Quintin Jardine - A Rush of Blood

‘He climbed Arthur’s Seat at some point last night and shot himself, with a sawn-off.’ The DCS opened his mouth and touched his palate with the first two fingers of his right hand. Beside him, Maggie Steele shuddered. ‘McCall saw that tattoo on the back of his hand, and knew who he was. We left Dorward and his team to gather him all together.’

Skinner closed his eyes, as if he was picturing the event. ‘Tomas always saw himself as a hard man. Not without cause, I must say; he even took a swing at me once, when he was a young gang-banger. I’d to hit him four times to convince him to stop; only Lennie Plenderleith ever did better than that.’

‘Did you do him for assault?’

‘There was nobody else around at the time; no witnesses on either side.’ He chuckled. ‘Besides, it would have been awkward; I broke his cheekbone.’ He thought for a few seconds. ‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘it fits. I can see that if Tomas decided to do himself in, it wouldn’t be any overdose, it would be done in the most macho way he could imagine. I wonder why he chose Arthur’s Seat.’

McGuire’s eyes glinted. ‘If he’d done it at home, his wife would have been annoyed at the mess.’

‘Are you sure he was sporting one of those?’ the chief constable asked. ‘I heard a whisper at the golf club at the weekend from a surveyor who works with his property side that Regine had taken the kids and left.’

‘Where did he hear that? Paulie and I were in Indigo last Monday and she was there, as usual.’

‘From Tomas himself; last Friday.’

‘Do you know where she is now? I suppose we’ll have to get in touch with her.’

‘No, I don’t. She’s French, though, so I guess that might be a good place to start. Do you know their story?’ he asked, looking around the table, at four shaken heads. ‘They’re quite a couple; well matched. They met when Tommy was downmarket; he’d been involved in a couple of low-grade rackets, protection, fencing stolen fags and alcohol, a dodgy security company, usual things. But he’d started his move upwards, into his first couple of pubs, the kind with go-go dancers, before they gave them poles. Regine was a proper dancer; she applied for a job. When Tomas asked her to audition, and told her what was required, she told him she wasn’t a stripper, and walked out. A couple of days later, he met her in the street, apologised, and offered her a job managing a place he’d just bought. And they went on from there.’

‘You must go back a bit with Zaliukas, Bob,’ Brian Mackie commented.

Skinner nodded. ‘Yes indeed. I remember him from the time when he first pitched up in Edinburgh, back in the late eighties. He was only a kid, not much more than twenty; it was just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was a merchant seaman, on a Lithuanian vessel; he jumped ship down in Leith, walked into the first Catholic church he could find and asked for sanctuary, would you believe. He got it too, in a way; the parish priest took to him and helped him get leave to remain in Britain. Not that the Lithuanian regime of that time gave a shit about one wee sailor. It was too busy clinging to power by its toenails. Tommy was still cautious, though; he decided that he needed more effective back-up than the priest who’d helped him out, so he went to work for Tony Manson, driving him, running errands, doing security at some of his massage parlours. He was a gopher, really.’

He paused, reflecting. ‘He fancied himself, though, and when his country finally got its independence, Tomas brought some of his old mates across, and set up his own team. That’s when he got the tattoo, by the way, to show that he was the boss. Manson was OK with the new operation. If you remember, Tony didn’t like too many people close to him, and in truth with big Lennie Plenderleith as his right-hand man he didn’t need them either. He made a habit of contracting stuff out, and the Lithuanian boys came in very handy for that. If somebody had crossed him and he wanted to keep Lennie out of it, he’d give the discipline job to Tommy Zale. . as most people called him then. I also know for a fact that a couple of times Tony took on contracts for associates of his in Newcastle and in London, and passed the work on to those boys; cash down and a bonus on completion.’

‘No chance of a prosecution?’ Steele asked.

‘It was a while afterwards before I found out, but anyway, there was no chance of any physical evidence. I had inquiries made in both cities, and the people involved were being treated as missing, no more. No bodies were ever found, but there must have been proof of some sort that the jobs had been done for Manson to have paid out.’

‘Unless your source was spinning you a tale,’ Mackie suggested.

‘No chance. My source is unimpeachable; he had no reason to lie to me, nothing to gain, nothing to lose. The stories showed what the Lithuanians were capable of in those days. They didn’t just work for Manson either. They freelanced, they did security work, unlicensed but more or less legitimate, they fenced stolen goods, and once a couple of them were fingered as team members on an armed robbery put together by Jackie Charles. Again, though, it couldn’t be proved.’

He smiled, and his eyes seemed to focus on a point back in the past. ‘I was a DCI at the time, and Alf Stein was head of CID. He told me to sort it out. That was all the instruction he gave me. I went to see Tommy, one on one, and we had a wee chat. I leaned on him, and told him that I was not going to have hooligans with guns running around on my patch, and that if he didn’t bring his people into line I would show him what hard really meant. He thought it was a challenge; found out it was a promise.’

The chief constable paused. ‘He got the message, though. He knew that if he kept on the way he was going, I’d see him in the jail, so gradually he changed. He focused on the security business, and if he was still fencing, I never heard about it. He bought a pub in Leith, then another in Slateford. When the transfer of the licences came up before the board, I was asked to comment on his suitability. I took a chance; I gave him the nod. Having done that, I kept a bloody close eye on them. They did well; both had been pretty scruffy, but Tommy invested money in them and took them upmarket. Sure, he had the go-go girls at lunchtime and in the evenings, but they were top-end talent, no sexual simulation, and definitely no interaction with the customers. He installed two of his boys as managers, and employed his own firm to handle security, so there was no trouble. That was a big change; before he took over, our uniforms were never out of those places.’

‘And now when they go in, they’re off duty,’ said Mackie.

‘That’s right,’ Skinner concurred. ‘Tomas set up his company then, moved the pubs into them and started to expand. The next place he bought was a rundown disco down at Abbeyhill. That’s where Regine took over as manager; between them they did another complete makeover, and turned it into the most popular nightspot in the city, a club, instead of a disco. She’s managed it ever since, and supervised all the other places.’

‘Indigo,’ said McGuire. ‘Yes, Paula and I go there quite often.’

‘She doesn’t mind, given who owns it?’

The head of CID stared at him, his eyebrows rising. ‘Why should she?’ he asked, slowly.

‘Ah well,’ Skinner smiled. ‘That’s another story I heard on this grapevine of mine. The way it went, although Tomas was concentrating mainly on what he called his “entertainment division”, he couldn’t quite kill off some of his old Tommy Zale habits. One day, Paula’s dad, your Uncle Beppe, had a visit from him in his office. Tommy told him that the Viareggio family had a very nice, broad-based business, with great growth potential and that he’d like a piece of it. Beppe thanked him very politely, but said that he didn’t need or want any outside investors. Tommy told him that wasn’t quite what he had in mind, and gave him a couple of days to think it over. As we both know, Papa Viareggio, your grandad, would have chucked him out the window, second floor or not, but Beppe wasn’t cut from that cloth. He crapped himself and went running to Paula.’ He paused. ‘With me so far?’