Something Coming Through

20. The Leshy

Mangala | 26 July

Skip was late coming in the next day, entering the busy lobby of the UN building just as Vic was heading out. The boy detective was carrying a cardboard tray loaded with pastries and two go-cups from the food van in the building’s car park, saying, ‘I was doing a follow-up—’

‘We can walk and talk,’ Vic said. ‘Start by asking me where we’re going.’

‘So where are we going?’

‘To the aftermath of a perfect example of the mindless violence we usually have to deal with. You can tell me about your freelance Sherlock Holmes shit on the way there.’

‘Matter of fact, I was doing some follow-up work,’ Skip said. ‘On my own time.’

‘You know that you should check with me before you so much as fart, what with being on probation and all. And I know you know, because of that guilty little peace offering you’re carrying. You drive. I want to enjoy this coffee while it’s still hot.’

As Skip drove, Vic told him that he’d asked one of his CIs to find out what he could about Drury’s drug business. He didn’t mention his idea that the person who’d killed that meq cook probably didn’t own the ray gun, and vice versa. It was the kind of long shot that only looked good if it came off. ‘Any dirt he digs up, we can use against the man,’ he said.

‘Okay.’

‘This is good shit, paid for out of my own pocket, and all you can say is okay? That follow-up work of yours had better be pure gold, Investigator Williams.’

Skip explained that he’d ticked off the rest of the motels on his list, no luck there, and had done a little research on McBride’s girlfriend. ‘Eva Winkler, Austrian, came up two years ago. An accountant, started to work for McBride’s company a month ago.’

‘He’s a fast worker, our Mr McBride.’

‘She’s also thirty years younger than him, and a good twenty centimetres taller,’ Skip said. ‘She seems straight. A civilian. Should be easy to talk to.’

‘If it comes to it.’

‘Right. Of course. I also looked into McBride’s business affairs,’ Skip said. ‘First off, his old company, the one Drury took over, had a piece of the construction work on the Petra Carlton. Actually, it has a piece of every construction project, because it has a piece of the construction workers’ union. McBride has been using that suite without paying a cent ever since the place was open for business. So I reckon he still has some kind of influence with the management, which may explain the collective bad memory of the restaurant staff.’

‘McBride paid them off.’

‘Or threatened them.’

‘But you can’t prove it.’

‘I sort of wondered if this had anything to do with Elder Culture artefacts. Drury was getting ready for some kind of expedition. And McBride mentioned an interest in the artefact business. So I did a bit of checking,’ Skip said. ‘It turns out that while McBride was still in charge of it, Sky Edge Holdings took out three licences to excavate Elder Culture sites. Standard two-year jobs; the last expired while he was in jail. But it’s possible, isn’t it, that he’s still digging stuff up, and trying to smuggle it out illegally.’

‘Like in the sting that put him away? That’s not a bad idea,’ Vic said. ‘But how does it tie in with Redway?’

‘Maybe Drury and McBride are fighting over some valuable Elder Culture stuff. One wants to smuggle it out, brought Redway and Parsons to help. The other lured them into an ambush out by the terminal.’

‘You’re speculating again, Investigator Williams. Still, you might want to pull copies of those licences. Find out where the sites are. There should be details of any finds, too. Licence holders are supposed to declare them.’

‘I also checked with vehicle records. Sky Edge Holdings owns several white vans. Maybe we could take a look at them. Check for vegetation or dirt from the scene that got caught in the tyres and bodywork.’

‘Dirt is dirt, and there’s nothing special about the vegetation. And I can guarantee that you won’t get a warrant to inspect those vans because — once again — all you have is speculation.’

‘You’re telling me I’ve been wasting my time.’

‘You’re the primary on this case,’ Vic said. ‘And it’s bugging you because it isn’t a free shot at the goal mouth. I get that. If I were you, it would be bugging me too. But you need to cultivate patience, youngling. And you need to listen to my words of wisdom, because as far as you are concerned, I am Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi. Okay?’

Skip was quiet, driving, digesting this. Eventually, he said, ‘I guess your advice would be to concentrate on the search for Parsons.’

‘Right now, we have a good old-fashioned murder to deal with. And this one, we know who did it.’

They drove to the bar in Junktown, a wooden shack pinched between two newer three-storey buildings clad in native red stone. A patrol car was parked outside, its light bar flashing. The senior of the two uniforms, Sergeant Karen Jørgensen, gave them the low-down.

A pair of tomb robbers had fallen out, and one had stabbed the other in the heart. The doer hadn’t run off: he was too drunk. The bar owner had called the police and given him another sinker, a shot of red whisky dropped into half a litre of beer. Karen Jørgensen had found him hunched over it at the bar.

‘He was crying,’ she said. ‘He said that he did not mean to do it, but his leshy made him.’

Skip said, ‘His leshy?’

‘Like a kind of woodland spirit,’ Jørgensen said. ‘He says that he picked it up in the necropolis up in the Holland Hills. Ever since then, it has been at his back. He calls it Vlad.’

Vic smiled. ‘Like Vlad the Impaler?’

‘That he did not say,’ Jørgensen said, straight-faced.

‘And what’s his name? The doer.’

‘Martin Benešová.’

‘What’s that? Polish?’

‘Czech.’

‘Any witnesses? Or were they all suddenly and inexplicably answering the call of nature when it happened?’

‘We are holding three people. Plus the owner. She volunteered a statement.’

‘We’ll talk to her, but first we’ll talk to Martin. He speaks English?’

‘More or less. Although I should warn you, he is still drunk.’

Martin Benešová was in the back of Jørgensen’s patrol car, a whip-thin white guy, bare-chested in a denim jacket and filthy jeans. Looking wall-eyed at Vic when he opened the door and squatted down, Skip standing behind him.

Vic said, ‘So what’s this all about, Martin?’

‘Karlus said he don’t want to work with me no more. On account of Vlad. Karlus don’t like him, don’t want anything to do with him. So Vlad, he stabbed him.’

‘How did he do that?’

‘He use my arm.’

‘Let me get this straight, Martin. You’re saying your fairy-tale friend did it?’

‘My what?’

‘Your leshy.’

‘He protect me.’

‘Is Vlad here now, Martin?’

‘He always is here. I drink, it mostly shut him up. But this time I don’t drink enough,’ Martin Benešová said, and hung his head and started to cry.

Vic and Skip talked to the owner of the bar, a forthright woman who said that she hadn’t seen Martin Benešová before. He had been drinking quietly and steadily when his friend had walked in, she said. They’d got into an argument, and Martin Benešová had raised up and stabbed him.

By this time the crime-scene techs had turned up and confirmed that it looked like the dead man had been killed by a single knife thrust.

‘I don’t see how you boys can tell,’ Vic said, ‘what with the knife still in his chest.’

They would have to wait until Martin Benešová blew clean on the breathalyser before they could take his statement. Vic told Skip that he would ride back to the UN building in the patrol car with their suspect. Skip, he suggested, could usefully spend the rest of the day looking for David Parsons in Junktown.

‘There are all kinds of unlicensed hostels, rooming houses and the like around here,’ Vic said. ‘If you don’t know where to start, give Rita Smith over in Vice a call. She’ll know some good spots.’

Skip said that he knew of a few from his foot-patrol days.

‘Well then, start there. If the people know and trust you, they might point you in the right direction. Don’t try to bribe them. They’ll take your money and lie. Find a violation and promise to overlook it as long as they cooperate.’

Back at the UN building, Vic secured Martin Benešová in the holding pen and found that the man’s dead friend had recently been released on probation after doing time, working on one of the city farms, for assault. A quick call to the probation office established that he didn’t have a wife, husband, or partner: there’d be no need for a death knock. Vic wrote it up, then buttonholed Jerzy Buzek about the murdered meq cook. Jerzy, an amiable young guy, said that it was currently on the back-burner. Forensics hadn’t turned up anything useful, suggesting it was a professional hit, and although Jerzy had a very strong feeling that it had something to do with internal discipline in Drury’s crew he hadn’t been able to get anyone to talk about it.

‘Did you talk to Drury?’

‘I don’t have enough to bring him in yet. But sooner or later one of his crew will come in with some serious shit hanging over them, and maybe I can use that as leverage to get some information. There had to be at least three people involved. Two to hold him up while the other nail-gunned him to the wall. And there were marks on the floor,’ Jerzy said, ‘suggesting a tripod.’

‘They videoed it? That’s sick, man.’

‘As I said, a professional job. Pour encourager les autres, as the captain would say.’

‘Who owned the apartment buildings?’

‘Prometheus Developments. They’re clean, no link to Drury.’

‘How about to Cal McBride?’ Vic said, and explained about the Redway murder and the ray-gun connection.

Jerzy thanked him for the heads-up, said that he’d let Vic know if he turned up anything else. Vic was back at his desk, working on papers for a case that was due to go to trial the next day, when Skip called him.

‘We need to run over to the shuttle terminal. I reckon I know why Redway and Parsons were out there that night.’