Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

Puncture Point by Peter Turnbull

Called “the best of our home-grown police proceduralists” by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Peter Turnbull has used several different settings for his procedurals over the years. His Glasgow P-Division stories were based on his experiences as a social worker in Glasgow. After he’d returned to his native Yorkshire, he began a new series set in York. His latest book, Reality Check (Allison & Busby) is set in Cambridge, England.

MONDAY, 3RD JANUARY.

It was cold, very cold, pleasantly, reassuringly cold, for this was January of the year, still within the twelve days of Christmas; it was as it should be, as cold as the man could wish it, as cold as he recalled it being in his childhood. It was the period of snow and ice and biting easterlies, of the weather that folk would complain about. But in the last few years the winters had been mild, too mild, un-healthily mild, more like a pro-longed autumn than a proper winter. No good, hard, prolonged frost, which killed off all the sickly fauna and flora, and occasionally, tragically, a few aged and sickly humans as well, but then, the man thought, that was the nature of winter, it was how things should be in this part of the world, and this winter was like the winters of old. Not as long-lasting, perhaps, but the cold snap had lasted for a few days now, ice formed on ponds, householders worried about burst pipes, black ice caused car accidents, the air was cold to breathe for the first time in a very long time. The man walked with his dog on Askham Bogs; the ground beneath his feet reassuringly frozen. His dog, as all dogs are, was unhappy in the heat, but this weather suited him admirably, and the man himself, wrapped up against the cold, felt a sense of reassurance as he surveyed the frosty, Christmas-card-like scene, for this is exactly, exactly how it should be in Yorkshire during the winter. It was in Askham Bogs that the man, the dog-walker, met another man who did not complain about the weather. The second man was dead.

The dog walker first saw the man when he was still some distance away. His heart thumped in his chest at the sight, a pit seemed to open in his stomach with such suddenness that it felt like he had been punched. Hard. For the second man was certainly dead, even from that distance, it was clear he was dead, ill clad for the weather and lying facedown. It was, then, not yet eight A.M. and the dog-walker thought he knew what had happened: A youth, out partying, for this was the season to be merry, had taken too much alcohol, decided to walk home, become hypothermic and dazed, finally collapsing to sleep his last sleep in the midst of lonely Askham Bogs. The dog-walker turned to the other man, for life might not yet be extinct; his dog, too, seemed to sense the urgency and trotted beside his owner. But the urgency was wasted. Upon closer inspection, the man lying on the cold, cold ground beneath a cold blue sky was dead. Clad only in a shirt and denims and the sort of shoes joggers wear, he was clearly deceased, his arm already rising in rigor. He was youthful; the man saw a pleasant-looking blond-haired youth of about twenty summers. A life cut short, tragically short. The man plunged his hand into his pocket and took out his mobile phone and noticed his dog’s reaction with interest: The dog, knowing death, curled up on the ground some distance from the body but looked at it intently. The man phoned the three nines. “...very dead, I’d say,” he said. “Life is not threatened... not anymore.”

The man pocketed his mobile and, calling his dog, he walked away from the body towards Tadcaster Road to await the police vehicle and the ambulance. He was standing on the pavement of Tadcaster Road when the police vehicle arrived, followed by the ambulance. They would have been dispatched separately, but had clearly met each other on the traffic-free, pre-rush-hour roads.

“Oh, he’s dead, all right,” the man said to the youthful-looking constable and the equally youthful-looking ambulance crew, both female. “I’m a doctor in general practice... life is extinct... you can’t see him from here, but that direction,” he indicated a route about ninety degrees from the road, “follow your nose, you’ll see him... fine-looking young man. At least he was.”

“Happens every winter,” the constable said with a cynicism that the man thought was beyond his years. “A youth, male or female, gets a skinful of alcohol, a walk home turns out to be not the walk they planned. I knew there’d be a death in this cold snap... just knew it.”

“Strange place to walk...”

“Sorry, sir? What do you mean?” The constable took out his notebook. “Can I have your name, by the way?”

“Clark, Jeremy, Dr...” He gave an address in the nearby Bishop-thorpe estate.

“What do I mean? Well, like you, I assumed this to be a tragedy, a young man with too much alcohol gets disorientated, but look where he is... He is wearing only denims and a shirt — you’ll see that when you view the body. Where did he come from and where was he going that he might end up in Askham Bogs?”

“That’s a point, sir.”

“It was freezing last night. If he left the nearest houses, which are where I live, he would have succumbed to the cold long before he reached the centre of the bogs; he probably wouldn’t even have left the house in such an ill-clad manner.”

“Ah...” The constable gazed towards the bogs, trees clad in a white frost, hoarfrost on the grass, a blue sky above.

“Just a thought,” Dr. Clark said, “but it may be prudent to treat this death as suspicious until you know otherwise.”

The constable reached for his collar-mounted radio and pressed the Send button. “PC three-four-seven to Control.”

“Control receiving,” the radio crackled.

“Location... opposite Askham Bogs on Tadcaster Road, ambulance crew already in attendance... Death confirmed by member of the public who is medically qualified... death may be suspicious. C.I.D. attendance requested.”

“Control... Understood... out.”

“Well, I will leave it with you.” Dr. Clark shook his dog’s lead. “We must be off. My surgery starts at eight A.M.”

George Hennessey looked down at the youth as the SOCO camera flashed. Like the dog-walker who had found the body, Hennessey was struck by the boy’s youthfulness and his good looks. Not a person who would have had any difficulty in attracting the girls, he thought, but he was now stiff with death. Soon his parents would be weeping. Dr. Mann, turban-headed, smartly dressed, approached Hennessey.

“Life is pronounced extinct at oh-eight-three-four, Chief Inspector,” Mann said.

“Oh-eight-three-four.” Hennessey noted the time in his notebook. “I’m sorry to have to drag you out here so early when a medical man has already pronounced death, but procedures have to be followed.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Chief Inspector.” The police surgeon smiled. “It is my job, I am honoured to do it.”

“Thank you.” Hennessey smiled.

“I can find no evidence to suggest the death is suspicious from a medical point of view,” Dr. Mann said. “No injuries, for example, but I do take the point that it’s a long way and a strange way to have walked by himself, especially so ill clad.”

“Noted,” Hennessey replied.

“But whatever, he can be removed to York City Hospital for the post mortem if you feel one ought to be performed.”

“I’d be happier,” Hennessey said softly. “Both yourself and the gentleman who found him are medical men, both of you are of the opinion that this is a long way for him to come by himself from the nearest house. I’d be happier to have a thorough examination of this young corpse.”

The scene-of-crime officer’s camera flashed again.

“The body is that of a well-nourished male of approximately twenty years of age.” Dr. Louise D’Acre spoke for the benefit of a microphone which was attached to an aluminium angle-poise arm, which in turn was attached to the ceiling of the pathology laboratory directly above the dissecting table. The body of the youth lay faceup on the table with a standard white towel placed over his coyly termed “private parts.” “There is no sign of outward injury... but I think you are right to be suspicious of this death, Chief Inspector.”

“Oh?” Hennessey, observing for the police, stood at the edge of the laboratory.

“Yes... you see this area of darkened skin, here down his left side?”

“Yes...”

“That is hypostasis. It’s caused by blood settling according to gravity. It means he was placed on his left side at death or shortly after and remained in the position for at least twelve hours. It takes that length of time for blood to solidify after the heart has stopped beating. Now, if the young man was found lying facedown, as I believe he was...”

“He was.”

“Well, in that case, it means he died elsewhere and was moved after his death.”

“That is suspicious.” Hennessey raised an eyebrow and glanced at Paul Fry, the mortuary attendant, who returned the glance with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders. Hennessey had time for Paul Fry; he had always found the short, rotund mortuary attendant to be a man of warmth and good humour, unlike many, nay, most other mortuary attendants that Hennessey had met. He had often wondered whether such dour men are drawn to the job because it has some macabre appeal for them or whether the job makes them sour, cynical, and humourless. But here was Paul Fry, who radiated like sunlight in this room of death and tragedy. “That and the fact he was so ill clad for the weather.”

“Any identification?”

“No... Nothing in his pockets — a till receipt and a credit-card receipt slip which we can trace him from, if it is his, but no wallet or similar. The till receipt is from a supermarket... seems to have bought food and cleaning materials — the sort of purchases a young man who lived alone would make, so we don’t think he lives at home.”

“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.

“I warned him... But did he listen?”

“Warned him?”

“He was asking questions of the wrong people. This pub may be for lowlifes like me, but there’s contacts to be had if you want them. The Elm is a conduit to some very dangerous people.”

Conduit. Again Yellich had the impression that Gabrielle Ingham had had an education and had fallen a long way from somewhere to have fetched up in The Elm.

“There are some dangerous people in this small city. He was wanting to talk to them for his book. What was it he said he wanted? ‘Copy’... that was it.” She took another drink of her lager, gulping it like a sailor would. “I mean, you don’t do that, not to these guys. These guys are seriously heavy.”

Yellich groaned. The naivety of youth, as with the youngster who went to Northern Ireland to try to make sense of the “troubles” for himself, so he could better understand them. Went hitchhiking round the province... eventually got into the wrong car, with his English accent, and was later found by the roadside with a bullet in his head. “Do you know to whom he was talking?”

Gabrielle Ingham shook her head, vigorously.

“Is it dangerous for you to talk?”

“Yes. They know you’re a cop... I could get a kicking if they think I’m giving you information. Not from anyone here, but word will get to where word will get to... A lot of tourists visit York — they never see this side of the railway line.”

“You’ve had an education, I think?” Yellich couldn’t resist the question.

“I’m a nurse... a staff nurse... Well, I have the qualifications... Right now I am unemployed, on sickness benefit — long term. I won’t work again. I sold my house and pay rent now... released a lot of money for this.” She tapped the side of her beer glass. “And these.” She tapped the packet of cigarettes. “I’m on the way out, forty-five years old, so I want to make it as smooth as possible. Tuberculosis,” she said matter-of-factly. “Used to be called consumption... Seems a more accurate name to me... Folk would visit spas to take ‘the cure,’ knowing there was no cure, just remission now and again.”

Yellich nodded sympathetically. He had heard that the disease had reemerged in the late twentieth century and had taken a toehold by the beginning of the twenty-first. Not yet of epidemic proportions, but it had a toehold nonetheless. “What specifically was Charlie Pimlott asking about?”

“The drug culture... the heroin trade. I mean, you don’t ask questions of those people.”

“I see.”

“Where can I reach you?”

“Micklegate Bar Police Station. Do you have information?”

“Might do. I have done little of use in my life, and if I am to be planted soon, I think I’d like to do at least one good thing. And Charles was a nice lad... he didn’t deserve to be murdered so young, even if he did invite it by his stupidity.”

“If it is Charlie. No positive ID yet.”

“Well, his family live in the south, in the outer London area, somewhere in the Home Counties. The university will have his home address.”

“Where did he live?”

“Above the greengrocers on the corner of this street. There is a small flat above the shop, they rent it out. Charlie took the tenancy a few weeks ago... immersing himself in the street to get authentic detail for his book. So if I do have information, who do I ask for?”

“Yellich, DS Yellich.”

“I’ll remember that name. We’ll have to meet someplace, can’t meet here and I can’t be seen walking into the police station... I’ll be a watched woman for a few weeks now. I don’t want my face carved or my ribs kicked to pieces. And that’s the least I can expect.”

“Understood.”

Yellich left The Elm and walked down the street, pulling his collar up as protection against the chill easterly. A slight drizzle fell. The street was typical Holgate: narrow, lined with soot-blackened terraces where washing would be strung across the street on a good drying day. Not, as Gabrielle Ingham had said, the York the tourists visit. Yellich came to the greengrocers. He entered it. The greengrocer was a healthy-looking man who seemed to love fresh vegetables. His younger female assistant also looked healthy amid the carrots and potatoes and the mushrooms. Yellich had the impression that they were an item, not just proprietor and assistant, but man and wife... lovers at the very least.

“How can I help you, sir?” The man smiled.

“By letting me look at the flat I understand you let out, the one above the shop.”

“Police?”

“Yes.” Yellich showed his ID.

“If the lad’s in trouble, I know nothing of it. I told him I want no drugs, I don’t even let the room to smokers, but he seemed all right.”

“He’s not in any trouble. If he is who we think he is, he’s dead.”

The man jolted and glanced at the young woman, who gasped. Then he recovered his composure. “I’ll get the spare key.” He left the counter and returned a few minutes later with two keys strung onto a Volkswagen key fob. “The entrance is at the rear of the shop. Round the corner, down the alley. Metal staircase... Careful of the staircase, it’s slippery in the wet.”

Chaos. Violence. Something happened here, Yellich said to himself as he stepped across the threshold, not requiring the keys because the door of the flat was lying ajar. Inside the flat was a scene of destruction, of smashed furniture, of upturned tables and lamp stands. Yellich reached into his pocket and took out his mobile. He phoned DCI Hennessey. “Better get here, boss. If this is the youth’s flat, his name was Charles Pimlott and he didn’t go without a struggle.”

“He definitely didn’t, did he?” Hennessey looked round the small bedsit. The signs of struggle were everywhere, as if the fight that had taken place in the flat had spilled into every corner of every room — bed on its side in the bedroom, plates smashed in the small kitchen. A photograph on the mantelpiece showed a young man and woman side by side somewhere in the sun. The young man in the photograph was clearly the same young man who had been found earlier that day lying facedown in the frost in Askham Bogs. A name on a Social Security card, also on the mantelpiece, was that of Charles Pimlott. “His home address will be here somewhere. I’ll contact his parents when I find it.”

“Believed to come from the south,” Yellich said. “I’ll search for it once SOCO have finished.” A camera flashed. A second SOCO officer dusted for prints with a small squirrel-hair brush. “There are no witnesses that I can find. Had a chat with the greengrocer who lets the flat... all he could say is that it must have happened one evening or one Sunday daytime. He lives elsewhere in the city and doesn’t check on the flat, calls just once a week for his rent. The post was behind the door. The earliest postmark was four days ago, thirty-first of December. No delivery on New Year’s Day, so it happened sometime before New Year’s Day, if he received something in the post each day.”

“Big ‘if,’ Yellich,” Hennessey growled. “I don’t think we’ll pin the time of this attack by the post.”

“No, boss... just musing. Found someone in the local pub. I think she has information... but she’s frightened. But she also seems angry about something. I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t contact us. Gabrielle Ingham, by name.”

TUESDAY, 4TH JANUARY. MORNING.

It never got easier. It was the walk with the next of kin, the clutching, trembling hope-against-hope attitude, the drawing back of the curtain, the wailing, the sobbing as the person lying behind the glass, dressed in bandages and, by some trick of light and shade, looking as if they are floating peacefully in space, is recognised as their own. In this particular case, Yellich found it easier than most, but it was still hard. The Pimlotts revealed themselves to be of the English middle class; there was a brief gasp, a slight sob, but beyond that, their emotions were contained.

“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.”

“Better get out there,” Hennessey said. “Go in force. If we can lift Charlie Pimlott’s fingerprints from the chair, with the statement, that will convict him. He’s slipped up.”

“Only if he hasn’t sent in the cleaners.” Yellich stood. “We’d better move quickly.”

Ten months later, Hennessey and Yellich sat in silence as a scarlet-clad judge sentenced Thomas Alfred Baruch, aged thirty-three, to life imprisonment for the murder of Charlie Pimlott, and twelve years’ imprisonment for the possession of a quantity of cocaine with intent to supply. Both sentences to run concurrently.

After giving evidence at the trial at York Crown Court, Henry Cooke was ushered away in a police vehicle to begin a new life in a new location with a new identity. He lived from then on with the knowledge that from his prison cell Thomas Baruch had put a one-million-pound price tag on his head.

Copyright ©; 2005 by Peter Turnbull.