It was a photograph: Graham sprawled on a sheepskin rug in front of a large, ornate fireplace, arms behind him, hands propping him up, legs stretched out in front. He was smiling at the camera in a flirtatious and knowing manner.
And he was absolutely stark naked.
Michelle was lucky to find a parking spot about a hundred yards from the former Mrs. Harris’s pretentious pile of mock Tudor on Long Road, Cambridge, opposite the grounds of Long Road Sixth Form College. It was still drizzling outside, so she took the umbrella from the back of her car.
It hadn’t been too hard to track down Jet Harris’s ex-wife. The biographical pamphlet told Michelle that her maiden name was Edith Dalton and that she had been married to Harris for twenty-three years, from 1950 to 1973, and that she was ten years his junior. A few discreet inquiries around the office yielded the information that a retired civilian employee, Margery Jenkins, visited her occasionally, and she was happy to give Michelle the address. She also told her that the former Mrs. Harris had remarried and was now called Mrs. Gifford. Michelle hoped that the nature of her inquiries didn’t get back to Shaw before she got the information she needed, whatever that was. She wasn’t even sure what Mrs. Gifford could, or would, tell her.
A slim, elegantly dressed gray-haired woman answered the door, and Michelle introduced herself. With a puzzled but interested expression Mrs. Gifford led Michelle to her large living room. There was no clutter, just a white three-piece suite, various antique cabinets stuffed with crystal, and a large sideboard against the wall. Mrs. Gifford offered nothing in the way of refreshments but sat, legs crossed, and lit a cigarette from a gold lighter. She had a calculating look about her, Michelle noticed – around the eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the strict set of her jaw and sharp angles of her cheeks. She was also very well-preserved for her seventy-plus years and had a deep tan, the sort she couldn’t have got in England so far this summer.
“The Algarve,” she said, as if she had noticed Michelle looking. “Got back last week. My husband and I have a nice little villa there. He was a doctor, a plastic surgeon, but he’s retired now, of course. Anyway, what can I do for you? It’s been a long time since the coppers came to call.”
So Edith Dalton had landed on her feet after twenty-three years of marriage to Jet Harris. “Just information,” said Michelle. You’ve heard about the Graham Marshall case?”
“Yes. Poor lad.” Mrs. Gifford tapped her cigarette against the side of a glass ashtray. “What about him?”
“Your husband was in charge of that investigation.”
“I remember.”
“Did he ever talk about it, tell you any of his theories?”
“John never talked about his work to me.”
“But something like that? A local boy. Surely you must have been curious?”
“Naturally. But he made a point of not discussing his cases at home.”
“So he didn’t have any theories?”
“Not that he shared with me.”
“Do you remember Ben Shaw?”
“Ben? Of course. He worked closely with John.” She smiled. “Regan and Carter, they used to think of themselves.
“What did you think of him?”
Her eyes narrowed. “As a man or as a copper?”
“Both. Either.”
Mrs. Gifford flicked some ash. “Not much, if truth be told. Ben Shaw rode on John’s coattails, but he wasn’t half the man. Or a quarter the copper.”
“His notebooks covering the Graham Marshall case are missing.”
Mrs. Gifford raised a finely penciled eyebrow. “Well, things do have a habit of disappearing over time.”
“It just seems a bit of a coincidence.”
“Coincidences do happen.”
“I was just wondering if you knew anything about Shaw, that’s all.”
“Like what? Are you asking me if Ben Shaw is bent?”
“Is he?”
“I don’t know. John certainly never said anything about it.”
“And he would have known?”
“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “John would have known. Not much got by him.”
“So you never heard any rumors?”
“No.”
“I understand your husband was a commando during the war.”
“Yes. A real war hero, John was.”
“Do you know if he owned a Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife?”
“Not that I saw.”
“He didn’t have any mementos?”
“He gave everything up when he was demobbed. He never talked about those days much. He just wanted to forget. Look, where is all this leading?”
Michelle didn’t know how to come straight out with it and ask her if her ex-husband was bent, but she got the impression that Mrs. Gifford was a hard one to deceive. “You lived with Mr. Harris for twenty-three years,” she said. “Why leave after so long?”
Mrs. Gifford raised her eyebrows. “What an odd question. And a rather rude one, if I may say so.”
“I’m sorry, but-”
Mrs. Gifford waved her cigarette in the air. “Yes, yes, you’ve got your job to do. I know. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I waited until the children left home. It’s amazing how much one will put up with for the sake of the children, and for appearances.”
“Put up with?”
“Marriage to John wasn’t a bed of roses.”
“But there must have been some compensations.”
Mrs. Gifford frowned. “Compensations?”
“The high life.”
Mrs. Gifford laughed. “The high life? My dear, we lived in that poky little semi in Peterborough almost all our married life. I’d hardly call that the high life.”
“I don’t know how to say this diplomatically,” Michelle went on.
“Then bugger diplomacy. I’ve always been one to face things head-on. Come on, out with it.”
“But there seem to be some anomalies in the original investigation into the Graham Marshall disappearance. Things seem to have been steered in one direction, away from other possibilities, and-”
“And my John was the one doing the steering?”
“Well, he was the senior investigating officer.”
“And you want to know if he was being paid off?”
“It looks that way. Do you remember Carlo Fiorino?”
“I’ve heard the name. A long time ago. Wasn’t he shot in some drug war?”
“Yes, but before that he pretty much ran crime in the area.”
Mrs. Gifford laughed. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said, “but the image of some sort of Mafia don running crime in sleepy old Peterborough is… well, to say the least, it’s
“He wasn’t Mafia. Wasn’t even Italian. He was the son of a POW and a local girl.”
“Even so, it still sounds absurd.”
“Where there are people, there’s crime, Mrs. Gifford. And Peterborough was growing fast. The new town expansion. There’s nothing anyone likes better than a quickly expanding market. People want to gamble, they want sex, they want to feel safe. If someone supplies them with all these needs, there’s quite a tidy profit to be made. And the job’s made all the easier if you have a senior policeman in your pocket.” She didn’t mean it to come out so bluntly, but she wanted to get Mrs. Gifford to take her seriously.
“So you’re saying John was on the take?”
