Blindside (16 page)

Irvine smiled and introduced herself. The lawyer took her glasses off and fidgeted with a paper clip that she had bent out of shape, using the end of it to scrape under her nails. She brushed the resulting debris off her desk and on to the floor.

Irvine’s smile faltered.

‘What can I do for you?’ the lawyer asked, boredom clear in her expression.

‘I’m looking for some help. It’s on a murder investigation.’

That caught her interest. She put the misshapen paper clip down and clasped her hands.

‘What do you need from me?’

‘I need to log into your Land Register account. For information on a flat.’

‘What kind of information?’

‘Who owns it? When they bought it? That kind of thing, you know.’ Irvine smiled again. ‘Can you log me in now?’

‘Sure.’

Irvine followed her to a spare desk where the lawyer set her up to access the search function on the Register. She waited for the lawyer to leave her alone, entered the address of Lewski’s flat and put in a request for the search results to be e-mailed to her. She thanked the lawyer and went back upstairs.

There was an e-mail already in her inbox attaching the search report on the flat. It was owned by a company – not an individual. From the name, ‘ScotLets Limited’, she assumed that it probably held a number of properties for rent.

Irvine opened the Internet browser on her own computer and went to the Companies House website – one that she could access directly without going through the lawyer. It had details of all companies incorporated in the UK. She found the search function and typed in ‘ScotLets’.

The result gave her basic information, but not the details of who owned the shares in the company or who its directors were. She clicked on the ‘print page’ option and went to collect the sheet of paper from the network printer.

The registered office of the company was at the office of an accountancy firm in a commercial park north of the city centre.

Irvine went back to her desktop and clicked on an icon that allowed her access to more detailed reports on companies – for a price – and printed off the information she found for the shareholders and directors. She saw that there were two shareholders and that those same people were the only directors. They had listed their address as being the same as the registered office.

A quick Google search on the accountancy firm disclosed that it had two partners – and that they were the same people who owned and operated ScotLets. Nothing unusual in any of that, Irvine thought. Plenty of professionals put their money into property and did it through separate businesses, but she made a note to go and visit the accountants with Armstrong later that day.

She knew from experience that there were professionals out there who had no problem in dealing with dirty money.

3

There was a sandwich and a can of Coke sitting on Irvine’s desk when she came back from a quick walk around the block to get some fresh air. It was just past twelve-thirty. She looked round and saw Armstrong in Liam Moore’s room. Armstrong saw her looking and walked over to her desk.

‘Thought you might be hungry,’ he told her. ‘I got chicken salad coz I thought it would be safe enough. Who doesn’t like chicken, right?’

‘Thanks.’

He sat on the edge of her desk.

‘You know the boss?’ she asked him.

Armstrong looked over at Moore’s room.

‘Not really, no. I mean, I’m kind of into boxing and I know he used to fight so we were passing the time.’

Irvine touched the swollen side of her face. ‘You having a laugh at my expense?’

‘No. Anyway, it suits you. Makes you look tough.’

Irvine opened the sandwich and the Coke and ate while Armstrong explained that it would be tomorrow at the earliest before the forensics lab would be able to create a DNA profile from the semen sample and check it against the national database.

‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ he asked.

She told him about the accountants who appeared to own the Lewski/Murray flat.

‘So let’s go talk to them.’

‘Should we give them a call in advance?’

‘Nah. I mean, if they are scumbags it’ll be best to catch them on the hop. Did you run the names to see if anything came up?’

‘No prior convictions.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

Armstrong drove them to the office of the accountants Marshall Scott, picking his way through the city traffic and treating every amber light as an invitation to accelerate. Irvine tutted a few times but he didn’t seem to hear. Either that or he was ignoring her.

‘Which division were those guys from?’ she asked him.

‘Which guys?’

‘The uniforms we spoke to about Lewski.’

‘Stewart Street.’

Irvine called Pitt Street from her mobile and asked to be connected to the Stewart Street station. The duty sergeant came on the line and told her that the two officers were out on patrol.

‘I’m looking for information on some working girls,’ Irvine said. ‘Who’s the Super there?’

‘Neal Pope.’

‘Can you connect me?’

The line hummed and then another man spoke.

‘Pope.’

‘Sir, this is DC Irvine from CID.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m looking for some information on a couple of working girls in your division. Other girls they know, who their handler is, that kind of thing.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘It’s a murder inquiry, sir.’

‘Who’s the stiff?’

Charming
.

‘Joanna Lewski.’

‘She one of the prozzies?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the other one called?’

‘Suzie Murray.’

‘Right. Give me your number and leave it with me. I’ll have someone call you back.’

‘This is urgent, sir.’

‘I appreciate that. We’ll get right back to you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Armstrong was smirking when she looked at him.

‘What?’

‘Did you write that book? You know, the one about making friends and alienating people.’

‘I just asked him for information. What’s wrong with that?’

‘He’s a Super.’

‘So?’

‘You told him it was a murder inquiry and that it was urgent he got back to you. I mean, I think he would have worked that one out for himself.’

Irvine closed her eyes.

‘You need to relax more,’ Armstrong told her.

The accountants’ office was the smallest of seven two-storey units in a neat commercial park just off the M8. As they pulled into an empty parking space at the entrance to the unit, Irvine noticed two expensive German sports cars with vanity plates.

‘Looks like they do okay for a small outfit,’ she said, nodding at the cars.

Armstrong applied the handbrake and looked over. ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’

‘I’m just saying.’

They pushed through double glass doors into the reception where an attractive young woman with a telephone headset smiled and asked them if she could help.

Armstrong took out his gold shield to identify himself. Irvine felt
vaguely inadequate next to him with only the standard issue warrant card. That and the fact the woman was staring at the injuries to her face.

‘We’re looking to speak to …’ Irvine looked at the printout in her hand. ‘Mr Marshall and Mr Scott.’

The woman’s smile faltered.

‘They’re both here, right? I mean, we saw their cars outside.’

‘I’ll check if they’re available. Can I tell them what it’s about?’

‘We’ll explain it to them,’ Armstrong said.

They stood in front of the woman’s desk while she called through to each of the men in turn. The conversations sounded calm enough to Irvine from what she could tell from the receptionist’s side of it.

Irvine looked around the place and saw that the furnishings were expensive and that there were original pieces of art on the walls. She couldn’t tell if they were worth anything or if they were junk. But it didn’t look like the kind of place that hung any old rubbish up on the walls.

After a few minutes, a door opened to the right of the woman’s desk and a slim man in his early forties walked over to them and held out his hand. His handshake was firm and he maintained eye contact the whole time. He had neat, fair hair, tanned skin and a navy suit that fitted him very well.

‘I’m Paul Scott,’ he said. ‘Come on through and we can have a chat.’

4

The other accountant introduced himself as Lawrence Marshall. He looked a little younger than Scott, but not by much. He had the same air of health and prosperity about him, dressed in a charcoal pinstripe suit with thinning hair swept back on his head.

The two men sat together on the near side of a table in the office boardroom. It was on the ground floor and had two long windows which looked out towards the motorway in the distance. They were both doing their best not to look at Irvine’s bruises.

‘Can we get you anything to drink?’ Scott asked.

‘No thanks,’ Irvine replied, sitting two seats away from them.

Armstrong walked around to the far side of the table and sat opposite Irvine. Scott looked from Irvine to Armstrong and back.

‘What can we do for you?’

‘You own a property company. ScotLets. Is that correct?’ Irvine asked.

‘Yes. Is there a problem with it?’

‘Not that we’re aware of, no.’

‘You have a flat in Bridgeton?’ Armstrong said.

Both men looked at him.

‘You rent it to a couple of women.’

Scott shifted in his seat. Marshall remained still.

‘Is that what this is about?’ Scott asked.

‘You know what they do for a living?’

‘I do now. But not when we rented to them.’

Irvine raised her eyebrows.

‘Come on. Is that the best you can do?’

‘It’s the truth. I mean, we have an agency that rents all the properties for us. We trust them to get all the references and stuff.’

‘So long as the money rolls in you don’t care.’

‘That’s not what I said. It’s a respected agency. We don’t have the time to do all of that ourselves.’

‘It’s true,’ Marshall added.

‘But you know about these particular tenants. About what they do to earn a living and pay your rent?’

‘We started getting complaints about them from one of the other tenants in the building,’ Scott said. ‘They got the company name from the lease and called here direct to complain rather than going through the agency.’

‘And you didn’t do anything about it?’

‘We left it to the agency.’

‘It’s been tough in the property market,’ Marshall said.

‘So any tenant is a good tenant?’

‘Something like that.’

Irvine believed what they were saying, didn’t see any ‘tells’ to indicate that they were lying.

‘Can you give us details of the agency?’ she asked.

‘Sure, I’ve got it here.’

Marshall reached into his jacket and took out a business card which he handed to Irvine. She looked at it briefly, saw that it was one of the big commercial agencies with an office in the city centre.

‘One of the women died,’ Armstrong said. ‘Joanna Lewski. We’re treating it as murder.’

‘My God,’ Scott said, his tanned face going pale.

‘Is that why you’re here?’ Marshall asked. ‘You think we had something to do with it?’

‘We follow all lines of inquiry. This is one of them.’

‘If we knew anything, we would tell you.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Scott said, almost as though he was no longer listening.

‘You seem awful upset about a woman you didn’t know,’ Irvine said.

Scott looked at her.

‘It’s just … I don’t know.’

Irvine stood.

‘We’ll be speaking to your agency.’

Outside in the car, Irvine asked what Armstrong thought about Scott’s reaction to the news of Lewski’s death.

‘Yeah, I saw that.’

‘What do you think? Did he know her?’

‘It’s funny. His reaction. Those two uniforms we spoke to.’

‘I know. This girl seemed to have an effect on men.’

‘Difficult to tell why from the way we found her.’

‘I didn’t get the impression he was lying to us.’

‘I agree. So what do you want to do about it?’

‘It wasn’t the reaction of someone who had anything to hide. More like he was shocked. Like he just found out about it.’

‘Yeah.’

‘If we can get the lab results and look at the CCTV recordings and then go see this agency …’ She waved the card Scott had given her. ‘Something’s going to break on this. I can feel it.’

5

Irvine put an elbow on her desk and propped her chin up on her hand. She could feel her lower lip pouting and tried to pull it back in. Armstrong was sitting beside her and tried his best to look sympathetic.

Jim Murphy was used to pouting detectives.

‘You know how it is,’ he said to Irvine. ‘This blood stuff takes time. I’ve been up to the top floor twice already today but those lab guys can’t be rushed. It’ll be done when it’s done.’

Irvine leaned back in her chair and rubbed at her eyes, suddenly feeling tired.

‘What about CCTV? They delivered the recordings yet?’

‘Oh, sure. I got an e-mail with all that stuff in digital format. Save me logging on to try to find it.’

‘Anything on it?’

He looked at his watch. Stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and looked back at Irvine.

‘Came over less than an hour ago. So …’

‘You haven’t looked at it yet?’

‘No.’

‘But you know how to, right? I mean, you can read the angles, know where the cameras are pointed, judge distances.’

‘Yeah, I can do that.’

‘Any chance you can make a start on it today?’

He looked at his watch again. Now rubbing at imaginary stubble on his clean-shaven face. He pushed his glasses up on to the bridge of his nose.

‘Well …’

‘It’s a murder inquiry, Jim. Please.’

‘Fine. But it’ll just be a start. There’s a lot of stuff on there and it’s …’ He checked his watch. Again. ‘After three now.’

‘I appreciate it, Jim. I do.’

Irvine gave him her best smile: figured if she couldn’t appeal to his sense of civic duty she’d try another route. Feminine wiles. Not subtle. Murphy didn’t go for it.