‘Regrets, then.’
‘Only over the kids. I like it here, and financially it’s better. Maura’s lawyer advised her to go to court here to get an enforceable maintenance order. It blew up in her face, for the Scottish court awarded generous maintenance for the kids, but not a penny to her. Now I can breathe again.’
‘You should get a promotion here soon from the sound of it.’ Alice glanced sideways at him and smiled. ‘I’m sorry I was such a wuss yesterday, with all that “Who’s in charge?” crap.’
‘Don’t be. I’m happy. Besides, you’ll probably make sergeant before I do.’
‘I don’t think so.’ She frowned. ‘Not after I got kicked out of Special Branch.’
‘I never knew that,’ Montell exclaimed. ‘What happened?’
‘Long story,’ she replied, ‘for another time. But it was my fault.’ Pause. ‘Life’ll work out, Griff. You’ll see.’
‘Maybe. I’ll tell you one thing though, for sure, just between the two of us. I wasn’t a homophobe before it happened, but I fucking well am now!’
‘I wouldn’t share that with too many other people,’ Cowan advised. ‘Political correctness is everything in this world, and even more so for cops. If we’re caught being prejudiced in any way, we are down the fucking toilet.’ As she spoke, she took a sharp left turn off Commercial Street. ‘Breck Street,’ she announced. ‘Number seventy-seven. The Softest Touch massage parlour. Can you see a sign?’
Montell nodded. ‘Just up there on the right. You can park right in front of it. God,’ he cracked his knuckles, ‘I’m looking forward to meeting this man Linas.’ As he spoke, his eyes narrowed. ‘Alice,’ he murmured, as she drew to a halt at their destination, ‘what the hell are those two doing here?’
His partner followed the direction of his glance, and saw, heading in their direction, a lean, towering figure alongside a younger, smaller, but still tall individual with reddish hair.
‘Jack?’ the South African began as he stepped out of the car.
McGurk and Haddock stopped in their tracks. ‘Where are you going?’ the sergeant asked.
‘Right here, the massage parlour.’
‘Same here. What are you after?’
‘A Lithuania arsehole called Linas something or other. We want him for rape, sex with a minor, false imprisonment, people trafficking and, with any luck, resisting arrest. Did you hear about the girl we found yesterday?’
‘I heard something about it this morning on the radio,’ Haddock replied. ‘Unidentified, possibly east European, yes?’
‘That’s right. We’ve identified her now, and we’ve heard her story.’
‘And you really think this guy will still be hanging around if he’s behind what happened to her?’ said McGurk.
Montell’s eyes gleamed. ‘We can only hope.’
‘I doubt it. We’re here because we’ve been checking on all the massage parlours owned by a guy called Tomas Zaliukas. He shot himself yesterday morning, on top of Arthur’s Seat.’
‘I read about that in this morning’s Saltire,’ Cowan volunteered. ‘That was him? The guy who owned Indigo, and a lot of other places?’
‘Including twelve of these knocking shops. Your girl, Griff. She’s been trafficked, you said?’
‘Trafficked, drugged, used and abused. That’s her story and we believe it. According to the charge nurse in her ward she only knows two English words, “fuck” and “pizza”. We believe that she’s one of a consignment of nine girls, brought over from Estonia about three months ago. What have you found in the other places?’
‘That’s the strange thing. We’ve found “closed till further notice” signs on all of them. We asked some of the neighbours. As near as we can find out, they were all working as usual till yesterday morning.’
‘Anna. . that’s our kid. . was taken into a surgery near here yesterday afternoon,’ said Cowan.
‘After Zaliukas shot himself,’ Haddock murmured. ‘I wonder if someone guessed we’d be looking into his affairs and, knowing there were trafficked girls in some of them, decided to get them out of sight.’
‘That’s a reasonable theory, Sauce,’ his sergeant agreed. ‘And I’ve got a fair idea who that might have been. One Valdas Gerulaitis.’
Montell’s brow furrowed. ‘Valdas? Describe him, Jack.’
‘Lithuanian, tallish, lean, dark hair, greying and receding, well dressed, bookkeeper by profession but crook by nature. Married to a horrible wee dragon of a woman who’s just inherited a half share in these bloody places.’
‘Anything else?’
McGurk considered the question for a few seconds. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘one other thing, now you force me to recall it. Major dandruff problem.’
‘The Snowman,’ Cowan exclaimed. ‘That was what the girls called the guy who kidnapped them for that very reason. And he told them to call him Uncle V.’
‘Oh my,’ Haddock chuckled. ‘Has he got some talking to do.’
‘Sure, but there’s one anomaly,’ Montell pointed out. ‘The guy who took Anna into the surgery didn’t look a bit like your Snowman, or like we’re told Linas looks, but from what she said, he actually took her out of the place where she was kept.’
‘The massage parlour,’ said McGurk.
‘No. She says that she was in a house above it. Since this is a tenement building, we take that to mean a flat.’
‘Well, let’s check the lot out and worry about who’s who afterwards. If this Linas lived above the store, you never know, he might still be there.’ Pause. ‘I suppose I should call for uniform back-up.’
Although Montell was the junior officer, there was a sense, even if unspoken, that he had taken command of the situation. He shook his head. ‘No, Jack,’ he murmured. ‘If he is there, that would just spook him. Besides,’ he added, ‘this bastard is mine, all mine.’
Thirty-three
‘We don’t like to drop the guy in it, Chief,’ Mario McGuire insisted, ‘but I agree with Neil. We may have lost hours in this investigation because Alan Royston took the easy way out last night. If he’d done what he was asked by Alice Cowan when she asked him we’d have got some media exposure, on air and online, straight away.’
‘So deal with it,’ said Skinner.
The head of CID was taken aback by Skinner’s reluctance; his dark eyebrows twitched slightly. ‘If he was police staff, I would have. But he’s not, he’s a civilian and as such he’s not subject to my discipline.’
‘Exactly. He’s a specialist, an adviser.’
‘And in this case his advice has been crap.’
‘But still, that’s what he is; he doesn’t have the executive power to override the wishes of any police officer. Cowan could have insisted on the release going out last night, but she didn’t.’
‘She’s a DC, boss. Even if she knew she could have called his bluff, she’d have thought twice about doing it.’
‘In which case she should have gone to Sammy Pye. . OK, he’s on a course. . to Ray Wilding. It’s down to her.’
McGuire shook his head. ‘With respect, sir. .’ he began.
The chief constable laughed. ‘With respect,’ he repeated. ‘The polite way of telling a senior officer that he’s talking bollocks. Go on, chum, spit it out.’
‘OK, Alice is a good soldier, as you well know. But she got herself in a hole in Special Branch a wee while ago, and I for one will forgive her reluctance to take the chance of digging another one. If she’d leaned on Royston, he’d taken umbrage and come to me, and I’d taken his side. . No, it’s my view that at best the man’s judgement was off the mark; at worst, his staff had all gone home for the evening and he just couldn’t be arsed staying on to issue Alice’s release himself. Either way, it’s my view that he should be chinned about it. If you tell me to do the chinning myself, I will, but. .’
Skinner raised a hand, as if in surrender. ‘Yes, I get the drift. That would leave him open to be on any line manager’s carpet when there was a disagreement, but his contract says that he reports to me or my deputy.’ He paused, considering. ‘I could give this to Brian Mackie to deal with, but I won’t. It’s down to me.’ He looked the head of CID in the eye. ‘You know why I’m reluctant, Mario, don’t you?’