“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 ridiculous.”

“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?”

“I’m asking you if you noticed anything that might indicate he was receiving extra money, yes.”

“Well, if he was, I never saw any of it. I can tell you that much.”

“So where did it all go? Wine, women and song?”

Mrs. Gifford laughed again and stubbed out her cigarette. “My dear,” she said, “John was strictly an ale and whiskey man. He also had a tin ear, and you can forget the women. I’ve not told anyone except my present husband this, but I’ll tell you now: John Harris was queer as a three-pound note.”

“Another round?”

“My shout,” said Banks.

“I’ll come with you.” Dave Grenfell got up and accompanied Banks to the bar. For old times’ sake, they were in The Wheatsheaf, where the three of them had drunk their very first pints of beer at the age of sixteen. The place had been tarted up over the years, and now it seemed a lot more up-market than the shabby Victorian backstreet boozer it had been all those years ago. Probably got the lunchtime crowd from the new “business park” over the road, Banks guessed, though now, early in the evening, it was practically deserted.