‘Not unless he’s risen from the grave.’
The light was extinguished. ‘Damn it. For a minute there . . .’ He sighed. ‘I’m inclined to believe these are contract killings. What do you two think?’
‘I’m not going to knock that on the head, Rod,’ Martin told him. ‘But I’ve never seen a professional murder that’s as messy as these, or one that involved torture, for that matter.’
‘It happened in Ireland often enough,’ Skinner pointed out.
‘But those were political.’
‘Are there any “buts” with murder?’ He looked at the chief superintendent. ‘Yes, Rod, logically you might be right. But if you are, there’s a follow-up question, isn’t there? Who ordered it?’
‘Someone with a grudge against Grandpa, I suppose; sending him a message.’
‘From what I’ve seen, it would have been easier to kill McCullough himself than to take out these two.’
Greatorix sighed. ‘So you’re as much in the dark as me?’ he blurted out, his voice full of frustration; ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
Skinner shook his head, and checked his watch. ‘The only thing I’m saying, Rod, is that unless we can help you in some other way, it’s time that Andy and I picked up Neil McIlhenney and headed back to Edinburgh. What I’m thinking is this: you guys have gone on for years knowing that Cameron McCullough has done, or ordered, things, but you’ve never been able to prove it. Right?’
The other men nodded, simultaneously.
‘Well, he didn’t do this one, but it’s going to fall into the same category. Get ready to list it as unsolved, or to keep the file open for a long time.’
‘Are you telling us you do know who did it right enough?’ the chief superintendent asked.
‘I knew who did it as soon as I walked into that barn.’ He beckoned to Martin. ‘When I’m ready, I’ll tell you. Come on, it’s the middle of the fucking night and I think I’m going to have a very early start.’
‘Why?’ his friend asked. ‘Where are you going?’
‘France.’
Eighty-three
‘If you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Jack McGurk, ‘you look a bit bleary-eyed.’
‘Yes I mind,’ Neil McIlhenney growled. ‘My wife minds. My kids mind. And everybody around me will mind about irritating me by the time this day is done. I got in at three thirty, wakening the wee one in the process, and thus the whole household, then I was back in my office by eight. And now the mountain has to come to Mohammad and his mate because you don’t have a DI. In fact, with Sammy off on his course and Becky on her travels, there’s hardly a fucking DI left in fucking Edinburgh. Have you done that thing I asked you?’
‘When you phoned me from the road at quarter to three?’
‘That’s right, and you’re not bleary-eyed at all.’
The DS grinned. ‘Yes I’ve done it. I called on Mrs McKean pretty much as soon as her office opened. She wasn’t going to tell me anything, at first; she even tried to hide behind legal privilege until I pointed out that she isn’t, in fact, a lawyer. Eventually I said that if it wasn’t her it must have been her boss and could I speak to her please, and that’s when she gave up. I let her off light; I took her out and bought her a coffee, and let her take her time. She admitted that Green called her out of the blue, on Tuesday of last week. He asked her to do him a simple favour, and confirm that Tomas Zaliukas had been in the office that afternoon to change his will.’
‘And she told him, just like that?’
‘She says she refused, at first, but he pleaded with her. He said it had nothing to do with any of his clients; that this was a matter of his personal security, and if she didn’t want to get caught up in it herself or, worse, get young Kenny involved, she’d tell him. So she did.’
‘Was that all he asked her?’
‘No, he asked if she could get him a copy of the new will. She said she couldn’t, because it had been drafted, printed and witnessed by Veronica Drake. The copy was in her safe and Mrs McKean doesn’t have access.’
McIlhenney frowned. ‘She didn’t know what was in it?’
‘She said not, and I believe her. Does that make a difference?’
‘It might, if the boss’s theory is right: that the Gerulaitises were killed by Desperate Dan and his mate Dudley, after Laima had been forced to sign away her inheritance from Tomas, the interest in Lituania SAFI. If they didn’t find out he’d left it to her from Ken Green, through his ex-wife, then who the hell did tell them?’
‘Who the hell knew?’ asked McGurk.
‘Veronica Drake knew. And, eventually, we did.’
‘And who else?’
‘That’s what we need to find out.’
‘Do you want me to go back up to the law firm and interview Drake?’
‘No. Because somebody else knew too, the day before the couple died.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Who told us about the contents of the will?’
McGurk winced. ‘Alex Skinner.’
‘Precisely. No, Jack, you will not go charging into CAJ. If anyone’s going to take that further it’ll be me, and it’ll be with her dad, not with Alex.’
‘Thanks, sir,’ said McGurk, sincerely. ‘You go and get some sleep now,’ he added, as the superintendent headed for the door.
‘Fuck off, Sergeant,’ he replied, as his mobile rang. He took it out and checked the incoming call; the number showed ‘unknown’. ‘McIlhenney,’ he grunted.
‘Neil, it’s Andy.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In my new office, but I’ve just had a call from Rod Greatorix, up in Perth.’
‘Oh yes? Did he say when we can pick up the women?’
‘Yes and no. At half past eight this morning a lawyer turned up at the office where they were being held, saying that she’d been instructed to defend them. Not any old legal hack either; no, it was Susannah Himes.’
‘The Barracuda?’
Seated at his desk, Sauce Haddock’s eyebrows rose at the mention of the name; he had met her before, and been impressed.
‘That’s right. She asked for a private interview with her clients, and of course that had to be allowed. They went straight into court when it was over. When they were called, Himes told the sheriff that her client, Inez McCullough, would be entering a plea of guilty to the possession offence, and that she’d be cooperating with police in Edinburgh and around Scotland over several other current investigations. But she also said that Inez had told her that her daughter Cameron had no involvement in any of these, and that she’d gone along last night thinking that she was helping her mother pick up stuff that the golf club had agreed she could have.’
‘What?’ McIlhenney shouted. ‘Did the sheriff swallow that crap?’
‘From the Barracuda? Hook, line and sinker. She applied for bail; we opposed it, but it was useless. As they left, Susannah told Rod that if you want to interview either of them, you’ll have to do it through her. The fiscal reckons it’s the start of a bargaining session. Inez will plead to the lot if there are no proceedings against Cameron. Otherwise, it’s a trial.’
‘You know what the outcome will be, don’t you?’
‘Sure; the Crown Office will take the deal. I know where Inez’s orders came from too: her father’s mouth to her ear, via Ms Himes.’
‘The boss is going to love that, I don’t think.’
‘Do you think I fucking like it? I’m going to talk to Grandpa, at the first opportunity. Bob might want to come with me. Where is he?’
‘Gone. Red-eye flight this morning. McGurk says I look half dead, so Christ knows what state he’s in.’
Eighty-four
‘I’m sorry we’re later than arranged,’ said Mario McGuire as Regine
Zaliukas opened the door, ‘but as I said when I called you earlier, someone wanted to join us, and we had to wait for him.’
‘That’s no problem,’ she replied. She was dressed casually, as she had bee
n the evening before, in slightly more formal day wear, but with the same fluffy carpet slippers on her feet. ‘What happened to him?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t he turn up?’
As she spoke, a figure stepped into view from the side of the doorway, to stand alongside Becky Stallings. His face was lined with tiredness and his clothes were creased from travel, but his eyes were clear and alert. ‘No, I made it,’ he told her. ‘It was a bit of a rush, everything ran to time.’
She peered at him for a second or two. ‘It’s Mr Skinner, isn’t it?’ she murmured.
He nodded, smiling as he extended his hand. ‘It’s been a while, Regine. You look barely a day older; I wish I could claim the same.’
She shook his hand, and stood aside. ‘Please come in.’
‘Where are Mork and Mindy?’ McGuire asked, as he stepped into the hall, after Skinner and Stallings.
‘Max and Zaki?’ She laughed softly. ‘They’ve taken the girls to Agen, to the cinema.’ She looked at the chief constable. ‘Why are you here, Mr Skinner?’
He ignored her question. ‘How old are they now?’
‘Aimée is eight, and Lucie is newly six.’
‘Have you told them about their father?’
‘No, not yet. I need quiet time with them before I can break that kind of news. Too many things have been happening.’ She moved towards the sitting room, and beckoned them to follow. ‘Come through and sit.’ The three police officers followed; McGuire and Stallings took seats on the sofa facing the widow in her chair, but Skinner stood, beside the garden door.
‘OK, Regine,’ he said. ‘It’s time to tell us what happened.’ He stopped abruptly and frowned. ‘But first,’ he continued, ‘. . . you’re not alone in the house, are you.’ Statement, not question. ‘Yesterday evening you felt unsafe, so Mario and Becky told me, yet this afternoon your bodyguards have gone out with the kids . . . and left you alone? No, you feel safe now, don’t you?’
She shrugged. ‘I should. You’re here.’
‘It’s nice to know we have your confidence, but I reckon you’ve got a little added insurance. Come on, call him, or do I have to go looking?’
‘No, you don’t.’ The accent was thick, but the words intelligible. The voice came from the opening that led to the kitchen, at the top of the steps, where its owner had appeared, a man in his early thirties; clean-shaven, dressed in jeans and a fresh white T-shirt with a caricature image of Nicolas Sarkozy on the front. He was smaller than either police officer, but the definition of his musculature said that he was no less formidable.
‘You’ll be Jonas, I take it,’ said the chief constable. The newcomer nodded. ‘In that case, Regine will be fine.’ His eyes narrowed, imperceptibly. ‘But she’ll be fine now anyway, won’t she, Colonel?’ The surviving Zaliukas brother returned his gaze, but quizzically, suggesting mystification.
He turned back to the woman. ‘OK, let’s begin. In your own time. There is no pressure on you here. We need to know the circumstances that led to Tomas’s death, but be sure, lass, that we regard you, I regard you, as a victim too.’
She nodded, and seemed to relax a little. ‘Where do I begin?’ she murmured.
‘Let’s start with the massage parlours, and the company known as Lituania SAFI. How did your husband come to be involved in that?’
‘At the time, I never knew he was involved,’ she replied. ‘He didn’t tell me when he did it, even though we were supposed to make all the business decisions together. I only found out a couple of years later, not long after Lucie was born, when we were at a party, a business thing, and one of the women there, a banker’s wife, I think, made a nasty remark. She called him a pimp. I didn’t know what she was talking about so I punched her.’ She tapped the side of her nose, and smiled, very faintly. ‘Right there,’ she whispered. ‘It bled all over her blue satin dress. There was a scene, of course, and Tomas had to take me home. Once we got there I made him tell me what she had been talking about.’
‘You made him?’
‘Oh, I made him, all right.’ She looked at Stallings. ‘Imagine, he thinks I couldn’t stand up to my husband. Tomas might have been . . . what he once was . . . but I was no pushover either.’
‘I know that well enough,’ Skinner chuckled. ‘No one ever took you for a softie, Regine. So what did he tell you?’
‘He said that not long after Tony Manson died, he was approached by a man he called Dudley.’
‘Eh?’ Skinner’s eyebrows rose. ‘How did he know this man?’
‘From his time in the merchant navy. Dudley was on the crew of his ship.’
‘But he’s Scottish. On a Lithuanian ship?’
She nodded. ‘He joined in Amsterdam, after some men defected and left them short-handed. He and Tomas sailed together for a couple of years, and when Dudley left the ship in Scotland, Tomas went with him . . . unofficially. He deserted, and he was allowed to stay.’
‘I know that. When he approached Tomas, what did he want?’
‘He thought that Tomas had been left Manson’s massage places,’ she explained. ‘It was known that Tony had left everything worth having to an associate, and Dudley assumed that it was him. He told him it wasn’t and he thought that would the end of it, but Dudley came back. He said that he had someone who was interested in buying the places, and that if my husband could help, he would cut him in for half of the deal. Tomas thought why not, and so he approached the lawyer who was acting for Lennie Plenderleith . . . he was in jail by then.’
‘How did Ken Green get involved?’
‘When Tomas asked Mr Conn at Curle Anthony and Jarvis to act for him in the deal, he said he’d rather not. Green was introduced by the other man in the deal.’
‘This partner, this other man. Who is he?’
‘I don’t know that. Tomas wouldn’t tell me. He never did tell me, ever.’
‘Do you know if the two of them ever met, or was all the business done through Dudley?’
‘Oh yes, they met. When the company in Uruguay was set up, they went there to sign the papers. Four of them went. Tomas took Valdas, because he was going to be looking after the places, and the other man had someone with him too. Not Dudley, though; a man Tomas called Henry.’
‘Was that the trip when he had the tattoo done on his shoulder?’ McGuire asked.
She nodded. ‘He said that they all did.’
‘Excuse me for a moment.’ Skinner stepped out into the garden, took out his phone and called McIlhenney. ‘Neil,’ he said as the superintendent answered, ‘no time to chat, but call Greatorix and tell him that his pathologists should check for a tattoo on Henry Brown’s shoulder. They’ll find one, and when they do, they should photograph it. Then check the photos that were taken at Tomas’s autopsy, and at Valdas’s; you should find two the same, although Valdas’s will be a wee bit singed.’
He went back inside. ‘Sorry about that, Regine,’ he murmured. ‘So Valdas knew who the man was?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at Jonas Zaliukas, who had come down the steps and was standing behind his sister-in-law’s chair. ‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘I was in the army when this shit happen,’ the man replied.
‘That’s not an answer, but we’ll go back there later. For now, do you know, Regine, if Tomas put any more money into that company?’
‘No, he didn’t. He was paid a dividend on his investment, fifty thousand every year, twenty per cent of his capital, but he didn’t put any more in.’
‘Where did the money go?’
‘Into a bank account he opened in France, for the girls. I doubt if he paid tax on it; it was always in cash.’
‘We don’t really care about that,’ the chief constable told her. ‘Why don’t you bring us up to date now?’ he invited. ‘When did all this business begin?’
‘Two weeks ago,’ she replied, and as she did, the tension seemed to grab her once more, tightening her shoulders, and narrowing her mouth.
‘How?’ the chief co
nstable asked quietly.
‘Tomas came home from the office on Wednesday night,’ she replied, ‘the week before last. He told me that there was big trouble in the massage parlours, that Valdas had done something very stupid, and that his partner was very angry.’
‘Did he tell you what Gerulaitis had done?’
‘No, but he said that it was criminal, against the law. You see, those businesses are sensitive, what happens there is . . .’ She paused, frowning. ‘How do I say it?’
‘What happens there is tolerated,’ Stallings prompted her. ‘Men go there, and to places like that all over Britain, and they pay for sex. We all know it happens, but there’s an unspoken agreement that nothing will be done about it. Our society can never eliminate prostitution, but it can’t be seen to make it legal either. So we compromise; we turn a blind eye to women selling themselves in places like that, because it’s a hell of a lot safer for them than doing it on the street. As long as the business is properly run, and the women aren’t exploited; if they were, that couldn’t be overlooked.’
‘And that’s what Valdas was doing,’ Skinner added. ‘He had smuggled in a squad of girls, youngsters, some of them under age, from Estonia, and put them to work. Some were willing, and those that weren’t were drugged.’
Regine stared at him. ‘That’s what he did?’
He nodded.
‘Tomas didn’t tell me that. Now I know, I’m even more glad that he’s dead.’
‘How did his partner find out?’
‘Through Dudley, Tomas said. From time to time he would go into the places as a customer, to check that they were being run properly.’
‘And when he did that a couple of weeks ago,’ McGuire murmured, ‘he saw the new talent.’
‘Just so,’ Jonas Zaliukas growled. ‘Valdas!’ he spat. ‘What’s your word in English for someone who is very stupid?’
‘Idiot, dimwit, moron . . . take your pick.’
‘I take all of them. My brother made not many mistakes, but he was one. And it kill him.’
‘Regine,’ Skinner whispered, ‘go on. Tomas sent you here, didn’t he?’
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