“I’d prefer it if you didn’t drink or smoke in our presence,” Annie said. “You’re underage.”
Haskell smirked and put the cigarettes down next to the lager. “I can wait till you’re gone,” he said.
“Mind if I turn the TV down?” Annie asked.
“Knock yourself out.”
“Midsomer Murders,” Annie said as she turned the volume down. “I wouldn’t have thought that was your cup of tea.”
“It’s soothing, innit? Like watching paint dry.”
Annie quite liked the program. It was so far removed from the real policing she did that she accepted it for what it was and didn’t even find herself looking for mistakes. She and Winsome sat on hard-backed wooden chairs because they didn’t like the look of the dark stains on the armchairs. “Where are your parents?” Annie asked.
“Mum’s at work, Dad’s at the pub.”
Technically, as he was only fifteen, they weren’t supposed to talk to him unless his parents were present. But as he wasn’t a suspect— Donny was one of his crew, after all—and most likely he wasn’t going to say anything that would prove useful in court, Annie wasn’t inclined to worry much about that.
“We been over all this before,” said Haskell before she even started. “It’s over and done with. Time to move on.”
“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 scuffle 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.
“What did you see that night, Nicky?” Winsome asked.
“I didn’t see nothing, did I? It was dark.”
“So you were there?”
“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 The Wire, but it came out sounding lame. Haskell glared at her for a moment. He obviously thought he’d got it down pat.
“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 Hard-castle?” 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?”
“That’s right,” Annie said.
“I been there. School trip, few months ago.” Nicky eyed them defiantly, as if to say that he did go to school sometimes, when the mood took him. “Some Shakespeare shit, man. Macbeth. Dudes speaking some weird kind of language and offing each other all over the stage. 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.”
Haskell nodded.
“And second,” Annie went on, “you don’t ever call me bitch again. In fact, you don’t even use the word in my presence. Got it?”
Haskell glowered, then grinned. “Okay. You got a deal, sweetheart.”
“Go on.” Annie sighed.
“Was in a pub, wasn’t it?”
“You were in a pub? But you’re only fifteen.”
Haskell laughed. “They don’t care about that in the Red Rooster. Long as you pay the price.”
“The Red Rooster? Down in Medburn?”
“That’s the one.”
Medburn was a village about two miles south of Eastvale, a short distance off the York Road, not far from the A1. A cluster of ugly stone-clad houses around an overgrown green, it had never been likely to win the Prettiest Village of the Year award. And there was one pub, the Red Rooster. They had live music on weekends and karaoke on Thursdays, and the place had a bit of a reputation for rowdiness and the occasional fight, not to mention the sale of drugs. A lot of young squaddies from Catterick Camp went there.
“When was this?” Annie asked.
“Dunno. Maybe two or three weeks before he offed himself. I saw his picture on the TV the other day.”
“What was he doing when you saw him?”
“That’s why I noticed him, man. I was just there having a quiet drink, you know, chillin’ with my friends, and then I see my fucking teacher and I have to get out real fast, or he’ll bring all kinda shit down on me.”
Annie frowned. “Your teacher?”
“Yeah. Mr. Wyman.”
“Let me get this straight,” Annie said. “You saw Derek Wyman in the Red Rooster with Mark Hardcastle a short time before Hardcastle died?”
“That right. You got it.” He glanced at Winsome. “Hey, give the lady a prize.”
Winsome returned Annie’s puzzled gaze. “What were they doing there?” Annie went on.
“Well, they wasn’t doing none of that fag stuff, if you know what I mean.”