by John Dysart
“Anyway we were in a big sales meeting. My whole team was there and he announced that he wanted us to speed up the launch of a new drug to get the year’s sales up because we were a little bit short of our target.”
I smiled. “Get the sales into this year because we have to publish our accounts?”
“Exactly. It’s a bunch of crap. What does it matter if a hundred grand of sales go through in December or January? In the long term it makes no difference.”
“But that’s the way it is nowadays,” I said.
“Anyway, to get back to the meeting. I objected because we hadn’t had the results of our latest tests and I reckoned we should wait for them. That’s when he blew his top.
“I’d heard that he had a temper but his outburst broke all the limits. He literally exploded in rage. I can only suppose that he couldn’t stand the idea of someone disagreeing with him in public. My whole sales team and a good few other people were there.”
He sat back smiling, took another sip of his wine, wiped his lips with his napkin and carried on.
“It was unbelievable how he reacted. He was literally screaming at me. I was told I didn’t know what I was talking about and in any case he was the boss. ‘I’m the boss and you do what I say,’ he yelled at me. I seriously wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d collapsed on the floor, foaming at the mouth.
“He ordered me out of the room. So I left. I can still hear him screaming ‘Get out’ as I went out the door. In any case there was no way I was going to stay and listen to that. Apparently he has some Eastern European blood in him and has a complex about it when he’s amongst the western business community.
“So if you’re wondering if LyonPharma is capable of stealing information and registering a patent based on it, I’d say ’Sure’. Dugain is capable of anything.”
“And what happened after you left the meeting?”
“I’m told he bad-mouthed me to everyone and then stormed off to the airport. I was visited by his hatchet man the next morning and told to pack my bags.”
“His hatchet man?”
“Yes. A guy called Macek who was parachuted in to us as ‘Profit Improvement Director’ about a year before – a very nasty piece of work.”
“I can imagine,” I said. “I met him when I visited the company looking for you.”
“Watch that guy. He probably photographed you when you weren’t looking and noted your car number – for future reference – just in case. And he has a direct line back to Dugain in Lyon. Even the MD is scared of him. I’d keep well out of his way if I were you.”
I thought back to the way he had watched me leaving the company and recalled that he seemed to be phoning as he watched me.
“Did you get a reasonable settlement?”
“Like hell! I got the strict legal minimum – after more than twenty years’ service. But actually it’s not that that made me so angry. It was the way it was done. And my team didn’t like it either. Since then four of my Regional managers have left for other companies. But Dugain will never admit that he made a mistake. He’ll find some contorted argument to justify himself. That’s what these guys are like. I personally think he’s a nutcase and should be locked up. He’s not mentally stable enough to be responsible for a company like that. Trouble is he’s got the knack of being charming sometimes – superficially.”
“But what about your M.D.? Didn’t he defend you?”
“You must be kidding. He wouldn’t go against the flow. He’s your typical new career executive. Wife and two kids at expensive schools, holiday house in Elie, bonuses and stock options – he can’t afford to get fired. He’ll run the shop efficiently but he ain’t going to stick his neck out for anything that would jeopardize his job.”
We were now at the stage of coffee, which I ordered, and, while we were waiting for it, I asked Brian straightforwardly if he could help. Having listened to him so far I felt sure that he would.
“As far as I can, sure. Why not? Any loyalty I had to the old company has gone now after the way I’ve been treated. I don’t owe them anything.”
He then asked me how we were so sure that it was LyonPharma that was guilty of setting up Liam.
I was warming to Brian and decided to tell him a bit more.
“The way they got to Liam was through a guy he’d become friendly with. We tracked him down but he denied all knowledge of LyonPharma and he told us that he had had a girlfriend at the time and she was the one who asked him to find out what he could from Liam. We then discovered that this girl had been arrested for drug possession and we went to the police to see if we could talk to her. Because of that, the police found a letter amongst her belongings, which had come from France, instructing her to target Liam.”
“Wow. You were lucky they didn’t suspect your grandson of being part of a drug operation.”
“Thank God they didn’t.”
“But why would a girl do something like that? Was it for money?”
“This girl was forced to do the job on Liam.”
“How do you mean?”
“The police told me her history. She was Romanian and had been helped to come over into France and get a job by some guys from over there who do that for a whole bunch of girls. The deal is that they take a percentage of their earnings for a while. The trouble is the girls get squeezed and before they know where they are they’re into pushing drugs or prostitution and daren’t kick against the system. It is very nasty. If you find the right person and the right lever you can force a lot of people to do a lot of things.”
“And if it was LyonPharma how would they get a hold of a girl like that?”
“Who knows? They probably found her in a club or a bar in Lyon. And I didn’t say I had proof that it was LyonPharma. All I know is that she got her instructions from France. They suspiciously lodged a patent a couple of weeks before Helen Mackie tried to and it was based on the same solution to a problem that they had solved by a million to one chance accident.”
“If she’s already been in trouble with the police can’t they persuade her to tell you who sent her over?”
“Too scared. Anyway it’s too late now. She was fished out of the Forth about ten days ago. The police reckon she was murdered. Probably to do with the drugs business.”
“Good God.”
He looked shocked.
“So you’ve lost your lead?”
“I’m afraid so. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I wondered if you might have any inside knowledge that would help put our minds at rest - that it really was LyonPharma who were the instigators.”
“Sorry I can’t at the moment. But I’ve still got some friends in the company. Maybe I can find out.”
“If you can that would be great. At the same time see if you can find out why Dugain wants to buy forty percent of Bioscope.”
“What? Why would they want to do that?”
“That’s what Helen and I are wondering.”
Clearly the story of the organized crime behind Irina’s story had shocked him and the conversation moved on to a discussion about the dangers of open frontiers with Eastern Europe. I had cut out Greg Black’s article and had it with me. I pulled it out of my pocket and showed it to Brian. It was folded over and he didn’t see the photo at first so he glanced through the text, nodding agreement at Greg’s comments. Then he turned it over and saw the picture.
He froze and his eyes slowly moved up from the paper to look me full in the face.
“Is that the girl who was dumped in the Forth? The one that Liam talked to?”
I nodded.
“I think you’d better order another two coffees. That girl, Irina Vasilescu, worked for me for three months earlier this year.”
Chapter 11
I stared across the table at him, letting my brain absorb this astonishing news. I reached forward and took back the article and looked at it again to remind myself of what she had looked like.
Instead she had found out too late that she was in the clutches of a bunch of men who had no scruples whatsoever and their sole interest was to exploit her and others like her for money, not caring a damn about the misery and destruction they were causing.
I sighed. Then came the anger. I remembered what Ross had said. He doubted if there was anything he would be able to do about her murder. Absolutely no leads to follow up. Could this help him? At least it was an extra piece of her history.
“Are you sure?”
“Certain. Remember it well. It was one of my many run-ins with that bastard Macek.”
“How do you mean?”
“He ordered me to hire her. She’d been doing a six month stint in France he said and they wanted her to have some UK experience for three months. That was his story anyway. I didn’t need her and I said so but it didn’t make any difference. ‘I’ll make sure she gets the right training,’ he told me. ‘You don’t need to worry. Anyway it’s orders from the top.’
“So that was it. I didn’t see much of her but she seemed a nice enough kid. Pretty tragic end though.”
I couldn’t agree more, I thought, as I folded up the cutting and put it back in my pocket. The question I had, which I didn’t voice, was ‘Should I tell Inspector Ross?’
“Brian, do you think that this man, Macek, could have been the one who instructed Irina to try to get information from Liam – maybe for someone further up?”
“If it was someone further up it could only have been Dugain. He reports directly back to him.”
“But the letter she received came from France.”
I was keeping the information about the postmark to myself.
“That’s perfectly explainable. She needed to know who to target so the information came directly.”
He took up the article again which I had put down on the table and ran his eye over it. When he had finished he handed it back to me.
“You know, it wouldn’t even surprise me if he was doing a bit of drug pushing on the side.”
I had been so preoccupied with the business of the patent that I hadn’t thought about that one.
“And if that’s the case maybe he’s the guy who bumped her off. Bloody hell. I’m not sure I like that idea.”
We had finished our coffee by then and we prepared to leave. Brian agreed to do some digging to see if he could find out if Macek had been piloting Irina on the business of the patent, which was my primary concern, and also if anyone knew why Dugain would want to buy into Bioscope. I wanted to get that tidied up.
As for the idea that Macek might be a spare time drug runner and had played safe by killing off Irina because she had been arrested, I’d better tell Ross – but not yet.
Brian’s final words were a bit worrying.
“We should both tread very carefully. That guy Macek is dangerous. I’m sure of it. And as for Dugain, he’s a real loose cannon, liable to go off at any moment and God knows what he might be capable of. If you’re interested you can check him out on YouTube.”
“YouTube? What do you mean? Does he sing as well?”
He laughed. “You’re out of touch, Bob. Companies nowadays use all these social media networks to get publicity. Facebook, Twitter etc.. LyonPharma have got a couple of people who spend nearly all their time twittering and keeping the Facebook page up to date.”
“But YouTube?”
“Yes there are a couple of videos on there – one was when he was announcing last year’s results and the other one was an interview with the press when they announced the new patent. Check them out. That’ll give you an idea of what he’s like.”
I drove back home over the Forth Road bridge. As I passed over the river I could see the work on the pylons for the new bridge and shook my head in exasperation. How in the hell could they have built a bridge at enormous cost which needed replacement after only forty years? The magnificent railway bridge on the other side had been standing for almost a hundred and fifty.
Home. Too much wine. Snooze. Let the brain rest.
When I had woken up and fortified myself with a strong cup of tea I sat down and reviewed what I had learned from Brian.
Everything Brian had said helped to convince me that there had definitely been a plot to use Liam to get information out of Bioscope and LyonPharma had been behind it. But I had suspected that anyway. The only thing that bothered me was whether the instructions had come from Dugain and whether Antoine had been involved in any way. I hoped not, for Pierre’s sake but ….
However, the news that Irina had worked for Macek in Edinburgh opened up the possibility of something much more serious. She had been entrapped in a vicious system of exploitation of young girls from Romania and been forced into distributing drugs. That was a different ball game and I didn’t much like the idea of getting involved in something like that. It was out of my league and better left to the police.
I’d have to tell Ross at some point. What would he do with the information? He’d probably go and interview Macek. Whether that would get him anywhere or not I didn’t know. Certainly Macek would wonder how Ross had tracked her back to him. Was there any way he could connect it with me?
He had heard me introduce myself at the desk when I had visited the company. Might he connect Bob Bruce with Liam Bruce? Possibly.
From what I’d seen of the man and how Brian had described him it was a distinct possibility that he was Irina’s ‘field manager’ in the drugs business and had a lucrative little source of revenue on the side.
This needed thinking about because I didn’t fancy getting too close to that kind of stuff. On the other hand we were perhaps in a position to help the police. Maybe we could do a bit of snooping before I talked to Ross. Mike would be up for that.
I decided to talk it through with Mike and Liam so I phoned him and asked him to come back down with his godson. They were just about to set off the next morning for a two day climbing expedition so he said they’d come straight down when they got back.
That suited me fine. A couple of days of golf and maybe Brian would have come back with some more information by then. Meanwhile I checked with Helen to find out how her presentation was going. We agreed I’d come over the next Monday to review it with her.
*
Mike and Liam came down, as promised, after their expedition. Liam now had his first two Munros under his belt and was very keen to tell me all about their trip. They had had to hike six miles to get to the foot of the first one which they had scaled the first day. They had camped out over night and attacked the next one the following day. Mike and Oscar, his black Labrador, were now at thirty.
Mike was determined that they would get to fifty and was even thinking of developing a special harness so that he would be able to carry him on his back if there was any rock-climbing to be done.
After lunch I told them what I’d learned from my visit to LyonPharma in Edinburgh and my meeting with Brian Dawson, and asked Mike’s opinion as to what, if anything, we should do next.
“We can’t do anything about the patent business,” he said. “Let’s just drop it. You said that even if we did have proof that they had got the information through Liam, it wouldn’t make any difference. I’ll believe you.
“As for that poor girl – I hate that kind of thing. I saw too much of it when I was in the army and couldn’t do much about it then. If we can help the police nail this bastard let’s try. I can easily get Mac and Doug and we can do a bit of shadowing for a few days and see if it leads to anything.”
Just then we were interrupted by the phone.
It was Brian.
“Just thought it might in
terest you. I’ve just been talking to one of my old regional managers. He moved companies only a week ago so was quite happy to talk. He told me that Macek has brought a new foreign girl over for a three month training stint in the IT department – just like Irina. Nothing else on the share purchase yet. I’ll call again if I hear anything.”
I thanked him and hung up.
When I told the others Mike’s reaction was immediate.
“Right. Action. We go and talk to this girl and, if she tells us that she’s in the same boat as Irina was, we tell Ross.”
I wasn’t so sure about contacting the girl. It seemed to me that we would be getting too close for comfort. I didn’t want to get us mixed up in combating a possible drug ring with a bunch of Romanians. Some discreet following of Macek was pretty safe and wouldn’t expose us. Mac and Doug were experts.
“I think we should still stick to a couple of days of watching Macek. If that seems to confirm our suspicions we go to the police. It’s much safer. I don’t think it’s a good idea to contact the girl. What you can do is phone Brian Dawson, tell him who you are and, between you, get her name, address and, if possible, the phone number. Once we’ve got that we’ll decide if someone goes to see her. Anyway, I’m not sure you’re the right person to go interviewing young girls without creating a stir.”
He bristled. ”What do you mean ‘not the right person’?”
I’d seen Mike in action. I couldn’t really see him handling a young girl who was probably nervous and vulnerable but I needed a good reason to dissuade him.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ve met Irina. I know a lot more than you about how these guys operate and if she’s not keen to talk I’m more likely to be able to trick her into revealing things. You find out who and where she is and we’ll go together. How about that?”
He looked a bit hurt but reluctantly agreed. I was relieved that I’d avoided another of these brotherly bust ups which, from time to time, come between us. They happened less now that we were older but there had been some real beauties in the past - mostly when I had tried to give him advice about something.