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?
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?”