‘Like I told you; Edinburgh, tonight and every night. I can meet you later if that’s all right. If I catch the four-thirty train, I can be with you by half five.’
‘Then do that. I might have a couple of people sit in on our chat, if that’s OK.’
‘Fine by me.’ The chief constable heard a quick intake of breath. ‘Bob,’ his friend said, ‘it’s good to be back. Know what I mean?’
‘Yeah, Andy,’ he sighed, ‘I know. Same here. You sure there’s no chance for you and Karen?’
‘None. I’m rarely certain about relationships, but I am this time.’
‘Too bad. See you later.’
He ended the call and leaned back in his chair. His coffee was well on its way to being cold, but he finished it nonetheless. He closed his eyes and went back to the musing he had begun while waiting for the phone call, poring over the events of the past week, probing for holes in the investigation, flaws in the procedure. Suicide? He had to believe that. Accidents? No danger. Someone had cleaned out the Zaliukas camp, for sure, and had silenced Ken Green because he knew. . what? The name of the other player in Lituania SAFI, presumably, and with him gone, that was. .
He sat bolt upright, his eyes opening wide. ‘Shit!’ he whispered, as he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the door. He strode past Gerry Crossley without a word, out of the command suite and along the corridor that led to the head of CID’s office. McGuire was at his desk as he entered; he made to rise, but the chief constable cut him off with a wave of his hand.
‘Mario,’ he boomed, ‘we’ve been fucking negligent, and I include myself in that plural, for I’m supposed to be the top gun around here. We’ve been so obsessed by what’s been happening here that we’ve ignored the broader picture. Tomas is dead, and so’s his cousin; their wee brothel empire’s been taken over. But it was bigger than we thought; the company owns another twelve businesses. There is a partner, and we reckoned that Ken Green was probably our last means of proving who he is. . but he might not be. There’s somebody else, and we’ve been ignoring her as this thing’s developed. Regine Zaliukas. She’s sitting in a wee French village with her kids, and she could be in danger. She could also be an important witness; we need to get to her, we need to talk to her and we need to keep her safe. This isn’t something that can be left to a sergeant and a DC. We need to get somebody over there now, somebody with weight enough to impress the local police, and that, my friend, means you.’
‘Wow,’ McGuire whispered, ‘you’re the boss, but. . You said yourself that when Alex spoke to her she wasn’t in any hurry to get back. We could get out there and find she’s shacked up with a toyboy, and that’s why Tomas offed himself.’
‘If that was the case, Tomas wouldn’t have “offed himself”. He’d have taken the other guy’s head off with his fucking chainsaw. I’m serious; I want you on your way to France, soonest. I can’t go with you, but you will need someone. Given who you’re going to see, it had better be a female officer, with rank.’
‘Stallings.’
‘She’ll do. Where’s your passport?’
‘Here, in my drawer. I always keep it handy.’
‘Good; that’s a start. Call Becky and tell her to go home and pick hers up, assuming that she needs to, and to pack a bag, enough for a couple of nights. I’ll make the arrangements, flights, a hire car if you need it, and I’ll get Regine’s address from Alex. I know she has it. If I can get the two of you there today I will, so tell Stallings to be ready to leave soonest. How are you off for clothes?’
‘I keep an emergency bag here too, and a couple of hundred euros.’
‘Right: tell Neil what’s happening, and get ready to leave for the airport. We’ve left that woman and her kids unprotected for too long.’
Sixty-six
‘Ms Wisniewski,’ said Sauce Haddock, ‘we appreciate that you’re still in a state of shock, but we have a job to do.’ As he looked at the woman, he remembered his imperious reception on his first visit to the firm of Grey Green, only a few days before, and noted the contrast. Gladys Wisniewski gave the impression of someone who was standing on a rug without being certain whether there were floorboards under it. Bereft of Ken Green’s presence, his room seemed much larger, and his secretary that much smaller.
‘But I don’t have the authority,’ she blustered. ‘I can’t just let you walk in here.’
‘We’ve got the authority ourselves,’ Jack McGurk told her, holding up the sheet of paper that he had shown to the grim-faced receptionist a few minutes before, ‘in the form of this warrant from the sheriff, which allows us to search these premises, unless you voluntarily supply us with the items we require. So, with Mr Green gone, who’s the senior partner? Would that be Mr Grey?’
‘There is no Mr Grey,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t prevaricate, please,’ the sergeant snapped. ‘If it’s Miss or Mrs, where is she?’
‘No, you don’t understand. There are no partners in the firm. Mr Green was a sole practitioner. We do have legal staff, but they’re all employees, mostly doing court work.’
‘Fresh out of university?’ Haddock speculated. ‘On minimum salaries to maximise the firm’s profit from its legal aid clients?’
Mrs Wisniewski nodded. ‘You get the picture,’ she acknowledged, as she began to recover both her poise and her accent of the previous week. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s common practice across Scotland. This firm provides valuable training for young lawyers. Quite a few of the people who started with us are advocates now. A couple of them will be QCs quite soon.’
‘Save us the PR speak, please, lady,’ McGurk sighed. ‘We’re not here to question Ken Green’s scruples or his business practices. If they were OK with the Law Society, they’re OK with us. What we need to talk about is his relationship with the late Tomas Zaliukas, and with a company that he set up for him called Lituania SAFI, registered in Uruguay. Are you familiar with all that?’
‘I’ve met Mr Zaliukas,’ she admitted. ‘And I’ve heard the name of that company before.’
‘So who were its principals?’
‘Mr Zaliukas was.’
‘We know that, but under Uruguayan law, an offshore company has to have at least two shareholders. So there must have been someone else involved in the transaction. I’m wondering, could it have been Mr Green himself?’
‘No,’ she replied firmly. ‘That would have been against the Law Society rules, and Mr Green was a stickler for those. Why don’t you ask the Uruguayan Embassy?’
‘We have done. Their law allows SAFI shareholders and directors to keep their names secret, so they aren’t about to help us. We need you to tell us.’
‘But that would break client confidentiality.’
‘That’s not what the sheriff thought when she signed this warrant. So, will you please bring us all the firm’s files relating to Mr Zaliukas, and to the company.’
‘I can’t.’
McGurk drew a deep breath and seemed to grow even taller as he towered over the woman. ‘Ms Wisniewski,’ he threatened, holding up the first two fingers of his right hand, and stopping just short of pressing them together, ‘you are that close to being charged with obstructing us. Do yourself a favour and get those records, now, or we will take this place apart until we find them.’
‘I tell you I can’t,’ she shouted. ‘They’re not here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m trying to tell you that Mr Green didn’t keep them here. Some files, the Lituania SAFI papers among them, weren’t stored here. None of the meetings relating to those parts of the business took place here either.’
‘Hold on,’ said Haddock. ‘If this is a one-man firm, why would it have a second office?’
‘It doesn’t, not as such. As far as I know, Mr Green used his cottage in East Lothian for that purpose. That’s where he met those clients and that’s where their files were kept.’
‘What would the Law Society think of that?’ asked McGurk, drily.