Peter Robinson - All the Colors of Darkness

“No idea.”

“Who took them?”

“How should I know?”

Banks leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “I’ll tell you how you should know,” he said. “They were taken by a young female private detective called Tomasina Savage. On your instructions. What do you have to say about that?”

“That’s privileged! That was a private... It... You can’t...” Wyman started to get to his feet but banged his leg on the underside of the bolted table and sat down again.

“Privileged? You’ve been watching too many American cop shows,” Banks said. “Why did you employ Tomasina Savage to follow Laurence Silbert and take those photographs? We know you gave them to Mark at Zizzi’s and he tore them up as soon as he saw them, but he kept the memory stick. Did he really just go to the cinema with you after that? Or was it all a lie?”

“Can I have some water?”

Annie poured him a glass from the pitcher on the table.

“Why did you pay Tomasina Savage to take those photographs?” Banks repeated.

Wyman sipped his water and leaned back in his chair. For a few long moments, he said nothing, seemed to be coming to a decision, then he looked at them and said, “Because Mark asked me to. That’s why. I did it. Because Mark asked me to. But as God is my witness, it was not my intention that anyone should die.”

Winsome was getting sick and tired of traipsing around the East Side Estate with Harry Potter by six o’clock on Saturday evening. It was time to go home, she felt, have a long bath, put on a nice frock and go to the Potholing Club social at the Cat and Fiddle. Maybe have a quiet drink later with Steve Farrow, if he asked her. But they were getting close to finding the Bull.

So far, they had discovered that one of Jackie Binns’s recent recruits, Andy Pash, a fifteen-year-old wannabee trying to ingratiate himself with the rest of the gang, had told the Bull that Donny Moore had called him a big ugly Arab bastard and said he was going to get what was coming to him. Apparently, Moore had said nothing of the kind—he was neither stupid nor suicidal—but the Bull believed that he had and had gone after him. Nobody had actually witnessed the stabbing—or so everyone said—but they all knew who did it and, as expected, someone had eventually let the name slip.

Now they were going to talk to Andy Pash, and Winsome had the feeling that he might just be the weakest link.

Pash lived with his mother and two sisters on one of nicer streets on the estate. At least there weren’t any boarded-up windows or rusted cars parked in the garden. The woman who answered the door, a bleached blonde in a micro skirt with too much makeup, cigarette in one hand and handbag in the other, turned out to be his mother, Kath. If she was surprised to find a six-foot-plus black woman and a detective constable who resembled Harry Potter at her door just after six on a Saturday evening asking to talk to her son, she didn’t show it.

“He’s up in his room,” she said. “Can’t you hear the bloody racket? And I m off out.”

“You should be present while we question him,” Winsome said.

“Why? He’s a big boy. Help yourselves. And good luck. Close the door behind you.”

She brushed past them. Winsome and Doug Wilson exchanged glances. “Did she just give us permission?” Wilson asked.

“I think so,” said Winsome. “Besides, we’re not arresting him. We just want him to tell us where the Bull lives.”

Wilson muttered something about “fruit of the poisoned tree,” which Winsome was sure he must have got from an American cop program, and they went inside and shut the door. In the living room, a young girl of about thirteen lounged on the sofa watching The Simpsons . She had just lit a cigarette, no doubt the moment her mother had gone out of the door.

“Hey, you’re too young to be smoking,” said Winsome.

The girl jumped. The television was so loud that she hadn’t even noticed Winsome and Wilson enter the room. On the screen, Itchy was chopping Scratchy into little pieces again while Bart and Lisa chuckled away, “Who the fuck are you?” the girl said, reaching for her mobile. “Perverts? I’ll call the cops.”

“No need, love, we’re already here.” Winsome showed her warrant card. “And mind your language,” she said. “Now put that cigarette out.”

The girl glared at her.

“Put it out,” Winsome repeated.

Casually, the girl dropped her cigarette into a half-empty mug on the coffee table—her mother’s, judging by the lipstick smeared on the rim. It sizzled and went out.

“Charming,” said Wilson.

It was a small victory, Winsome knew, and as soon as they were out of the way the child would light up again, but of such small victories the war is sometimes won. “We’re off up to see your brother,” she said. “You behave yourself.”

“Lucky you,” said the young smoker, turning back to the TV.

Winsome and Wilson climbed the stairs. The noise was coming from the second door on the right, but before they could knock, the door across the landing opened and another girl peered out at them. She was younger than her sister, perhaps about nine or ten, a gawky young thing with thick-lensed glasses. She was holding a book in her hand, and though she didn’t look scared, she did seem curious as to what was going on. Winsome walked over and stood at the threshold of the room.

“Who are you?” the girl asked.

Winsome squatted so she could be on eye level with her. “My name’s Winsome Jackman. I’m a policewoman. And this is Doug. What’s your name?”

“Winsome’s a nice name. I’ve never heard it before. I’m Scarlett. I think I’ve seen your picture in the paper.”

“You might have done,” said Winsome. She had last made the headlines after bringing down a suspect with a flying rugby tackle in the heart of the Swainsdale Centre’s Marks and Spencer food department. “We’ve come to see your brother.”

“Oh,” said Scarlett, as if it were an everyday occurrence.

“What are you reading?” Winsome asked.

The girl clutched the book to her chest as if she feared someone were going to steal it from her. “Wuthering Heights

“I read that at school,” said Winsome. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

“It’s wonderful !”

Winsome could see the room behind her. It was reasonably tidy, though clothes lay scattered around on the floor, and there was a bookcase almost full of secondhand paperbacks. “You like to read?” she said.

“Yes,” said Scarlett. “But sometimes it’s just too noisy. They’re always shouting and Andy plays his music so very loud.”

“So I hear,” said Winsome.

“Sometimes it’s hard to follow the words.”

“Well, that’s a very grown-up book for a little girl.”

“I’m ten,” said Scarlett proudly. “I’ve read Jane Eyre, too! I just wish they’d be more quiet so I can read.”

“We’ll see what we can do.” Winsome stood up. “See you later, Scarlett,” she said.

“Bye-bye.” Scarlett shut her bedroom door.

After a swift tap, Winsome opened Andy Pash’s door and she and Wilson walked in.

“Hey,” said Pash, getting up from his unmade bed. “What’s all this? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“Police,” said Winsome, flashing her card. “Your mother let us in. Said we could ask you a few questions. Do you want to turn that down? Off would be even better. Your little sister’s trying to read over the hall.”

“That little bookworm. She’s always got her face buried in a book,” Pash complained as he went over to the sound system.

The music was a sort of thumping, pulsating techno-beat rhythm that sounded to Winsome as if it had all been generated by computers and drum machines, though it did have a sort of Caribbean lilt. Most people assumed that Winsome was probably a reggae or calypso fan, but she actually hated reggae, which had been her father’s preferred music, and calypso, which her grandparents had adored. If she did listen to music at all, which wasn’t that often, she preferred the “best of” approach to classical music you got on Classic FM. All the catchy bits in one handy package. Why listen to the boring second movement of a symphony, she thought, if all you wanted to hear was that nice theme in the third?