A Rush of Blood

Forty-nine

‘You did leave him in one piece?’ Neil McIlhenney ventured.

‘Of course,’ Skinner grunted. ‘His trust in the basic goodness of his fellow man might be damaged beyond repair, but everything else is just as it was when I walked into the room. There was a time when that might not have been the case, but that’s all history now. You and Mario are free to interview him whenever you like.’

‘Mario’s up at the mortuary, for the Gerulaitis autopsies. We’ll do it as soon as he gets back.’

‘Fine. There aren’t too many questions to be asked other than why did you do it? The answer is probably because he knew all about the girls being imported and was scared that he was going to be done for it whether he’d had one at his place or not, but he isn’t going to admit that, not yet. Ken Green’s his lawyer; he isn’t going to say anything with that guy sitting alongside him. You’d better call him, and tell him he has a client in bother. Charge him quick; get him in court this afternoon, so he can be remanded in custody.’

‘Will do. What did you get from him? Anything much?’

‘Yes, and I’m not sure what to make of it. The “mark of respect” story is cobblers. The managers were all told to close down on Tuesday night.’

McIlhenney nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Young Sauce got that from a hooker. . ouch, sorry, non-PC; a sex worker. . that he and Jack interviewed.’

‘Good for the boy. Maybe he knows what to make of it, for I don’t. They were all told to close before Tomas shot himself. Naturally, they all denied any knowledge of trafficked girls. . all but Luksa, who’d have coughed up anything to get himself off an attempted murder charge. He says he didn’t have a girl, but it’s a fair bet that all of those who had were told to move them out of there.’

‘One of the managers has a flat, McGurk and Haddock found out. It’s down in Scotland Street, and from what they were told it was big enough to have housed all the girls, apart from Anna Romanova. I’ve told them to get a warrant and get in there pronto.’

‘Good move.’

‘One other thing from the interviews we’ve done so far. . not with the managers, but with the local talent who worked there. None of the very few who were willing to talk to us about newcomers from eastern Europe gave any indication that any of the others had been drugged, or abused.’

‘Were they being paid?’

‘None of them could tell us that either. Where the Estonian girls were involved, the manager took the money. But my guess is that they were, enough to keep them happy.’

‘Yes,’ Skinner agreed. ‘I’ve got a scenario forming in my head. From what Luksa said, Valdas was running the massage parlours. . that might explain why Tomas left his interest to Laima. But he got greedy. He worked out that if he replaced the Edinburgh ladies with cheap, young, foreign imports he’d have complete control of his workforce and his profits would go way up. I suspect that’s what he was starting to do, but I don’t believe that he’d asked Tommy for the OK first. The way I see it, Tomas found out.’

‘And Valdas killed him?’

‘No, no,’ he said quickly ‘Tomas shot himself. There’s no doubt about that, none at all. No, something else happened.’ Pause. ‘Neil, I want you to do two things. Have Stallings and her team follow up on this Scotland Street flat and squeeze the owner hard. If those girls were billeted there as McGurk and Haddock seem to think they might have been, he’s likely to know where they went.’

‘And the second?’

‘Ask David Mackenzie, from me, to get in touch with the Lithuanian equivalent of our Justice Department, and find out everything they’ve got on one Jonas Zaliukas, age approximately thirty-two.’ The superintendent’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s right,’ the chief confirmed, ‘Tommy had a wee brother. Then have our people spread that name around town, and go back to those ten managers we’ve bailed, and see what they come up with.’

‘Do we want to know anything in particular?’

‘Absolutely. It might be worth knowing whether he bears any passing resemblance to Desperate Dan.’