* * * *
David Sant accessed the file on the murders of Daniel and Olivia Toucey of The Limes, Harrogate Road, York. He settled down with a mug of coffee in hand and read it. It was a story of a burglary and murders which he felt was passing brutal. The elderly couple, he a retired barrister, she a retired pathologist, lived in well-earned luxury at The Limes, a rambling mid-Victorian mansion, sufficiently large that when it was sold, it was sold to White Rose Care Ltd., who turned it into a nursing home for the elderly. White Rose Care Ltd. was, to the best of Sant's knowledge, one of the newly formed companies that had jumped onto the money-spinning bandwagon of “granny farming,” as a response to Britain's ageing population, a consequence of which was that Britain now had one pensioner for every person in employment, all of whom had to be provided for. But eighteen years ago, the Touceys lived in The Limes, having given a lifetime of unblemished public service and successfully brought up three children, by then away from home and consolidating their own careers. One fateful night in the autumn of the year, their house appeared to have been stormed by at least four men.... Mr. Toucey had died of a head injury; Mrs. Toucey had died of a heart attack induced by the shock and trauma. A removal lorry had then been reversed up the drive and the house stripped of all valuable contents. It was a crime which had shocked York and its environs. Hardly surprising, thought Sant, who at the time would have been just starting to read.
There was little for the police to go on. Known housebreakers all had good alibis, the felons had all worn gloves, no fingerprints “alien to the crime scene” had been found, and none of the items stolen from the raid had surfaced, until now, in the form of a six-inch-high figurine, dun coloured, of the finest Dresden porcelain.
So now where? Sant stood and walked over to the table by the window on which stood the electric kettle and the coffee jar and the teabags and the powdered milk and the mugs. He made himself a second mug of coffee. It was his pattern, when in the police station, to drink endless mugs of coffee, until he was awash with the liquid, and then he would drink nothing for the rest of the shift. He glanced out at the Ouse, glistening in the sun, the rowing skiffs and the pleasure boats. All that the police had to go on was the description of a man, who seemed down at heel, who might have come across the porcelain figurine quite legitimately, not knowing it to have been stolen, and who may not have had anything to do with the murder of the elderly Touceys, but also who would have been a youth eighteen years ago, probably hot-headed, whose local accent had been subsequently modified and softened by education.
* * * *
David Sant finished the shift at two p.m., signed out, and walked into the warm afternoon air, just the weather for a light jacket. He drove home to his cottage in Thornton le Clay, parked his car in the drive, and checked his telephone answering machine; just one message, from his wife, confirming his access visit to their son later in the week. When they had separated, he hadn't contested custody in return for a generous level of access. He had never seen the purpose of wanting custody; it was, he felt, a legal state which didn't affect the relationship between parent and child, but access did, for it was during the access that bonding occurred and relationships developed. In the evening, he felt the urge to go for a short walk.
A short walk to the Queen's Head, which stood on the edge of the village green and had an ancient pair of stocks outside, sometimes used for charity fund-raising events, as had recently happened when the community constable had been placed in the stocks for an hour so that the villagers could throw cream cakes (donated by the baker) at him, one pound for five cakes. Fifty pounds had been raised to help keep the village play school open.
That evening, the pub was quiet, as it most often was on Monday evenings, a few old boys playing dominoes, the landlord (who had amply rewarded the good humour of the community constable with not a few pints of strong beer once the cream had been washed off) involved in a game of darts, leaving his wife to pull the pints. Not an onerous task, for on Mondays the frequency of pint- pulling is perhaps one every ten minutes. Sant asked for a pint of Timothy Taylor and stood at the bar. He pondered the postcards which had been sent by the regulars and enjoyed the low hum of conversation, the rattle of dominoes, the thud of darts into cork, and in the winter months there would be the crackling of the log fire. This, he felt, was how a pub should be; not for him the crush and loud music of the city-centre pubs.
“I don't believe him,” Sant said to himself, but loudly so.
“Sorry, love?” The landlady smiled at him.
“Nothing.” Sant returned the smile. “Nothing at all. I was just speaking aloud.”
“Don't believe who, love?” For the landlady of the Queen's Head was like a dog with a bone when gossip was concerned. She was, in fact, considered second only to the post mistress as a source of gossip. She was quite good at it too, so it was thought, and well she ought to be, because before she and her husband had taken the pub they had had the post office in the neighbouring village.
“Oh, just this fella,” Sant said, thinking that he'd get a better pint if he gave the woman something. “Fella I spoke to this morning. I believed him at the time, but now I don't.”
“No?”
“No ... not now. Sometimes it's like that, you know, looking back over time, only a bit of time sometimes. You see that you've been fed a pork pie and this was a convincing pork pie as porkies go, but now I see it as just too pat.”
The landlady reached forward and took Sant's half-empty glass and replenished it and handed it back to him. “A crime, was it?” she said.
“A witness.” Sant took his glass of beer. “Thanks, that was good of you.”
“Just taking care of my regulars. Witness, you say?”
“At the time I thought so ... now I think a change of status from witness to suspect is probably appropriate.”
“Serious crime?”
“Double murder.”
“Serious enough.”
Sant drained his glass and walked home, aware that he was on duty at six a.m., which meant he had to be up at five. He didn't think he'd given the landlady anything that compromised his integrity or the investigation, but he'd given her enough to lubricate the machinery of his standing as a “regular” in the Queen's Head. It is, he thought, the way the ball bounces, the way the world goes round. He enjoyed the walk home, the rural night air, the scent of herbs and crops. In the sky he was able to pick out the Plough and Orion.
* * * *
“I just didn't believe him, sir.” Sant sat in front of Leif Vossion's desk. “I mean, the description of the man seen only twice about ten days ago, his ‘genteel shabby’ appearance, left-handed, local accent moderated by education ... for heaven's sake ... it just doesn't ring true. It's fiction.”
“Putting us off the scent, you think?”
“That's what my intuition tells me.”
“So, shall we go with your intuition?” Vossion looked keenly at Sant, with steely blue eyes.
“I think I'd like to.”
“First step?”
“Interview him, sir.”
“Do you think so?”
“I can't see another way forward.”
“Can't you? He handled the figurine yesterday, didn't he?”
“Yes!” Sant's eyes brightened. “Latents. Of course.”
“That's your first step. The murders are eighteen years old, so forensics won't give your request priority. Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov have a city-centre stabbing which is still less than twenty-four-hours old, Ken Meninnot is up to his eyeballs in requests for forensic analysis, but if there's a result to be had, they'll get it for you.”
There was, in fact, a result to be had, though because of the backlog, it took Forensic Science Laboratory at Weatherby three weeks to process Sant's request. But he thought the wait well worth it. The fingerprints on the figurine, once his and Toucey's had been isolated, didn't belong to Julius Lashko. In fact, they belonged to a man called Shane Cody. When San
t entered Cody's name and numbers into the computer, he came up with gold dust. Cody had graduated from petty theft to the safer, less violent, but prosperous crime of receiving stolen goods. He was, in criminal speak, a “fence.”
“Well, well, well.” Sant peered at the information which had appeared on the monitor screen. The implication was that the entire contents of Lashko's Antiques, Micklegate, York, were “hot.” The fuller implication was that Cody may well have had a part in the double murder of the elderly Touceys eighteen years ago.
Vossion listened with interest to Sant's verbal report. “How do you want to handle it?”
“Bring him in for questioning. Itemise the contents of the shop, it's probably an Aladdin's cave of stolen goods.”
“Does he live over the shop?”
“No, sir. So closing the shop won't compromise his living quarters.”
“Convenient, eh?” Vossion smiled. He rarely smiled these days and Sant was pleased that he had been able to do so.
“I think that's what you do. Obtain warrants to search the shop and his house. You'll need help ... I wonder ... no ... first things first. Bring Cody in for questioning.... I'll find someone to go over the shop with a manifest of items taken from high-profile burglaries in the Vale of York for the last ... twenty years. Who knows what we'll find?”
* * * *
Cody looked worried. Sant pondered him and noted the worried look, the paling of the complexion, the furrowed brow, the nervous twitch. Sant took two audio cassettes, tore the cellophane from them, and slipped them into the recording machine and pressed the record button. The twin spools spun, the red light glowed.
“The date is the twenty-first of June, the time is ten-thirty a.m., the location is Friargate Police Station in the City of York. I am Detective Constable David Sant. I am now going to ask the other people present in the room to identify themselves.”
“PC Howie, Friargate Police Station.”
A pause.
“Will you please state your name for the purposes of the tape?” Sant spoke to Cody.
“Shane Cody.”
“Right, Mr. Cody. Is it true to say that you are also known as Julius Lashko?”
“It is.”
“And you are the proprietor of Lashko's Antiques, Micklegate, in the city of York?”
“I am.”
“And you have waived your right to have a solicitor present during this interview?”
“I have.”
“Thank you. Do you have any other aliases?”
“No.”
“How long have you been in the antiques business?”
“About twenty years.”
“Always at the same address?”
“Not always. I started with a stall in the market, then I had a shop on Nunnery Lane. I moved from there to Micklegate premises about five years ago.”
“All right. Now, Mr. Cody, you have a number of previous convictions, going back quite a few years, but latterly for receiving stolen goods.”
“Yes, but I'm going straight now.”
“Yes...” Sant echoed wryly. “Mr. Cody, the statuette, the figurine which we removed from your shop a few weeks ago, has been positively identified as having been stolen in a burglary which took place eighteen years ago during which an elderly householder and his lady wife were murdered.”
Cody gasped. “I didn't know that.”
Sant smiled inwardly. He knew then that the case was about to crack wide open. “It happens to be true. Two people who had given a lot to the city and the Vale of York, two professional people. The issue would be the same if it had been an elderly couple who'd been chronically unemployed all their days, but because it was a retired barrister and his wife who was a retired pathologist, well, it just seems worse somehow. It just does. The other thing is that because the piece of porcelain has been positively identified as having been stolen, we have obtained a warrant to search your business premises. This is being done at the moment. Our officers have with them a manifest of all unrecovered items taken from major burglaries in the area in the last twenty years.”
“I didn't know you could do that.”
“We can. And we are doing so. A warrant to search your house has also been obtained.”
“You can't do that! There's nothing there.”
“So there is something at the shop?”
A pause. The twin spools spun silently. The red light glowed.
“Look, Mr. Cody.” Sant leaned forwards. “Take my advice, will you, and I'm not just saying this because I want to wrap this up: If you're caught bang to rights, put your hand up to it, play with a straight bat. Don't try to wriggle off the hook in the face of overwhelming evidence as to your guilt. If you do that, you just dig yourself deeper and deeper into a hole. In this case, your best bet is to cooperate fully with the police enquiry.”
“That'll help me?”
“It will.”
“Okay. How about a coffee?”
Sipping coffee, Cody said, “Well, yes, I knew the piece of Dresden was bent, and a few other things that you'll find in the shop, particularly in the cellar, but you've got to believe me when I say I didn't know anybody had been topped during the burglary.... I also do want to go straight ... and have been doing so, in the main.”
“In the main.”
“Well, there's always one or two people who have something to hold over you and who want favours. You can make enough straight pennies without having to make bent ones as well. I suppose I'm finished now.”
“I think you are, Shane. So tell me what I want to hear.”
“I bought the piece of Dresden about fifteen years ago for about a tenth of its actual value, put it down in the cellar where all the bent stuff goes, with a little label on it with the date I acquired it. I have a fifteen-year rule, fifteen years after the purchase, if it's bent, it goes on sale. After that length of time, it might not be recognized during the few weeks, even days, that it's on display. I used to see bent stuff as long-term investments. That's how it's done, wait till you think it's safe and then trickle it back onto the market.”
“That right?”
“That's right. You'll find some stuff in my cellar from the big burglary last year.”
“The farmhouse?”
“Yes, the farmhouse. They cleaned it out.”
“I know.” Sant leaned back in his chair. This case was really cracking open.
“Sometimes you can't ever sell them. Too famous. Not openly, anyway. Can't put a stolen van Gogh in the shop window.”
“I've often wondered that, you know. What is the point of stealing a famous painting?”
“A lot of point, really. People think that famous works of art that are stolen are sold to private collectors who keep them for selfish reasons, but that isn't the case, because private collectors can't get rid of them so easily and private collectors like showing off their collections. No ... what happens is that they're sold and re-sold in the underworld, from generation to generation, and eventually the time distance from the theft and the distance of the descendants from the original owners is so great that ownership is difficult to challenge, and if the present ‘owner’ claims he found it, he can claim ‘Treasure Trove.’ It will be given to the nation, but he will receive its monetary value. Famous paintings stolen one hundred and fifty years ago will start to emerge in a hundred years’ time.”
“Well, you live and learn.” Sant drained his coffee and tossed the plastic mug into a waste bin. “So, tell me about the figurine. How, or from who, did you acquire it?”
Cody took a deep breath. “This will help me?”
“It won't harm you.”
“I'm forty-five, getting too old to do serious time.”
“Implicated in a double murder. That's very serious time.”
“I didn't know it was from that murder. I bought it four or five years after that murder.”
“So, spill the beans.”
“Hickman. He's the man you want.”
�
��Hickman?”
“Hickman. I see him around the city from time to time. He hasn't offered me anything for a while now.”
“First name?”
“Sid. Sidney Hickman.”
“Address?”
“I don't know—that's the gospel truth, but you can find it, he's got form for burglary. Don't know his numbers but he's in his forties. Tall, thin guy, neatly turned out. Drives a flash car, a yellow Mercedes.”
“I've seen him!”
“I'm certain you have, the original Flash Harry, always posing in his yellow Merc.”
“We'll pick him up quickly enough.” Sant was pleased with the progress that had been made. “He sold you the figurine?”
“He did. And a few other items you'll find in the cellar.”
“Right little treasure chest you've got, isn't it? And I dare say you'll be keen to tell me about all the other felons you've been receiving from.”
“Yes ... yes ... at my age I can't go to prison.”
“Oh, but you can, though the likelihood of doing so diminishes in direct proportion to the level of cooperation we receive from you. In fact, it isn't impossible for the Crown Prosecution Service to grant immunity from prosecution depending on what hard and verifiable information you have to offer, and what evidence you are prepared to give in court. But that is another matter, for another day. Right now, all I'm interested in is Sid, Flash Harry, Hickman. That burglary was a mob-handed affair, at least four guys.”
“Only he can tell you what happened. I only took the bent stuff off him, and only after he'd been sitting on it for years, so I wouldn't connect it with that burglary.”
* * * *
Sidney “Sid” Hickman was indeed well known to the police. He was arrested at his prestigious house on the Shipton Road, on the very outskirts of the city of York, and conveyed to Friargate Police Station.
For the second time that day, Sant tore cellophane from new audio cassettes and placed them in the recording machine and pressed the Record button. The twin tapes spun slowly, the red light glowed. After stating the date, time, and location, and after identifying himself, Sant said, “I am going to ask the others in the room to identify themselves.”
EQMM, August 2012 Page 8