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(Prelude)

Monday 4th 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 across the river 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 there were threads of grey in his plaited hair. The white T-shirt carried a faded image of Jimmy Hendrix.
“ You’re a cop.” He said.
“Yeah?”
“Si.”
“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?”
“ Si…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?”
“ Si.” 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, once pissed, once sober. His name was Riquelme, though everyone seemed to called him Rikki. He was Columbian. 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 braindead 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 Columbian studied him for a moment or two, then produced a thin cheroot.
“ Bullshit,” he said softly.

Reviews

The Price of Darkness is the eighth in the series and it's one of Hurley's best....

The Price of Darkness is a tad slow to get going, and once it's into its stride, it's like an ocean liner – you won't be turning this book round at speed! But it's dark, gritty, engrossing and totally believable. There's plenty of meat promised for the next book, (No Lovelier Death) with Winter's life-changing decision at the end of The Price of Darkness, along with unresolved issues in Faraday's private life concerning son J-J and French girlfriend Gabrielle.
If you're new to the series, don't start with The Price of Darkness. Go back to the beginning and see how a good writer becomes an outstanding one as the books progress and he refines his art.
- Sharon Wheeler, Reviewing the Evidence

Click here to read the full review from 'Reviewing the Evidence'

Residents of Portsmouth disgruntled by Boris Johnson's description of their town as drug-ridden and populated by obese under-achievers will not necessarily be pleased to learn that it is the setting for Britain's finest and hardest-hitting series of police procedural novels. The Price of Darkness is Graham Hurley's best book yet and should put Pompey firmly on the literary map. Maverick DC Paul Winter has gone under cover and is finding that the rich pickings of the criminal life are too much of a burden for his slender conscience to bear, and stalwart DI Faraday is trying to piece together a jigsaw of graft and corruption in order to solve a murder and an assassination. 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.
- Laura Wilson, The Guardian. 19 January 2008

Football hooligan Bazza Mackenzie thinks an international jet-ski race would make a fitting tribute to his late brother, and that Paul Winter is the guy to organise it.
DC Winter is fully embedded in Mackenzie’s drug-peddling gang, which Hurley brings to life with tongue-in-cheek vitality: plenty of bling, and heavies with a penchant for violence.
Ex-colleague DI Faraday’s investigation into the shooting of a property developer and a visiting junior minister finds Winter implicated – which primes the central question of this thriller: has Winter defected to a crime boss, or is he still an undercover cop?
The political murder feels slightly underplayed next to Mackenzie’s outlandish antics, but interesting characters and two strong storylines drive the book along at high speed.
- James Urquhart, The Financial Times 19 January 2008


If you don't know this superb British series set in Portsmouth, there is no better place to begin. The Price of Darkness is vintage Hurley, with brilliant characters, a superb plot and a great story about loyalty and betrayal.
Det Con Paul Winter is undercover, trying to infiltrate Portsmouth's most powerful drug gang. Back at HQ, Det Ins Joe Faraday, once Winter's boss, is caught up in complex investigations of two high-profile murders, a well-known property developer and a government minister. Both murders were bold, efficient and professional.
Evidence begins to build, circumstantial but convincing, that the murders and the drugs are related. Winter and Faraday have a vexed relationslhip at best, and here it teeters dangerously. I found this book exceptional, possibly because I've been watching The Wire on DVD.
Hurley's graphically realistic Portsmouth underworld is very similar to David Simon's amazing picture of equally besieged Baltimore.
- The Toronto Globe and Mail

Graham Hurley's Portsmouth police series featuring the hardworking but quietly prescient Detective-Inspector Joe Faraday and the canny, reprobate D.C. Winter, came to me late. Now I'm hooked. The eighth, The Price of Darkness, puts Hurley alongside Scotland's Ian Rankin as a British noir crafter of singularity in an overcrowded field of copycats. He does multiple storylines, segueing between the damage-controlling Faraday and the manipulative, ethically blind Winter. Hurley has Winter go undercover, infiltrating a drug boss Bazza's inner circle, as two vicious murders alarm the British government and have the anti-terrorist bunch circling Faraday.
- Graeme Blundell, The Australian 12 April 2008

Click here to read a review from 'Crime Time'

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