20 - A Rush of Blood

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Did you ever ask him who was behind it?’

  ‘Of course I did, Jack. I was curious; no argument about that.’

  ‘Did he drop any hints?’

  The lawyer frowned, her eyes narrowing as if she was trying to place herself back in a conversation that had taken place seven years before. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘When I asked him, he just smiled and said, “Men of substance and influence, Frankie.” That was all. But he used the plural; he definitely said that there was more than one.’

  ‘What do you know about Zaliukas?’

  ‘I never acted for him. I met him, though, early in my career, when I defended his cousin Gerulaitis on an assault charge.’ She smiled. ‘I got him off, but it wasn’t down to me really. When the victim went into the witness box and was asked to identify the man who attacked him, he pointed to one of the guys in the press box.’

  ‘Could Valdas have been a partner in the acquisition?’ Haddock asked.

  She looked at the young detective. ‘Not a chance. That guy was a chronic gambler, and a bad one. He was perpetually skint in those days; Tomas even paid for his defence. He told me he wasn’t sure that it was money well spent. When I asked him what he meant, he said that it might have been kinder to let Valdas go to jail for a bit, and here I quote, “to give him a break from that fucking wife of his”. He was a funny guy; too bad he stopped seeing the joke.’

  Sixty-five

  Normally, Bob Skinner enjoyed the first day of the working week after recharging his batteries by spending quality time with Aileen and the children. Although their Saturday had been curtailed, their Sunday had been one of the best, thanks to the lunchtime visit by Maggie Steele, Bet Rose, her sister, and an increasingly boisterous Stephanie, who was developing facial features that promised to owe a lot to the father she would never meet.

  There had been a further highlight, when the family had been gathered round the table for their evening snack. Bob had mentioned, casually, his accidental discovery that he had a page on Wikipedia, and that he would be interested to know who had posted it and who was keeping it up to date. His older, adopted, son Mark had said nothing, but a slight flush in his cheeks, and a touch of uncertainty in his eyes had combined to betray him.

  ‘You, Markie?’ Bob had said. ‘You’re my public affairs consultant?’

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ the boy had replied.

  Skinner always made a point of spending at least as much time with Mark as with any of his siblings. His determination was that while the boy should always remember and respect his birth parents, both dead, he should feel that he was as much a father to him as to his natural children. And the responsibility was growing, with the approach of his teens. From his early years, Mark had shown a prodigious talent for mathematics, and for physics. There had been a time when Bob had been determined to develop it by sending him to Fettes College, with James Andrew, and eventually Seonaid, but when he had proposed it, he had been faced, for the only time in their lives, with a united rebellion by both of his sons, who had pleaded to be allowed to move on to the local high school when the time came. Being a secret soft touch for his children, he had yielded, and found Mark the best private tutor he could find, to allow him to develop his talent at its natural pace, and not be held back.

  ‘Didn’t you think to ask me?’ he had murmured.

  ‘No.’ The boy looked him in the eye. ‘I didn’t start it,’ he said. ‘Somebody else put it up. I found it and it was full of cra . . . nonsense, so I logged on and edited it, made it accurate. Now I just keep it up to date. I do the same thing for Mum as well. Her page was rubbish too.’ The three children had two mums, Aileen in Gullane and Sarah in America, and managed to make it invariably clear to which they were referring.

  ‘My page was started by the Labour Party,’ Aileen had laughed.

  ‘But they don’t know you. Neither did the guy who started your fan page on Facebook. I’ve taken that over too.’

  Skinner was still smiling inwardly over the revelation as his senior colleagues left his room at the end of the Monday morning meeting, but none of it worked through to his expression. There had been no progress on any of the deaths of the previous week. Tomas Zaliukas was still, unshakeably, a suicide, and none of the specialist teams were prepared to say, unshakeably, that the deaths of the Gerulaitases and Ken Green had been caused by anything other than misfortune, or in the lawyer’s case, recklessness. Only Linas Jankauskas was listed definitely as a murder victim, and there had been no progress in finding the comic book lookalike who had rescued Anna Romanova from his flat. He had been testy with Mario McGuire at the staff gathering, and the atmosphere had been strained, since the head of CID had never been one to meekly bare his bottom for the headmaster’s cane.

  His door opened after a faint knock, and Gerry Crossley stepped half into the room. ‘David Mackenzie’s here,’ he began.

  ‘OK,’ the chief grunted. The superintendent replaced Crossley in the door frame, looking a little hesitant. Word must have got around, he thought. ‘Come on in, David,’ he said, ‘and relax. I’ve had my red meat ration for the morning. What can you do for me?’

  ‘Brighten your day?’ Mackenzie suggested.

  ‘Please try.’ He offered a seat, but rose himself. ‘Want a coffee?’ he asked as he stepped across to his filter pot on its warming plate. ‘I think I’m having withdrawal symptoms.’

  ‘I’ll give it a miss, boss.’

  ‘Fire away, then.’

  ‘It’s that job you gave me, to see if I can locate any property owned by Lituania SAFI outside our area. I got a result, and then some. Over the past six years or so, the company’s been pumping money into acquisitions, in the same or related fields to its Edinburgh holdings. It owns three premises in the Dundee area, one in Perth, one in Inverness and four in Aberdeen, all licensed massage parlours. It also owns a sex shop in Dundee and bingo halls in Montrose and in Aberdeen.’

  Skinner whistled as he resumed his seat. ‘Does it, by Christ,’ he murmured, his first morning smile lighting up his face. ‘Who are the licence holders?’

  ‘Individuals in each case, as is the pattern here; the people who’re actually running the places. I only suspect that for the moment but I’ll keep digging. That’s all there is, though, all the company owns.’

  ‘That’s good work, David. Hold off on the digging for now. I’m sure you’re right, but I may spread the load a bit. These licence holders,’ he continued. ‘Do their names sound, how shall I put it, funny to our Celtic ears?’

  Mackenzie grinned. ‘Do you mean are they Lithuanians, sir? No, nary a one. There’s a Patel running the Montrose bingo hall, but the rest are all Anglo.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that interesting. Here in Edinburgh where Tomas was the player, he put his own kind into everything the company owned. But in the other areas of the country . . .’

  ‘. . . somebody else was placing the people. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘That’s where I’m heading.’

  ‘Do you want me to bring the Tayside and Grampian forces into this?’ the superintendent asked.

  ‘No. I want you to leave it with me for now. There’s someone else I think I’ll consult first. Thanks, David.’

  He watched his visitor as he left, then picked up the phone as the door closed behind him. ‘Gerry,’ he said to his assistant. ‘Call the HQ of the Drugs and Serious Crimes Agency, through in Paisley, and see if you can get the acting director on the blower for me.’

  He sat and waited, sipping his coffee, letting thoughts run through his mind. Finally the phone buzzed. ‘I have Mr Martin on the line for you, Chief,’ Crossley announced. ‘Now that was a surprise.’

  ‘Not just for you, chum. Thanks.’ He waited until he heard the clink of the call being connected. ‘Andy,’ he exclaimed, ‘isn’t life a funny bugger? I go six months without speaking to you and on your first week in your new job, something drops in my lap that I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘Funny indeed,
’ Martin agreed, ‘but are you sure you need to talk to me? I’m not being precious or anything, but I don’t want my people thinking I’m hogging stuff for myself, or that I haven’t read my job description.’

  ‘I know that, man. I’m under the same constraints.’ He chuckled.

  ‘Although . . . your job description says that you’re the boss, so if you chose you could do whatever you fucking liked . . . until you screwed up, of course. But this call might be to Andy Martin, rather than to the acting director general. This thing I’ve got has developed a decidedly Tayside feel, and since you’ve still got the dust of the place on your shoes, you’re exactly the guy whose brain I need to pick.’

  ‘OK, but right now? I’m just about to go into my first department heads meeting. I’m expecting it to go on well into lunch.’

  ‘Then that’s your top priority,’ Skinner agreed. ‘Where are you laying your head tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Like I told you; Edinburgh, tonight and every night. I can meet you later if that’s all right. If I catch the four-thirty train, I can be with you by half five.’

  ‘Then do that. I might have a couple of people sit in on our chat, if that’s OK.’

  ‘Fine by me.’ The chief constable heard a quick intake of breath. ‘Bob,’ his friend said, ‘it’s good to be back. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, Andy,’ he sighed, ‘I know. Same here. You sure there’s no chance for you and Karen?’

  ‘None. I’m rarely certain about relationships, but I am this time.’

  ‘Too bad. See you later.’

  He ended the call and leaned back in his chair. His coffee was well on its way to being cold, but he finished it nonetheless. He closed his eyes and went back to the musing he had begun while waiting for the phone call, poring over the events of the past week, probing for holes in the investigation, flaws in the procedure. Suicide? He had to believe that. Accidents? No danger. Someone had cleaned out the Zaliukas camp, for sure, and had silenced Ken Green because he knew . . . what? The name of the other player in Lituania SAFI, presumably, and with him gone, that was . . .

  He sat bolt upright, his eyes opening wide. ‘Shit!’ he whispered, as he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the door. He strode past Gerry Crossley without a word, out of the command suite and along the corridor that led to the head of CID’s office. McGuire was at his desk as he entered; he made to rise, but the chief constable cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  ‘Mario,’ he boomed, ‘we’ve been fucking negligent, and I include myself in that plural, for I’m supposed to be the top gun around here. We’ve been so obsessed by what’s been happening here that we’ve ignored the broader picture. Tomas is dead, and so’s his cousin; their wee brothel empire’s been taken over. But it was bigger than we thought; the company owns another twelve businesses. There is a partner, and we reckoned that Ken Green was probably our last means of proving who he is . . . but he might not be. There’s somebody else, and we’ve been ignoring her as this thing’s developed. Regine Zaliukas. She’s sitting in a wee French village with her kids, and she could be in danger. She could also be an important witness; we need to get to her, we need to talk to her and we need to keep her safe. This isn’t something that can be left to a sergeant and a DC. We need to get somebody over there now, somebody with weight enough to impress the local police, and that, my friend, means you.’

  ‘Wow,’ McGuire whispered, ‘you’re the boss, but . . . You said yourself that when Alex spoke to her she wasn’t in any hurry to get back. We could get out there and find she’s shacked up with a toyboy, and that’s why Tomas offed himself.’

  ‘If that was the case, Tomas wouldn’t have “offed himself”. He’d have taken the other guy’s head off with his fucking chainsaw. I’m serious; I want you on your way to France, soonest. I can’t go with you, but you will need someone. Given who you’re going to see, it had better be a female officer, with rank.’

  ‘Stallings.’

  ‘She’ll do. Where’s your passport?’

  ‘Here, in my drawer. I always keep it handy.’

  ‘Good; that’s a start. Call Becky and tell her to go home and pick hers up, assuming that she needs to, and to pack a bag, enough for a couple of nights. I’ll make the arrangements, flights, a hire car if you need it, and I’ll get Regine’s address from Alex. I know she has it. If I can get the two of you there today I will, so tell Stallings to be ready to leave soonest. How are you off for clothes?’

  ‘I keep an emergency bag here too, and a couple of hundred euros.’

  ‘Right: tell Neil what’s happening, and get ready to leave for the airport. We’ve left that woman and her kids unprotected for too long.’

  Sixty-six

  ‘Ms Wisniewski,’ said Sauce Haddock, ‘we appreciate that you’re still in a state of shock, but we have a job to do.’ As he looked at the woman, he remembered his imperious reception on his first visit to the firm of Grey Green, only a few days before, and noted the contrast. Gladys Wisniewski gave the impression of someone who was standing on a rug without being certain whether there were floorboards under it. Bereft of Ken Green’s presence, his room seemed much larger, and his secretary that much smaller.

  ‘But I don’t have the authority,’ she blustered. ‘I can’t just let you walk in here.’

  ‘We’ve got the authority ourselves,’ Jack McGurk told her, holding up the sheet of paper that he had shown to the grim-faced receptionist a few minutes before, ‘in the form of this warrant from the sheriff, which allows us to search these premises, unless you voluntarily supply us with the items we require. So, with Mr Green gone, who’s the senior partner? Would that be Mr Grey?’

  ‘There is no Mr Grey,’ she murmured.

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, please,’ the sergeant snapped. ‘If it’s Miss or Mrs, where is she?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. There are no partners in the firm. Mr Green was a sole practitioner. We do have legal staff, but they’re all employees, mostly doing court work.’

  ‘Fresh out of university?’ Haddock speculated. ‘On minimum salaries to maximise the firm’s profit from its legal aid clients?’

  Mrs Wisniewski nodded. ‘You get the picture,’ she acknowledged, as she began to recover both her poise and her accent of the previous week. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s common practice across Scotland. This firm provides valuable training for young lawyers. Quite a few of the people who started with us are advocates now. A couple of them will be QCs quite soon.’

  ‘Save us the PR speak, please, lady,’ McGurk sighed. ‘We’re not here to question Ken Green’s scruples or his business practices. If they were OK with the Law Society, they’re OK with us. What we need to talk about is his relationship with the late Tomas Zaliukas, and with a company that he set up for him called Lituania SAFI, registered in Uruguay. Are you familiar with all that?’

  ‘I’ve met Mr Zaliukas,’ she admitted. ‘And I’ve heard the name of that company before.’

  ‘So who were its principals?’

  ‘Mr Zaliukas was.’

  ‘We know that, but under Uruguayan law, an offshore company has to have at least two shareholders. So there must have been someone else involved in the transaction. I’m wondering, could it have been Mr Green himself?’

  ‘No,’ she replied firmly. ‘That would have been against the Law Society rules, and Mr Green was a stickler for those. Why don’t you ask the Uruguayan Embassy?’

  ‘We have done. Their law allows SAFI shareholders and directors to keep their names secret, so they aren’t about to help us. We need you to tell us.’

  ‘But that would break client confidentiality.’

  ‘That’s not what the sheriff thought when she signed this warrant. So, will you please bring us all the firm’s files relating to Mr Zaliukas, and to the company.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  McGurk drew a deep breath and seemed to grow even taller as he towered over the woman. ‘Ms Wisniewski,’
he threatened, holding up the first two fingers of his right hand, and stopping just short of pressing them together, ‘you are that close to being charged with obstructing us. Do yourself a favour and get those records, now, or we will take this place apart until we find them.’

  ‘I tell you I can’t,’ she shouted. ‘They’re not here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m trying to tell you that Mr Green didn’t keep them here. Some files, the Lituania SAFI papers among them, weren’t stored here. None of the meetings relating to those parts of the business took place here either.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Haddock. ‘If this is a one-man firm, why would it have a second office?’

  ‘It doesn’t, not as such. As far as I know, Mr Green used his cottage in East Lothian for that purpose. That’s where he met those clients and that’s where their files were kept.’

  ‘What would the Law Society think of that?’ asked McGurk, drily.

  ‘There’s nothing to prevent a lawyer from working at home,’ the secretary retorted.

  ‘How will we get access to the cottage?’

  ‘With another warrant, if I had any say in the matter.’

  ‘Which clearly you don’t. So who does? Who’s Mr Green’s heir?’

  ‘He has a son from his first marriage, Kenny junior; he inherits everything. I know, because I witnessed the will. He’s only fifteen, so his mother is the executor. She’s remarried and her name is Marianne McKean now. She lives in Uphall, but I doubt if you’ll find her there just now; she works at Curle Anthony and Jarvis, as a partner’s secretary.’

  ‘We’ll head up there,’ said McGurk to Haddock, ‘just as soon as we’ve searched the premises.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gladys Wisniewski screeched indignantly. ‘I’ve told you there’s nothing here.’

  ‘Yes, you have, ma’am,’ the sergeant replied, coolly, ‘but in the circumstances, I’m afraid we can’t take your word for it.’