The Price Of Darkness Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Afterwards

  Teaser chapter

  Praise for The Price of Darkness

  ‘The Price of Darkness is Graham Hurley’s best book yet … Hurley presents a world that has lost its moral compass, where selfishness, betrayal and brutality prevail, and the rare instances of decency and kindness seem almost aberrant. Readers who enjoy convincing, well-crafted thrillers won’t go wrong with this one’

  Guardian

  ‘[His] Portsmouth-based series gets better with each book … Hurley handles the two stories skilfully, with a particularly good murder mystery and, as always, vividly realised characters’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Interesting characters and two strong storylines drive the book along at high speed’

  Financial Times

  ‘One of the most able proponents of the crime novel … Questions of loyalty and betrayal are handled with quite as much skill as the standard crime novel apparatus of violence and suspense’

  Good Book Guide

  ‘Dark, gritty, engrossing and totally believable’

  Reviewing the Evidence

  ‘With his customary flair for authenticity, Hurley plunges Winter and Faraday into thoughtful study of broken friendships and betrayals, wrapped up in a satisfyingly complex mystery story’

  Yorkshire Evening Post

  Graham Hurley is the author of the critically acclaimed D/I Faraday and Paul Winter series. Blood and Honey and One Under have been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Award for Best Crime Novel. A one-time award-winning TV documentary maker and a committed competitive open-water rower, Graham writes full time. He lives with his wife, Lin in Exmouth.

  www.grahamhurley.co.uk

  The Price of Darkness

  GRAHAM HURLEY

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  AN ORION EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Orion

  This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books

  Copyright © Graham Hurley 2008

  The moral right of Graham Hurley to be identified as the author

  of this work has been asserted in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 1 4091 2350 7

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane

  London WC2H 9EA

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  To Peggy Hurley

  1916-2007

  Cherished and Missed

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to the following for their time and advice: Stuart Ainsworth, John Ashworth, Martin Chudley, Laura Caton, Roly Dumont, Martin Evans, Neil Farnham-Smith, Pat Forsyth, Diana Franklin, Lyn Hoptrough, Richard John, Martin Laws, Andrew McCall, Mike Mortimer, Phil Parkinson, Tim Pepper, Nick Quantrill, Brett Rennolds, Dave Sackman, Jonathan Sands, Danielle Stoakes, Barry Walker, Tara Walker. My editor, Simon Spanton, beat the editorial drum with his usual flair, while Gillian Redfearn kept us magnificently in step. To my wife, Lin, a promise: the rest of the journey starts here.

  When we are not sure, we are alive.

  Graham Greene

  Prelude

  MONDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2006. CAMBADOS, SPAIN

  Uncomfortable in the heat, Winter followed the funeral cortège as it wound up the path towards the cemetery. From here, high on the rocky hillside, he could sense what had drawn the dead man to Cambados. Not simply the lure of Colombian cocaine, delivered wholesale across the Atlantic. Not just the prospect of ever-swelling profits as he helped the laughing powder towards the exploding UK marketplace. But the chance to settle somewhere remote, somewhere real, to make a life for himself amongst these tough, nut-brown Galician peasants.

  The cortège came to a halt while the priest fumbled with the gate of the cemetery and Winter paused, glad to catch his breath. The view was sensational. Immediately below, a tumble of houses crowding towards the waterfront. Further out, beyond the estuary, the aching blueness of the open sea.

  Last night, after an emotional tour of his brother’s favourite bars, Bazza had ended up locked in an embrace with Mark’s girlfriend’s mother. Her name was Teresa. She was a plump, handsome woman who walked with the aid of a stick and, as far as Winter understood, the funeral arrangements had been entirely her doing.

  The priest had accepted her assurances that Mark had been a practising Catholic. The friends he’d made had secured a plot in the cemetery. God had doubtless had a hand in the jet ski accident, and Mark’s death doubtless served some greater purpose, but the only thing she understood just now was that her daughter’s life would never be the same. Bebe had been only months away from becoming Mark’s wife. There would have been children, lots of children. God gives, and God takes away, she’d muttered, burying her face in a fold of Bazza’s linen jacket.

  The mourners began to shuffle upward again, and Winter caught a whiff of something sweet, carried on the wind. Beside him, still hungover, was a lifelong friend of Bazza’s, a survivor from the glory days of the eighties. The last time Winter had seen him was in court, a couple of years back. He’d been up on a supply charge, coupled with accusations of GBH, and had walked free after a key witness had changed his mind about giving evidence. Last night, by barely ten, he’d been legless.

  ‘What’s that, mush?’ He had his nose in the air.

  ‘Incense.’ Winter paused again, mopping his face. ‘Gets rid of bad smells.’

  Late evening, the same day, Winter was drinking alone at an empty table outside a bar on the waterfront. The bar belonged to Teresa. According to Bazza, she’d won it as part of a divorce settlement from her husband, an ex-pro footballer, and for old times’ sake it was still called the Bar El Portero, the keeper’s bar. Winter had been here a lot over the last couple of days, enjoying the swirl of fishermen and high-season tourists, conscious of the black-draped photos of Mark amongst the gallery of faces from the goalie’s past.

  Tonight, though, was different. Bazza and his entourage had disappeared to a restaurant, and to be honest Winter was glad of an hour or two on his own.

  The first he knew about company was a hand on his shoulder, the lightest touch. He looked up to find a tall, slim Latino helping himself to the other chair. He was older than he looked. He had the hands of a man in his forties, and th
ere were threads of grey in his plaited hair. The white T-shirt carried a faded image of Jimi Hendrix.

  ‘You’re a cop,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Me. I know cops. I know cops all my life. You tell me it’s not true?’

  ‘I’m telling you nothing. Except it’s none of your fucking business.’

  There was a long silence. The Latino produced a mobile and checked for messages. Then he returned the mobile to his jeans pocket, tipped his head back against the chair, and stared up into the night sky.

  ‘We’re wasting time, you and me, Señor Winter. I know who you are. I know where you come from. I know …’ He shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  Winter leaned forward, irritated, pushing his glass to one side.

  ‘So why bother checking? Why all this drama?’

  ‘Because we need to talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sí … you want to tell me what you’re doing here? In Cambados?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘You’re a friend of Señor Mackenzie.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you’ve come over because of his brother.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Because you and Señor Mackenzie are …’ he frowned, ‘… friends.’

  ‘Spot on, son. Bazza and me go back a while. And it happens you’re right. I am a cop. Or was. I’m also a mate of Bazza’s. A family friend. Here to support the lad. Here to help. Here to do my bit.’

  ‘But cops never stop being cops. And that could be a problem.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sí.’ His gaze had settled on Winter’s face. ‘I have a question for you, Mr Winter. It’s a very simple question. As it happens, I know about your friends, about Señor Mackenzie, and I know about you. This man is a cop, I tell them. It’s all over his face, the way he talks, the way he moves, his eyes, who he watches, how he watches, everything. Sure, they tell me. The man’s a cop. And a good cop. A good cop turned bad. But clever. Useful. Me? I tell them they’re crazy. Loco. And wrong, too. Why? Because like I say cops never stop being cops. Never. Nunca. Not here, in Spain. Not in my country. Not in yours. Nunca. Whatever they say. Nunca.’

  ‘And the question?’

  ‘Tell me why you’re really here.’

  ‘You’d never believe me.’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘OK. And if you don’t?’

  ‘It will be bad, very bad. For you. And maybe for us, also.’

  ‘How bad is very bad?’

  ‘The worst.’ He smiled. ‘Lo peor.’

  Winter took his time digesting the news. Bazza had pointed out this man twice in the last couple of days. His name was Riquelme, though everyone seemed to called him Rikki. He was Colombian. He was said to hold court in a four-star hotel along the coast. Not a gram of cocaine came into Cambados without his say-so.

  Rikki was still waiting for an answer to his question. Winter swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm lager and glanced at his watch. Conversations like this he didn’t need.

  ‘I’m fifty in a year or two …’ he looked up ‘… and you know the present I’ve always promised myself? Retirement. No more fannying around. No more working my arse off for people trying to stitch me up. No more chasing brain-dead junkies around. But you know something about my line of work? It doesn’t pay. Not the kind of money I’m going to need. So what do I do? I look for someone who might take me seriously for once. And for someone who might understand what I’m really worth. Happens I’ve found that someone. And that someone, just now, needs a bit of support. Comprende?’

  Winter waited for some kind of response. The Colombian studied him for a moment or two, then produced a thin cheroot.

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said softly.

  One

  TUESDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 2006. PORTSMOUTH, ENGLAND

  There are no post-mortem clues for last impressions. Was this body on the slab really asleep when it happened? Was he dreaming? Or did some faint scrape jolt him into wakefulness? Did he half-discern a strange shape - mysterious, uninvited, inexplicable - beside the bedroom door? Did he hear the lightest of breaths? A footfall on the carpet? Was he aware of a looming shadow in the darkness? And maybe the soft rustle of clothing as an arm was slowly raised beside the bed?

  Faraday, watching the pathologist lift the glistening brain from the cuplike remnants of the shattered skull, could only wonder. Soon, he thought, they’ll be developing a test for all this, some kind of clever biochemical method for reproducing a man’s last thoughts imprinted before the neurones shut down for ever. The process would doubtless be both lengthy and expensive but days later investigators would find themselves looking at a multicoloured printout, admissible in court, a digital snapshot of this man’s final seconds of life. What had gone on inside his brain. What he’d seen. What he’d felt. The green line for apprehension. The red for disbelief. The black one, the thickest, for terror.

  Looking up, the pathologist caught Faraday’s eye. Earlier, before peeling back the face, he’d indicated the powder burns on the pale skin of the man’s forehead. Now he pointed out the pulpy blancmange of the frontal tissue, pinked with blood and tiny fragments of bone, where the bullet had tumbled into the deep brain, destroying everything in its path.

  ‘Single shot,’ he murmured, reaching for the scalpel, ‘Unusual, eh?’

  It was. Driving back to the Major Crimes suite at Kingston Crescent, Faraday pondered the investigative consequences of the pathologist’s remark. The post-mortem he’d just attended was a coda to the day’s events, a painstaking dismemberment of flesh, bone and connective tissue that normally yielded a modest helping of clues. Killings were usually ill-planned, spontaneous explosions of violence, sparked by rage or alcohol, or a simple desire to get even, and that kind of retribution left a telltale spoor of all-too-familiar wounds. In this case, though, it had been evident from the start that the Major Crime Team were dealing with something very different.

  A single bullet at point-blank range was the mark of a professional hit, a calling card rarely left at Pompey scenes of crime. The news had found its way to the duty D/C at Major Crimes at 07.56. An agency cleaner, failing to raise the tenant at a leased house in Port Solent, had let herself in. In the master bedroom lay the body of the man she knew as Mr Mallinder. At first she’d assumed he’d overslept. Only when she saw the blood on the sheet beneath his head did she take a proper look at his face. She’d never seen an entry wound before and the statement she’d volunteered that afternoon had recorded the faintest disappointment. So small. So neat. So different to what you might have expected.

  Faraday had driven up from the Bargemaster’s House, pushing north against the incoming rush-hour traffic, summoned by the Duty D/S at Kingston Crescent. Port Solent was a marina development tucked into the topmost corner of Portsmouth Harbour. No. 97 Bryher Island was an end unit in a tightly packed close of executive houses, and uniforms had taped off the scene within minutes of their arrival. By the time Faraday added his ageing Mondeo to the line of cars in the central parking bay, an investigator from Scenes of Crime was already sorting out a pile of silver boxes from the back of his van.

  ‘Beautiful job.’ He nodded towards the open front door. ‘Nice to have a bit of quality for once.’

  Back at Kingston Crescent, early evening by now, the car park was beginning to empty. Faraday slotted his Mondeo into a bay beside the rear entrance and spent a moment or two leafing through the post-mortem notes he’d left on the passenger seat. Amongst them was a reminder to phone home and tell Gabrielle that their planned expedition to the Farlington bird reserve would have to wait.

  He peered out through the open window. After another glorious September day, it was still warm, the air thick with midges. Shame, he thought. There would have been swallows everywhere, a manic scribble of scimitar wings overhead, and
later a chance for Gabrielle to pit her camera skills against a classic Pompey sunset.

  He took the stairs two at a time, with a steely resolution that lasted until the first landing. A minute or so later, still out of breath, he put his head round the door of the office that housed the Intelligence Cell. D/C Jimmy Suttle occupied one of the three desks.

  ‘So what’ve you got for me?’

  Suttle abandoned a packet of crisps, wiped his fingers on the chair, and reached for his notepad. Still on light duties after a serious run-in with a Southsea drug dealer, the young D/C had surprised even himself with his talent for coaxing some kind of picture from a multitude of databases and carefully placed phone calls.

  ‘You want the story so far?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The guy was a property developer. Jonathan Daniel Mallinder. The firm’s called Benskin, Mallinder. His oppo’s name is Stephen Benskin. They work out of a suite of offices in Croydon. The stuff they do is residential mostly, town-centre developments, mainly in the south. I talked to the FIU and belled a couple of contacts they gave me. Seems that the blokes themselves, Benskin and Mallinder, are a bit of a legend in the business. Came from nowhere but put together some really shrewd deals. Class operators. Staked out some territory of their own. Real respect.’

  Faraday nodded. The Financial Investigation Unit was an obvious port of call in a case like this.