Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005
- Автор: Dean David, Dempsey Timothy F.
- Год: 2005
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN 1054-8122
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005». Краткое содержание книги:
“I see... I think you’re right to think that. A young man who buys cleaning materials is a young man who lives alone.”
“We’ll see.” Hennessey smiled.
“Oh, take it from me.” Louise D’Acre also smiled, but avoided eye contact.
“He has a small callus on his right middle finger, a classic writer’s callus — a lump where the pen lodges. He was right-handed and writes with a pen as much as, or in preference to, a word processor.”
“A student?”
“Possibly... but whatever, he used a pen a great deal. Now this is interesting...” Dr. D’Acre peered at the right shoulder of the dead youth.
“What have you found?”
“Come and see.”
Hennessey, dressed in the same green coveralls as D’Acre and Paul Fry, walked slowly to the dissecting table.
“There,” Dr. D’Acre said. “You see that?”
“It’s like a small mole.”
“It’s a puncture point. It’s caused by being injected quite roughly with a hypodermic needle, jabbed more than injected — and without the benefit of an antiseptic wipe beforehand. Druggies are covered with them, but this is the only one... high up on the right shoulder... and the callus on his right middle finger tells us he was right-handed... It suggests, strongly so, that he was injected rather than injected himself. Even if he was ambidextrous, he would have difficulty injecting himself there with his left hand, even with a small syringe.”
“I can see that...” Hennessey mimicked the motion of injecting himself on his upper right shoulder. “He’d be more likely to put the thing into his forearm, as drug takers do.”
“Mr. Fry,” Dr. D’Acre turned to the mortuary attendant, “can you get a photograph of this, please? Place a ruler beside it, we’ll need a scale.” Dr. D’Acre and Hennessey stepped back to allow Paul Fry access to the right shoulder. “It’s recent, too,” D’Acre said as the camera flashed, “very recent, twenty-four hours, possibly less. I’ll trawl for traces of poison, see what we find... With a corpse as recent as this, traces of light toxins will still be in the bloodstream and long bones.” She thanked Paul Fry as he stepped away, having taken three closeup photographs of the puncture point. She took a scalpel and placed it on the stomach of the deceased as Hennessey returned to the edge of the room.
“I won’t disturb the face,” she explained. “He will have relatives who will doubtless be asked to identify him... But if you can’t trace the relatives, I will remove the jaw and take a cast of his lower dentures. He can be identified by dental records, if you can find his dentist.”
“Understood,” Hennessey said, though he knew the procedure well, having used it many times. If the police believe they know the identity of a deceased and can find out who his or her dentist was, then dental records will confirm or refute their suspicions. Very useful in the event of much-decomposed or completely skeletal remains being found.
Dr. D’Acre drew the scalpel over the stomach, dividing the flesh with three incisions in the shape of an inverted Y. It was, Hennessey believed, called a “standard midline incision.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Dr. D’Acre said.
“What have you found?”
“Well, he had no food for at least forty-eight hours before he died. And he looks well nourished, and the supermarket receipt indicates that he was eating.”
“Strange...”
“Well, that’s your department, not mine, but I would have to say he was kept against his will and then filled full of something. He died lying on his left side and was carried out to where he was found. I’ll send samples of blood and tissue to the forensic laboratory at Wetherby... You’ll get the results tomorrow.”
MONDAY, 3RD JANUARY. AFTERNOON.
“Sounds like Charlie.” The young woman in the red T-shirt which advertised an alcoholic soft drink, a so-called “alco pop,” pondered the description given to her by Detective Sergeant Yellich.
“Charlie?” Yellich glanced along the bar. The three other young women all wore the same style figure-hugging T-shirt. That brand of alco pop was clearly being promoted.
“Charlie Pimlott.” The woman pulled a pint for a customer who limped up to the bar as if she knew which drink he wanted. “He comes in here a lot, near daily, hasn’t been in for the last day or two.”
“You give cash back, love?”
“Yes, up to fifty pounds. Customers prefer to use the bar than go to a cash dispenser. They charge a fee, a pub doesn’t. If they ask for fifty pounds they get fifty. If they draw out fifty pounds from a machine a further five pounds is debited from their account. Here the fifty pounds charged to the credit card goes to the pub’s account and they receive the cash. They use it to buy drink.”
“I see... Charles Pimlott does that?”
“Yes, a lot.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
“Charlie? Not much, really.”
Yellich glanced around him. The Elm Tree was a dark dive, patronised by some very iffy-looking customers. It was still early; many seats were still vacant.
“He came in during happy hour, from three P.M. to seven... fifty pence off selected beers. Couldn’t have much cash... only drank cheap beer. At seven P.M., when the price went up to normal, he’d turn and find the exit. Gabrielle is the one to ask.”
“Gabrielle?”
“Girl over there...” The barmaid nodded towards a worryingly thin-looking woman with dark, greying hair who stood alone at the bar in front of a pint of lager. “They were mates.”
Yellich thanked the barmaid and sidled along the bar and stood next to the woman identified as Gabrielle. He showed his ID. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About?” Gabrielle had a soft voice. She wore a long, dark-blue skirt and layers of dark-coloured clothing above her waist. She emitted an air of low esteem bordering on depression, so thought Yellich.
“A young man called Charles Pimlott?”
“Charlie? Not seen him for a day or two.”
“What is he to you?”
“Friends. Drinking friends. I’m a lot older than he is... There was nothing between us.”
“You are?”
“Gabrielle Ingham.” She raised her glass to her lips and drank deeply, like a man. “I do this during happy hour and then go home for a vodka or two... or three... I get through a bottle a day.” She fumbled for a cigarette and lit it with a bright orange disposable lighter. “So what has Charlie done to make the police interested in him?”
“Nothing. He’s dead.”
Gabrielle Ingham’s knees buckled slightly. She clutched the bar and steadied herself. Yellich took her elbow but she shrugged him off.
“So you knew him?” Yellich continued after a pause.
“Aye... he lived with me once... I mean, he rented a room off me, gave me a bit of rent.”
“Did he work?”
“Employed? No... but work, yes.” Gabrielle Ingham drew deeply on the nail. “He wanted to be a writer... of fiction... was at university reading law, said it was too tame, wanted to write... what did he say? ‘Tell-it-like-it-is fiction’... ‘life as it is on the streets’... that sort of thing. That’s how I got to know him. He started to come into The Elm... I mean, you can see what a dive it is, full of alcoholics like me... ex-cons... some real ducking and diving going on. Charlie came in here looking for ‘copy,’ as he called it.” Gabrielle Ingham’s voice was not just soft but almost musical. Yellich thought that near derelict as she appeared to be, she had clearly been in receipt of an education and had fallen from grace to become a barfly at The Elm — and had probably fallen a considerable distance.