‘Plenty,’ Alex replied. ‘Have you been leaning on Mitch Laidlaw?’
‘There would be no point,’ he told her. ‘Mitch is so round these days, if I did he’d just roll over and bounce back up again. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’ve been taken off the Lietuvos account,’ she snapped, ‘and I can’t shake this feeling that you might have had something to do with it.’
‘Well I didn’t,’ he retorted. ‘I haven’t spoken to Mitch for a while. When you say taken off. .’
‘He called me in this morning, and told me that he’d thought things over and decided that he isn’t prepared to have us run the companies indefinitely. He said that if Regine doesn’t feel ready or able to come back and take control herself, she should make a permanent appointment as chief executive. Then he called her, with me still in the room, and told her the same thing. He was tactful about it, of course. He explained that it wasn’t good practice, and that if she came back and didn’t like some of the decisions that had been taken on her behalf it could lead to difficulties, and so on, and so on. He’s given her two weeks to do it; in the meantime he’s going to handle the business himself.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘Well enough, according to Mitch; she said that she expected to have somebody in place by that time, once certain obstacles were removed.’
‘I wonder what she meant by that.’ He frowned as an interpretation struck him. ‘Hey,’ he murmured, ‘when Mitch spoke to her, did he tell her about Valdas and his wife?’
‘That was the very first thing he told her.’
‘How did she take that?’
‘He said she sounded shocked, but not tearful.’
‘And the remark about obstacles came after that?’
‘Yes.’ A small gasp escaped her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Nothing, really. Since her husband’s suicide my cop’s brain’s been working overtime, looking for things that aren’t there.’ He paused, smiling lightly. ‘You pissed off, kid, yeah?’
‘What do you think? I’ve just made partner, yet I’m being told. . OK, not directly, but by implication. . that I’m not up to the job.’
‘That’s mince and you know it. You want the straight truth? Mitch beat me to the punch. He read the situation right. A director and a senior employee in those companies have met sudden and unnatural ends within days of each other. Nasty coincidences they may be, but we’re now taking a close interest in the other business activities of the two of them, and it’s more than likely that our investigation will wash back on to the Lietuvos businesses. If that were to happen, I wouldn’t want you involved, so yes, I was getting to the point when I’d have been having a frank discussion with your boss.’
‘Behind my back?’ Alex exclaimed.
‘No, I’d have told you, but whether you liked it or not, I can’t hide my feelings. You’re best out of this, so you be a good daughter and thank Mitch for me.’
‘You can bloody well thank him yourself. I’m ending what’s been a great week on a right downer.’
‘There’ll be other, even better weeks.’ Pause. ‘Hey,’ he asked, ‘do you want to end it with a laugh?’
‘That depends,’ she said, cautiously. ‘How?’
‘I’m doing a guest appearance at the Central Division disco tonight, seven thirty for eight, in a hotel along at Haymarket. Aileen’s opting out on political grounds, so would you like to chum your old man? It’s not going to be a late night, not for me at any rate. The troops would be inhibited if I hung around too long, and anyway, these days I can’t be seen to put too many over my neck at these affairs.’
‘Will Griff Montell be there?’
‘I’ve no idea, but it isn’t his division, so. .’
‘Ah, what the hell, suppose he is, he’s history as far as I’m concerned. OK. I’m up for it. We’ll see how it goes; I might even stick around for longer than you.’
He was about to end the call, when she carried on. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she said. ‘I checked that thing about Zaliukas’s will. The new codicil he added didn’t replace anything. Before it was added, the holding in Lituania SAFI went to Regine. It seems that he cut her out of that part of her inheritance.’
‘Now that’s interesting,’ her father murmured. ‘I wonder why he did that.’
Fifty-two
‘Where’s that other guy?’ Arturus Luksa asked, his elbows on the table. His jacket was creased, and his shirt showed signs of having been worn for too long. He smelled stale, and his chin was dark with stubble.
‘He’s busy,’ Mario McGuire told him. ‘Why? Would you like us to get him back?’
‘No,’ said the prisoner quickly. ‘I just like you get my fuckin’ lawyer so we can get on with this.’
‘Your fuckin’ lawyer’s on his way,’ Neil McIlhenney drawled, ‘or at least his office says he is.’ He wandered across to the window of the first-floor interview room. ‘They said he drives a Jag. I told security to leave a parking space for him, but I don’t see any of those out there.’
‘How’s the lady?’
The superintendent’s expression darkened; he glared at Luksa. ‘Now, all of a sudden, you care.’ He stepped towards the table and sat, facing him. ‘Well, since you asked so nicely,’ he hissed, ‘she’s on a life support system; any minute now we could get a call telling us to charge you with murder, not attempted.’
The Lithuanian paled, his eyes widening. ‘But I hardly touched her,’ he protested.
‘What if I told you that you touched her enough to nick an artery, and that it was bleeding inside her throat? What if I told you that she collapsed, and by the time they got her to hospital, she’d almost drowned on her own blood?’
‘Naw!’
‘You see, you can have all the fuckin’ lawyers you like but they won’t impress us, or get you any sort of a deal. We’re even going to do you for running one of the Estonian girls, whether you had her or not. Hell’s teeth, I think we’ll do you for trafficking them all, all twelve of them.’
‘There was only nine,’ Luksa protested.
‘And how would you know that? You said you knew nothing about them, you never had one at your place. You know what I think? I reckon it was you, not Valdas, that brought them in. We’ve got one of the lassies under our protection. She was given a rough time, and right now she thinks we’re wonderful; if we ask her she’ll identify you like a shot.’
‘It was Valdas! Him and Marius.’
McGuire lowered himself into the seat beside McIlhenney. ‘Arturus,’ he said, slowly, ‘right now Valdas is a pork fucking scratching. He and his wife died in a fire in their house last night. He doesn’t figure any more. As for this Marius guy, he didn’t put a blade in one of our colleagues. We got you, babe, we got you. It’ll be a long time before you mount that feisty wee wife of yours again. She’ll be an old woman by then. . mind you, from what PC Johnston told us, she doesn’t look like the sort who’ll wait around.’
Luksa buried his face in his hands. The head of CID grabbed his wrists and slammed them on to the table.
‘You’ll look at us when we’re talking to you,’ he growled. ‘Who killed Linas Jankauskas?’
‘No’ me!’ the man wailed, fearfully. ‘You not going to do me for that as well.’
‘You couldn’t have killed him,’ McIlhenney chuckled. ‘You’re a pussy who goes for women rather than men. Plus, you’re an idiot, and whoever did Linas was an expert. So come on, who was it?’
‘I don’t know, honest I don’t. It had nothing to do with me.’
‘Why was he killed?’ McGuire snapped. ‘Do you know that?’
‘I guess it was because he was freelancing with his girl. He keep her in his own place, he drug her, he fuck her himself, he sell her to punters and he keep nearly all the money. Linas, he was real idiot: he asked for it. If Valdas found out. . Yes,’ Luksa nodded, ‘that’s it. Valdas found out; he killed him.’
‘No, that’s not it. We know where Valdas was when Linas was killed.’
‘How you be sure?’
‘Because he was with us at the time, you clown. Now don’t piss us about. We all know it wasn’t Valdas, so. .’ He glared at the prisoner. ‘Before you answer this, you should consider the situation, and ask yourself how, if that phone rings and we’re told the worst about our colleague, how we’re going to react. . or how that other man you saw is going to react. So. . who do you think killed Linas?’