‘Sending you what?’ said Strike, on whom this comment was lost. He’d never used an emoji in his life.
‘I’ll explain some other time,’ said Robin. She’d never yet discussed erect penises or the symbols used for them online with Strike, and wasn’t going to start now. ‘I’ll let you know how I get on. Speak later.’
Robin made herself a coffee and, at the appointed time, called Wynn Jones on her laptop. After just a few rings, he answered with the words ‘all right?’
Jones was a heavy-set youth with a double chin and almost no neck. His very short dark hair had already receded to reveal a large expanse of shiny red forehead. One of his eyes was larger than the other, which gave him an unfortunate look of craftiness. With his weathered appearance and his tartan shirt, he’d have blended in easily with any of the land workers Robin had known in Masham, some of them school mates who were uninterested in academic life because they had farms on which to work and, in some cases, to inherit.
Jones was sitting in what looked like a very cramped and none-too-tidy sitting room. The leatherette sofa bore evidence of having been shredded in places by a cat’s claws. Buckled beer cans and takeaway cartons were piled on a low table to Jones’ left and the edge of a dartboard was visible over his head, the surrounding wall pockmarked with holes. Jones was clutching a can of Carlsberg, and though it was barely six o’clock in the evening, he had the slightly sloppy, glazed look of a man who’d already had several beers.
‘Hi,’ said Robin. ‘Thanks very much for agreeing to talk to me, Wynn.’
‘’S’all right,’ said Jones. He glanced off camera and raised his eyebrows at someone or something out of sight; a knowing, amused look.
‘She ’ot, then?’ said a voice off-camera.
‘Yeah, not bad,’ said the smirking Jones.
‘So, as I explained, Wynn,’ said Robin, pretending she hadn’t heard this, ‘I wanted to talk to you about Tyler, because his grandmother thinks—’
‘’E was a body,’ said Jones, and Robin heard gruff chortles from the man off camera. ‘Senile, i’n she? Smart London detective like you shoulda worked that out by now, if you’ve talked to her.’
Chippy distaste for the capital and its denizens was also familiar to Yorkshire-born Robin, so she ignored this comment.
‘Dilys doesn’t believe the man who’s called her since July is Tyler. She thinks—’
‘It’s me, yeah,’ said Jones, looking unabashed. ‘Daft old cow. I’ve told her it’s not. Lugs told me to tell ’er, so I did.’
‘Lugs?’
‘That’s what we call him. “Lugs”. You and Jonny Rokeby’s boy should be paying me, by rights. Telling you stuff you should already know.’
The man off camera laughed.
‘Dilys is always thinkin’ people are tryna trick her,’ said Wynn. ‘Thought the postman had nicked her pension book last year, daft old bat. Lugs is sick of ’er, anyway. Making him do her shopping and all sorts.’
‘Have
‘Yeah, but then he got pissed off with me,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.
‘Why was that?’
‘Called him a fuckin’ coward, din’ I?’
‘Why did you call him a coward?’
‘Should’ve just fuckin’ thumped all of ’em what were saying shit about him and that crash,’ said Jones, and he took another sip of lager. ‘’S what I’d’a done, if they were talking shit about
‘So you’re sure Tyler’s innocent, are you?’
‘Why’re you askin’ me that, if you’re on Dilys’s side?’
‘I’m just trying to find out where Tyler’s gone and whether anyone’s hurt him,’ said Robin.
‘Nobody’s bloody
‘People said the car was tampered with in Birmingham, did they?’
‘“People” didn’t say it. Fuckin’ Faber White’ead did.’
‘This is Hugo’s father?’
‘Yeah. He was putting it about someone on the car park camera, fiddlin’ with it.’
‘Really?’ said Robin. ‘D’you know what that person looked—?’
‘There wasn’t nobody there,’ sneered Jones. ‘White’ead didn’t want to believe his dipshit fucking son was speeding. Sabotage my arse.’
The person off camera laughed again.
‘Tyler was at home the night of the crash, right?’ said Robin.
‘Yeah, ’e ’ad a cold or something.’
‘Were his parents there?’
‘No, they’d buggered off to Florida by then.’
‘D’you know where he’s gone, Wynn?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jones, his smirk widening. ‘But you gotta make it worth my while if I’m gonna tell you that.’
There was yet another bark of laughter in the background.
‘Tyler’s not there now, is he?’ said Robin, struck by a sudden suspicion. ‘Listening to you talk to me?’
Robin heard a door opening and slamming and a lot of chortling.
‘No, ’course not,’ said Jones, grinning more broadly than ever.
‘Could you introduce me to the friend you’ve got there, listening in?’ Robin asked.