Peter Robinson - All the Colors of Darkness

Glumly, Andy Pash turned off the music, which originated from a shiny black iPod seated in a matching dock, and sat on the edge of his bed. It was a small room, and there were no chairs, so Winsome and Doug Wilson remained standing, leaning against the wall beside the door. The first thing Winsome noticed, glancing around, were the bookcases against one wall—or, more specifically, she noticed the rows of traffic cones that stood on them, all painted different colors.

“Quite the artist, I see, Andy,” said Winsome.

“Oh, that... yeah, well...”

“I suppose you know what you’ve done is theft?”

“They’re just traffic cones, for fuck’s sake.”

“Eastvale Road Department’s traffic cones, to be precise. And don’t swear while I’m around. I don’t like it.”

“You can have them back. It was just a lark.”

“Glad you can see the funny side of it.”

Pash peered at Wilson and said, “Anyone ever tell you that you look like—”

“Shut up,” said Wilson, pointing a finger at him. “Just you shut up right there, you little scrote.”

Pash held his hands up. “All right. Okay. It’s cool, man. Whatever.”

“Andy,” said Winsome, “have you ever heard of a bloke in the neighborhood called the Bull?”

“The Bull? Yeah. He’s a cool dude.”

American television had a lot to answer for when it came to the ruination of the English language, Winsome thought. She had been taught in a mountain village school by an Oxford-educated local woman who had come home after years in England to give something back to her people. She had given Winsome a love of the English language and its literature and inspired in her the desire to go to live in England one day, which had put her where she was now. Perhaps not exactly what Mrs. Marlowe would have wished, but at least she was here, in the land of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Dickens and the Brontës. It was from her father, a corporal at the local station, that she had got her policing instinct, such as it was. “Know what his real name is?” she asked.

“No. I think it might be like Torgi or Tory or something like that, some sort of foreign name. Arab. Turkish, I think. But everyone calls him the Bull. He’s a big guy.”

“Does he wear a hoodie?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“I might do.”

“Would you care to tell us?”

“Hey, man. I don’t want the Bull thinking I sicced the cops on him.”

“It’s just a friendly chat we want, Andy. Like the one we’re having with you now.”

“The Bull don’t like the pigs.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t,” said Winsome. “So we’ll be especially careful not to oink too loudly.”

“Huh?”

Winsome sighed and crossed her arms. Clearly Pash was as stupid as he was obnoxious, which was fortunate for them, or he’d know to clam up. “Andy, did you tell this Bull that Donny Moore, Nicky Haskell’s right hand man, had called him an ugly Arab bastard?”

“Donny Moore is menkle. He deserved everything he got.”

“He deserved to get stabbed, did he?”

“Dunno.”

“Do you know who did that to him, Andy?”

“No idea. Not one of us.”

“What did you have to do to become a member ofJackie’s crew?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You know what I mean, Andy. Usually you have to perform some sort of task, prove your loyalty, your courage, before you can be accepted into a gang. In some places it’s got as far as killing someone at random, but we still hang on to the vestiges of civilization here in Eastvale.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I don’t know nothing about any vestergers.”

“Let me try to keep it simple then,” said Winsome. “What did Jackie Binns ask you to do to become a member of his gang?”

“He didn’t ask me nothing.”

“You’re lying, Andy.”

“I’m—”

“Andy!”

Pash turned away and stared sulkily at the wall. For all his surface bravado, Winsome thought, he was just a confused and scared kid. It didn’t mean he couldn’t be dangerous, or vicious, but she doubted very much that he would turn out really bad. A dumb petty criminal; at worst, the one who always got caught.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. No need to shout at me. Nicky and Jackie, they never got along, right? Then along comes the Bull, and he’s, like, bigger than both of them. Jackie thought like maybe it would be a good idea to set them against each other, so, yeah, he said I should tell the Bull that Donny had bad-mouthed him. But I never saw anything. You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know who stabbed Donny, and I ain’t no witness to nothing.”

“Does the Bull carry a knife?”

“The Bull got a blade, yeah. A big one.”

“His address, Andy. The Bull’s address.”

“I don’t know no address.”

“Where does he live?”

“The flats. Hague House. Second floor. It’s got a green door, the only one there with a green door. Side facing the castle. I don’t know the number, I swear it. But don’t tell him I sent you.”

“Don’t worry, Andy. I wouldn’t think of it. But first I’d like you to come down to the station so we can get down what you’ve told all nice and legal, with a solicitor and all.”

“Do I have to?”

“Well, let me put it this way. Right now, I’m inclined to be lenient about the traffic cones, but if you start giving us any trouble, I’ll arrest you for being in possession of stolen property. Is that clear enough?” said Winsome.

Pash didn’t say anything. He just grabbed his jacket from the floor and followed Wilson downstairs.

“Think of it this way,” Winsome said. “It’ll give your little sister a bit of peace and quiet to read Wuthering Heights.”

When they left, Winsome could smell cigarette smoke coming from the living room.

"Now let me get this straight,” Banks asked Derek Wyman in the hot and stuffy interview room. “You’re telling us now that Mark Hardcastle asked you to spy on his lover Laurence Silbert because he suspected that Silbert was cheating on him, right?”

“That’s right,” said Wyman. “It wasn’t meant to go that far. No one was supposed to get hurt. Honest.”

“Why not do it himself?”

“He didn’t want to be seen.”

“Why did you hire Tomasina Savage?”

“Because I simply couldn’t get down to London on every occasion Laurence went there. And he knew me, too. There was always a chance he might spot me. I just looked in the yellow pages and liked the name. It didn’t matter when I found out it was a woman. She did a good job.”

“And those conversations with Mark in the Red Rooster?”

“It was somewhere out of the way, that’s all. I didn’t know the kids from school had started to drink there. Mark was telling me all about his suspicions. No wonder he seemed upset. He was. He loved Laurence.”

“Did he also tell you that he had a previous conviction for domestic assault on an ex-lover?”

Wyman shot Banks a puzzled glance. “No, he didn’t tell me that.” “So you just decided to help Mark in this out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Well, yes.”

“Without any idea of what the repercussions might be?”

“Obviously not. Like I said, I never intended for anyone to get hurt.”

“It’s not so obvious to me, Derek,” said Banks. “What did you have against Laurence Silbert that made you pursue him so aggressively? At the very least, you knew what you were doing might cause him great pain. It clearly caused Mark pain.”

“Well, Laurence deserved it, didn’t he, if he was cheating on Mark?”

“Were you in love with Mark?”

“Good God, no! Where on earth did you get that idea? I’m not... I mean... no.”