‘Boys, boys, boys, boys, boys!’ Becky Stallings called out, as the two glared at each other. ‘Sauce,’ she said, ‘you’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re outvoted. . or you would be if this was a democracy. It’s not, and that’s why we’re still chasing this fucking rabbit. Jack, I agree with you. From everything I’ve heard, any fiscal would sign this off as self-inflicted. But all we can do right now is follow current orders, continue to investigate, and complete as full a background report on the victim as we can pull together. When we re-submit it, as we will when I decide we should, it’ll offer no conclusions. It’ll say that all lines of inquiry have been exhausted, and let Him Upstairs make of that what he will. Agreed?’ She stopped abruptly. ‘What the hell am I saying? Yes it’s agreed, because it’s what I say will happen.’ She looked at McGurk. ‘Jack, have you finished going through those accounts?’
‘Yes, and they’re like Sauce said: the companies, Leisure and Developments, are both rock solid. The auditors’ reports are glowing.’
‘And there’s no link to the massage parlour business?’
‘None that I can see.’
‘I know where the purchase money came from,’ Haddock offered. ‘Zaliukas took a dividend; all above board. I had a call from Mr John while I was on my way back here confirming the amount: a quarter of a million.’
‘Thanks for that,’ said the DS. ‘There is something interesting about that side of our man’s life, though. I’ve been checking with the city council’s licensing people. It seems that the purchase from the Manson estate was just the start; since then Lituania SAFI’s been expanding its holdings, buying up similar premises, then leasing them to individuals who take over the licenses. There are fifteen of these places in the city. Guess how many Zaliukas’s company owns now, Becky?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Twelve, all leased to people with Lithuanian names. They read like a fucking football team. The company seems to have been working towards a monopoly. I’ve spoken to the owners of the other three, the ones it doesn’t have. They’ve all had approaches within the last six months from the same bloke.’
‘Who?’
‘Ken Green.’
‘These approaches; were they proper?’
‘From what I’ve been told, yes. All he asked was if they’d be interested in selling. Incidentally, all three owners were at pains to tell me that they do not provide additional services, so to speak.’
‘Did you believe that?’
‘Sure. It would be too easy for us to check, so why should they lie? The media assume that all private massage parlours are brothels, but it’s not true. There are people who only want their backs rubbed.’
‘Mmm,’ Stallings mused. ‘Maybe the theory about Zaliukas wanting to change the places he bought wasn’t true after all.’
‘No maybe about it, surely? If he’d ever intended to legitimise the businesses, he’d have bought them through Lietuvos Leisure, would he not? Anyway, back to these three; one of them was fairly recent, so there’s been no follow-up, but in the other two cases, each owner had a visit a few weeks after from another man. No threats were made; it was all friendly. Chunky offers were made for the businesses, and they were told they’d stay on the table till they were ready to accept.’
‘Who made these offers? Who was the friendly visitor? Do we know? Was it Zaliukas?’
‘No. It was Valdas.’
‘Was it, by God,’ the inspector hissed.
‘He’d only have been doing that with Zaliukas’s approval,’ Haddock declared.
‘Maybe yes, maybe no,’ said McGurk. ‘But we do know for sure that he lied to us about his involvement. We also know, Sauce, that your pal Ken Green only volunteered as much as you knew already. They both need follow-up visits, but we’ll do it together this time.’
‘Do that,’ Stallings agreed, ‘but first, check out some of these places. It seems that we’ve got an ethnic group operating under a very clever and well put together front. The head’s been cut off; let’s see if we can find out how the body’s reacted.’
Twenty-five
‘Alex,’ Veronica Drake exclaimed, ‘I have other clients, of whom two are in extreme personal difficulty at the moment and requiring my attention. They’re where my priorities lie. I’m sorry for Regine Zaliukas and her kids, but I’ve never met the woman. If she chooses to go away for a few days, she’s not going to tell me about it, and if she goes to a place with a lousy mobile signal, or leaves her phone switched off, that’s her problem, not mine.’
‘Fine,’ Alex shot back, ‘that’s your perspective. Mine is that I’ve got two companies whose owner and chief executive has just died without leaving any guidance as to who should succeed him. In total, the businesses have a full-time payroll of eighty-four employees, let alone the casual bar staff, and I don’t have a mandate to run them myself.’
‘What about the other directors?’
‘There is only one other director, Ronnie, and that’s Regine Zaliukas. You might not feel it’s urgent that she knows about her husband’s death, but I bloody well do.’
Drake shrugged her padded shoulders. ‘OK, if you’re telling me that it’s a corporate matter, over to you. You find the woman.’ She took a slim folder from her desk and handed it over. ‘Those are her papers, with all her details, including her contact number. If you get stuck I’m sure your father could make a couple of calls for you. I wish I had that luxury.’
Resisting the urge to wrap the documents around her partner’s ears, Alex took them from her and stalked back to her own tiny office. ‘Bitch!’ she hissed as she slid behind her desk. She opened the file and flicked through the few documents that it held; photocopies of Regine’s birth and marriage certificates and of her French passport, a letter from a French bank in a place called Nérac, confirming the details of a euro account in her name.
The note of her mobile number was the last in the file. It made Alex wonder how hard her partner had tried to contact the woman, but she put the question to one side to be raised later, if necessary.
She picked up the paper and keyed in the eleven digits, then waited. The tone, when it sounded, was European, a long, single beep, confirming her assumption that Regine Zaliukas was not in the United Kingdom, and indicating, encouragingly, that her mobile was switched on. It rang several times, then just as she expected to be picked up by voicemail. . ‘Hello?’ English, but in a French accent.
How did she know I was calling from Britain, Alex wondered, since CAJ’s number is always hidden?
‘Mrs Zaliukas?’
‘Yes, this is Regine.’ She sounded fluent; her accent was not noticeably Scottish.
‘My name is Alex Skinner. I’m a partner in Curle Anthony and Jarvis, and I’ve just taken over responsibility for the Lietuvos companies from Mr Conn, who’s retired.’
‘My husband told me this was happening,’ the woman replied, coolly. ‘You’re the chief constable’s daughter, aren’t you? Tomas laughed when he told me that. He said if anything would make Edinburgh people regard him as respectable, that would. I told him that maybe you wouldn’t want to work for him.’
‘Any client acceptable to Mr Conn will be acceptable to me,’ Alex told her. ‘Mrs Zaliukas, where are you? We’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday, but only getting your voicemail.’
For the first time, she detected a degree of anxiety, in that Regine Zaliukas hesitated. ‘At this moment,’ she began, eventually, ‘I am sitting in my car, in the car park of E. LeClerc, a French supermarket. The children and I have been away for a few days.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘We are in my parents’ house; one hundred and five Rue St Cauzimis, Mezin, in Lot et Garonne.’
‘Are your kids with you right now?’
‘No.’ The woman paused. ‘They’re being looked after. Listen, why are you asking me this?’
Alex took the plunge. ‘Mrs Zaliukas, I’m afraid I have some dreadful news. Your husband was found dead yesterday morning, in Edinburgh.’