Sixty-five
Normally, Bob Skinner enjoyed the first day of the working week after recharging his batteries by spending quality time with Aileen and the children. Although their Saturday had been curtailed, their Sunday had been one of the best, thanks to the lunchtime visit by Maggie Steele, Bet Rose, her sister, and an increasingly boisterous Stephanie, who was developing facial features that promised to owe a lot to the father she would never meet.
There had been a further highlight, when the family had been gathered round the table for their evening snack. Bob had mentioned, casually, his accidental discovery that he had a page on Wikipedia, and that he would be interested to know who had posted it and who was keeping it up to date. His older, adopted, son Mark had said nothing, but a slight flush in his cheeks, and a touch of uncertainty in his eyes had combined to betray him.
‘You, Markie?’ Bob had said. ‘You’re my public affairs consultant?’
‘Yes, Dad,’ the boy had replied.
Skinner always made a point of spending at least as much time with Mark as with any of his siblings. His determination was that while the boy should always remember and respect his birth parents, both dead, he should feel that he was as much a father to him as to his natural children. And the responsibility was growing, with the approach of his teens. From his early years, Mark had shown a prodigious talent for mathematics, and for physics. There had been a time when Bob had been determined to develop it by sending him to Fettes College, with James Andrew, and eventually Seonaid, but when he had proposed it, he had been faced, for the only time in their lives, with a united rebellion by both of his sons, who had pleaded to be allowed to move on to the local high school when the time came. Being a secret soft touch for his children, he had yielded, and found Mark the best private tutor he could find, to allow him to develop his talent at its natural pace, and not be held back.
‘Didn’t you think to ask me?’ he had murmured.
‘No.’ The boy looked him in the eye. ‘I didn’t start it,’ he said. ‘Somebody else put it up. I found it and it was full of cra. . nonsense, so I logged on and edited it, made it accurate. Now I just keep it up to date. I do the same thing for Mum as well. Her page was rubbish too.’ The three children had two mums, Aileen in Gullane and Sarah in America, and managed to make it invariably clear to which they were referring.
‘My page was started by the Labour Party,’ Aileen had laughed.
‘But they don’t know you. Neither did the guy who started your fan page on Facebook. I’ve taken that over too.’
Skinner was still smiling inwardly over the revelation as his senior colleagues left his room at the end of the Monday morning meeting, but none of it worked through to his expression. There had been no progress on any of the deaths of the previous week. Tomas Zaliukas was still, unshakeably, a suicide, and none of the specialist teams were prepared to say, unshakeably, that the deaths of the Gerulaitases and Ken Green had been caused by anything other than misfortune, or in the lawyer’s case, recklessness. Only Linas Jankauskas was listed definitely as a murder victim, and there had been no progress in finding the comic book lookalike who had rescued Anna Romanova from his flat. He had been testy with Mario McGuire at the staff gathering, and the atmosphere had been strained, since the head of CID had never been one to meekly bare his bottom for the headmaster’s cane.
His door opened after a faint knock, and Gerry Crossley stepped half into the room. ‘David Mackenzie’s here,’ he began.
‘OK,’ the chief grunted. The superintendent replaced Crossley in the door frame, looking a little hesitant. Word must have got around, he thought. ‘Come on in, David,’ he said, ‘and relax. I’ve had my red meat ration for the morning. What can you do for me?’
‘Brighten your day?’ Mackenzie suggested.
‘Please try.’ He offered a seat, but rose himself. ‘Want a coffee?’ he asked as he stepped across to his filter pot on its warming plate. ‘I think I’m having withdrawal symptoms.’
‘I’ll give it a miss, boss.’
‘Fire away, then.’
‘It’s that job you gave me, to see if I can locate any property owned by Lituania SAFI outside our area. I got a result, and then some. Over the past six years or so, the company’s been pumping money into acquisitions, in the same or related fields to its Edinburgh holdings. It owns three premises in the Dundee area, one in Perth, one in Inverness and four in Aberdeen, all licensed massage parlours. It also owns a sex shop in Dundee and bingo halls in Montrose and in Aberdeen.’
Skinner whistled as he resumed his seat. ‘Does it, by Christ,’ he murmured, his first morning smile lighting up his face. ‘Who are the licence holders?’
‘Individuals in each case, as is the pattern here; the people who’re actually running the places. I only suspect that for the moment but I’ll keep digging. That’s all there is, though, all the company owns.’
‘That’s good work, David. Hold off on the digging for now. I’m sure you’re right, but I may spread the load a bit. These licence holders,’ he continued. ‘Do their names sound, how shall I put it, funny to our Celtic ears?’
Mackenzie grinned. ‘Do you mean are they Lithuanians, sir? No, nary a one. There’s a Patel running the Montrose bingo hall, but the rest are all Anglo.’
‘Well, isn’t that interesting. Here in Edinburgh where Tomas was the player, he put his own kind into everything the company owned. But in the other areas of the country. .’
‘. . somebody else was placing the people. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘That’s where I’m heading.’
‘Do you want me to bring the Tayside and Grampian forces into this?’ the superintendent asked.
‘No. I want you to leave it with me for now. There’s someone else I think I’ll consult first. Thanks, David.’
He watched his visitor as he left, then picked up the phone as the door closed behind him. ‘Gerry,’ he said to his assistant. ‘Call the HQ of the Drugs and Serious Crimes Agency, through in Paisley, and see if you can get the acting director on the blower for me.’
He sat and waited, sipping his coffee, letting thoughts run through his mind. Finally the phone buzzed. ‘I have Mr Martin on the line for you, Chief,’ Crossley announced. ‘Now that was a surprise.’
‘Not just for you, chum. Thanks.’ He waited until he heard the clink of the call being connected. ‘Andy,’ he exclaimed, ‘isn’t life a funny bugger? I go six months without speaking to you and on your first week in your new job, something drops in my lap that I need to talk to you about.’
‘Funny indeed,’ Martin agreed, ‘but are you sure you need to talk to me? I’m not being precious or anything, but I don’t want my people thinking I’m hogging stuff for myself, or that I haven’t read my job description.’
‘I know that, man. I’m under the same constraints.’ He chuckled.
‘Although. . your job description says that you’re the boss, so if you chose you could do whatever you fucking liked. . until you screwed up, of course. But this call might be to Andy Martin, rather than to the acting director general. This thing I’ve got has developed a decidedly Tayside feel, and since you’ve still got the dust of the place on your shoes, you’re exactly the guy whose brain I need to pick.’
‘OK, but right now? I’m just about to go into my first department heads meeting. I’m expecting it to go on well into lunch.’
‘Then that’s your top priority,’ Skinner agreed. ‘Where are you laying your head tonight?’ he asked.