roses on every surface and dolls' eyes vapidly following you across the room. Under the circumstances Helen's house wasn't so creepy, but it was plain on walking into her room that no doting husband was willing to leave his bollocks at the door, tucked into the toes of his boots. There was no
His
half of the room, just a vague scent of perfume drowning in the odour of the rest of the house. A cold chill played deliberately across the back of Paxton's neck. She was hovering there in the background, wanting him gone.

Got something to say to me
? he asked her in his head.

The answering silence seemed like a raised finger.

Stirling wandered over to the dressing table, on which there was a jewellery box. He opened it to the low-carat glint of gold and fake stones.

'You mean none of it was taken?' asked Paxton. He'd got into other people's heads before, after they were dead, but the way the criminal mind worked was well beyond his comprehension. Hard to believe someone would want just to take another person's life and leave all the stuff of greater street value.

'Blood is red and shiny . . . That's all they need,' said Gardner. His voice didn't carry its usual mocking tone. 'You can profile them, but you still can't understand them.'

Stirling was sifting the strings of jewels through his fingers, plucking free brooches and earrings that had got tangled up in the chains. He looked long and hard at a simple pendant before thrusting it towards Paxton.

'Here. See what you can get from this.'

Paxton's senses were alive too now, awake to every changing element. He sensed the DC's anticipation, and it puzzled him. Despite Stirling's attempts to remain totally the blank and hard-faced cop, there was no masking the tense hope coming off him. Paxton looked down at the necklace. It was a small silver cross, studded at the centre with a tiny clear stone that was probably real. He felt desperate for a moment, then, as they sometimes did, the words came tumbling out without stopping for his brain to connect.

'This is from a lover.'

He saw Stirling go rigid, just for a fraction of an instant. The DC's eyes whipped over to Gardner and back again.

'Who? Can you give me a name?'

Paxton was on the point of shaking his head, an automatic reaction, when a voice said:
Billy
.

He hesitated, then parroted, 'Billy'.

He saw a spark of disappointment in Stirling's eyes, and again wondered at it. Gardner made a small movement that Paxton couldn't interpret.

'Hey, if it's any help, I think I heard him,' Paxton added. 'It was a Yorkshire accent, thick as anything. He only said his name, but it was bloody obvious to me.'

Hope reignited in Stirling's face. 'Hey, Sarge, that could be her husband or something. Which part of England was she from?'

'She was from Wakefield,' said Gardner, in a voice dry as dead grass.

Paxton looked at Stirling, whose expression was blank. 'In Yorkshire,' he explained.

Stirling palpably relaxed, emitting a sense of triumph. On the other hand, if anything this small victory seemed to make Gardner even more suspicious. His eyes lingered on Paxton's face for an uncomfortably long while.

'There something you're not telling me?' Paxton asked, naturally looking to Stirling. But the DC's face was no longer showing anything.

'Keep going, James. We'll let you know if there's anything we'd like you to explore in more detail.'

Not for the first time, Paxton noted Stirling's ability to switch between open and official. Casting for inspiration, and feeling a bit like a monkey in a hunt-the-banana trial, Paxton was conscious of a faint burn of resentment. He stepped on it. It wasn't helping. The whole place put him on edge. It hardly put him in mind of grandmotherly biscuits and milk.

His eyes fell on the giant ceiling-high bookcase that took up one wall. A reader himself, the first thing Paxton tended to aim for in a strange house was the bookcase. Books told you a lot about their owners, and this collection was impressive. The bookcase was stuffed full of paperbacks. Most people would banish such a thing to their lounge, but Helen had her priorities right — pride of place next to the bed. She'd barely have needed to get up to pick out another title. Only a small bedside table lay in between, with another pile of books on top of it.

Paxton glanced at them curiously, then recoiled.

'Christ,
how
old did you say she was?'

The others looked at the books and sniggered. Romances of the worst kind. The ones that didn't even bother to pretend they were high-class drama, going instead for covers featuring bare-chested rugby types with bad haircuts and tight trousers. Paxton wanted to rail at the wasted space, but he was amused, despite himself. His own gran had read
Reader's Digest
and Catherine Cookson.

'Wish my grandma had been more like this,' said Stirling, picking up his thoughts. 'Maybe then she wouldn't have kept sending me books on native birds and the great scientists every Christmas.'

Her image still floating near the surface of his mind, Paxton flashed back to Christmas with
his
gran, going to the rest home a few streets over while Mum had the roast in the oven. Nat had grumbled almost as much as he had, reluctantly doling out tea and mince pies and slices of Christmas cake and trying not to shiver at every pat from a wrinkled hand coated in liver spots. But his sister didn't see and feel the things he did. Didn't know which ones were next . . .

Paxton quickly turned to the selection in the bookcase, and realised there was a bit more to it than there seemed. There were signs of a sense of humour. Along with the crappy romances, there was also some crime, a whole shelf of Terry Pratchetts and, to Paxton's surprise, the entire series of
Harry Potter
. He smiled. He reached out and took one,
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
, which he hadn't got round to yet.

As soon as he did so, he fumbled and almost dropped it. There was no way a children's book should be giving off vibes like this.

'Hey,
this
was from a lover too!'

This time Gardner's eyebrows raised.

'There's no way this could have been from her husband — it doesn't feel like him at all.'

He was looking at Stirling again, but it was Gardner who spoke. He too was looking at Stirling, his face sharp. 'You haven't told him anything?'