Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 11

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Vossion listened with interest to Sant’s verbal report. “How do you want to handle it?”

  “Bring him in for questioning. Itemize 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 10.30 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 on to 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 150 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 whom, 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 f
lash 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.”

  “PC Daltry, Friargate.”

  “Sidney Hickman,” said in a surly manner.

  “Mr Hickman, you have been arrested and cautioned in connection with the double murder and aggravated burglary in the Toucey household, eighteen years ago. Mr Shane Cody has given a statement to the effect that you offered him a porcelain figurine and other items stolen during the burglary. The figurine has been positively identified as stolen from the Toucey household.”

  “Him and his big mouth.”

  “So you concede you perpetrated the crime?” Sant tried to hide his surprise.

  Hickman shrugged.

  “Please answer for the benefit of the tape.”

  “Aye . . . yes, yes, yes, yes. Is that all right? . . . a thousand times yes, for the benefit of the tape.”

  “That’ll do,” Sant said. “That’ll do nicely.”

  “Tell you the truth, I’m quite relieved. I’ve done the crime, but I don’t do violence. It just isn’t on my agenda.”

  “So what happened at the house that night?”

  “We thought they were out, so when we rang the bell just to be on the safe side, and the old guy answered, Billy Lear smashed him one helluva punch and he hit his head going down . . . The old lady, she came into the hallway and cried out, then stumbled into a side room clutching her chest, sort of folding up as she went down. Then we emptied the house.”

  “With two people lying dead or dying?”

  “We were young then. It didn’t seem to bother us. Death only happened to other people.”

  “Now?”

  “Now it haunts me. Now I’ve reached the age where I know death will happen to me . . . now that night haunts me. Even criminals can feel bad. I didn’t know there was going to be violence that night.”

  “Carried on with the burglary though, didn’t you? Didn’t flee the scene as soon as Billy Lear punched the old boy, did you? Makes you just as guilty as if you had felled the old gentleman yourself.”

  “That’ll be something to talk over with my lawyer.”

  “I told Cody that a full and frank confession will help him. It’ll help you too.”

  Hickman nodded. “There was me, Billy Lear, Tom Ingrow and Charlie Pitt. We were young bulls, especially Billy Lear and Charlie Pitt. Me and Tom, we never did violence.”

  “Where will we find them?”

  “Billy’s got form, you’ll pick him up easily enough if he isn’t inside at the moment, he never did stop duckin’ and divin’. Tom Ingrow and Charlie Pitt have gone straight, both married with families, never got caught, so didn’t get any form. Calmed down and went to university. Tom’s an accountant now and Charlie’s a schoolteacher. I can tell you where they live.”

  Sant groaned. Arresting a professional man of standing in the community at 7 a.m. for a crime committed a long, long time ago was never easy. Sometimes he envied the Americans their Statute of Limitations, even though he knew it didn’t apply to the crime of murder. But it was not unknown in the United Kingdom, nor in Sant’s relatively brief experience as a police officer, that an act committed in a person’s twenties was not traced to him, with life-ruining consequences, until he was in his middle years of life. The long shadow of the past, as it is known.

  Simon Toucey, who a few weeks earlier, whilst walking in Micklegate one Sunday morning, had spied a piece of duncoloured porcelain in an antiques shop window, stood and climbed into his black gown, and then, with a practised flourish, placed the wig upon his head. Later, in a hushed room, he turned to a thin-faced youth and said, “You have, in my opinion, quite properly been found guilty of the crimes for which you have been charged. You have ruined the lives of your victims and I have been observing you throughout this trial and you have not shown the slightest trace of guilt or remorse for your actions. I sentence you to life imprisonment.”

  Fourth Time Lucky for Mickey Loew

  Jay Stringer

  Renée and Dion had waited all night for the perfect catch. The heat was keeping people indoors; even as late as midnight the only people out on Delancey were locals running to the deli with pocket change. Nothing worth hitting. They had already taken three pizza breaks with their third fisher, Marlo, and were about ready to call it a night.

  Renée was on the opposite corner, leaning against the shutter of the closed opticians, her own name sprayed on it with red paint. Dion was resting against the stoplight and, further down Delancey, Marlo stood in the darkness of the abandoned storefront.

  Just after midnight they caught one, a woman walking up Ludlow toward them all alone. Dressed in motorcycle boots and tight black jeans, her eyeliner matching her short dark hair, Dion figured her for a tourist who’d walked too far down.

  Perfect.

  Dion watched out of the corner of his eye as she walked up Ludlow on his side of the street, then crossed over before she got to him, toward the shadows of the opposite corner. He nodded at Renée, who caught the message and headed down Delancey a few steps ahead of the target, walking casual. Dion pushed off from the stop sign and followed a few metres behind, nice and slow.

  As they reached the storefront, Marlo stepped out of the shadows and pointed his gun at Renée, making it look like she was the one being mugged. As the real target took a step back, Dion stepped in behind her with his own gun ready. The target moved fast, grabbing Renée from behind and whispering something in her ear that made her shudder. Marlo must have caught something in her eyes, because he lowered his gun and then dropped it to the floor. Dion stepped in again looking for a fast control of the situation, but the woman whirled on him and grabbed his gun hand in a vice grip. She twisted his hand until it felt like his wrist would snap, and then lifted the gun out of it with her free hand. All the time her dark smile stayed in place.

  All three would-be muggers stood and watched as she continued her walk along Delancey, whistling and swaying her hips.

  “How’s Williamsburg working out for you?”

  “It’s hip. Too hip, you know? All coffee shops and baby strollers now.”

  “Yeah? When I was a kid the only people who lived out there were Jews and arsonists.”

  “They have barmen now, too.”

  “Is it as
hot over there as it is here?”

  Toby looked over the bar at Mickey. “It’s this hot everywhere.”

  Mickey had been coming in once or twice a month for four or five years. Toby knew him by name, and knew that he was some kind of lawyer, but left it at that. Mostly because it reminded Toby that he’d been running the bar for the past five years, and he tried to forget.

  Nestled on Mott Street, just around the corner from Prince, he’d been discreetly trying to offload it ever since his father had passed away. If the bar had been twenty feet further south, he’d have been able to sell up to make way for some clothes shop or deli. But nobody wanted to touch a dive bar hiding behind a church on Mott. Case in point; still a couple of hours until closing and he only had one customer.

  Mickey finished his drink and signalled for another, working through them in a hurry, “You know what this heat reminds me of?”

  “Yes, you say it every time.”

  “Well it’s true, don’t it remind you of that night?”

  “Everything reminds me of that night.”

  “TV saying, leave your A/C switched off because of the dust, the whole city is sweating?”

  “Yeah,” Toby passed the drink across the bar top. “It got hot, all right. My cat still got asthma.”

  “You know? I hear that a lot. Could be a lawsuit in it.”

  “Who you gonna sue?”

  Mickey shrugged. “I’d find somebody. You in a bad mood?”

  Toby shrugged, said no, then nodded, “Yeah. I don’t know. I just got this feeling like, I don’t know. You superstitious?”

  “Nope.” Mickey rubbed his beer belly, “Only things that lead me around are down here.”

  Toby smiled, thought about leaving it, then, “I am. Little things, not ladders and shit like that. My A/C broke? Last time that happened, my old man passed.”

  “You think the A/C is out to get you?”

  Toby shrugged, wished he’d left it. A couple of minutes later Mickey was signalling for another. Usually he signalled by pointing down at his empty glass and looping his index finger round in a circle. As the night had worn on, his signals were getting more elaborate. This time he pretended to shoot the empty with both hands turned into guns. Toby poured another and then, “You celebrating something?”