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:
“It is our son,” Mr. Pimlott said.
Yellich nodded and the curtain was drawn shut.
“How did he die?” Mr. Pimlott had a trim moustache, suit; he carried an overcoat and trilby.
“We believe he was murdered.” Yellich spoke softly.
“How?” Mrs. Pimlott turned to him; she was sombrely dressed in a blue two-piece.
“He was injected with heroin. We found out just this morning. The toxicology report revealed a massive amount in his system.”
“But he was such a clean-living boy...” Mrs. Pimlott’s words trailed off.
“There is no indication that he was a user,” Yellich said. “The indication is that he was injected against his will. Did he tell you anything at all about what he was doing?”
“No... He gave up his university course. I wanted him to follow me into the law, but he left... He was doing something, he had a project he was working on, but he didn’t tell us what.”
“It was as if he was going to surprise us with some achievement.” Mrs. Pimlott’s voice was shaky. “Can we go back to the hotel, dear?”
“Yes.” Mr. Pimlott squeezed his wife’s hand. He turned to Yellich. “We drove up yesterday evening, booked into a hotel. As you can imagine, we didn’t get a great deal of sleep. We’ll have a nap and then drive home. You don’t need us for anything else?”
“No... Thank you.”
Yellich walked the walls of the medieval city back to Micklegate Bar Police Station. He signed in and checked his pigeonhole. There was a message from Gabrielle Ingham. She had phoned requesting him to meet her at the Rose and Crown pub in Selby (opposite the Abbey), read the note. Yellich looked at the constable at the enquiry desk whose initials were on the note. “How did she sound? Drunk?”
“No, sir. Well, if anything, she was frightened. She phoned from the railway station, I heard the public-address system in the background. That’s York Station... I know Selby... there isn’t a P.A. system at the station there. Train information is by way of a television screen.”
“Good for you.” Yellich smiled. “It’s that sort of observation and local knowledge that gets results. I’ll go and meet her.”
Yellich walked to his office and recorded in the file on Charlie Pimlott that his identity had now been confirmed by his parents. He then drove out of York across a flat landscape the short twenty-minute drive to Selby. He parked his car in the railway-station car park in the shadow of the Abbey and located the Rose and Crown. It was, he found, quite different from the Elm — carpets... a soft, quiet, hotellike atmosphere, bar staff in smart uniform of white shirts and black waistcoats. Gabrielle Ingham, dressed in the same long skirt she had worn the day previous and in the same black jacket, sat at a table in the corner. She smoked a cigarette; a pint of beer, half consumed, stood in front of her. She smiled at Yellich, who sat next to her.
“I wasn’t followed,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here if I was followed. They don’t rate me much, anyway. I’m a slush... not a real threat.”
“They?”
“Baruch’s boys.”
“You’re not involved with them!”
“Not me... I’m just a soak, a barfly, but I see things... Baruch’s moving into Holgate.”
“Bit downmarket for him. From what we know, he supplies cocaine to the county set and Ecstasy to the clubbers. I’ve never seen him.”
“No one has. They say his house is like the Tower of London: wire, guards, dogs — he’s a frightened man. He’s moving heroin into Holgate.”
“Really?”
“He’s selling it to the youth. Remember the pub yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see two guys at the end of the bar, one with a beard, the other clean-shaven?”
“Didn’t notice them.”
“Well, they’re always there. Sydney Jarvis and Henry Cooke. They were the villains in Holgate, selling cannabis and some duty-free tobacco, playing at it, really. Anyway, recently they were told that they were now working for Baruch... and they were moving heroin. They’re out of their depths, they’re scared. I mean, I am scared, but not like they must be.”
“So, what happened?”
“What exactly, I don’t know. But Charlie Pimlott was asking questions, like I told you... This didn’t come from me, right? I won’t make a statement or give evidence.”
“Okay.”
“But you should talk to Cooke and Jarvis. I overheard something... They had something to do with Charlie’s murder — on Baruch’s orders.”
“Understood.”
“That’s all you’re getting from me... and don’t follow me out.” Gabrielle Ingham stood. “I may not have been followed, but Baruch’s people are everywhere... Seriously. Everywhere.”
Both men looked nervous. Very nervous indeed. When they were placed in separate cells at Micklegate Bar Police Station, they looked even more nervous.
“We can hold you for twelve hours without charging you,” Hennessey said to Cooke. “I’ll come back and see you in ten hours’ time, so wait here and decide what you want to do... just you and your thoughts. You work for yourself or you work against yourself. We’ll listen to you if you want to talk to us before your mate. I’m now going to see him and say the same thing to him. Remember, Baruch will know you’ve been lifted by now.” Hennessey left the cell and the door was clanged shut.
TUESDAY, 4TH JANUARY. EVENING.
“If I tell you, I’m dead.”
“If you don’t tell us, you’re dead. Baruch won’t take any risks, he’ll have you silenced anyway. You and your mate both.”
“He’s not that much of a mate.” Henry Cooke stroked his beard nervously.
“Well, he may well drop you in it. We haven’t talked to him yet.”
“I never wanted it to go this far.”
“No one ever does.”
“But you don’t mess with Baruch. No one ever sees him, but if he gives the word, someone dies. He hides away... If he goes out, he’s chauffeur-driven in a car with tinted glass. He can see out, but you can’t see in.”
“We know. We’ve wanted Mr. Baruch for a long time.”
“But I’ve seen him.”
“Do you want a lawyer present?”
“No, this is off the record, the fewer people who know what I’m saying, the better.”
“It can’t stay off the record.”
“You won’t get Jarvis to testify. Baruch’s got something to hold over him... he’s got family in Holgate. One word from Baruch and they’ll all disappear. But I haven’t... Baruch’s got nothing to hold over me.”
“Keep talking.”
“I want witness protection. New name. New identity.”
“Only if you are a witness; if you murdered him or were part of the crime, you won’t qualify... and you have to stand up in court and testify.”
“Baruch murdered the boy.”
“Go on.”
“He heard the boy was asking questions. He had him brought to his house. Baruch is totally paranoid. Anyway, me and Jarvis were told to come to Baruch’s house out in the Vale of York. The boy was there... He’d been starved of food for three days to make him talk. Baruch was certain the boy knew all about his operation, but the boy knew nothing. When we got there, he was tied to a chair — a wooden upright chair — putting his fingerprints all over it. Like he was leaving you guys a present.”
“Really?” Hennessey turned to Yellich, who raised his eyebrows.
“Then Baruch produced a syringe and said to me and Jarvis, ‘This is what I do if I don’t like someone,’ and jabbed it into the boy’s arm. Then we were driven away. Didn’t know what happened to the boy until yesterday.”