20 - A Rush of Blood

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘That’s good.’ She paused, as Maisie set a chicken supreme before her and served Bob his braised beef. ‘I’ll have a word with her when we’ve had this.’

  ‘You do that.’

  He had no sooner picked up his cutlery, than his phone rang. ‘I wish I could ban mobiles in here,’ he muttered. ‘Unfortunately, we’re never actually off duty.’ He took it from his jacket pocket, and checked the incoming number. ‘Yes, daughter,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Alex replied. ‘Have you been leaning on Mitch Laidlaw?’

  ‘There would be no point,’ he told her. ‘Mitch is so round these days, if I did he’d just roll over and bounce back up again. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’ve been taken off the Lietuvos account,’ she snapped, ‘and I can’t shake this feeling that you might have had something to do with it.’

  ‘Well I didn’t,’ he retorted. ‘I haven’t spoken to Mitch for a while. When you say taken off . . .’

  ‘He called me in this morning, and told me that he’d thought things over and decided that he isn’t prepared to have us run the companies indefinitely. He said that if Regine doesn’t feel ready or able to come back and take control herself, she should make a permanent appointment as chief executive. Then he called her, with me still in the room, and told her the same thing. He was tactful about it, of course. He explained that it wasn’t good practice, and that if she came back and didn’t like some of the decisions that had been taken on her behalf it could lead to difficulties, and so on, and so on. He’s given her two weeks to do it; in the meantime he’s going to handle the business himself.’

  ‘How did she take it?’

  ‘Well enough, according to Mitch; she said that she expected to have somebody in place by that time, once certain obstacles were removed.’

  ‘I wonder what she meant by that.’ He frowned as an interpretation struck him. ‘Hey,’ he murmured, ‘when Mitch spoke to her, did he tell her about Valdas and his wife?’

  ‘That was the very first thing he told her.’

  ‘How did she take that?’

  ‘He said she sounded shocked, but not tearful.’

  ‘And the remark about obstacles came after that?’

  ‘Yes.’ A small gasp escaped her. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Nothing, really. Since her husband’s suicide my cop’s brain’s been working overtime, looking for things that aren’t there.’ He paused, smiling lightly. ‘You pissed off, kid, yeah?’

  ‘What do you think? I’ve just made partner, yet I’m being told . . . OK, not directly, but by implication . . . that I’m not up to the job.’

  ‘That’s mince and you know it. You want the straight truth? Mitch beat me to the punch. He read the situation right. A director and a senior employee in those companies have met sudden and unnatural ends within days of each other. Nasty coincidences they may be, but we’re now taking a close interest in the other business activities of the two of them, and it’s more than likely that our investigation will wash back on to the Lietuvos businesses. If that were to happen, I wouldn’t want you involved, so yes, I was getting to the point when I’d have been having a frank discussion with your boss.’

  ‘Behind my back?’ Alex exclaimed.

  ‘No, I’d have told you, but whether you liked it or not, I can’t hide my feelings. You’re best out of this, so you be a good daughter and thank Mitch for me.’

  ‘You can bloody well thank him yourself. I’m ending what’s been a great week on a right downer.’

  ‘There’ll be other, even better weeks.’ Pause. ‘Hey,’ he asked, ‘do you want to end it with a laugh?’

  ‘That depends,’ she said, cautiously. ‘How?’

  ‘I’m doing a guest appearance at the Central Division disco tonight, seven thirty for eight, in a hotel along at Haymarket. Aileen’s opting out on political grounds, so would you like to chum your old man? It’s not going to be a late night, not for me at any rate. The troops would be inhibited if I hung around too long, and anyway, these days I can’t be seen to put too many over my neck at these affairs.’

  ‘Will Griff Montell be there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but it isn’t his division, so . . .’

  ‘Ah, what the hell, suppose he is, he’s history as far as I’m concerned. OK. I’m up for it. We’ll see how it goes; I might even stick around for longer than you.’

  He was about to end the call, when she carried on. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said. ‘I checked that thing about Zaliukas’s will. The new codicil he added didn’t replace anything. Before it was added, the holding in Lituania SAFI went to Regine. It seems that he cut her out of that part of her inheritance.’

  ‘Now that’s interesting,’ her father murmured. ‘I wonder why he did that.’

  Fifty-two

  ‘Where’s that other guy?’ Arturus Luksa asked, his elbows on the table. His jacket was creased, and his shirt showed signs of having been worn for too long. He smelled stale, and his chin was dark with stubble.

  ‘He’s busy,’ Mario McGuire told him. ‘Why? Would you like us to get him back?’

  ‘No,’ said the prisoner quickly. ‘I just like you get my fuckin’ lawyer so we can get on with this.’

  ‘Your fuckin’ lawyer’s on his way,’ Neil McIlhenney drawled, ‘or at least his office says he is.’ He wandered across to the window of the first-floor interview room. ‘They said he drives a Jag. I told security to leave a parking space for him, but I don’t see any of those out there.’

  ‘How’s the lady?’

  The superintendent’s expression darkened; he glared at Luksa. ‘Now, all of a sudden, you care.’ He stepped towards the table and sat, facing him. ‘Well, since you asked so nicely,’ he hissed, ‘she’s on a life support system; any minute now we could get a call telling us to charge you with murder, not attempted.’

  The Lithuanian paled, his eyes widening. ‘But I hardly touched her,’ he protested.

  ‘What if I told you that you touched her enough to nick an artery, and that it was bleeding inside her throat? What if I told you that she collapsed, and by the time they got her to hospital, she’d almost drowned on her own blood?’

  ‘Naw!’

  ‘You see, you can have all the fuckin’ lawyers you like but they won’t impress us, or get you any sort of a deal. We’re even going to do you for running one of the Estonian girls, whether you had her or not. Hell’s teeth, I think we’ll do you for trafficking them all, all twelve of them.’

  ‘There was only nine,’ Luksa protested.

  ‘And how would you know that? You said you knew nothing about them, you never had one at your place. You know what I think? I reckon it was you, not Valdas, that brought them in. We’ve got one of the lassies under our protection. She was given a rough time, and right now she thinks we’re wonderful; if we ask her she’ll identify you like a shot.’

  ‘It was Valdas! Him and Marius.’

  McGuire lowered himself into the seat beside McIlhenney. ‘Arturus,’ he said, slowly, ‘right now Valdas is a pork fucking scratching. He and his wife died in a fire in their house last night. He doesn’t figure any more. As for this Marius guy, he didn’t put a blade in one of our colleagues. We got you, babe, we got you. It’ll be a long time before you mount that feisty wee wife of yours again. She’ll be an old woman by then . . . mind you, from what PC Johnston told us, she doesn’t look like the sort who’ll wait around.’

  Luksa buried his face in his hands. The head of CID grabbed his wrists and slammed them on to the table.

  ‘You’ll look at us when we’re talking to you,’ he growled. ‘Who killed Linas Jankauskas?’

  ‘No’ me!’ the man wailed, fearfully. ‘You not going to do me for that as well.’

  ‘You couldn’t have killed him,’ McIlhenney chuckled. ‘You’re a pussy who goes for women rather than men. Plus, you’re an idiot, and whoever did Linas was an expert. So come on, who was it?’

  ‘I don’t kno
w, honest I don’t. It had nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Why was he killed?’ McGuire snapped. ‘Do you know that?’

  ‘I guess it was because he was freelancing with his girl. He keep her in his own place, he drug her, he fuck her himself, he sell her to punters and he keep nearly all the money. Linas, he was real idiot: he asked for it. If Valdas found out . . . Yes,’ Luksa nodded, ‘that’s it. Valdas found out; he killed him.’

  ‘No, that’s not it. We know where Valdas was when Linas was killed.’

  ‘How you be sure?’

  ‘Because he was with us at the time, you clown. Now don’t piss us about. We all know it wasn’t Valdas, so . . .’ He glared at the prisoner. ‘Before you answer this, you should consider the situation, and ask yourself how, if that phone rings and we’re told the worst about our colleague, how we’re going to react . . . or how that other man you saw is going to react. So . . . who do you think killed Linas?’

  ‘I think it may be the new guy.’

  ‘New guy?’ McIlhenney fired back. ‘What new guy?’

  ‘The guy who told us all to meet him.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Wednesday, in the morning, day after Jock tells us we’re closed for a while. I get a call at home from a man. He says I am to meet him in the Bruntsfield massage parlour, twelve o’clock, and that all the other managers will be there. I ask him who the fuck he thinks he is; he says he has a message for us all from Tomas. Now I don’t know at this time that Tomas is dead, but I do know that if Tomas says “Come”, you fucking do it.’

  ‘So you went.’

  ‘Too fucking right.’

  ‘Why Bruntsfield?’

  ‘Because it’s the biggest place, maybe, I dunno. Anyway, I go and the other guys are there, except Linas. I ask Marius where he is and he says Linas is a fucking idiot, he hasn’t turned up. Then this man shows us a piece of paper; it’s from Tomas and it’s signed by him.’

  ‘How did you know it was genuine?’

  ‘It was written in Lithuanian. The fella was Scottish. It was addressed to all us managers and it said that he has decided to get out of the business and that there’s a new owner. When we read it, Marius asks him, “Is that you, the owner?” He says no, but that we should treat him as if he is if we want to stand any chance of keeping our jobs. Then he tells us that we stay closed until he says to open again; he says if anyone asks, we say it’s as a mark of respect.’

  ‘This man,’ said McGuire. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘He didn’t tell us, we didn’t ask.’

  ‘You didn’t ask?’

  ‘No, because when one of the guys says he’s going to ask Tomas about this, he tell us that Tomas is dead, and that if we don’t believe him we should check the papers in an hour or two. That shut us all up.’

  ‘This was at midday?’ McGuire murmured, almost to himself. Luksa nodded.

  ‘The man,’ said McIlhenney. ‘Describe him.’

  ‘Tough guy.’

  ‘So are we, but you wouldn’t be able to trace either of us on that description.’

  ‘He’s tall, but not a giant, maybe one metre eighty-five. Heavy built, big chest, thick waist.’ He rubbed his face. ‘Big chin, dark; maybe needed a shave, like me, or maybe that’s how he was.’

  ‘How was he dressed?’

  ‘Jeans, red and white shirt . . . jacket with no sleeves. OK, that’s all I remember, other than reading in the paper yesterday that Tomas was dead right enough. That’s all I know now, all I can say. Honest. You tell the other man I’m sorry I no’ tell him this. And please God, don’t let the lady die. I pray for her, honest.’

  ‘You’d better do that,’ McGuire rumbled. He glanced out of the window, then grinned. ‘Heaven be praised!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look, Arturus, you’ve had an answer already.’ He pointed, in the direction of a female figure, walking down the slope from the main entrance to the headquarters building. She was stocky, and wore police uniform.

  Luksa’s mouth dropped open. For a moment, he started out of his chair, before thinking better of it and subsiding. ‘You two are bastards,’ he hissed.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said McIlhenney, ‘we surely are. Now,’ he continued, looking at his watch, ‘I reckon we’ve waited long enough for Ken Green. We don’t need him here to charge you, and that’s what we’re going to do, formally, with the attempt to murder Superintendent Mary Chambers, in your house, yesterday evening. You’ve already been cautioned, and we don’t require you to say anything at this stage. You’ll appear in Edinburgh Sheriff Court this afternoon, where we’ll ask that you be remanded in custody. Mr Green can make his way there, or his firm can send a substitute. Failing that, you can be represented by any other solicitor you choose to instruct, or by someone appointed by the court, if that’s what you prefer.’ He pressed a button under the table; a few seconds later the door opened and two escort officers entered the room. ‘Take him back to his accommodation,’ the detective superintendent ordered, ‘and have a secure van standing by ready to take him up to Chambers Street. The fiscal’s expecting him in the cells there in fifteen minutes.’ He gazed at Luksa as he was pulled to his feet. ‘Some advice, pal; you keep your fucking mouth shut from now on, and do exactly what Ken Green tells you, unless he’s decided he wants no part of you.’

  The Glimmer Twins sat in silence for a few seconds after the door had closed behind the prisoner. ‘That was good thinking,’ said McGuire at last, ‘feeding him that nonsense about hidden arterial bleeding. You almost had me believing you; yes, it was worthy of the big fella himself. Are you going to tell him we got more out of Luksa than he did, or will I?’

  ‘I think neither of us will brag about it.’

  ‘Maybe not, maybe not.’ The chief superintendent frowned. ‘But our friend Arturus really is truly stupid. He fancies himself too. Know who he reminds me of? That Spanish barman in Hotel Babylon, on the telly. Mind you, was that description he gave us familiar, or was it not?’

  McIlhenney nodded. ‘The boy’s not a Dandy reader, is he? Otherwise he’d have mentioned Desperate Dan too. It’s a spot-on match with the one Montell got from the receptionist.’

  ‘Absolutely, and he gave us lots more than that. The letter Desperate showed the managers: the one from Tomas. How did he get that? Assuming it was genuine, that is. Maybe Valdas wrote it.’

  ‘I don’t buy that. No, Tomas Zaliukas wrote it, he gave it to Desperate and then went up Arthur’s Seat and killed himself.’

  ‘Then get someone back into his house,’ said McGuire, ‘to copy all the files off his computer then look for one that’s in Lithuanian and was created on or before Tuesday evening. If we get a result, find a translator.’

  ‘But how did he know him in the first place? Who is he and what’s the connection?’

  ‘Wait a minute, though,’ his friend countered. ‘We know who the new owner was. It was Laima, Valdas Gerulaitis’s wife.’

  ‘And now fellow pork scratching. You’re bloody right. And Tomas changed his will in her favour just before he died. So what was her connection to Desperate?’

  ‘Christ knows. Do we know how the will read before that?’

  ‘No,’ said McIlhenney, ‘but I’m sure we can find out.’

  ‘Have McGurk and Sauce do that; Alex should be able to help them. Meantime that leaves us with this guy Marius. Thanks to our friend we can now have a serious talk with him about trafficking young women for prostitution. He’s not going to like that at all.’

  ‘Can we prove it, though? Anna might have identified Valdas and Linas, but did she ever see him?’

  ‘Time will tell,’ said the head of CID, ‘but right now I just want to find out what he knows. We need to trace the rest of those girls. They’re my greatest worry, mate; they might just have become too much of a liability. I’ll tell you what; you’re on a roll, so you take Marius, but don’t delegate it to Becky, you go for him yourself. You’re doing that, I’ll go up to the Sheriff Court and make sure that our friend Luksa’
s remand hearing goes according to plan.’

  ‘OK.’ The superintendent frowned. ‘You know what’s liable to happen with him, don’t you?’

  McGuire nodded, sagely. ‘Sure, I can read that script. A good QC will portray him as a frightened man, cornered by police who invaded his home without a warrant, picking up the first thing that came to hand and lashing out blindly. Charlie and Mary will be good witnesses, and the forensic backs them up, but when Luksa’s lawyer offers a guilty plea to a charge of serious assault, the Crown Office will take it. Unless Bob leans on them.’

  ‘He won’t though; I reckon he’ll be more likely to pass word discreetly to the judge, whoever that is, that he’s not pleased. In that case Luksa’ll still be looking at a right few years inside, and maybe a fine alongside that.’

  ‘Probably,’ the head of CID conceded, ‘but that’s down the road. For now, let’s get on with what we’ve got to do.’

  He was heading for the door when his mobile sounded, and vibrated in the pocket of his shirt. He plucked it out, and looked at the number, but it registered as ‘anonymous’. ‘McGuire,’ he answered.

  ‘Mario, my boy.’ Professor Joe Hutchinson sounded cheerful, possibly even triumphant.

  ‘Prof. What can you do for me?’

  ‘I have some interesting findings to throw your way. I have a prodigy on my hands. One of my students, a young lady called Kneilands, has excelled herself.’

  ‘How come?’ the chief superintendent asked, intrigued, fired up instantly by the pathologist’s enthusiasm.

  ‘I told you, I think, that I had left my disciples to complete the detailed examination of the remains of the Gerulaitis couple. Well, Ms Kneilands really got into the detail. She has established that every one of the fingers on Valdas’s left hand, and the thumb and index finger on the right were dislocated prior to his death, at the knuckle and at the major joint.’

  ‘And?’