‘Oh, take my word for it, not is best. As for Bill Quinn... I don’t know. He’s dead. I think that whatever I have to say, I’ll do my best to make sure it remains internal, depending on how far he went. Unless anyone else, anyone still alive, that is, turns out to be involved. There’s still the possibility that someone was manipulating him, though, that he was a rotten apple.’
‘Do you think that’s the case?’
‘I don’t know. Tell me what you think. Instruct me, oh great homicide cop.’
Banks finished his glass and poured another. Joanna held her glass out, too. He emptied the bottle. They were both a little tipsy, partly with the success of the day, and partly with the wine. ‘Larisa worked at that club I saw just around the corner from St Patrick’s. A waiter in the pub said he thought he saw Rachel turn the wrong way when she went out after her friends, but later he said he wasn’t certain.’
‘She didn’t even know where her friends were going.’
‘Let’s assume she went the wrong way. The others turned right. Rachel turned left.’
‘OK. I’m with you so far. But after that?’
‘After that, it gets a bit speculative, of course, but I think I’m assuming that Juliya’s boyfriend was involved somehow, by the sound of him. Joosep. Perhaps Rachel wandered into the club, intrigued by the sign, the lack of a name, whatever, and she bumped into him. He liked blondes, remember.’
‘He liked anything in a skirt, according to Larisa.’
‘But blondes especially. Rachel was a very pale blonde. And very lovely. I think he turned on his charm, or he did the caveman routine, one or the other, and he got her away from there, back to his flat, or wherever. Maybe she felt she was in a new exciting city, so she should have an adventure. Everyone seemed to think she was an impulsive and spontaneous sort of girl. I don’t know the details. But I think she soon realised what a big mistake she’d made, and perhaps she struggled. He didn’t like to let her go. He liked his own way. I think he had it, and then he got rid of her.’
‘How? Where?’
‘I don’t know the answers to that yet.’
‘How does DI Quinn come into it?’
‘I think Bill Quinn and Toomas Rätsepp came to the club asking questions. That’s the link we’ve been missing. That’s what Rätsepp lied to us about. They ruffled too many feathers somehow, got too close, and Joosep Rebane had to think what to do pretty fast. I think he bribed Rätsepp, but he couldn’t do that with Bill Quinn. He was a foreign cop. Another kettle of fish entirely. So he made a few enquiries. No doubt friend Rätsepp would have helped, for a fee, and found out that Bill Quinn was a happy family man with a wife and two kids he adored. But Bill Quinn was also human, and you’ve seen Larisa. So Rebane got the club manager to pick the prettiest girl in the club to set a honeytrap for him. The rest is history. They showed him the photos, told them what they wanted of him, and that was that. He didn’t like it, but what could he do? When Quinn’s wife died, word got back that the hold was broken, and perhaps that Quinn had been haunted by guilt at not being able to do anything all those years. We know Joosep Rebane likely has connections with a rough crowd, gangsters, whether in St Petersburg or Tallinn, Russian or Estonian, and he sent one of them over to deal with Bill Quinn and Mihkel Lepikson, who was going to help Quinn get his story out without incriminating himself.’
‘But how did this Joosep Rebane come to have so much power over a senior police investigator?’
‘That I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘I don’t know how the system works here, but I can guess there’s just as much corruption as there is back home. Maybe you should get a job here?’
‘No, thanks. Do you think the Prosecutor, Ursula Mardna, was involved?’
‘Probably not. I don’t think she would have told us about the young cop Bill Quinn went out investigating with if she was involved. Aivar Kukk. I’d like to talk to him. There must be something there. Rätsepp omitted to tell us about that. But there are obviously a lot of connections we don’t get yet.’
‘And what about Mihkel Lepikson?’
‘Mihkel was the journalist on the original story, and he became friendly with Quinn. He’s an investigative reporter and contributes to a column on crime in Eesti Telegraaf called “Pimeduse varjus”. Watching the dark, or something along those lines. Joosep Rebane would have known this. He would also have kept an eye on him. Mihkel didn’t know anything, not at the time. Quinn didn’t confide in him about the photos and the blackmail. He didn’t tell anyone. Joosep Rebane nipped the investigation in the bud when it had only got as far as Rätsepp and Bill Quinn. But when Rebane found out Lepikson was also in England, he got nervous and commanded a double act. No point only killing Bill Quinn, if Mihkel Lepikson was going to blast the true story on the front page of Eesti Telegraaf.’
‘And the bonded labour scheme?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Joosep Rebane doesn’t have his finger in that little pie, too. I’ll bet you he knows Corrigan and Flinders, at any rate. Drugs, people. It’s all the same to some, as long as the profits are good. What do you think?’
‘There’s a lot of holes,’ said Joanna. ‘Like how Joosep Rebane knew Mihkel Lepikson was in Yorkshire, and in contact with Bill Quinn. But it’s not bad, as theories go. From my point of view, Bill Quinn obstructed the full investigation of a disappearance, perhaps a murder, for six years. I’d hardly say he comes out of it smelling of roses, no matter what his reasons. God knows what else he did, too.’
‘True,’ said Banks. ‘But you can’t crucify a man who’s already dead.’
‘As I said before,’ said Joanna. ‘I’m not out to crucify anyone. It’ll be an internal report, I hope, but there will be a report.’ She paused and swirled some wine in her glass. ‘There’s still one big question we haven’t answered yet,’ she said.
‘I know,’ said Banks.
‘What happened to Rachel Hewitt?’
‘I wish I knew. I wish I could think of a way to find out. I’m pretty sure she’s dead, but...?’
‘Erik might be able to help.’
‘How? We still need a starting point.’
‘The nightclub,’ Joanna said. ‘You seem to know a bit about it.’
‘I’ve been there,’ said Banks.
‘You’ve what?’
‘I went there after dinner the second night we were here. I was wandering around, trying to follow what I imagined might have been Rachel’s footsteps on the night she disappeared, and I just stumbled across it. Rachel might have done the same, too.’
‘You didn’t tell me you’d actually been inside.’
‘You’re starting to sound like my ex-wife. Do I have to tell you every time I go to a sex club?’
Joanna flushed, then saw Banks was teasing her, and smiled. ‘What did you find out?’
‘Nothing. That’s why I didn’t tell you. There was nothing to tell. I talked to the manager, Larry something-or-other, and a buxom waitress from Wigan. That’s it. Oh, and I had kinky sex with a ladyboy from Bangkok, but that was nothing to write home about. The place has changed ownership God knows how many times in the last six years. There’s no connection left to the old days, or none that I could find.’
‘But there is a connection to Larisa and probably to Joosep Rebane.’
‘And possibly to Rachel,’ Banks said. ‘I’m sure Erik will be only too happy to do a bit more digging, maybe even find out what happened to Aivar Kukk, if we ask him nicely.’
It took close to two hours, but Blackstone and Annie managed to rustle up a lawyer from the CPS and a duty solicitor, who thrashed out a deal for Curly between them. There was no way he was getting a new identity, but they found they could keep him out of jail if he told everything he knew, and if he was guilty of no major indictable offence. Curly thought about this for a while, no doubt going over in his mind exactly what he was guilty of, and agreed. When it came to it, he had probably done no more than intimidate a few people and administer a minor beating or two. When everything was signed, the lawyers took a back seat, and Blackstone and Annie pulled their chairs close to the bed. Annie had phoned Stefan and asked him to tell Krystyna she would be late, and she was worried because he had got no answer. She tried to tell herself that Krystyna had just gone to the shop for some food or cigarettes, but it gnawed away at her even as she listened to Curly’s story.