Souls of Men

by A. R. Ashworth

  “When was the last time you talked with her?”

  “She called me on her way to Gatwick, right before she left for Ibiza,” Alicia said. “Just to chat and say when she’d be back.”

  “Do you know if she ever used drugs?”

  Alicia started and stammered before blurting, “You’re the copper who called last week, aren’t you? Does this have anything to do with why you called? How did she die?”

  Elaine put her hand on Alicia’s shoulder and assumed a calm voice. “Yes, that was me. Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble, but we need to learn everything we can about your friend. It might help to find who did this to her.”

  The distressed woman took a moment to gather herself. She gazed into the distance for several seconds before answering. “Geri had a cocaine habit. Quite a hungry one. She would stop every now and then, sometimes for a few weeks, but she always went back to it.”

  “What about men? Did she have a regular boyfriend she was seeing?”

  Alicia scoffed. “A regular boyfriend? Not a chance. She had an itch for men, as many and as often as it took to scratch it.” She shook her head. “She never talked about anyone in particular. Is this all? I want to leave now.”

  Elaine nodded. “We’ll need a list of names for all her men friends you know of, and we may have some more questions. Do you need any help getting home?”

  “She has family in Kent. Near Headcorn, I think. Will you contact them? And I can make it. I’m not far from here.”

  “Right. We’ll contact her family. Thank you. Please let us know if you think of something that might help us.”

  NINETEEN

  Elaine looked around the room at the team. “Listen up, boys and girls. I have two announcements. First, Serial decided that Sheila’s case doesn’t belong in their basket, so we’ve got it back. And we’ve picked up Geri Harding’s murder in Richmond. DS Stockbridge and DC Patel from Richmond CID are with us. Please make them welcome. They’ve been briefed, and they will be investigating the Harding murder, coordinating through Paula. We will share everything we have with them, and they with us. I have a feeling it’s the same killer or at least the same mind behind both. It’s not a coincidence that Sheila is killed on a property that Harding represented and then Harding is murdered as soon as she’s back in town. Two murders connected through a hole in a fence.

  “Next, I’ve been informed we’re in a budget squeeze this month, like that makes February any different from January. So until further notice, overtime is curtailed and I have to clear it through the chief super. We’ll mostly work alone. If you have any questions, see me or Paula. Liz, tell us all about our favorite solicitor.”

  Liz moved to the incident board. “Jackson Greene keeps his cave in an office block in Newham. When I say cave, it really is more a cave than an office. I seriously doubt that he ever meets with clients there. He initially lied to us when we asked about Cambrian Estates, and once he admitted knowing the name, he was resistant to giving us any information.

  “While we were there, we were able to discover the names of several of his other clients. We’re following up on them today, but the one that is most interesting to us right now is called the Imperial and Republic Group, IRG for short. That name appeared at the top of several stacks of documents that were strewn about the place. It’s a real estate investment firm that owns properties across the UK. They are primarily active in office and industrial, but they also have housing in each city.

  “Evan has done some digging. IRG is owned by two cousins. On the surface, both of them appear squeaky clean. Janko Srecko is the founder and chairman. Their website says he was educated at an unpronounceable university in Serbia and that he’s active in several charities, for which he sponsors local fundraising events. He lives in Bucks with his wife and two children plus pets and blah blah blah. The very model of a successful, upright citizen. Anton Srecko is managing director and oversees the day-to-day operations. His bio is thinner. He was educated at some other unpronounceable Serbian university and has vast experience managing real estate. That’s all it says, not even a picture.”

  Elaine took over. “We think that IRG warrants a deeper look for a couple of very good reasons. First, the Vice has told us that Greene tends to represent strip clubs, massage parlors, and the like. Why would a respectable firm like IRG engage a sleazebag like Greene? Especially since IRG press releases indicate that a very well-known firm of solicitors is their mouthpiece. It doesn’t make sense unless Greene handles situations that they don’t want their regular solicitors to know about.

  “Second, when Evan mapped IRG’s geographic footprint against his database, something very interesting popped up. It turns out that there is a very high correlation between IRG’s offices and property holdings and the unsolved GBH and murder cases.”

  Bull spoke up. “But wouldn’t that be true for many property firms?”

  “Yes, except for the fact that we strongly suspect that Sheila was killed in a warehouse belonging to one of Greene’s clients and that Geri Harding, who was the leasing agent for that property, was murdered last week. Also, we contacted our friends in Cardiff for some help with Cambrian Estates. The constable they sent to the council flat address reported that the elderly widow who lived there had never heard of Cambrian. It’s a shell.

  “So we have a string of questions. We can draw a line running from Sheila to the Leaside property to Geri to Greene to IRG. We know very little about the Srecko cousins other than what the website tells us, but we know they showed up here a little while after the Balkan wars quieted down. That in itself is interesting. Put it all together, and it gets very interesting, very quickly. Greene is the hub. And he is such a poor fit for IRG. Evan, I want to have a look at his bank accounts. How much is he pulling in from IRG? I want him watched. See where he goes and who he talks to. We don’t have enough overtime in the budget to do it around the clock, but we need to find something and tighten the screws. Bull and Barker, your assignment is to follow him. What does he do, where does he go, who does he see? Go ahead and pair up for the first couple of days. I’ll clear it with Cranwell. We should have his finances by then, and if you see something suspicious, we’ll have a lot to talk with him about.”

  Evan spoke up. “Our embassy in Skopje got back to us yesterday. Bitola Holdings apparently exists in name only. It’s a dead end.”

  “Okay. That’s something else for the list when we talk to Greene again. Put your research cap on and get to work on IRG. On our crime map, there’s a cluster in Leeds. Focus on IRG properties in Leeds and in London. How many, what kind? Relate them to specific crime locations. I want to know everything about the company, especially Janko and that low-profile Anton guy. Stockbridge, what can you tell us about Richmond?”

  Stockbridge stood. “Prameela reviewed the CCTV on the block in front of Harding’s flat. The video isn’t great, but it shows a man entering about an hour before the time they reckon she was killed. Medium height, slender build, the usual hoodie. It was dark, and the cameras are too far away to get any detail, other than that he appeared to be carrying something in his left hand and a large briefcase in his right. About two hours later, he leaves again in the direction he came from. Within a minute, a late-model Audi sports car turns the corner and passes in front of the flat.”

  Liz looked at the Richmond detectives. “Sheila told a witness that this Danny bloke drove a flash Audi.” They nodded, and Stockbridge continued.

  “We’re canvassing the neighbors to see if anyone saw anything. The forensics on Harding came back negative for DNA, but that’s not surprising because the bleach largely destroyed the outer layers of her entire body. We’re also trying to track her movements after she arrived back here from Ibiza on Thursday. We’ll keep you informed.”

  Elaine looked around the room. “Excellent. Let’s get to it. Sniff for smoke, boys and girls.”

  TWENTY

  “We’ve got cheese and tomato or . . .” Liz Barker squinted at the sm
eared label on the triangular plastic container she had pulled from a shopping bag. “I think it says ‘tomato and cheese,’ but I can’t be sure. Which do you prefer?”

  Bull rolled his eyes. “Prosciutto with gorgonzola, in a perfect world. Didn’t they at least have roast beef or ham?”

  “They did, but I’ve been around you long enough to know you shy away from anything remotely greenish.” She handed Bull a sandwich container, peeled the plastic strip off the one she kept, and tucked in.

  Bull squinted at the label on the plastic container. “I could have taken the lettuce off.”

  Liz’s voice was muffled by the tomato and cheese. “It wasn’t leafy green. It was fuzzy.” She pointed with half her sandwich. “Ah! He’s on the move.”

  Thirty meters up the street, Greene had emerged from his dingy office building and was walking purposefully into the neighboring parking garage. When his car appeared, Bull wheeled away from the curb and took up a position behind. Traffic was light, so he hung back a bit farther than usual.

  Liz leaned forward. “He’s in a bit of a hurry, isn’t he? He must be late for a power lunch.”

  A few minutes later, Greene’s car turned onto a run-down residential street. The rows of dismal houses on each side were pocked with gutted dwellings, boarded windows, and lewd graffiti. He parked and entered a dingy terraced house. Barker aimed her camera and took two shots of him entering. She noted the address. “I’ll call it in and see if Vice has tagged it.”

  Bull took a bite of sandwich and grimaced. “It doesn’t look exactly corporate, does it? I wonder if his client lives there or if he’s the client. From what we’ve heard about him, I’d lay odds that he’s both. Either way, we may be here long enough for me to choke down lunch. Pass me that bag of crisps and the bottle of water.” He had no sooner opened the crisps than their quarry emerged yet again, this time carrying what looked like a partially full laundry bag. While Barker’s camera clicked, Bull took a drink from the water bottle, clapped crumbs off his hands, and reached for the ignition to start the car.

  Barker touched his arm. “Wait. He’s not getting into his car.” Greene had instead walked past two apparently abandoned dwellings and entered another ramshackle house. Five minutes later, he emerged again, still with the laundry bag. Click click click. “Now I ask you, my friend. What does that look like?”

  “I know what it looks like, but he’ll say he’s collecting the weekly laundry from his dear ancient maiden aunties, so he can wash and iron it for them. After he feeds their cats too.”

  “I wonder if it’s a regular Friday bag run.”

  Greene’s only stop on the return to his office was at a burger chain restaurant. About an hour after they had resumed their surveillance, a silver Jaguar passed them, performed an illegal U-turn about half a block down the street, and swung into a yellow-line space at the front of the building.

  Liz snorted in amusement. “My, he’s cheeky. I wonder who he’s visiting. Why don’t we engrave him for posterity.” Her camera clicked some frames as a young man with a briefcase uncoiled himself from the Jag and entered the building. “I got the number plate. Let’s call it in. Time in is 13:33. I’m going in to see if he’s visiting our Mr. Greene. Here’s the camera.” She got out of the car and ran across the street.

  Bull called in the plate number and waited, intently watching the door of the building.

  There he was. “Out at 13:41. Eight minutes.” Click click. The young man threw the briefcase into the passenger seat, swung into the car, and pulled out into traffic. Liz ran to the passenger side and got in. Bull pulled away from the curb but wasn’t able to turn around because of the traffic. By this time, the Jag had disappeared around a corner and was gone.

  Liz slammed her palm against the dashboard. “Damn. No luck at all. I was watching the lift to see if I could catch the floor he went to, but he came down the stairs.”

  “We won’t catch him now.”

  “No, we won’t. But our assignment is Greene. We took snaps and called in the plate number. We don’t know if he was seeing Greene or someone else. Let’s sit tight.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Bull and Barker sat in their car with nothing to do until it was time to go off duty. By then, they wished they had followed the Jag.

  * * *

  “All right, boys and girls. Bull and Liz have something to tell us.”

  Bull moved to the front of the room. “We watched Greene all day on Friday. He spent most of his day in the office, but he made one excursion in the early afternoon. He visited two houses. Hovels, more like. He was only in each house for a few minutes, and each time he left carrying a laundry bag with something in it. Liz took some snaps.” He clicked a mouse and a picture of Greene leaving the first house displayed on the large TV. “We’ve asked Vice and Narcotics if they have any information about the addresses. As you can see, it’s not exactly a high-rent area. We both doubt he was picking up laundry.”

  Liz took up the story. “After he got back to his building, he had a visitor we thought was interesting.” She clicked the mouse. Another picture displayed the young man getting out of his car. “We aren’t sure if this bloke was actually visiting Greene, but he’s a young footballer type, so he got our attention. He got lost in traffic before we could turn around. The number plate is registered to a firm called Grampian Leasing. We passed that along to Evan. We were also wondering if we could split the shifts between us so we can cover more hours. Greene may make some nighttime expeditions.”

  “Excellent work. Blow up a picture of the Jag driver and get it to the super-recognizers to see if they’re familiar with him. Also, check CCTV coverage in front of Greene’s building. You might want to start with last Friday afternoon, about the same time. Then talk to Paula about a schedule.”

  Elaine scanned the room. “Evan, let’s find out as quickly as possible if this Grampian-whatsit is another shell company. Do you have anything more to share?”

  “We’ll have Greene’s bank accounts this afternoon or tomorrow morning. We’ve run our initial background checks on the Sreckos. On the Internet, Janko shows up clean as a whistle. Passport records show he arrived here twelve years ago from Belgium on a Polish passport. He doesn’t have a police record here and no Interpol warrants. Anton has practically no Internet presence. There’s nothing on the Internet about him besides his company profile, which is unusual for a businessman. Our immigration records show he arrived here ten years ago, again from Belgium on a Polish passport. No police record there, no Interpol warrants.”

  Elaine looked perplexed. “Have you made any progress on mapping the IRG properties?”

  Cromarty looked at Bull, who spoke up. “IRG has several properties that are in the same cities as our crime clusters, but not in the same areas of the city. We looked at Internet street photos, and the properties that are listed all look like respectable places, prosperous office blocks and middle-class residential buildings. Nothing suspicious at all. Liz had a thought, though.”

  “Ummm, well. I thought we could check on that Cambrian shell company, and now possibly Grampian, for any connection nearer to the crime clusters. It might take some digging, but IRG would put any dodgy property under a different name, right? Like one of the shell companies?”

  “That’s a fair assumption. Good thinking. Why didn’t you speak up sooner? Evan, give it a look. And I want more info on the Sreckos. Srecko doesn’t sound very Polish to me. And how long were they in Belgium? Check with the Polish Embassy and see if they have any record for the Sreckos, criminal or otherwise.

  “We’re starting to see some connections, but there are too many gaps. I do not believe in coincidences, and I loathe gaps. We need to start drawing some solid lines on the board. Make real connections, not assumptions or conjecture. We have lots of smoke; we need fire. Get to it.”

  * * *

  Evan Cromarty placed a cup of tea on Elaine’s desk and took a seat. He’d been thinking and wanted to run some ideas past her.r />
  “Thanks.” Elaine took a sip of the tea and sat back. “Any results?”

  “Not yet, but we’re making progress. We’ve got the Leeds correlations done, but I don’t think it’s very illuminating. I’m wondering if there’s something we’re missing. Some question we haven’t asked. Haven’t thought of what it might be, though.”

  “Keep it in the back of your mind. What is it the computer boffins call it? Background processing or something like that? I’m looking for some kind of handle to grab hold of the Sreckos.”

  “Yeah. I’ve put the query in to the Polish Embassy about the Srecko cousins. We sent them the names and the passport numbers they used to enter the UK. We should hear back pretty soon. I’m sending their pictures and names to the Serbian Embassy as well.”

  “Why Serbia?”

  “Only on the off chance they may have started their little pilgrimage because of something that happened there. It was what you said about the timing of their entry into the country, and that their name doesn’t sound Polish. If it’s not Serbia, then I’ll check Slovenia and Bosnia. Oh, yeah. I looked it up. The name Srecko means ‘lucky’ in Serbian.”

  “Really? Put that on the whiteboard. I want as much information as we can get about them. When we talk to them, I want them to know we mean it and that we’ve done our homework. Can we do some kind of degree or enrollment verification or something to get their university records?”

  “Sure we can. What about Greene?”

  “For now, get as much as you can about him and his background.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Liz Barker slowed her car and watched Greene turn into the multistory car park next to the building that housed the IRG offices. She entered a few seconds later, catching sight of the brake lights as his car turned at the top of the ramp. He parked on the second level, so she drove past and picked a slot next to several reserved spaces at the end of the row.