The Eyewitness (26 page)

“You didn't take any case so personally when you were a cop.”

“You had to have been there,” said Solomon.

“A whole extended family, murdered together. Someone has to do something, not to make it right but to get justice for them.”

“But why you?” asked Sean.

“I don't think the War Crimes Tribunal will take on the case so it's up to me.”

“He's like the bloody Terminator,” said Sean.

“He's going to get himself killed,” Diane said.

“You realise that the girl herself might have had you shot?”

“She's just a kid,” said Solomon.

“She's being used, I'm sure of that. For all we know, they might have killed her too.”

“Jack, please,” said Diane, 'can't you let sleeping dogs lie?"

“No, I can't.”

Diane had a powerful desktop computer in her study and she showed Solomon how to log on to her Internet server before leaving for work.

“There's food in the fridge, so help yourself,” she said, and headed out of the front door.

Solomon used one of his crutches to get himself into the kitchen where he made himself some coffee. His leg didn't hurt, but the cast was heavy and awkward so he needed at least one crutch to steady himself. The biggest problem was the itching inside the cast. A nurse had given him a knitting-needle to get at it but even that only provided temporary relief.

He limped back to the study and put the mug down next to the computer. He lowered himself on to the chair and dialled up the Internet connection. He launched the browser and clicked through to www. legal-escorts. com then to the page with the pictures of the girls. Nicole had gone. There was a girl called Amy, but she was a statuesque blonde. The agency had a contacts page and he clicked through to it. There was no address, just a mobile phone number and an email address, bookings legal-escorts. com Solomon sat back and sipped his coffee. He was back looking for a needle in a haystack.

His fingers played across the keyboard and he logged on to the Punternet database. He searched for a report on Amy of Legal Escorts, but there was nothing. He went through to the website's message board and posted a message using the alias "Legman', asking if anyone knew the whereabouts of Amy of Legal Escorts.

He spent the best part of two hours trawling through the various escort-agency sites but couldn't find her. That didn't necessarily mean that she'd left London: she might be working in a Soho walk-up or a massage parlour or a lap dancing club. The only way to find out was to talk to the agency, but if they hadn't told the police anything it was doubtful that they'd open up to him.

Solomon's Bosnian mobile phone rang and he picked it up. There was no incoming number but neither did it show "Number Withheld'. Solomon pressed the button to accept the call.

“Jack? Is that you?”

It was a woman's voice. Foreign.

“Nicole?”

“Hello, Jack. Can you hear me? It's Arnela.”

Chuck Miller's secretary. It was a bad connection, her voice faded in and out, and there was a satellite delay of almost a second each time she spoke.

“Arnela, yes, I can hear you.”

There was a series of rapid clicks and the line was clearer.

“Do you have an address in London?” she asked.

“I've a letter for you and I need to know where to send it.”

“I'm staying with friends for a few days. Who's the letter from?”

“Mr. Miller. Can you give me the address?”

“Just tell me what it says,” said Solomon.

“Mr. Miller said I should send it to you right away,” she said.

Solomon could feel that she was uncomfortable, but he pressed her none the less.

“Just read it to me, Arnela.”

“I can't, I'm sorry.”

“Is he there?”

There was a long pause. Solomon felt bad at putting her on the spot, but he knew the letter contained bad news and that Miller was hiding behind her.

“He's here, but he's in a meeting,” said Arnela.

“Come on, Arnela, what's going on?”

“Don't make this difficult for me, Jack. Please.”

“He's sacking me, isn't he?”

“Jack.. .”

“God knows how long a letter's going to take to reach me. Just tell me what Chuck's saying.”

“I'm really sorry.”

“It's not you, I know that.”

Arnela read the letter quickly. It was a typical Chuck Miller communication, carefully worded and impersonal. He used phrases like organisation al restructuring', 'expenditure forecasts' and 'performance indicators', but the meaning was clear: there was no longer a job for Solomon in the International War-dead Commission. He'd been sacked.

“I want to talk to him, Arnela,” he said, when she'd finished speaking.

“He won't talk to you,” she said.

“He's not in a meeting, is he?”

“Please, Jack.”

“He isn't, is he?”

“No. He's here, but he won't speak to you. I can't put you through.”

“What sparked this off?” asked Solomon.

“I've got to go, I'm sorry.”

“He knows what happened to me here, doesn't he?”

“He knows you were in hospital, yes.”

“How? Who told him?”

“This isn't fair,” whispered the secretary.

“I need this job. If I lose it how will I feed my children?”

Solomon felt guilty for pushing her so hard. She and her family depended on her job in a way that he could never appreciate. The only Bosnians except criminals with anything approaching a decent standard of living were those who worked for the internationals. He had no right to jeopardise what little she had. He apologised and cut the connection. There was no point in talking to Miller anyway. He wasn't a man to make snap judgements, or to be swayed by emotive arguments. He would not change his mind.

He sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. He had enough money in his bank account for at least six months, so he wasn't worried about being unemployed. And he knew that he'd have no problem getting work with an aid agency once it became known that he was available.

He lit a Marlboro. Where had Nicole gone? The fact that she had been removed from the agency's website so quickly was a clear sign that she had been involved in some way with the attack in McLaren's flat. He had to find her. Whatever the risk.

Solomon paid the cab driver and eased himself on to the pavement. He was only using one crutch and before long he hoped to manage with just a walking-stick. He'd cut a slit down a pair of his jeans to hide as much of the plaster cast as possible and pulled a pair of hiking socks over the end of the cast to cover his toes.

He pushed open the door and went into the pub. It was full of lunchtime drinkers, men in suits with soft drinks and worried frowns, builders in dusty overalls with pints of lager, and teenagers drinking alcopops and playing the fruit machine. Colin Duggan was sitting at a corner table reading the Evening Standard." a glass of whisky and ice in front of him. He didn't get up as Solomon eased himself down on to a wooden chair, his plaster cast to the side of the, table.

“You don't look too bad for a man who's been shot twice,” said Duggan.

“I was lucky.”

“When does the cast come off?”

“Week or two. Do you want another?”

Duggan nodded. Solomon ordered a double Bell's and a pint of lager.

“Did you talk to Hitchcock?”

“Why don't you ask him yourself?”

“Because you're in the job, and I'm not. Did you?”

“Yes but it's the last time I do you any favours.” Duggan leaned across the table.

“They don't know who runs the agency, but they spoke to a woman who claims to be in charge Anna Gregson, she's from Estonia but married a British teacher a while back.” He slid an envelope across the table. Solomon opened it and took out a single sheet of paper: Anna Gregson's name and address.

“Hitchcock is sure she's fronting for someone.”

“What about the agency? Where's it based?”

“They don't know.”

“Didn't they ask her?”

“She said she runs it from home.”

“Did they search her house?”

“First, why would they want to? Second, what judge would give them a warrant?”

“Because a few hours after I'd seen one of her escorts, two Russians were using me as target practice. She's Estonian, right? That's practically Russian.”

“I'm Welsh, and that doesn't make me English.”

The barman brought their drinks and put them on the table. Solomon paid him and waited until he'd walked away.

“Are they going to try and find out?”

“They've spoken to her. She said she had nothing to do with the shooting.”

“She's running an escort agency. Why don't they do her for living off immoral earnings?”

“They're not Vice cops. And women can't be done for living off immoral earnings. It's controlling prostitution for gain. Have you forgotten the drill already?”

“Why don't they get Vice on to it? Bust the agency, then get her to roll over on the real boss.”

Duggan took a long pull on his whisky.

“They keep a watching brief on the agency, same as they do on all of them. See who's working there. But as long as no punters get hurt they're not going to do anything. Have you any idea how much it would cost to mount an investigation? And for what?”

“Last time I looked it was seven years for controlling prostitution.”

“These days you'd be lucky to find a judge willing to send them down for a year. Out in six months with good behaviour. What's the point?”

“Sequestration of assets?”

“The money's washed faster than a sprinter's jockstrap. They spin it through cash companies then move it to offshore. Even if they went after the money, they'd be lucky to see ten per cent of it. So like I said, what's the point?”

“It's illegal, Colin. It's a fucking crime. Leaving aside the fact that they shot me.”

“It's a crime nobody cares about. London has a grand total of forty-eight Vice cops. They have more racism advisers than that, which shows you where the priorities lie.”

Solomon stubbed out his cigarette.

“So they're leaving it?”

“Hitchcock says they're still on it. But they're trying to trace the shooters rather than ride roughshod over the agency. The case stays open. If they hit anyone else, they'll be right on to it.”

“I need to find the girl,” said Solomon.

“Last time you spoke to her you spent a month in hospital.”

“And that's a good enough reason to talk to her again. I want to know why she's running.”

“You know damn well why she's running. You said she saw her family massacred in Kosovo. She's got to be terrified that the killers are going to track her down. And then you turn up banging on her door.”

“If she was hiding, she wouldn't have allowed her photograph to go up on the Internet.”

“Let it go,” said Duggan.

“Go back to where you came from and get on with your life.”

“I can't go back,” said Solomon.

“I've been sacked.”

“Why doesn't that surprise me?” said Duggan dourly.

Solomon held up the piece of paper.

“Who could I get to check out Gregson?”

“What's to check?” asked the policeman.

“She spoke to Hitchcock.”

“She lied to Hitchcock.”

“You don't know that. She might not have known anything about the Russians.”

“I'd bet money that if she doesn't she works for the guy who does.”

“Yeah, well, we'll never know, will we?”

Solomon put down the sheet of paper and sipped his lager.

“What if I go private?”

“You've got to be kidding.”

“I want to know where she works and who she works for. If Hitchcock and Vice aren't interested. I'll pay to have it done.” He slapped his plaster cast.

“It's not as if I can go running after her, is it?”

He drained his glass.

“If you do find out where the agency is, what then? Do you think they're going to break down and confess just because you wave your crutch at them?” Duggan grinned at the accidental pun.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“Who's good these days?”

“You're serious?”

“Do I look like I'm joking?”

Duggan took out a pen and scribbled a name and phone number on the sheet of paper.

“Don't tell him who sent you,” he said.

“If this goes tits up, I don't want to be involved.”

Solomon hobbled past an up market hair salon where all the stylists were model-pretty and dressed from head to foot in black. The customers were all middle-aged, overweight and dressed in designer clothes with faces stretched tight from plastic surgery. The contrast was stark: the old and ugly being tended by the young and beautiful. One of the stylists was barely out of her teens with straight blonde hair down to her tiny waist. She wore a tight black top that did nothing to conceal the shape of her perfect breasts, and her face could have graced the front cover of any of the top fashion magazines. Solomon wondered how much she earned cutting hair. Five hundred pounds a week, maybe a bit more. Solomon had seen girls on the Internet who were nowhere near as pretty and charged as much for one hour of their time.

He stopped and looked through the window. The girl's scissors flashed around the head of a woman in her late forties who sat flicking through a glossy magazine. He wondered how she had made her money: she didn't look like a high-powered businesswoman so she'd probably married a man with money. Did that make her any different from Nicole and the other agency girls? They sold themselves to lots of men; the woman in the chair had sold herself to one man. The principle was the same.

The woman looked up from her magazine and met Solomon's gaze. Her eyes were cold and flat, like glass. She stared at him with a look of open contempt, then went back to her magazine.

Solomon carried on along the road. To the side of the hairdresser's was a black door. There was a small brass plaque on the wall, labelled “Alex Knight Security', a button and a speaker grille. Solomon pressed the button and a woman's voice said, ”Hello."

Solomon gave his name, and the door buzzed. Solomon pushed it open and manoeuvred himself up a narrow flight of stairs. There was a second door at the top and he pushed it open with his shoulder.