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 Brontes.
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—”
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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