Blood on the Cowley Road Read Online Free PDF Page A

(not his sort of thing). Rather he had been practising his observational skills on the new Detective Inspector’s office. He had exchanged barely a dozen words with her in the six weeks since he’d taken up his post in the Cowley office. Most of the time he had been tagging along behind DS Fox or DS Roberts as he ‘got to know the ropes’. Twice he had heard comments made about Holden – one respectful, the other distinctly sexist – but he liked to draw his own conclusions from his own observations. He had always been good at observing things; even before he was of school age, he had demonstrated a knack for finding items that his mother had lost at home. By the time he was eight he started to turn that observation towards people. This started shortly before the end of the autumn term, one in which his poor work (he was later diagnosed as mildly dyslexic, but not until he was half way through Middle School) and worse behaviour had somewhat strained relations between him and his form teacher, Miss Turner, and his mother. After a difficult meeting at the end of school one Friday, he had felt relieved to be packed off to his grandma’s house across town. But he had hardly curled up in the large musty chair in front of the television before his grandma marched in, switched it off, and stood over him with hands on her hips in a manner that made him shudder.

    â€˜So, young man,’ she said, ‘what has been going on at school? Your mother is at the end of her wits.’
    â€˜It’s not fair,’ he protested.
    â€˜It’s not fair on your mother, young man,’ she said firmly. ‘That much I do know.’
    â€˜Miss Turner hates me,’ the eight-year-old said plaintively.
    â€˜Does she now?’ said the seventy-year-old, unconvinced.
    â€˜So does Mrs Wallace.’ (Mrs Wallace was the classroom assistant.)
    â€˜Well,’ his grandma said, taking a deep breath as she did so and bending down till her face was opposite his. ‘In that case, what you have got to do,’ and she poked him gently in the ribs as she said this, ‘is make them like you.’
    If the boy had had ears that could prick up, they would have pricked up. ‘How?’ he said. ‘How Grandma?’
    â€˜What is Miss Turner’s favourite colour?’
    â€˜Blue,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘She likes to dress in blue.’
    â€˜Does she wear jewellery?’
    He paused, envisaging in his mind Miss Turner. ‘Yes,’ he said finally, ‘she wears earrings. Little ones usually. But when we have a special day, she always wears long dangly ones. Once she wore a moon in one ear and a sun in the other.’
    â€˜And what can you tell me about Mrs Wallace?’
    â€˜Muck!’ he said triumphantly. ‘She likes white muck.’
    For a minute the old lady was puzzled. ‘Muck?’
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘I saw it last week. She took a spray thing out of her bag, and I read the words “white muck” on its label.’
    Wilson’s grandma laughed. ‘White musk. You mean white musk!’
    â€˜Why do you want to know, grandma?’ he asked.
    â€˜Because,’ she said, suddenly serious again, ‘tomorrow we are going to buy them each a Christmas present that they will really like. And every time they use that present they are going to think about you and they are going to say to themselves, maybe that boy Colin Wilson isn’t so bad after all.’
    â€˜So will they like me when they’ve opened their presents?’ he asked.
    His grandmother smiled. ‘It may not be that simple or quick. But if you do as I say, we’ll get them to like you, by hook or by crook.’
    And so Colin Wilson began the task of Making His Teachers Like
Him. It wasn’t always easy, and it didn’t usually involve giving presents (except on suitable occasions) but it did involve him making observations and then