Hays could sense Lyons’ frustration in the way she was telling the story, but just then their food arrived, and Hays hoped that she would feel a bit more positive when she had eaten. After a few mouthfuls, he ventured, “Well, there is one way you might be able to flush them out – but it’s risky.”
“Go on.”
“You could set up a sting. Get someone to buy some of the gold off the net and wait for the thieves to come around to collect. You might not nab the murderer, but it could get you a lot further than you are now.”
“Hmm, sounds reasonable. But it could take a while, and consume lots and lots of your valuable budget,” Lyons said.
“Let me worry about that. Why don’t you have a chat with Janssen about it – he might have something useful to add, and he could give you an idea of the lead time between the gold being sent and it being taken back – if that’s actually what is happening.”
“Have you some doubt about it?”
“Yeah, I do. It’s a nice story, but it sounds a bit – I don’t know – wacky. It’s too easy. I’d say there’s a bit more to it if you ask me. There’s another dimension to the whole thing that Janssen either doesn’t know about, or isn’t telling you. Why don’t you have dinner with him? Get him to lower his guard a bit, see if you can get him to open up about what’s really going on?” Hays said.
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“You don’t have to sleep with him! Just soften him up. Use the old Maureen Lyons charm on the man. He’ll be putty in your hands!”
“OK. I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
When Lyons got back to the station, Janssen was there sitting in the open plan. She asked him into her office.
“How did you get on at the morgue?” she said.
“Yes, well it is as I thought. The method of her killing is textbook Lithuanian gangs. The stabbing is optional though.”
“Lovely. Why do you think she was killed anyway?” Lyons said.
“I would say that the killer had some kind of falling out with her, quite possibly over the amount she was prepared to pay for the gold he had collected. These fellows are very greedy. I suspect they had an argument, and it got out of hand, and she was killed.”
“So, now there is a Lithuanian gangster on the loose who has a stash of gold in his possession, and probably a contract on his head. We can expect more violence before this is over, yes?”
“Possibly, but that depends on how good you are at catching whoever did it. Catch him, or them, and it will put an end to it, at least as far as Galway is concerned,” Janssen said.
“How long are you planning to stay in Galway, Inspector Janssen?”
“I’m not sure. A couple more days, I guess.”
“Well, would you like us to go to dinner later on? You could sample some of our famous haute cuisine at the expense of the Irish taxpayer.”
“Thank you, that would be very nice. You are very kind,” he said, smiling warmly.
“No problem. Why don’t I pick you up at the Imperial Hotel at seven thirty? I’ll book somewhere nice.” Lyons stood up, indicating to Janssen that their meeting was over, and that she expected him to leave and go back to his hotel. Not wanting to prevail too much on the Gardaí’s hospitality, he took the hint, and departed.
Lyons was glad to have a few minutes to herself to think over the idea that Hays had suggested at lunch. Who could she get to buy gold on-line, that would be willing to be robbed soon afterwards? Not an easy one. They would have to be completely independent of anything to do with the Gardaí, because the sellers would undoubtedly check into their customer quite extensively in an effort to avoid a sting. She did have a person in mind, but some more thought was needed.
* * *
When she went back to the main office, Walsh and Costelloe had just arrived back in. They had dropped the iPhone and the serial number of the laptop off at forensics to see if Sinéad Loughran’s team could get any prints or trace evidence from them, and were excited about the prospect. If it turned out to be Geller’s property, then it could well be that Matis was involved, or maybe even he himself was the killer.
They told Lyons and Flynn about the plan to return to Buttermilk Lane the following morning to get the laptop.
“Do you think he was suspicious of you at all? We don’t want to expose you two to any risks,” Flynn said.
“I don’t think so. He was very keen on the money, although he did go a bit funny when Liam started taking down the serial number of the laptop. But Liam was quick on his feet, and made a credible excuse.”
“Hmm. Well, let’s see what Sinéad comes back with. If she gets a trace, or a print from Geller, we’ll turn up mob handed in the morning and bring him in. Good work guys, well done. Now, anyone got anything else – Sally, Eamon?” Lyons said.
Everyone looked down at the floor, and no one said a word.
“Terrific! C’mon folks – for heaven’s sake – let’s get a bit of energy into this. A woman has been murdered, and there may be more to follow if we don’t get a shift on. Has anyone checked the list of houses broken into over the last year in the area, especially out west? We need to correlate the victim profiles, see if we can detect a pattern. Get onto all the stations in the area and speak to the Officer in Charge. John, you can build a database or whatever you call it, and do some analysis. I want the information on my desk first thing, so you’d better get to it,” she said. She stomped off back to her own office. It wasn’t fair to take the lack of progress out on her team, who she knew to be dedicated and diligent, but this case was really getting her down, and if someone else came to grief because they hadn’t made sufficient progress, she would feel very bad indeed.
Lyons spent what was left of the afternoon on her PC researching Lithuanian organised crime and anything she could find about gold theft or smuggling involving eastern Europe and beyond. There was plenty to discover. Time and time again, as she delved into the details, connections with the far east, and China in particular, kept popping up. She discovered that China had become the world’s largest producer of gold, overtaking South Africa in around 2007. Output was now almost 500 tonnes annually – more than twice as much as its nearest rival, and it was still rising steadily. It was hardly surprising that the criminal classes had become involved. After over an hour ploughing around a host of different web sites, she managed to put together a simplistic trail, following the gold from its production to the scam that was taking place on her own home ground.
A great deal of Chinese gold is distributed out through Hong Kong. And so, co-incidentally, are vast quantities of cheap manufactured goods made on the mainland of China. Smuggling small, but significant quantities, of the metal that had been skimmed off from the mines or smelting processes was a simple task. It could be easily disguised in among all the other shipments travelling west in containers.
Once the gold was out of China, an elaborate chain of handlers passed it on from one place to another till it arrived at a foundry where it was fashioned into ingots varying in weight from 25 grams up to one kilo, or in some cases, even 10 kilo bars. It was the smaller ones that were sold as retail on the web, embossed with fraudulent markings.
Lyons didn’t notice the time slipping past, and before she knew it, it was after seven o’clock.
“Cripes,” she said to herself, “no time to go home and put on the glad rags. I’ll just have to go as I am.”
She did make time to go to the bathroom and freshen up, and apply a small layer of subtle makeup and a dart of expensive perfume, before she left the station.
Lyons parked her new Volvo in the set down area in front of the Imperial Hotel, and put the laminated Garda sign that she had had made in the windscreen to fend off any zealous parking attendants that might still be cruising the busy streets around Eyre Square at that hour.
She met up with Luuk Janssen in the lobby of the hotel as arranged. He was looking dapper, having put on a crisp white shirt and silk tie which he wor
e under a navy blazer with brass buttons.
“Hi. Ready for off?” Lyons said cheerily as Janssen arose to greet her.
“Yes, thank you. This is very kind of you. I’m sure you would prefer to be at home after a long day.”
She would of course have preferred just that, but she responded differently.
“No, not at all. It’s not often we get to exchange information with our European colleagues, and get to know a bit about how policing is done in other jurisdictions. Anyway, I’m hungry, so let’s go.”
Lyons had booked the two of them into the restaurant on the top floor of the Great Southern Hotel, on the other side of the square from the Imperial. As they crossed Eyre Square, Lyons told Janssen that it had now been renamed John F Kennedy park, in honour of the unfortunate American president whom the Irish had claimed for their own. She also showed him the statue of Pádraic Ó Conaire, the celebrated Irish writer who was widely acclaimed for his works on Irish contemporary life at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries.
When they reached the restaurant, the head waiter, Michael Bennett, greeted Lyons by name and showed the two of them to a larger than normal two-seater table with a magnificent view out over the city. The table was set with a crisp white linen tablecloth and matching serviettes, and the highly polished silver-plated cutlery and cut crystal glassware sparkled in the light from the candle that was already lit and flickering in the centre.
“This is magnificent,” Janssen said as he took his seat.
“Yes, it’s one of the best views in Galway, and the food is pretty good too. They also have a terrific wine list. May I ask you to choose?” Lyons said.
“It would be my pleasure, Inspector. Do you prefer red or white?”
“I’ll leave that up to you, Luuk – is it OK to call you Luuk by the way?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your first name,” Janssen said, a little embarrassed by his own lack of observation.
“Maureen, that’s me.”
As the meal progressed, the two detectives talked of their respective jobs, and some of the cases they had worked on.
“What particular aspect of crime in the Netherlands are you involved in, Luuk?” Lyons asked as their empty soup plates were being taken away.
“These days, I specialize in organized crime mostly, though Utrecht is not a big place, so we all lend a hand with whatever is going on at the time. But I’ve just finished with a currency forgery case. It involved dollars that were being printed in North Korea – Superdollars, they call them, because they are said to be better than the real thing. Utrecht was being used as a distribution centre for them, and we managed to round up a pretty nasty gang and put them away.”
“Nice. Did you recover much of the forged currency?”
“We got just over two million, but that’s only a small portion of the amount that is actually produced. It is calculated that there is as much as $500 million of counterfeit US dollars in circulation at any time, so a drop in the sea really.”
“Sounds like a significant haul, all the same. What sentence will the forgers get?”
“Probably ten years or more. There were some other quite violent crimes involved as well that I’d rather not tell you about over a nice meal,” Janssen said.
Just as their beef wellington arrived and was placed in front of them, Lyons’ work phone began to ring in her bag.
“Damn. Excuse me, I’ll have to answer this,” she said. She reached down to her bag which was on the floor, and turning slightly away from the Dutch policeman, answered the call.
“Lyons.”
“Hello, boss. It’s Eamon here. Can I ask where you are?”
“I’m in the Great Southern, why?”
“Oh, sorry. Look, there’s been what we think is a shooting here in Buttermilk Walk. Details are a bit sketchy for now. I’m on my way down there. I thought you should know,” Flynn said.
“How certain are you it’s actually a shooting?”
“Well, a neighbour called it in. She lives in a bedsit over a shop and she heard a row followed by what she said was a single shot coming from the bedsit on the other side of the landing about fifteen minutes ago. Then she heard someone running down the stairs and out onto the street.”
“Did she get a look at whoever it was?”
“No, she was too scared to look. But we’ll know more when we get there.”
“OK. I’m on my way. Which end of the street is it?”
“It’s between the chemists and the food shop – a red door. You’ll see us outside in any case with the blue lights.”
“OK. See you in about ten minutes, oh, and I’ll have Inspector Janssen with me,” Lyons said.
“Fine,” Flynn replied, wondering what she was doing with the visitor at eight o’clock at night.
Chapter Thirteen
Lyons used the blue lights to get past the squad car that was stopped across the entrance to Buttermilk Walk. She drove slowly down the narrow street where a number of onlookers had gathered to see what all the fuss was about.
There was a uniformed Garda that she recognised guarding the door of the premises where the incident had occurred, and she gave her name, and that of Inspector Janssen to him, which he duly recorded.
The room that had been occupied by Matis Vitkus was crowded with people. Flynn was there along with Mary Costelloe, and a paramedic was still hovering around what was clearly the dead body of the Lithuanian. Vitkus had been shot once in the head – a clean shot at close range. There was a spray of blood and brain matter on the wall behind where the assassination had taken place, and a nasty looking knife lay beside the man’s body on the floor.
“Shit! What a mess,” Lyons said to no one in particular. “Eamon, can you get the uniforms started on house-to-house along the street, somebody may have seen the killer making his escape.”
“Already underway, boss. I haven’t interviewed the girl from opposite yet – Mary is with her. She’s pretty shook up. Do you want to talk to her?” Flynn asked.
“Yes, I’ll do that in a minute. Has someone called Dr Dodd?”
“Yes. I did. He’s on his way, and so is Sinéad Loughran,” Flynn said.
“Thanks. Oh, and can you have a look around and see if you can find a laptop computer? If you do, bag it up carefully. Mary and Liam were supposed to be buying it from him tomorrow morning. We think it might have belonged to Geller,” Lyons said.
“Sure. No problem. What about….?” Flynn said, nodding his head towards the door where Inspector Janssen was standing.
“I’ll deal with that.” But before she could, Janssen spoke up, “I think I should leave you to get on with this, Inspector. I’ll go back to my hotel. May I call around in the morning?”
“Yes, thanks Luuk. Of course. I’ll be in from eight o’clock at the latest.”
As Luuk Janssen was making his way down the narrow stairs to the front door, Dr Julian Dodd was attempting to come up. Janssen saw him coming, and retreated to allow the doctor to make his entrance.
“Greetings, Maureen, and what have you got me out for this time?” Dodd said in his usual slightly superior tone.
“Good evening, Doctor,” she said, pointing to the lifeless form of Matias Vitkus on the floor beside the bed.
“Well at least this one isn’t in the back of beyond!” Dodd got down on his knees and made a cursory examination of the body. He felt in vain for a pulse, and moved the man’s head from side to side, being careful not to get blood on his clothing. After a moment or two, Dodd struggled to his feet again.
“Well, what do you think, doctor?” Lyons said.
“Whoever he is, he’s definitely dead, but you knew that anyway. Why they need me to certify life extinct is beyond me, but there you go.”
“And any idea of time of death, doctor?”
Eamon Flynn flicked through his pocket book and said, “The shot was reported at 8:34, boss.”
“I’d say approximately 8:34, inspect
or, or a few minutes before that, wouldn’t you say?” Dodd said. Lyons was used to his acerbic comments, so she ignored the jibe.
“What about the gun? Any sign of the bullet?”
“You’ll have to get forensics to have a dig around for it. It’s almost certainly not lodged in the head judging by the splatter on the wall. I’ll be doing the post-mortem tomorrow morning, and we’ll know more then. If that’s all, I’ll leave you to it.”
The good doctor departed, and Lyons went across the hall to talk to the girl who had called in the gunshot, leaving the paramedics to scoop up the remains of Matis Vitkus, and Flynn and Loughran to start a thorough search of the room.
* * *
Paulina Mazur was a slight, blonde girl with shoulder length hair and a long narrow face. She was Polish, and worked in one of the hotels on the edge of town as a cleaner, despite the fact that she had actually qualified as a school teacher in Lublin, near her home town. The events of the evening had taken their toll on the girl. Her complexion was now ashen, and she was trembling visibly.
Mary Costelloe was doing what she could to comfort her, and had managed to find some tea bags and a couple of clean mugs in what was a rather untidy space occupied by the Pole. The room was a mirror image of the one that Matis had stayed in, but much less orderly, with clothing strewn around untidily, dirty dishes in the sink, and several pairs of shoes scattered around the floor. The bed was unmade.
When Lyons came in, Mary Costelloe made the introductions and then excused herself.
Lyons sat down at the small table, and spoke softly to the girl.
“I know this is difficult for you, Paulina, but could I just ask you to go over what happened here earlier?”
“Is he dead, the man?” Paulina said.
“Yes, yes I’m afraid so. It was quick – he didn’t suffer. Did you know him well?”
“No, hardly at all. He was a very private person. We just said hello if we met on the stairs, that’s all.”
“So, what happened this evening then?”
“I got home from work at about 6:45. I was tired after a twelve hour shift, so I lay down on the bed for a short nap before getting food. Some time after, I was woken by shouting coming from over there,” the girl said nervously.
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