A Rush of Blood

Forty-four

‘Ah’m a masseuse, mister, that’s all,’ Maxine Frost insisted, standing in front of her fireplace, cigarette in hand. ‘If you got my name and address from the massage parlour, you’ll know that.’

‘Mrs Frost,’ Jack McGurk told her, ‘we’re not bothered about what you do at work. If you say you’re a masseuse we’ll take your word for it, without even asking who or what you massage, or what with. We want to know about other people who might have been in business at your place, specifically teenage girls, not Scottish, from eastern Europe.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

‘We’re on about kids who were lured away from their home in Estonia and put to work in brothels in Edinburgh,’ Sauce Haddock snapped. ‘Is that specific enough for you?’

‘I don’t work in a brothel. I’m a masseuse.’

‘Where did you train?’

‘College.’

‘Do you have a certificate?’

‘You don’t get certificates. It was a night class.’

‘I’ll bet it was,’ said McGurk. ‘How many people work at your place?’

‘I dinnae ken. We work shifts. We set our own hours, like. We’re self-employed. ’

‘Is that so? What’s your tax reference number? Come on, tell us; one call to the Inland Revenue and we can find out.’

‘Aw, come on,’ the woman protested. ‘This is polis harassment.’

‘Absolutely, Mrs Frost,’ Haddock agreed, cheerful once more. ‘Now are you going to talk to us, because my sergeant here’s Plymouth Brethren, and he’d really love to make that call.’

‘Ah’ll bet he would, the bastard. He looks just like one o’ them too. Kent it as soon as Ah clapped eyes on him.’ Pause. ‘OK, there was a girl that didnae speak English. She came in about three months ago.’

‘What age, do you reckon?’ the DC asked.

‘Sixteen or seventeen, eighteen tops. But if you’re sayin’ she was forced on the game, you’d be wrong. I didnae see her every day like, but she settled in pretty quick. She had her regulars after a few weeks. There’s one guy used tae come in and ask for Miss Head; ye can gather from that she was versatile. We wound up callin’ him Mr Head.’

‘Where can we find her?’

‘She stayed wi’ Marius, the manager, as far as Ah kent. He’s got a big flat, down Scotland Street. Ah was at a party there one night; nice place.’

‘How big?’ McGurk murmured.

‘Like Ah said, big,’ Mrs Frost retorted.

‘How many could it sleep?’

‘As many as ye bloody like, just aboot. It’s got four bedrooms. Why?’

‘Do you know if she was the only girl who stayed there?’

‘How the fuck would Ah?’

‘Fair enough,’ the DS conceded. ‘When did you see her last?’

‘Three days ago. Mr Head was in. The same night Ah got the call frae Marius, telling me the place wis shuttin’ for a while.’

‘Is that all he said?’

‘Aye. It was sudden, like. Ah finished about ten, and Ah was barely home when he phoned us.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Haddock interrupted. ‘Did you say that was three nights ago? Tuesday?’

‘Aye.’

‘Did Marius say why it was closing?’

‘No. Ah asked him, like, but he telt me to mind my own fuckin’ business if I wanted tae get back there.’

‘Did he say when that would be, when you would be back?’

‘A few days, maybe a week; that was all.’

‘OK.’ The DC looked up at his sergeant, who nodded.

‘That’s all you can tell us, Mrs Frost?’ he asked.

‘That’s it. Now will you please fuck off back tae your prayer meeting?’

McGurk grinned. ‘I hope you’ve got another merry quip for the tax man when he comes calling,’ he chuckled, as he headed for the door.

‘Marius,’ he muttered, when they were back on Dalry Road. ‘He was the guy that Becky lifted, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s right. He came along quietly, she said, and even invited them to have a look round. No girl there last night or she’d have found her.’

‘No.’ The sergeant frowned, dark and menacing. ‘He came quietly. . unlike that bastard that put the nick in Mary Chambers’ throat. I’d like to know where he is right now.’

‘You and our entire station,’ Haddock agreed. ‘I’m not surprised they moved him. I heard it was a headquarters car that picked him up.’

McGurk whistled. ‘In that case he’ll have to take his chances with the Twins. He may wind up wishing that he’d stayed with us.’

‘They wouldn’t, would they?’

‘No, but I’ll bet they scare the shite out of him anyway.’

The young DC pondered Arturus Luksa’s predicament for a few moments. ‘There was something else in there,’ he continued. ‘Did you pick it up?’

‘What?’

‘Maxine said that she got her call from Marius three nights ago, right?’

‘Yes, agreed. So?’

‘So when did Zaliukas kill himself?’

The DS’s eyes widened. ‘A few hours later; you observant young sod. So what do we read into that? Tomas Zaliukas shut down the massage parlour operation, and then he went out and killed himself?’

‘That’s one possibility, but what if it was someone else gave the order?’

‘Who, Valdas?’

‘That’s the obvious assumption. Too bad we won’t be able to ask him.’

McGurk shrugged his shoulders. ‘Personally, I find it hard to grieve about that, especially since we’ve got eleven massage parlour managers in custody who know the answer to the question.’ He started to walk back towards Haymarket. ‘Whatever, Sauce, that’s above our pay grade. All we can do is get back to the office, feed in what we’ve picked up, and maybe suggest that forensics take a look at the Marius guy’s place in Scotland Street, to see if there’s any evidence of the Estonian girls having been kept there, and if we’re lucky, evidence of where they’ve gone, or rather, been taken. But what it all amounts to is a singular lack of progress for all the effort of the last twelve hours or so.’

‘There probably is no more,’ Sauce muttered gloomily. ‘These girls will be scattered all over the place by now.’

‘Speaking of girls and sex,’ said McGurk, as the monument on the distant road junction came in to view, ‘you look fresher this morning.’

‘Weekend coming up, Jack,’ the young DC replied, ‘starting with the disco tonight. We’ve got to save our strength for that.’