All the Colors of Darkness ib-18

by Peter Robinson

  “It might have been. That’s what we usually talked about. I told you we were more colleagues than friends.”

  “I understand that you were a bit upset about Mark wanting to direct plays himself and trying to start up a professional acting troupe, using paid locals and jobbing actors, attached to the Eastvale Theatre,”

  Annie said. “That you thought it would threaten your position. I can see how that would get to you. It must be the only bit of real job satisfaction you get after a day at the comprehensive with the likes of Nicky Haskell and Jackie Binns.”

  “They’re not all like that.”

  “I suppose not,” said Annie. “But it must still be a bit depressing.

  You love the theater, don’t you? It’s the one thing you’re passionate about. And here was Mark Hardcastle, already a brilliant set designer, just waiting in the wings to take over directing, too. Artistic director of his own company. It would have been no contest, would it?”

  “Mark couldn’t direct his way out of a paper bag.”

  “But he was the up-and-coming star,” Banks said. “He had professional theater experience. He had big ideas. It would have put the Eastvale Theatre on the map a lot more significantly than a bloody Amateur Dramatic Company. You’re just a schoolteacher moonlighting as a director. As DI Cabbot says, no contest.”

  Wyman squirmed in his chair. “I don’t know where all this is supposed to be leading, but—”

  “Then let me show you,” said Banks. “DI Cabbot might want to go gently with you, but I’ve had enough pissing about.” He took some photographs from an envelope in front of him and slipped them across the table to Wyman.

  “What are these?” Wyman asked, glancing down at them.

  “Surely you recognize Laurence Silbert?”

  “It could be him. It’s not a very good photo.”

  “Bollocks, Derek. It’s a perfectly good photo. Who’s the other man?”

  “No idea.”

  “Who took them?”

  “How should I know?”

  Banks leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “I’ll tell you A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

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  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.”

  W I N S O M E WA S 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 2 9 8 P E T E R

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  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 Simp-sons. 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.

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  “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 las
t made the headlines after bringing down a suspect with a f lying 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 f loor, and there was a 3 0 0

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  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, f lashing 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?

  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 A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S

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  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.”

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  “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 of Jackie’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—”

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  “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 li
ve?”

  “The f lats. Hague House. Second f loor. 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 f loor 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.

  * * *

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  P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  “ N O W L E T 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.”