John Harvey: A Darker Shade of Blue

‘Not asleep then?’

‘Hardly.’

‘Yesterday,’ Will said, ‘you think I was being overcautious?’

‘In the car?’

‘What I said in the car, yes. About waiting to see if we had a match.’

‘You don’t think there’s any doubt?’

‘Has to be some. But, shit, not really, no.’

‘You want to go over there now? Sharon Peters’ parents?’

‘What do you reckon? A couple of hours’ drive? More?’

‘Coventry? This time of the morning maybe less.’

‘I’ll meet you by the Travelodge on the A14. This side of the turn-off for Hemingford Grey.’

‘It’s a deal.’ Will could hear the excitement rising in her voice.

The traffic moving into and out of the city was heavy and it was close to nine before they arrived at the house, a twenties semi-detached in a quiet street with trees, leafless still, at frequent intervals. Cars parked either side.

There was a van immediately outside the house with decorating paraphernalia in the rear, partly covered by a paint-splodged sheet. The man who came to the door was wearing off-white dungarees, speckled red, blue and green.

‘Mr Peters?’

He looked Will and Helen up and down, as if slowly making up his mind. Then he stepped back and held the door wide. ‘You’d best come in. Don’t want everyone knowing our business up and down the street.’

One wall of the room into which he led them was a virtual shrine to Sharon when she’d been alive, photographs almost floor to ceiling.

‘The wife’s out,’ Peters said. ‘Dropping off our other girl at school. Usually goes and does a bit of shopping after that.’

Our other girl, Will was thinking. Of course, to them she’s still alive.

‘You know why we’re here?’ Helen asked.

‘Something to do with that bastard getting shot, I imagine.’

‘You know about it, then?’

‘Not at first, no. One of neighbours come round and told us. Saw it, like, on TV.’

‘And you didn’t know anything about it till then?’

‘Course not, what d’you think?’

‘To be frank, Mr Peters,’ Will said, ‘we think someone paid to have Fraser killed.’

‘You reckon?’ Peters laughed. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, if they’d come round here asking for a few quid toward it, I’d have shelled out double-quick. What he did to our Sharon, shooting’s too good for him.’ Looking at Will, he narrowed his eyes. ‘Quick was it?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘More’s the sodding pity.’

They talked to him for three-quarters of an hour, pushing and prodding, back and forth over the same ground, but if he had anything to give away, it never showed.

Just as they were on the point of leaving, a key turned in the front door and Mrs Peters stepped through into the hall, shopping bags in both hands. One look at her husband, another at Will and Helen and the bags dropped to the floor. ‘Oh Christ, they know, don’t they? They bloody know.’

Will contacted the local police station and arranged for an interview room to be placed at their disposal. Donald and Lydia Peters were questioned separately and together, always with a lawyer present. After her initial outburst, Lydia would say nothing; Donald, brazening it out, would not say a great deal more. Without an admission, without tangible evidence — letters, emails, recordings of phone calls — their involvement in Fraser’s murder would be difficult to prove. All they had was the wife’s slip of the tongue. They know, dont they? In a court of law, it could have meant anything.

Their one chance was a court order to examine the Peterses’ bank records, turn their finances inside out. If they had, indeed, paid to have Fraser killed, the money would have had to have come from somewhere. Unless they’d been especially careful. Unless it had come from other sources. Family. Friends.

Will knew full well that if he went to the Crown Prosecution Service with what they had now, they’d laugh in his face.

It had taken a little time for Malkin to gain Lisa’s confidence enough for her to take him to see Jermaine. Jermaine having served his time for attempted burglary and been released into the care of his probation officer, one of the conditions that he move away from where he’d been living, steer clear of his former friends. Where Lisa took Malkin was no more than ten miles away, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Jermaine’s gran’s.

Jermaine and Malkin sat in the small front room, the parlour his gran had called it, Lisa and the old lady in the other room, watching TV.

Jermaine was fidgeting constantly, never still.

‘What you said in court,’ Malkin asked, ‘about having been to Silver’s place before, was that true?’

‘Course it was true. No one fuckin’ believed it, though, did they?’

‘You’d both been there? You and Wayne?’

‘Yeah. What’s this all about, anyway? What’s it matter now?’

‘Why were you there, Jermaine?’

‘What d’you mean, why?’

‘I mean Alan Silver’s a has-been in his sixties and you’re what? Seventeen. I wouldn’t have thought you’d got a lot to talk about, a lot of common ground.’

Jermaine’s head swung from side to side. ‘He was all right, you know, not stuck up, not tight. Plenty to drink, yeah? Southern Comfort, that’s what he liked.’

‘And money? He gave you money?’

Now Jermaine was staring at the floor, not wanting to look Malkin in the eye.

‘He gave you money?’ Malkin said again.

‘He gave Wayne money.’ Jermaine’s voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Why did he give Wayne money, Jermaine? Why did he give-’

‘For sucking his cock,’ Jermaine suddenly shouted. ‘Why d’you think?’

Just for an instant, Malkin closed his eyes. ‘And that’s why you went back?’ he said.

‘No. We went back to rip him off, didn’t we? Fucking queer!’

Malkin leaned, almost imperceptibly, forward. ‘Silver’s house,’ he said. ‘If I gave you some paper, paper and a pencil, d’you think you could draw me some kind of plan of the inside?’

‘Look,’ Will called across the office. ‘Take a look at this.’

Helen pushed aside what she was doing and made her way to where Will was sitting at the computer.

‘There, you see. This has been nagging at me and there it is. Two years ago. Lincoln. This man Royston Davies. Nightclub bouncer. Found dead in the back of a taxi. Single bullet through the head. 9mm.’

‘All right,’ Helen said. ‘I see the connection.’

‘Just wait. There’s more.’ Will scrolled down the page. ‘See. That was February. The August before there was a fracas outside the club where Davies was working. Nineteen-year-old youth was struck with something hard enough to put him into hospital. Bottle, baseball bat. Went into a coma and never came out of it.’ Will closed the file. ‘I rang someone I know at Lincoln this morning. Seems Davies was brought in for questioning, quite a few witnesses pointing the finger, but they never got enough to make a case.’

‘Wait, wait. Wait a minute.’ Helen held both hands in front of her, palms out, as if to ward off the idea. ‘What you’re suggesting, unless I’ve got this wrong, what you’re saying, there’s someone out there, some professional assassin, some hitman, specialising in taking out people who’ve killed and got away with it. Is that it?’

‘That’s it exactly.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Why? Look at it, look at the evidence.’

‘Will, there is no evidence. Not of what you’re saying.’

‘What is it then?’

‘Coincidence.’

‘And if I could show otherwise?’

‘How?’

‘If these weren’t the only two instances, would you believe me then?’