A Darker Shade of Blue by John Harvey Read Free Book Online Page A

appearance she was a mixture of African-Caribbean and Chinese, but her accent was East Midlands through and through, Notts rather than Derby.
    â€˜Lisa?’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    Malkin squatted low on his haunches, face close to hers. ‘You used to know Wayne Michaels.’
    â€˜So what if I did?’
    â€˜I’m sorry. About what happened.’
    â€˜Yeah, well. Been and gone now, i’n’t it?’
    â€˜You’ve moved on.’
    â€˜Something like that.’
    â€˜Good.’
    Something about his voice made her feel ill at ease. ‘Look, this place.’ She looked up at the sign. ‘It’s what it says it is, you know. Not one of them massage parlours, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
    â€˜Not at all. It’s just, if you’ve got the time, I thought we could talk a bit about Wayne? Maybe his mate, Jermaine? You were friendly with both of them, weren’t you?’
    Lisa narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not the police, are you?’
    â€˜Perish the thought.’
    â€˜Not some reporter?’
    Malkin shook his head. ‘I used to know Wayne’s father a little, that’s what it is.’
    â€˜Him told you ’bout me, I s’pose, were it?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    Lisa lit a new cigarette from the butt of the last. ‘Got a good twenty minutes till my next, why not?’
    *
    There was a pair of divers, borrowed for the occasion from the Lincolnshire force, and they struck lucky within the first hour. Will grateful he could assure his boss there’d be no need for overtime. The weapon was a Glock 17, its bulky stock immediately recognisable. Any serial numbers had, of course, been removed. If they begged and pleaded with the technicians, another twenty-four hours should tell them if it was the gun responsible for Arthur Fraser’s death.
    Will and Helen were both parked up at the side of the road, a lay-by off the A10, the Ely to Cambridge road. They were sitting in Will’s car, a faint mist beginning to steam up the insides of the windows.
    â€˜You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Will said.
    â€˜Most probably.’ A hint of a smile on Helen’s face.
    â€˜This shooting. Nothing to suggest any kind of fight or quarrel. Nothing personal. Every sign of careful planning: preparation. A single shot to the head with a weapon that’s almost certainly clean. A professional job. It has to be.’
    â€˜Someone hired to make a hit on Fraser?’
    â€˜It looks that way.’
    â€˜Then you have to ask why.’
    â€˜And there’s only one answer,’Will said. ‘Sharon Peters.’
    Helen nodded. ‘The family, the parents, we should go and talk to them?’
    â€˜Let’s wait,’ Will said. ‘Till tomorrow. Make sure the ballistics match up.’
    â€˜Okay.’
    It was warm inside the car. Their arms close but not touching. An articulated lorry went past close enough to rock them in its slipstream. Still neither one of them made a move to go.
    Finally, it was Helen who looked at her watch. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting back?’
    â€˜If anything had happened, Lorraine would have called on my mobile.’
    â€˜Even so.’
    He left her leaning against the roof of her VW, smoking a cigarette.
    When Will arrived home, Lorraine was wandering from room to room, Cowboy Junkies on the stereo, singing quietly along. ‘A Common Disaster’ playing over and over, the track programmed to repeat. To Will, it wasn’t a good omen.
    â€˜Lol?’
    â€˜Huh?’
    â€˜Can we change this?’
    â€˜Change?’
    â€˜The music. Can we …?’
    â€˜I like it.’
    Okay, Will thought, go with the flow.
    A good few years back, when he and Lorraine had first started going together, she would fetch her little stash from where she kept it upstairs in the bedroom – her dowry, as she called it – and roll them both a