Murder is My Shadow by John Glasby

Author:John Glasby [Glasby, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five – Secret of the box

Precisely at nine o’clock the following morning I was standing in front of the desk in the local precinct. I’d noticed Kolowinski come in but he’d gone off somewhere and there’d been no chance to have a word with him before meeting O’Leary. I was hoping he might come back before the Lieutenant arrived but O’Leary turned up a minute before nine.

He saw me standing there like a lost sheep and motioned me to follow him into his office. Seating himself behind the desk, he pointed towards the chair in front of him. I sat down and waited, wondering what was coming next.

He riffled through a sheaf of papers before turning his attention to me. ‘I’ve been going through your statements, Merak,’ he said dryly, ‘There are some things I don’t understand and I’m hoping you can clear them up for me.’

‘I’ll certainly do my best, Lieutenant,’ I said.

‘What kind of connection do you have with this guy, Corso?’ He shot the question at me, possibly expecting me to be taken by surprise. If he did, he was disappointed. I managed to keep a straight face as I replied. ‘I’ve no connection at all with Corso.’

Inwardly, I wondered how much he knew about my close shave with death out in the bay.

‘That isn’t what I’ve been told.’ He placed the tips of his fingers together and stared hard at me. ‘According to the coastguard they received a message that the crew of a boat were acting suspiciously about three miles off the coast last night. When they arrived on the scene there was some kind of gun battle and someone was pulled out of the water with his hands tied behind his back.’

He paused at that and leaned back in his chair. ‘That wouldn’t have been you, would it, Merak?’

I knew it wouldn’t help me to lie. O’Leary wasn’t the kind of guy you lied to and hope to get away with it.

‘All right, Lieutenant. I’ll tell you what happened. It seems that by taking on this fellow Henning, I’ve upset one or two of the gang leaders. Corso is one of them because Henning works for him and he reckons my client might have talked too much and told me something he shouldn’t.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, you know how these racketeers treat anything like that — the usual method. Even if the guy in question knows absolutely nothing, they’ll fill his pockets with lead bars and drop him into the ocean.’

‘And did Henning tell you anything that might give them the idea you could be some kind of threat to them?’

‘Believe me, Lieutenant, I’ve gone over everything Henning told me. All he wanted was for me to keep an eye on events while he paid off some guy who was blackmailing him.’

O’Leary pondered that for a full minute. I had the feeling he knew I was lying through my teeth but he couldn’t prove it.

He tried another approach. ‘Don’t you find it strange that every

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