‘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.’