‘Mr Haddock.’ The voice from the half-landing of the panelled stairway brought him back to real time. He looked up, and as he did so he noted that for all its colourful name, the firm of Grey Green did not appear to favour the appointment of bright young things. ‘If you’ll come with me, Mr Green is waiting.’
He took the steps two at a time until he had reached her, then let her lead him for the rest of the way. Double doors led into Green’s office. The lawyer stayed seated as Haddock entered, his back to a window overlooking the wedge-shaped gardens. He made no offer of a chair, but the young detective took one nonetheless.
His host, mid-forties, dark-haired, clean-shaven, in a navy blue suit, three-piece, and striped shirt, eyed him up. ‘So what do you want from me, son?’ he asked, in a tone that said, I’m humouring you, for now. ‘Have we met?’ he continued. ‘If we have, I don’t recall it.’
‘We were in the same room once,’ Haddock replied, ‘but neither of us had anything to say to the other.’
‘And what do you have to say, or ask, now?’
‘Did you represent Tomas Zaliukas, occasionally known as Tommy Zale?’
‘I do represent him, yes,’ the lawyer replied, cautiously.
‘No, you did. He’s dead. He killed himself early this morning.’
Green blinked, once, then again. ‘You’re joking,’ he exclaimed. It seemed to Haddock, in the light that shone from a tall lamp beside the desk, that his face was a few shades paler than before.
‘That’s not in my job description, sir. He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.’
‘God!’ The solicitor shook his head, violently. ‘Jesus!’ Haddock sat silent, giving him the opportunity to invoke the Holy Ghost if he chose. ‘What made him do that?’ he added, eventually.
‘That’s what we’re trying to establish, sir.’
‘There’s no chance that he was. .?’
‘No. Suicide is all we’re looking at. When did you last see him?’
‘About three months ago, the last time we had a licence up for renewal.’
‘Did he mention any worries he might have had?’
‘Tomas Zaliukas didn’t have worries. He gave them to other people.’
Haddock was surprised. ‘Are you saying that your client was less than upright?’
‘I’m saying nothing for the record, either police or Daily, but come on, son, we both know where Tomas came from.’
‘Mr Zaliukas had no criminal convictions.’
‘All my clients are innocent, son, but they’re not always the sort of people you’d want your mother to meet.’
‘You represented him in relation to his massage parlour businesses, yes?’
‘I looked after the licensing of them.’
‘Did Valdas Gerulaitis have anything to do with them?’
‘He might have, he might not; I don’t know.’
‘Are you able to tell me about the history of your relationship?’
‘I don’t see why not, not now. You better write this down. It’s complicated.’ Haddock nodded, and took out a notebook. ‘Tomas came to me a few years back,’ the solicitor continued. ‘He told me that he’d been offered eight massage parlours and massage parlours by the executors of the recently deceased Tony Manson, but that when he’d asked Curle Anthony and Jarvis to advise him on the purchase, they’d given him the bum’s rush, but suggested that I might take a more liberal view of that sector. I did, I negotiated the deal for him and I handled the conveyancing and the transfer of the licences. If you don’t know, the council requires these businesses to have public entertainment licences.’
‘Yes, I know that. So, Mr Zaliukas bought the premises in his own name?’
‘No, they were bought through a company that I had set up for him.’
‘Which he owned.’
Green smiled. ‘The company was formed and registered in Uruguay.’
‘Uruguay?’ the young detective exclaimed. ‘In South America?’
‘That’s the only one I know of, son. It has a very accommodating climate for this sort of transaction, even now that the G8 countries are starting to get tough with that sort of thing.’
‘I see. What’s the company called?’
‘It’s registered as Lituania SAFI. That stands for Sociedad Anonima Financeria de Inversion, and it’s the way a Uruguayan offshore company is described. The law there means that the shareholders in the business can stay anonymous, and so can its directors, or director, for you only need one.’
‘Mr Zaliukas was the director, I take it.’
The solicitor nodded. ‘Yes, but not the only shareholder. In law, there must be at least two.’
‘Who’s the other?’
‘Regine, Tommy’s wife,’ he replied.
‘So she was involved in the massage parlours too?’
Green’s brow knitted, for a second or two, as if he was considering the point. ‘Yes. . but she didn’t know it,’ he added quickly. ‘He just used her name.’
‘Did she ever find out?’
‘No idea.’
‘She left him last week.’
‘Then maybe she did.’
Haddock paused, considering everything he had just been told. ‘Am I wrong, Mr Green, but isn’t that set-up a hell of a complicated way of owning eight massage parlours?’
‘It might seem so,’ the lawyer conceded, ‘but it doesn’t cost very much to administer, and there are two advantages, which I don’t want you note down. One is that the company pays virtually no tax. The other, and more significant, is that if the policy of the council and of your force ever changed, and there was a determined investigation of the other activities that might or might not go on in these places, it would be bloody near impossible to convict anyone of living on the earnings of prostitution. OK, that’s the view of a defence lawyer,’ he admitted, ‘but I think you’ll find that the Crown Office would agree with me, and so would the court if it tried it on.’
‘Academic now, in Zaliukas’s case at any rate. But what about the money? Didn’t that come from the other businesses?’
Green shook his head. ‘No, and CAJ will confirm that. Tommy told me it was all his. In truth, it wasn’t all that much. The executor was instructed by the sole beneficiary of Manson’s will to sell the places for no more than the property value; he didn’t want any money from the value of the businesses.’
‘Who was that?’
Green looked at him in surprise. ‘You don’t know?’ He smiled. ‘Ah, but you’re only a lad, right enough. His name’s Lennie Plenderleith, currently doing life in Shotts Prison for a couple of murders, and put there by your chief constable, Bob Skinner.’
Thirteen
‘I need you to tell me everything you can remember about the van driver who brought the girl in,’ Griff Montell told the practice receptionist. Since stepping out of the consulting room, he had spoken to Rita Taylor, again, and two of her colleagues, without moving a step closer to identifying the man. Finally, it had occurred to Mrs Taylor that he should really be speaking to Sally Ross, who, she had said, was on the front desk at the time and who had probably seen more of him than anyone else.
‘Well, where is she?’ he had asked, his patience strained.
‘Oh, she’s gone for a dental appointment.’ Mrs Ross had saved the day by walking through the entrance door at that very moment.
‘He was tall,’ she replied. ‘How tall are you?’
‘Six three.’
‘Right, he wasn’t as tall as you, but I’d say still a bit over six feet. He had a moustache, dark like his hair, and he’d a big chin.’
‘Age?’
‘Hard to say, but older than you; probably over forty.’
‘Complexion?’
The petite, golden-haired receptionist seemed surprised by the question. ‘Normal, I’d have said; his skin looked all right to me.’