Out of control (5 page)

“That’s Will,” said Liam, indicating a young bearded scruff at the end of the bar who was serving some other customers.”

“Let me try speaking to him.”

We waited until Will drifted down to our end and I signalled him over. “Will, I understand you know this guy?”

“Sure,” he replied. “Sorry I couldn’t help you about Rémy,” he said to Liam.

“It’s about that that I wanted to speak to you, Will. I’m Liam’s grandfather and we desperately need to get in contact with him. Are you sure you have no idea where he went?”

“As I told Liam, last time I saw him he had a large suitcase with him and he just told me he was off.”

“Off back home?”

“No, just off.”

“If he’d been going home he would probably have said so, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, well maybe.”

”Did you notice if his suitcase had a label on it?”

“Didn’t notice it.”

“What colour was it?”

“Blue.” After a few seconds reflection. “And, wait a minute; it didn’t have any label on it now that I think about it.”

“Which means?” I asked turning to Liam. “He wasn’t planning to take a plane and probably not a train either.” “Bus or car?”

“He didn’t have a car.”

“Right. Let’s assume then he was planning to take a bus. He would have his luggage with him all the time so he wouldn’t need a label.”

“Or someone was giving him a lift somewhere?” broke in Will.

“True.”

I thought for a moment.

“Do you remember what he was wearing?” I asked Will.

Will’s brow furrowed as he polished a couple of glasses.

“Jeans, red anorak. I remember that because there was something sticking out of his pocket which fell out onto the floor.”

He stopped. ”Hey, it was a street plan of Edinburgh. I remember now.” He was looking very pleased with himself. He chuckled away as he polished on. “Amazing, isn’t it? The things you don’t notice until you think about them,” he said and wandered off down the bar to serve a couple of customers that he hadn’t noticed until he thought about them.

I grinned and turned to Liam.

“I reckon there’s a good chance that your mate Rémy went to Edinburgh. I don’t know whether that gets us any further but let’s get back to your Aunt Heather’s and think about it.”

“Liam,” I said, as we drove through Bridge of Allan on the way back to the farm, “I think it’s time to get the team together.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your godfather, your Uncle Pierre and I got together last year to look into something. I think we’ll get together again and dig into this. Legally no crime has been committed as far as I know but someone has screwed up Helen Mackie and my family and I don’t like it. Whether we can find anything out I haven’t a clue but I reckon we should have a go. Are you planning to go back to Oz?”

“Don’t know. Hadn’t really thought about it. Originally I wasn’t due to go back for another couple of months.”

“OK. Hang around for a while; you might be useful for a bit of legwork which your creaking old ancestor can’t manage.”

“You’re not an ancestor. Ancestors are dead.”

“Right.”

“What happened last year?” he asked me after a moment.

“Ask your Aunt Heather. She’ll tell you. I don’t think she particularly approved but we did it anyway.”

We got back to the farm and unloaded Liam’s gear. Oliver and Heather offered to put him up for a while until he decided what his next move would be.

I decide to get on the phone to Pierre and Mike and gather the troops. Mike was going to be needed for scouring Edinburgh to try and locate this Rémy character and Pierre would be useful if we needed someone in France.

I called Mike first.

“Hello?”

“Mike, it’s Bob. How’re things? What are you up to?”

“Not much. Sophie’s just gone back to France this morning so I’m sitting around wondering what to do for the next week or so. You?”

“There’s been a wee problem with your godson. We’re both at Heather’s. Fancy coming down tomorrow? We’ve come across something to dig into that might alleviate your boredom.”

“Not as hairy as last time, I hope.”

“Doubt it,” I said…… but even I can be wrong.

*

Mike agreed to come down from Forfar and promised to arrive for lunch. I went through to inform Heather who muttered something under her breath about ‘treating her house as a bloody hotel’. The attempted apologetic hug and kiss on the cheek were shrugged off.

I then got on the phone to Pierre. We’d got into the habit of calling once a week to keep in touch. This time there was some information I wanted. I told him that I had read recently of a major drug breakthrough which had been discovered by a company called LyonPharma.

“Wasn’t that the company that Antoine used to work for?” (and still has a pile of shares in – although I didn’t mention that reflection).

“Yes. Antoine must be pleased. It won’t do their share price any harm.” I agreed. I then asked him if he felt like coming over for a couple of days. I offered him a round of golf at Kingsbarns which I knew would tempt him. Being on his own and money being no object, Pierre could take decisions like that at the drop of a hat.

“Kingsbarns? Are you paying? Ok. I’ll come over the day after tomorrow.”

We agreed that he would hire a car and drive over to Letham and stay with me.

I 
sat back, lips pursed, and tried not to think of Antoine de Clermont.

Early next morning, around ten – which is early for me – Liam and I were sitting in the living room. He was looking ridiculously healthy, having been up at six, and had been out riding one of Heather’s several horses. He’d come back in apparently around eight and wolfed a hearty breakfast. I marvelled at the powers of recuperation of the young – I’d forgotten all about that.

I was expecting Mike around eleven and I had fixed up a tee-off time for Pierre and me for the next day. I’d be going back to Letham this afternoon and Pierre was due to arrive in the evening. I’d also got in my usual ‘How are things?’ phone call to Maggie, promising that we’d see each other at the weekend.

Liam had recounted the tale of his morning. It made me feel tired and sore just listening to him. He then asked me if everything that his aunt had told him the evening before about our run in with the AIM investment fund a few months ago was true. ”

Probably,” I replied.”Your aunt does have a tendency to tell the truth, but she may have embellished it a little.” We chatted briefly about what had happened and I filled in some of the details that Heather hadn’t known about.

When I’d satisfied his curiosity he leaned forward and picked up a copy of the local paper which was lying on the table beside us and started to flick through it. I was aware of him stopping for a second. He got up and went towards the window with a strange expression on his face. He seemed to be staring at something. After a moment he turned to me.

“Uncle Bob, can I show you something?”

“Sure.”

He came over, folding back the newspaper and thrust it into my hand. There was an article by a reporter called Gregor Black about drug problems in Stirling. As an introduction to the topic he had used an arrest that had taken place the day before and they had printed a photograph of the girl concerned. I scanned it briefly. She had apparently been arrested for possession of cocaine and had been released with a warning. Gregor Black was complaining about the leniency of our treatment of the problem. The girl was a Romanian called Irina Vasilescu.

I looked up at Liam. “And…?”

He took the paper back and pointing to the photograph he announced “That’s Irina, Rémy’s girlfriend. She was often with him.”

I took another looked at the photo.

“Is it really? So what?”

“She might know where he is, don’t you think?”

So early in the morning my brain isn’t at its best.

“That’s true.”

I read the article again in more detail. I agreed with nearly all of Mr. Black’s comments but there was no more information about where this girl might be.

“Are you sure it’s her?” I asked Liam.

“Certain.”

“Right,” I said and eased into action, pulling my phone out of my pocket in six seconds flat.

“What was the name of that copper? Ah, yes – Sergeant MacLean.” I dialled the number and asked to be put through to him. It turned out that he had answered the phone himself.

“Good morning, Sergeant. This is Bob Bruce. We met yesterday, if you remember - when I came to collect my grandson.”

“Yes, sir, I certainly do remember you. What can I do for you?”

“Sergeant, would I be disturbing you if I came by to speak to you about something? Are you on duty all morning? I can’t really explain on the phone.”

“No problem, sir. I’ll be at the front desk all morning.”

“Thank you.” I turned to Liam. “Do you want to come?”

“Sure.”

We warned Heather that we mightn’t be back before Mike arrived but we’d return as soon as possible. As usual we got “Where are you going? The Police station? What for?”

“Tell you later,” and we left.

As promised, Sergeant MacLean was at the desk when he arrived.

“Come to book him back in again, sir?” he asked jovially.

Liam had the grace to blush.

“Sergeant, is there an office where we could discuss something quietly for five minutes?”

He agreed immediately and, telling one of his constables to “mind the store”, he took us down a short corridor and showed us into a simple office.

We had brought a copy of the newspaper with us and as we sat down I folded it open at the relevant page and showed it to him.

“Sergeant, were you by any chance on duty when this girl was arrested?”

He looked at it, looked up at us both and, putting the paper back down on the table, asked us why we wanted to know.

I then explained to him the whole story about what had happened to Liam and how we were trying to locate a certain ‘Rémy’ in order to try to find out what had really happened. Liam had recognized the photo in the paper as being Rémy’s girlfriend and we just wanted to get in touch with her to ask her if she knew where he was. Could he help us? Sergeant MacLean thought this over for a few moments and told us that he was sorry but he couldn’t give us her address.

The he asked Liam “Is this the reason you ended up in my cell the other night?”

“Yes,” he admitted. “I was so mad at getting fired because I was certain that I had been set up by this guy Rémy. When I found that Rémy had disappeared I went out and got drunk. I’m sorry I caused you trouble but I won’t be doing it again.”

He was clearly sympathetic towards Liam and agreed to bend the rules a bit.

“As I said, I can’t give you’re her address but what I could perhaps do is let you ask your question in my presence, if that’s any help, and you assure me that that is all you want to find out. As part of the conditions of her release she has to report in here to me once a week for the next three months. She is due here tomorrow morning. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to ask her what she knows about this guy’s whereabouts – but with me present. Would that help? I can’t do any more. Sorry.”

“That would be great,” I replied. “What time tomorrow?”

“Ten a.m.”

We took our leave and drove back to the farm where Mike had just arrived. He was delighted to see his godson again and I told him we had a story to recount but it would have to wait until after lunch.

It was a warm afternoon so we took three beers out to the back and sat for a few minutes watching the ducks on the pond, the horses in the fields and the mountains in the distance. Altogether a long way from industrial espionage.

I needed Mike’s help. I had a vague idea of what we should try next but Mike was the better man for the job. Younger and fitter than me and with his army background he was more likely to be able, with Liam’s help, to track down the missing Rémy.

When I had finished explaining to him what had happened he was both astonished and intrigued.

“Sophie’s gone back to France for at least ten days,” he said “and I’ve not got anything planned. What have you got in mind to do next? If there’s a French connection will Pierre be helping?”

“He’s coming over tomorrow,” I said.

I hadn’t mentioned to either of them the little twitch that was running around in the back of my mind concerning Antoine. He had seemed a totally straight guy and there was the complication of Pierre and Madeleine and his friendship with him. I would wait until things became clearer. The first objective was to track down Rémy.

“So APA Consultants is back in action,” said Mike.

Liam looked mystified until Mike added a little bit more of the story of our recent venture.

“Liam and I are going in to the police in Stirling tomorrow to see if this girl, Irina, can help us in any way to track down Rémy. She may or may not be able to but it’s the only lead we have. We think he’s gone to Edinburgh.”

Liam explained to Mike how we had come to this tentative conclusion. “A bit thin, isn’t it?” was his response.

“We don’t have anything else to go on until we’ve seen this girl tomorrow. If she confirms that he’s in Edinburgh and can give us an idea of his likely haunts are you up to taking Liam and doing a bit of scouting around?”

“Sure. No problem. I haven’t got any other plans.”

*

Liam and I turned up the next morning at the police station and Sergeant MacLean showed us into the same small room that we had been in the day before. 

“She hasn’t arrived yet,” he said “but when she comes I’ll bring her along.”

Five minutes later the door opened and he came in with the young girl whom I recognised from the newspaper photograph.

She looked a little nervous but he tried to put her at her ease.

“Please sit down, Miss Vasilescu. These gentlemen have asked if they could talk to you for a few minutes because they want to ask you if you could help them with something. There’s no need to be worried. I’ll be here all the time.”

She looked at each of us. She didn’t recognize Liam at first which wasn’t surprising because the place and circumstances were completely different from previous encounters.