Shot Through the Heart: DI Grace Fisher 2

by Isabelle Grey

  ‘We can bring him in,’ she said wearily, unwilling to repeat all of Colin’s caveats.

  ‘Then what are you waiting for?’

  She hung her head, too tired to move.

  ‘Grace?’ He was already at the door, holding it open.

  All her life she’d believed that justice, however difficult, however hard-won, restored order. For the first time it struck her that perhaps there was no order. She wondered where that left justice.

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ she said to Lance. She dug into her handbag and with a shaking hand combed her hair and applied fresh lipstick. She was as ready as she’d ever be.

  63

  Lance drove. John Kirkby’s address was near the golf course. A small detached house with an integral garage and wide driveway, it may well have been new when he bought it but now looked in need of updating. The front door was inside a glazed porch, and they heard chimes when they rang the doorbell. John opened the inner doors but, recognizing them, stood his ground and spoke through the closed outer door.

  ‘What do you want?’ He suddenly gripped the frame, looking frightened. ‘Is my boy all right? Nothing’s happened to Adam? No bastard’s got to him in custody?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with your son,’ said Grace. She tried the handle of the porch door, but it was locked. ‘Please can you let us in?’

  ‘I don’t have to,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It would be much easier if we came in.’

  ‘Open the door, Mr Kirkby,’ said Lance. ‘If you don’t, then we’ll have to force an entry.’

  Kirkby stared them out.

  ‘We are here to arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Peter Burnley.’ Lance began the formal caution. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Now please open the door.’

  ‘Just give me a minute or so,’ said Kirkby.

  ‘No. Now.’ Grace tried again to open the porch door, even though she knew it was useless, as Kirkby quietly closed the inner door and disappeared.

  ‘Round the back,’ said Lance, already heading off.

  Grace went to the nearest window and peered in at an untidy lounge with an unused fireplace and a scratched leather three-piece suite. She remained where she was in case Kirkby decided to make a run for it through the front while Lance looked for an open back door. She looked again at the interior: little sign of a woman’s hand. A couple of opened beer cans, a paperback thriller, the Daily Mail open at the crossword. This man had one son murdered, the other facing life imprisonment. He had little left to lose. She ran back to the porch and put her shoulder to the door, holding down the handle and trying to force the lock. But the double-glazed PVC was strong and wouldn’t give. She was just about to call for backup when from deep inside the house she heard, loud, the blast of a shotgun.

  ‘Lance,’ she screamed.

  He came running back as she put in the call to the emergency services. ‘No entry at the back,’ he said.

  She pointed to the garage, and he sprinted off. She watched as he managed to push up the overhead door and edge his way past the big saloon car inside. She ended her call and followed in time to see him open the inside door that led into the house. ‘Wait!’ she called. ‘It could be a trap. Wait for armed response!’

  But he either didn’t hear or didn’t listen. She waited anxiously until he reappeared, ashen-faced. He nodded in response to her silent question and went to sit on the low garden wall, his head in his hands.

  ‘Any chance he’s still alive?’ she asked.

  Lance shook his head. ‘Brains all over the wall.’

  She sat beside him and rubbed his back. ‘You OK?’

  He nodded and then turned to her, a sour, contorted look on his face. ‘They’ll spin it that he’s some kind of hero like his son Mark, won’t they? Killed himself because he couldn’t live with Adam’s dishonour.’

  ‘We’ve done what we can,’ she said. ‘And it’s still justice of a kind, I suppose. At least now we know the truth.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘The truth is what you read in the newspapers, what they tell us on the news, what the bobby on the beat believes. They’ll never know why Peter died.’

  Grace could hear an approaching siren. Lance stood up, reached into his coat pocket for his warrant card and tossed it on the ground. ‘I’m sick of it,’ he said. ‘Had enough. What about you?’

  What about her? She didn’t know. The siren came closer, joined by the wail of another emergency vehicle. She thought of the bloody mess the paramedics would find inside the house. Was this what she really wanted to do with her life? Yet, if this kind of disorder was ultimately all there was, someone had to be here, someone who cared about the things that mattered. She looked up at Lance. ‘I think I’ll stick around for a bit longer.’

  Acknowledgements

  First of all I must thank my brother Allen who altered the course of my original idea by saying that bullets are far more interesting than guns. Any mistakes I have made about the pathology of gunshot wounds are mine. For invaluable specialist expertise, my grateful thanks to Mark Mastaglio and Andrew Perks. Again, all errors are my own. And I am indebted for other local knowledge to Duncan Campbell, Vicky Hayward, Jeff Edwards, Robert Wilson, Kathrine Smith, Jackie Malton, Merle Nygate and Lisa Cohen. Lines from E. M. Forster’s ‘What I Believe’ are reproduced courtesy of the Provost and Scholars of King’s College, Cambridge and the Society of Authors as the E. M. Forster Estate.

  My heartfelt thanks as always to my wonderful editor Jane Wood and her team at Quercus, and to my equally wonderful agent Sheila Crowley, and also to Rebecca Ritchie, at Curtis Brown.