“Someone stabbed Donny,” Annie reminded him, “and we’re not moving on until we find out who it was.”
“Well, I don’t know, do I? It wasn’t me. Donny’s me mate. He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“He’ll be fine. And we know he’s your mate. That’s why we thought you might be able to help us. You were there.”
“Says who?”
“Nicky, we know there was a scuff le down by the waste ground next to glue-sniffers’ ginnel. We know you and your mates, including Donny Moore, hang out there every night, and we know you wouldn’t take kindly to Jackie Binns and his crew muscling in, but we know they did. So why don’t you make it easy for us and just tell us what happened?”
Haskell said nothing. He may have thought he was looking tough and defiant, Annie thought, but she could see the slight trembling of fear in his lower lip. She turned to Winsome, who picked up the questioning. Sometimes just a simple change of voice and tone worked wonders.
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P E T E R R O B I N S O N
“What did you see that night, Nicky?” Winsome asked.
“I didn’t see nothing, did I? It was dark.”
“So you
“I might have been somewhere around,” Haskell mumbled. “It don’t mean I saw nothing, though.”
“What are you scared of, Nicky?”
“Nothing. I ain’t scared of nothing.”
“Did you see a large hooded figure running away, down the ginnel?”
“I didn’t see nothing.”
“If this is some sort of code of honor about not ratting on—”
“There’s no code of honor, bitch. I told you. I ain’t scared of nobody or nothing. I didn’t see nothing. Why don’t you just chill and leave me alone?”
Winsome glanced at Annie and shrugged. It was, as expected, a wasted journey. “I don’t know why you bother to come talking to me, anyway,” Haskell went on, a sneer of a smile on his face. “Didn’t you ought to be spending your time taking care of those rich folk up on Castleview Heights? They be the ones doing all the murder and shit, seems to me these days.”
“Cut it with the black talk, Nicky,” said Winsome. “It’s really bad.”
Like so many of his contemporaries, Haskell occasionally tried to emulate the black urban street talk he heard on television programs like
“What do you know about Castleview Heights?” Annie asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Haskell said, tapping the side of his nose and grinning.
“If you know something, you should tell me.”
“You were asking me about Donny Moore and that ratshit Jackie Binns. Not about them two shirt-lifters on the Heights. What you got for me?”
“What if I were to ask you about Laurence Silbert and Mark Hardcastle?” Annie went on, intrigued by his mention of Castleview Heights. “What would you be able to tell me about them?”
“That Mark Hardcastle, he the one from the theater?”
A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
1 6 5
“That’s right,” Annie said.
“I been there. School trip, few months ago.” Nicky eyed them defiantly, as if to say that he
That man, that Hardcastle, he answered some questions after the play, him and Mr. Wyman and some of the actors. That’s why I knew him when I saw him the next time.”
“Where did you see him the next time?” Annie asked.
“Like I say, what you got for me, bitch?”
Annie felt like saying that she had a clip around the ear for him if he didn’t tell her what he knew, but he would only laugh at that, and she wouldn’t do it. Instead, she reached for her purse and pulled out a five-pound note.
Nicky laughed. “You must be joking. That don’t buy shit these days.”
Annie put the five back and pulled out a ten.
“Now we talking the same language, bitch,” said Nicky, and reached for it.
Annie held it away from him, so that he would have to get up from his supine position on the sofa to grab it. As she expected, he didn’t.
“Two things before you get this,” she went on. “First, you tell me where and when you saw Mark Hardcastle for the second time.”
