Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) (33 page)

Erik Aarma had agreed to meet Banks and Joanna in the hotel lobby at five o’clock, and they spent the time in between talking to Rätsepp and meeting Erik going over their notes and clarifying theories. Both agreed that Rätsepp hadn’t been much use and had told them nothing Annie hadn’t already gleaned from reading over Quinn’s files.

It had taken a long time to set the investigation in motion, Banks thought, but that was more than likely for the reasons Rätsepp had given: the memory of the girls, or lack of it, being paramount. For a start, the police didn’t hear about the disappearance until the following day, and the girls were unable to give an accurate account of where they went, what they did and who they talked to, even on Monday morning. Thus, Rachel had been missing for close to thirty-six hours before anything approaching an investigation stumbled into motion. By then, of course, the rest of that night’s revellers were long gone.

Perhaps if one of the girls had pushed a little harder a little sooner and reported Rachel missing to the police the night she had got lost, rather than the following morning, something more might have been done. But that was a long shot. Rachel was nineteen, hardly a minor, and there was no guarantee that the police would start an immediate all-out search for her. Most likely they wouldn’t, unless they had good reason to think something had happened to her. It was natural enough to think that she may have simply wandered off, or met some young man, and would turn up by morning. It is all very well to apportion blame in retrospect, but at the time, nobody thought for a moment that they were never going to see Rachel again, that she was about to disappear from the face of the earth. You don’t plan for these things; nobody is ever prepared.

Erik Aarma was a big bearded bear of a man with piercing blue eyes and straggly, ill-cut hair, wearing a baggy checked work shirt and jeans. He was carrying a scuffed leather satchel of the kind Banks used to carry back and forth to school every day, in the days before rucksacks became de rigeur. He wished he had kept his now; it looked cool.

Erik lowered his bulk into the semicircular Naugahyde chair and apologised for being late. He gave no reason, and Banks suspected he was a person who was rarely on time. They ordered coffees and quickly got down to business. Joanna had agreed to make notes, so she took out her notebook and pen. Erik’s English was excellent, and it turned out he had worked in London on the
Independent
for a few years. Banks was wondering if he would ever run into an Estonian who needed a translator. That reminded him to get in touch with Merike soon.

As a rule, Banks didn’t trust journalists; in the past they had screwed up so many of his cases in the name of people’s right to know. But he felt he had no choice as far as Mihkel and Erik were concerned. They were his only allies, and Mihkel was dead. Bill Quinn had clearly trusted Mihkel enough to become friends with him. This from a man who, according to his own daughter, didn’t have many friends outside work, followed solo pursuits, preferred his own company. Now Banks was in a position of wanting to trust Erik a lot more than he had trusted Toomas Rätsepp. He hoped his faith would be justified.

Erik’s handshake was firm, and his anger and sadness over the loss of his friend and colleague clearly genuine. ‘I do not know how I can help,’ he said, glancing from Banks to Joanna and back, ‘but I promise I will do what I can.’

‘Thank you,’ Banks said.

‘Poor Merike. She must be heartbroken.’

‘She was very upset, yes,’ said Banks. ‘Perhaps you’d like to call her?’

‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

‘How long have you worked with Mihkel?’

‘Fifteen years. Ever since he began to work at the paper.’

‘Was that before “
Pimeduse varjus
”?’

‘Yes. He worked on general duties at first, then he later came to specialise in crime stories. He started the column in 2001. Sometimes others contribute, but it was his idea in the beginning. Can you give me any idea what happened to him? The stories we heard were very vague.’

Banks quickly weighed his options before answering and decided that, given the information he wanted from Erik, it would be best to tell him as much as realistically possible. ‘He was found dead at an abandoned farm called Garskill in remote North Yorkshire last Saturday morning. We think he had been dead since the Wednesday before. The place looked as if it had been home to a group of about twenty bonded or migrant workers, possibly illegal, most likely Eastern European. We found a paperback book on one of the mattresses, and it turned out to be in Polish. When we found Mihkel, everyone else was gone, and we suspect that they left for work on Wednesday morning and were later directed to new quarters. We haven’t been able to discover where they are yet.’

‘But how did he die? How did you come to find him there?’

Banks paused. ‘He was drowned,’ he said. ‘In a water trough. We know it wasn’t accidental because there were bruises to indicate he had been held under. I’m sorry if this is distressing, but you asked, and I’m telling you as much as I can.’

‘I’m all right. Please go on.’

‘There isn’t much more to tell,’ Banks said.

‘I talked to Mihkel on Tuesday evening,’ Erik said. ‘He told me he was calling from a telephone box. He had to be very careful. The men in charge were suspicious because someone had smuggled a mobile phone into another group and used it to take photographs and make calls to a Lithuanian magazine.’

‘What did you talk about?’ Banks asked.

‘Conditions there. He said they were terrible. It was cold. There were holes in the roof. They did not get much food, and what they did get was bad. The pay was low.’

‘Where were they working?’

‘Different places. A chicken hatchery. A frozen-food factory. A chemical-packing plant.’

‘Can I get the full details from you later?’ Banks asked. ‘We’ll need to track these places down. That’s not my immediate concern, but it will have to be done.’

‘Of course.’

‘So he was writing a story for you about this?’

‘Yes. We have known about these illegal labour schemes for a long time, but Mihkel thought it would be useful to go undercover, to follow one from the beginning to the end and write an in-depth article. He could not know what that end would be, of course. That it would be his own.’

‘Did he mention someone called Quinn at all? Bill Quinn?’

‘Bill? But yes, of course. They had talked.’

‘That was all he said, that they had talked?’

‘He spoke about another story, a possibly big story, but that was all he could say.’

‘And this was connected with Bill Quinn?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you have any idea what it was?’

‘No. Not unless Bill Quinn had found out what happened to Rachel Hewitt.’

‘Or had always known,’ Banks said to himself.

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Nothing. So you know about that, about Rachel?’

‘Of course. That was how they met, Bill and Mihkel. The Rachel Hewitt case. Mihkel wrote much about it, and he and Bill became friends. They kept in touch over the years.’

‘The thing is,’ Banks said, ‘Bill Quinn was killed, too, around the same time and, we believe, by the same person.’

Erik’s mouth opened and flapped like a landed fish. He rubbed his forehead. ‘I . . . I don’t . . .’

‘I know. It’s very confusing,’ Banks said. ‘We don’t pretend to know what’s going on, but there are some very far-reaching connections here. One of them is the Rachel Hewitt case, and another is the migrant labour scheme you mentioned, the one Mihkel was writing about and Bill Quinn was investigating. Have you ever heard of a man called Corrigan? Warren Corrigan?’

Erik thought for a moment, then said, ‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘No matter,’ Banks went on. ‘Can you tell me how Mihkel ended up in North Yorkshire?’

‘His story?’

‘Yes.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Erik. ‘It’s not as if he can tell it himself now, is it?’

‘It might help us catch his killer.’

Erik thought for a moment, then a brief smile flickered through his beard. ‘I am sorry. It is difficult for me, as a journalist, to give information to police. Old habits die hard.’

‘If it’s any consolation,’ Banks said. ‘It’s very difficult for me even to be in the same room as a journalist.’

Erik stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. Joanna joined in. ‘I have no problem with most journalists,’ she said. ‘We’d very much appreciate it if you could give us a few details.’

‘Of course. As I said, it was Mihkel’s idea. Well, mostly.’

‘Pardon me for interrupting so early,’ said Banks, ‘but was that usually the case with his stories, or was he given assignments?’

‘It varied. Sometimes, if a subject was hot at the moment, he would be given an assignment like any other reporter. But something like this, something that would take him undercover for some time, and perhaps expose him to danger, that would have to be his own idea.’

‘I see. Carry on.’

‘Like most of us, Mihkel had heard about unskilled workers heading for what they thought was a paradise in the UK and other countries, and finding quite the opposite. He wanted to follow the whole process through every stage, find out who the main players were and how it was done. It was actually Bill who told him about this.’

‘Bill Quinn sent Mihkel in there?’

‘No. No. He simply told Mihkel about how the business operated and gave him the name of the agency in Tallinn. It was Mihkel who had the idea to start at the beginning and follow the trail. He was always . . . what would you say?’

‘Adventurous? Impetuous?’

‘Both,’ said Erik, smiling sadly.

‘Did he send you written reports?’

‘No. Not this time. It was too risky. No phones, no cameras, no paper and pencil. We talked on the telephone, and I made notes. He was allowed out, of course, when he wasn’t working. They weren’t prisoners. At least not prisoners in solid prisons. You understand?’

‘I think so,’ said Banks. ‘He was living in a very remote place. It was a two-mile walk to the telephone. Did you write up the reports in Estonian?’

‘Of course.’

‘OK. Go on. Can you give me the gist?’

‘It’s a simple enough story. He first approached an agency here in Tallinn, where they charged him two hundred euros, gave him a telephone number and told him there was a job waiting for him in Leeds.’

‘Did they say what kind of job?’

‘No. But he knew it would be casual labour of some sort, perhaps in a factory, or on a battery farm. About fifty hours a week at minimum wage. I think that is about seven euros an hour, perhaps a little more. That’s three hundred and thirty euros a week, anyway. He travelled by train and was met at St Pancras by another agent of the company, who asked for another two hundred euros. So already this job had cost Mihkel four hundred euros and his travel expenses. For all this he had no receipt. The man told him he could get a train to Leeds at King’s Cross, just across the road, and he disappeared with the money. Mihkel never saw him again.’

‘These people, the agents, do you know their names?’

‘Yes. The man in London was a Latvian, but he worked with the same agency as the one in Tallinn.’

‘If it came to it, would you turn these names over to the police or the immigration authorities?’

Erik hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It would be . . . perhaps unethical. Even though Mihkel is dead. I would have to think.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘No pressure.’ Not yet, he thought.

‘Mihkel went to Leeds and contacted the number he had been given. It was a staffing agency.’

‘It wouldn’t happen to be called Rod’s Staff Ltd, would it?’

Erik’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Run by a Mr Roderick Flinders?’

‘Yes. The agency said they had never heard of Mihkel, that there must have been some mistake, there was no job waiting for him in Leeds, but they might be able to help him. They gave him a bed in a room shared by ten people in a converted barn outside Otley and told him to wait for further instructions. Four days later he was told he was moving to another area right away. They took him to that farm you mentioned, where he was killed three weeks later.’

‘What happened during those three weeks?’

‘The conditions were terrible, Mihkel told me, and he was sharing with about twenty people. They had only one toilet, a shower that mostly did not function. Filthy drinking water.’

‘I’ve seen it,’ said Banks. ‘I know.’

‘Then you will understand. Did you also know that not all the workers were men? There were three young women also, and two couples, all together in the same damp, cold dormitory. Sometimes some of the men tried to touch the women. There were fights. Mihkel said he tried to help. He spoke to a girl from Poland and another from Lithuania. The third girl never talked to anybody. Mihkel didn’t know where she was from, but her skin was darker. He thought Kazakhstan, or Georgia, perhaps. For the privilege of living there, they had to pay Rod’s Staff Ltd. Sixty euros each week in rent. This was deducted from their pay.’