‘Russia?’ McIlhenney’s frown returned as he considered the implications of the revelation. ‘You’ve been asking around, I take it?’
‘Yes. Griff and Alice did a trawl. They even went to see Joanne Virtue.’
‘The Big Easy? She’s out of that game now, though.’ He grinned, fleetingly. ‘People used to go to her to get laid; now it’s to get laid to rest. She’s working in an undertakers.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘I gave her a reference.’
‘Mmm. You’ll be getting yourself talked about, sir. Griff told me that when Alice got a bit hoity with her, your name came up. Joanne nailed her to the wall with it.’
The superintendent nodded. ‘With my blessing. Joanne knows where some bodies are buried, figuratively speaking, of course. She did us a big favour once, and it will not be forgotten. Could she help?’
‘No, not really. Montell and Cowan were going to check one place out, but they got called up to the Royal to see the kid. She’s back in the land of the living. They’re with her now.’
‘I hope she stays there. Let me know how it pans out. Meantime I’m heading back up to Fettes to speak to someone about Mr Royston’s sense of urgency.’
Thirty-one
What an unpleasant woman, Alex Skinner thought as she was shown into Valdas Gerulaitis’s office. I can see why her husband’s cousin chose to leave her a string of brothels.
Her husband was much more affable. ‘Miss Skinner,’ he greeted her. ‘Our new lawyer, I’m told. That’s a familiar surname around Edinburgh.’
‘For the avoidance of doubt,’ she said, taking the first opportunity to keep her promise, ‘he’s my father. It hasn’t kept me completely out of trouble, but he is a pretty formidable insurance policy for a single girl to have.’
‘I’m sure, from what I’ve heard of him. My late cousin, Tomas, spoke of him occasionally, with great respect.’ He slapped his palms on his desk as they both sat. ‘Now, what can I do for you? I can’t spare too much time. It’s a wee bit daunting to be landed with the job of running two companies.’
‘That’s what I’ve come to discuss, Mr Gerulaitis,’ she replied. She laid her briefcase on the desk, opened it and took out two documents. ‘That,’ she said, sliding the first across the desk ‘is a notarised copy of Mr Zaliukas’s will. There are a couple of matters that concern you indirectly, but I want to draw your attention to the disposition of the two Lietuvos companies. Under its terms, these pass to Mrs Zaliukas and her children; they now own the businesses, one hundred per cent.’ She handed him the second document. ‘And this is a copy of a faxed letter from Mrs Zaliukas, in her capacity as executor of her late husband’s estate, appointing me interim administrator of them both.’
Gerulaitis’s eyes widened. As he read, his mouth dropped further and further open, until it gaped. ‘Wha. . what does this mean?’ he stammered.
‘For you, nothing. You continue in your present position; “financial controller” is your title, I believe. But every decision that affects the companies materially will be taken by me.’ Pause. ‘I know this is a shock to you, but I’d ask you to respect Mrs Zaliukas’s wishes and cooperate with me.’
The man recovered his composure. ‘Of course,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’ll have to think about it, though, longer term.’
‘Sure, but bear in mind that I only expect to be here in the short term. In due course, Mrs Zaliukas will want to appoint a permanent chief executive. That might be you, it might not; it’ll be her choice. In the meantime, I’d be grateful if you could provide me with a set of keys for these premises, and a note of the alarm code, in case I want to drop in when you’re not here. Then I’ll leave you to read the rest of the will. As I said, there’s something else in there that I expect will be of great interest to you.’
Thirty-two
‘What’ll happen to her, Alice?’ Griff Montell asked.
The two detectives had driven in silence since leaving the Royal Infirmary. The South African had exploded with anger as soon as they had stepped out of the building and Cowan had left him to cool off in his own time.
‘Something good, I hope,’ she replied.
‘Sure,’ he snapped, bitterly. ‘I can see her now being passed around from pillar to post, nobody wanting to take responsibility for her, until eventually she’s shipped back to her orphanage in Estonia.’
‘No,’ said Cowan, firmly, as they drove through Seafield. ‘That’s not going to happen, because we’re not going to let it. She might be a European Union citizen, but she’s entered the country illegally, without a passport.’
‘Maybe we’ll find she has one.’
‘Bollocks, a fifteen-year-old orphan with a passport? Don’t be daft. That makes her our business, that and the fact that she’s a victim of crime. First, obviously, we’ll check her story out, with the orphanage in Tallin; it’ll stand up, I’m sure. Mrs McStay will be calling there even now to confirm that a girl called Anna Romanova is missing, and to get the full names of the other two. Once we have those details, I’ll report the circumstances to the social work department. They’ll go to the sheriff and get child protection orders on all three girls.’
‘What good will that do?’
‘It’ll make them what they’d call wards of court in England, and it’ll give us instant powers to care for the other two when we find them. With a bit of luck, we’ll be able to keep them safe under social work supervision at least until they turn sixteen, and can make their own decisions about their lives.’
Montell scowled. ‘They’re just kids, Alice. What a mess to be in.’
‘I’d never have guessed you were such a softie. You must miss your own, right enough.’
‘That’s why I never talk about them,’ he said, quietly. ‘It would make it worse. Alex Skinner has a major down on me because I never told her about them, but that’s why.’
‘Then explain to her. . if you’re still interested in her, that is.’
‘I’m not, in the way you mean, and I never was. Alex was more of a pal than anything else. She and I used to call me her handbag, a useful accessory.’
‘Is that how you see me?’ Alice asked, steering through the junction at the foot of Constitution Street.
‘I’d like to think that we’re pals.’ Hesitation. ‘The truth is that I’m scared off anything more than that. Once bitten, gnawed, savaged. . several times shy.’
‘What happened, Griff, with your wife?’
He stared at the road ahead. ‘She left me; walked out with no warning. I got home from work one night, she was gone, the kids were gone, most of the furniture was gone, and our joint account was cleaned out.’
‘Another guy, I take it.’
‘Funny thing is, I could probably have taken that. No, Maura left me for another woman. I went a little bit crazy when I found out; after I calmed down I hired a lawyer and petitioned the court for custody of the kids.’
‘What are their names?’
‘Shaun, he’s six, and Daisy, she’s four. I argued that it was bad for them to be brought up by a same sex couple. The female judge called me a homophobe and gave Maura permanent custody, with control over my visiting rights. She also awarded maintenance that left me with hardly a fucking rand for myself; I’d to take a second job to survive. So I left. My sister was planning to move to Scotland, so I asked if I could join her. We hadn’t been close for years. . Maura never liked her. . but she agreed. Spring’s a good sort; we get on fine, sharing a place. We give each other our own space. That’s important.’
‘I’m sure. How did you manage to switch jobs? Was it easy? I’ve sometimes thought of moving myself.’
‘My boss was sympathetic to me, and he helped fix up the transfer to this force, even though I had to drop a rank to get it.’
‘You were a DS there?’
‘Yeah, the equivalent, and on the up. By now, Ray Wilding’s Springbok doppelgänger would have been calling me “sir”.’