Out of control (7 page)

“What!”

Liam broke in. “It’s true, Uncle Bob. When I think about it, if Irina wasn’t there Rémy and I talked about all sorts of normal things. But whenever the conversation touched on work, she always seemed to be there. And the night I blew the story of the ultra-violet, she was definitely there.”

That stunned me. If that was true, why she had so easily given us the information to help us find him? I expressed this out loud, Liam reminded me that all Irina had thought we were looking for was to get some money back. She had no idea that we suspected him of being the source of the leak back to France nor that he had been fired.

I thought over that for a second or two.

“Fair enough. So Irina was encouraging Rémy to pump you for information and she was quietly lapping it up and, we suppose, feeding it back to France?”

“Seems so.”

“In that case Irina must have been instructed to do so. By whom?”

“Who knows? Maybe directly from LyonPharma. Maybe from this drug network she’s tied up in.”

“Do we know who she worked for in France before she came over to the UK?” asked Pierre.

Liam and I shook our heads.

“You’d better get back to that copper of yours and see if you can see her again,” said Mike.

“Yes, I’ll do that later. At the moment we are a little bit further on but not much. You guys have done your bit. Liam and I will see if we can see Irina again. Hopefully MacLean will let us. I’d still like to find out a bit more about LyonPharma. Is there any way, Pierre, you could find out if Irina ever worked for them? Maybe that’s the link.”

“That’s a tall order but I can certainly go back and scout around and find out as much as I can that might be useful. Maybe Sophie can give me a hand.”

“You just make sure you keep Sophie out of harm’s way,” said Mike protectively.

“Don’t worry.”

I let them brain storm different courses of action.

Liam was looking much more relaxed because at least we now had 
confirmation that he
had
been set up. Mike was all for going straight through to the police in Stirling and getting them to help us interrogate Irina.

I was on another tack completely.

How had Irina known that Liam was the target? That he was working for Bioscope? And, for that matter, that Bioscope was close to solving their research effort? Certainly we knew that other companies would be aware of what they were working on but who knew Liam was working there?

I interrupted their reflections.

“Liam, how did you get to know Rémy in the first place? Do you remember?”

He thought for a minute. “It wasn’t long after I arrived. I bumped into him somewhere.”

He frowned for a moment. “That’s it. Now I remember. I was walking down from the Innovation Park towards the Atrium to get some lunch. He was going the same way and we just fell into conversation. We ended up having lunch together.”

“And was he already going out with Irina at the time?”

“No.”

“And when you spoke to him in Edinburgh did he say when Irina started asking him to find out stuff from you?”

“Apparently not long after they started going out, which was a couple of months after I met him. I remember him introducing us for the first time. In fact he reckons that she latched herself onto him because he was a friend of mine. He said he realised that after they had started going out and that’s why he eventually dumped her.

“He said he was getting fed up with his course anyway and didn’t like the idea that he was being used for something which didn’t interest him in the least. So he just upped and left.”

I glanced across at Pierre who was explaining to Mike about how you can find things out about companies quite easily if you know where to look. He was not going to like it one bit if I even hinted at my suspicions. As far as I could see the only person who knew that Liam was working for Bioscope was Antoine – and he was a shareholder in LyonPharma.

Shit, I thought to myself, this could become a bit messy.

I rejoined the discussion.

“Here’s what we’ll do, guys. In a few minutes I’ll phone Sergeant MacLean and explain what we’ve been told and see if there is any way we can talk to Irina again. Pierre, can you go back to France and start digging? None of the rest of us can do that because of the language problem.”

Then I had another thought.

“Liam, can you pop through to the computer and google LyonPharma to see if they’ve got a subsidiary in the UK and if so, where?”

“Sure.” He disappeared. He was back in a few minutes.

“They do. Their UK operations are run from their only subsidiary over here which is in Edinburgh,” he reported triumphantly.

“Is it now? Right, let’s get Steven onto it.”

During the AIM business I had enlisted the help of a young financial journalist who was the son of an old friend of ours when Liz had been alive. He had proved very confidential and useful and had had a neat scoop out of the affair. I wondered if he might be able to help by doing some digging around the LyonPharma’s Edinburgh operation. It was worth a try.

I got him first time and we had a catch up on his news. I learned that he and his girl friend were expecting a baby. I duly congratulated him. It was none of my business and I’m still a bit old-fashioned about these things but I did wonder why they hadn’t got married first. A trial period of living together I could understand but a trail period of parenting struck me as going a bit far – but then maybe I’m just a bit old- fashioned.

“Steven, any chance you could do a bit of scouting for me?” I asked him.

“Is there a story at the end of this one as well?”

“Frankly I’ve no idea but if there is you’ll get it,” I promised him.

“Fine. Who are you interested in?”

“Have you ever heard of a company called LyonPharma? They’re the UK subsidiary of a big French pharmaceutical outfit.”

“Are these not the guys who recently announced a big breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment?”

“That’s them.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just a profile – size, how many employees, the names of the directors etc. You know the kind of thing.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as you can. If you can give me a quick rundown and then I’ll let you know if I need more.”

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

I didn’t think it would tell me much but you never know.

I wrapped things up.

“Liam, you come with me into Stirling tomorrow if it’s OK with MacLean. If not, you can go off for a couple of days’ golf or hiking with your godfather. There’s nothing he can do at the moment.”

All nodded their agreement. So we had a plan - but plans can get blown apart.

My phone went. I looked at the number. It was the Stirling Police again. What could they want?

I answered. “Bob Bruce, hello.”

“Mr. Bruce, this is Sergeant MacLean from the police in Stirling.”

“Good afternoon, sergeant, how are you?”

“Fine thank you, sir. Am I disturbing you?”

“No. Go ahead.”

I had hit the loudspeaker button as soon as I knew who it was so that the others could hear.

“First of all, did you find your man in Edinburgh?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Good. Subsequent to our last meeting something has happened at this end which I need to talk to you about. Could you please come through and see me tomorrow – with your grandson?”

“Certainly. What’s happened?”

“The body of Irina Vasilescu has just been hauled out of the Forth near Bannockburn. Forensics say she has been dead for about six hours and it is being treated as murder. Can I be sure that you will be through tomorrow? I can assure you that you’re not a suspect but we thought you might be able to help us.”

We looked at each other with horror and astonishment. I assured him we’d be there and switched off the phone and chucked it onto the table in disgust.

What in the hell had we got ourselves into…..?

When Liam and I arrived at the police station the following morning we were greeted by a harassed-looking Sergeant MacLean. He welcomed us with some signs of relief and ushered us straight away into the same room as before.

“Coffee? Right. Be back in a minute.” And he disappeared.

He was back shortly with a tray of four cups of coffee, accompanied by a younger man whom he introduced as D. I. Ross. Ross was a neat and intelligent-looking man who looked as if he was in his early forties. He shook hands with us, thanked us for coming in and sat down at the head of the table in a business-like fashion. The pad he had been carrying was placed neatly in front of him. He took out a pen which he laid beside the pad and looked up at us.

“Gentlemen, I’ll start by saying that Sergeant MacLean here has informed me of everything that has happened concerning you both. Let me summarise what I know and you can confirm it.”

There seemed no need for us to reply so we just nodded.

“But first let’s get rid of one thing.” He addressed himself to me. “You are Mr. Robert Bruce and this is your grandson Liam?”

“Correct”.

He wrote the date and our two names at the top of the page.

“For the record, can you tell me where you were between the evening of the day before yesterday and yesterday midday? Liam?”

“I was in Edinburgh all that evening and yesterday morning I was driving back to my grandfather’s house in Letham. I was with my godfather Mike, my grandfather’s brother, all the time and he can confirm it.”

He noted this down and, at the same time, without looking up, asked me the same question.

I told him that I had been golfing at Kingsbarns and returned home and spent the evening and the following morning there. “I was with my half-brother Pierre all the time and he can confirm it.” He scribbled on. When he had finished he put the pen down and leant back in his chair.

“Now, here is what I understand. A couple of days after Liam’s overnight stay with us you came to see Sergeant MacLean because you’d seen a photograph of Irina Vasilescu in the newspaper. You asked him if there was any way you could get access to her to ask her a couple of questions about her boyfriend, whom Liam knew, but who had seemingly disappeared. The reason you wanted to find this man was that you suspected he had been pumping Liam for confidential information about a very valuable research project which his employers were working on. Is that right?”

“That’s correct.”

“As far as I’m concerned that is not my business. There is no crime involved. However, if it has any bearing on my investigation into this unfortunate girl’s death, then it is my business.”

He continued.

“Sergeant MacLean was bending the rules in allowing you to speak to her but I’m prepared to overlook that. What is more important is that you seemed to have learned something from her about the whereabouts of the man you wanted to find – a certain Rémy - and apparently you confirmed to Sergeant MacLean yesterday afternoon on the phone that you had manage to locate him. Am I still correct?”

Liam answered.

“Yes. We did find him, in Edinburgh, and he told us that he had nothing to with the passing of confidential information to the company in France. In fact he said that it was Miss Vasilescu who had asked him to enquire about my work and that, in his opinion, she was the one who must have passed the information.”

I broke in. “I only learned this yesterday when Liam arrived back from Edinburgh. As you can imagine I was hoping that there might be a way of getting back in touch with her to check this and was about to phone Sergeant MacLean when he phoned me.”

He took a few more notes. While he was doing this I asked him if the police were absolutely sure that it was murder. He told us there was no doubt about it.

“The details needn’t concern you but it has been confirmed that she was dead before she was put in the river and there is evidence of strangulation.”

While he continued to write I took advantage of the moment to raise a questioning eyebrow at Sergeant MacLean who gave a faint nod and said to us “Inspector Ross is aware of the fact that I told you both a bit about the girl’s background which came out after she cracked up the other day.”

Ross finished and took back control of the conversation.

“Yes. You can imagine therefore that we do have a lead for possible investigation. But I don’t see us having much success. If it’s the drug business, most of the traffic comes from down south and we’ve no leads up here. The girl lived on her own and nobody has come forward claiming they know her in spite of our requests.”

He turned to Liam. ”Can you give us the name and address of this Rémy or tell us how we can get in touch with him?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have his address. And I don’t even know his surname. All I can do is tell you that he hangs around the Saltire pub in the High Street in Edinburgh. We got that from Irina and that’s where we found him.”

He noted down the pub’s name and said he would try to get some help from Edinburgh to follow up.

“I seriously doubt that Rémy had anything to do with it,” ventured Liam.

“Nor do I, but we have to follow up all leads. He may be able to give us the names of people whom she knew. You never know.”

He put away his pen and made as if to leave.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for coming through. You’ve been a help. Before you leave there is something I can do for you, Liam, which might put your mind at rest about this patent business.”

He pulled a plastic envelope out of his pocket and handed it over to us. “We found this in Miss Vasilescu’s affairs. It seems to prove that she was the one who was responsible for your indiscretion getting back to France.”

Inside there was an envelope and a small piece of paper. The envelope bore a French stamp and was addressed to Irina Vasilescu. The piece of paper simply read, in printed letters, ‘Liam Bruce, Bioscope, Stirling University Campus, Ecosse’.

“That looks like proof enough that she had her instructions from France and your guy, Rémy, was telling the truth. I hope that helps. It’s of no real relevance to us because I can’t see that being the reason behind her death. After all, passing information is not a criminal offence.”