A Rush of Blood

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”.’

‘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.’