Peter Robinson - Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

This was all very well, Michelle thought, but a man with a bee in his bonnet, the way Lancaster seemed to have, could be difficult to get information from. Lancaster ordered another Guinness – Michelle asked for coffee – and sat back in his chair. He took a pill from a small silver container and washed it down with stout.

“Blood pressure,” he explained. “Anyway, I’m sorry, love,” he went on, as if reading her mind. “I do go on a bit, don’t I? One of the few benefits of getting old. You can go on and on and nobody tells you to shut up.”

“Bill Marshall.”

“Yes, Billy Marshall, as he was called back then. I haven’t forgotten. Haven’t seen or heard of him for years, by the way. Is he still alive?”

“Barely,” said Michelle. “He’s suffered a serious stroke.”

“Poor sod. And the missus?”

“Coping.”

He nodded. “Good. She always was a good coper, was Maggie Marshall.”

Maggie . Michelle just realized that she hadn’t known Mrs. Marshall’s first name. “Did Bill Marshall work for Reggie and Ronnie?” she asked.

“Yes. In a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“A lot of people in the East End worked for Reggie and Ronnie at one time or another. Fit young geezer like Billy, I’d’ve been surprised if he hadn’t. He was a boxer. Amateur, mind you. And so were the Krays. They were into boxing in a big way. They met up at one of the local gyms. Billy did a few odd jobs with them. It paid to have the twins on your side back then, even if you weren’t in deep with them. They made very nasty enemies.”

“So I’ve read.”

Lancaster laughed. “You don’t know the half of it, love.”

“But he wasn’t regularly employed, not on their payroll?”

“That’s about it. An occasional encouragement to pay up, or deterrent against talking. You know the sort of thing.”

“He told you this?”

Lancaster laughed. “Come off it, love. It wasn’t something you discussed over a game of darts at the local.”

“But you knew?”

“It was my job to know. Keeping tabs. I liked to think I knew what was going on, even outside my manor, and that those who counted knew that I knew.”

“What do you remember about him?”

“Nice enough bloke, if you didn’t cross him. Bit of a temper, especially after a jar or two. Like I said, he was strictly low-level muscle, a boxer.”

“He used to boast that he knew Reggie and Ronnie when he was in his cups, after he’d moved up to Peterborough.”

“Typical Billy, that. Didn’t have two brain cells to rub together. I’ll tell you one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“You said the kid was stabbed?”

“That’s what the pathologist tells me.”

“Billy never went tooled up. He was strictly a fist man. Maybe a cosh or knuckledusters, depending who he was up against, but never a knife or a gun.”

“I didn’t really regard Bill Marshall as a serious suspect,” Michelle said, “but thanks for letting me know. I’m just wondering if or how all this could have had any connection with Graham’s death.”

“I can’t honestly say I see one, love.”

“If Billy did something to upset his masters, then surely-”

“If Billy Marshall had done anything to upset Reggie or Ronnie, love, he’d have been the one pushing up daisies, not the kid.”

“They wouldn’t have harmed the boy, to make a point?”

“Not their way, no. Direct, not subtle. They had their faults, and there wasn’t much they wouldn’t do if it came right down to it. But if you crossed them, it wasn’t your wife or your kid got hurt, it was you.”

“I understand Ronnie was-”

“Yes, he was. And he liked them young. But not that young.”

“Then-”

“They didn’t hurt kids. It was a man’s world. There was a code. Unwritten. But it was there. And another thing you’ve got to understand, love, is that Reggie and Ronnie were like Robin Hood, Dick Turpin and Billy the Kid all rolled into one, as far as most East Enders were concerned. Even later, you only have to look at their funerals to see that. Fucking royalty. Pardon my French. Folk heroes.”

“And you were the Sheriff of Nottingham?”

Lancaster laughed. “Hardly. I was only a DC, a mere foot soldier. But you get the picture.”

“I think so. And after the day’s battles you’d all adjourn to the local and have a jolly old drink together and talk about football.”

Lancaster laughed. “Something like that. You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe it was a bit of a game. When you nicked someone fair and square, there were no hard feelings. When they put one over on you, you just filed it away till next time. If the courts let them off, then you bought them a pint next time they came in the pub.”

“I think Billy Marshall took the game to Peterborough with him. Ever hear of a bloke called Carlo Fiorino?”

Lancaster’s bushy eyebrows knitted in a frown. “Can’t say as I have, no. But that’s way off my manor. Besides, I’ve already told you, Billy didn’t have the brains to set up an operation. He didn’t have the authority, the command, charisma, call it what you will. Billy Marshall was born to follow orders, not give them, let alone decide what they ought to be. Now that lad of his, he was another matter entirely.”

Michelle pricked up her ears. “Graham? What about him?”

“Young lad with the Beatle cut, right?”

“Sounds like him.”

“If anyone in that family was destined to go far, I’d have said it would’ve been him.”

“What do you mean? Graham was a criminal?”

“No. Well, not apart from a bit of shoplifting, but they all got into that. Me, too, when I was his age. We figured the shops factored the losses into their prices, see, so we were only taking what was rightfully ours anyway. No, it was just that he had brains – though God knows who he got them from – and he was also what they call street smart these days. Never said much, but you could tell he was taking it all in, looking for the main chance.”

“You’re saying that Graham might have been involved with the Krays?”

“Nah. Oh, he might have run an errand or two for them, but they didn’t mess around with twelve-year-old kids. Too much of a liability. Only that he watched and learned. There wasn’t much got by him. Sharp as a tack. Billy used to leave him outside the local, sitting in the street playing marbles with the other kids. It was common enough, then. And some pretty shady customers went in there. Believe me, I know. More than once, the young lad would get half a crown and a watching brief. ‘Keep an eye on that car for me, kid,’ like. Or, ‘If you see a couple of blokes in suits coming this way, stick your head around the door and give me a shout.’ No flies on young Graham Marshall, that’s for sure. I’m just sorry to hear he came to such an early end, though I can’t say as it surprises me that much.”

Dr. Glendenning was delayed in Scarborough, so the postmortem had been put off until late in the afternoon. In the meantime, Banks thought his time would be well spent talking to some of Luke’s teachers, starting with Gavin Barlow, the head teacher of Eastvale Comprehensive.

Despite the threatening sky and earth damp from an earlier shower, Barlow was weeding the garden of his North Eastvale semi, dressed in torn jeans and a dirty old shirt. A collie with a sleek coat jumped up at Banks as he entered through the garden gate, but Barlow soon brought the dog to heel, and it curled up in a corner under the lilac bush and seemed to go to sleep.

“He’s old,” Gavin Barlow said, taking off a glove, wiping his hand on his jeans and offering it. Banks shook and introduced himself.