Out of control (17 page)

“Shit,” was all I could think of saying. I was gutted. I felt desperately sorry for all three of them.

Antoine put the envelope down on the table beside him.

“You don’t seem completely surprised,” he said.

“I’m shocked by the existence of the photo and the way it came into your possession. Surprised by the subject? Not really. Do they know of it?”

“Definitely not and I would ask you never to say anything about it.” I promised. I admitted to Antoine that I was aware of the situation because Pierre had told me, in strict confidence, when I had hazarded a wild guess after the first time we met.

“I understand,” he said quietly.”It’s probably better that you do know but I think I’d prefer it if Madeleine wasn’t aware of the fact.”

I assured him it was safe with me.

“But none of this helps Liam or Helen,” Antoine continued. “I hope you can understand that my hands are tied. Dugain will publish these photos in the sensational press if I do anything against him. He called me the next day to repeat his menace, yelling down the phone at me and ranting like a madman. He gloated that he had the camera with the original shots in his safe at the office and they would go to a journalist he knows if I so much as breathed a word.”

I had no doubt in believing that. And I could now see things a lot more clearly. Antoine couldn’t possibly run the risk of Dugain carrying out his threat. Yes, he had been the one who had let slip Liam’s name and, therefore, indirectly the source of Liam’s troubles and of Helen losing out on her product - but completely inadvertently. As soon as he had heard of Helen’s suspicions he had gone straight to Dugain to make his feelings felt and found out the truth.

But he couldn’t say anything about it. He had no option but to keep his mouth shut. And would I have done any differently? The answer was 
‘No’.

“Antoine, thank you for telling me. I understand how difficult it must have been and I appreciate it very much. Liam will survive. He, after all, didn’t really do much wrong and perhaps he’ll learn from it.

“There are a couple of things, however, that you don’t know which makes me wonder whether we should see if we can take this any further but, obviously without the risk of Dugain going public. Do you mind if I take a five minute stroll?”

“Go ahead,” he said.”While you’re gone I’ll get a half bottle of wine while you do your thinking. Perhaps it’ll help. I agree with you. If there’s anything we can do to bring down that man, without risk, I’ll willingly help.”

I went out through the double glass doors on to the terrace and paced up and down for about five minutes, going over things. Antoine knew nothing about the offer on Bioscope’s shares. Could we use that? And then there was the letter posted in Saumur. I supposed that Dugain must have arranged that to throw suspicion the wrong way just in case anything happened. Covering his tracks.

And there was something else. What was it? I suddenly remembered. Antoine had called Dugain ‘a Romanian bastard’.

I went back inside and sat back down beside him and we appreciatively enjoyed the freshness of a delicious local red wine which he had put on ice.

“Red wine on ice?” I commented. “I thought reds were supposed to be drunk at room temperature.”

“Bordeaux, Burgundy and heavier wines, yes. But a light Loire red is often better cold.”

I had to agree that the freshness suited it.

“Antoine, do you know how Dugain got the information from Liam?”

“I’ve no idea.”

So I told him about Irina. I recounted the story of her arrest, her background and the fact that she was now dead. He was horrified.

“And this girl worked for LyonPharma in Scotland?”

“And, before that, in Lyon.” I went on “By the way, did you say that Dugain was Romanian?”

“I’m not certain but I think he is. I think Michel told me that but I couldn’t be sure. He’s certainly Eastern European.”

“Is there any way of finding out for sure?”

“I can try.”

“Let’s leave that one for now. There’s something else you need to know. Dugain has bought the forty percent of the shares of Bioscope that were owned by Albion Venture Capital.”

“Good God. What for?”

“I’m not sure yet. Can you think of a reason?”

“Maybe just for the pleasure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people are like that. When they’ve pulled a fast one and have won, or at least think they have, they can’t resist rubbing the person’s nose in it. They seem almost to take more pleasure from that than the deal itself.”

I hadn’t thought of that but it was true. I’d seen it before. A way of crowing about your victory. I even met someone who admitted to it. And he was a nasty piece of work as well.

Madeleine arrived back. She’d been off on a shopping trip and expressed delight at her unexpected visitor. I told her I’d been touring and had just dropped in to say ‘Hello’. She immediately insisted that I stay for dinner and that there was bed for the night if I wanted. Antoine added his encouragement so I accepted.

“Fine, then I’ll go and organise dinner….”

She went over to the cabinet and took another glass, poured herself a healthy portion from the bottle in front of us,

“…… while you two can finish what’s left of the wine,” and went off with a smile.

Antoine and I continued our discussion.

Having heard what Dugain had done to Antoine I had become determined to try to find some way of bringing him down – making him suffer. I don’t deny it. I wanted revenge.

I summarised my thinking to Antoine.

“We now know that Dugain orchestrated the plot against Liam and Bioscope and he is blackmailing you to keep you quiet. Both of these things are reprehensible. Blackmail is vicious and industrial espionage, in my book, is simply theft. The trouble is that what was done isn’t a crime and, even if it was, we can’t prove it.

“We also know that he is buying the shares of Bioscope for some reason or other. Again, no crime. It’s reasonable to assume that he might try to buy more to get control. I presume that, if he approached you, you wouldn’t sell?”

“I certainly don’t want to sell but, to be perfectly honest, if he threatened to use the photograph, I don’t know what I’d do.”

I hadn’t thought of that but I could understand his predicament.

“Let’s not worry about that until it happens, or if it happens.”

“What about the death of the girl?” asked Antoine. “Could the motive for that be that he was getting rid of all the links so that nobody could connect him with the theft of the information. And the car accident you mentioned could have been for the same reason.”

“No. I don’t think so. I think that’s the work of a man called Macek.”

“Who’s he?”

So I told him all we knew about him and how we thought that it was a separate story about girls and drug trafficking.

He mulled this over.

“Did you say that this girl had once worked for LyonPharma in France?” I nodded.

“And then she went to work with this man Macek in Edinburgh?”

I nodded again.

“Don’t you think there’s a possibility that you might be wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the two are somehow linked?”

“You mean that Dugain is a part of this trade in girls and he’s using the company as a vehicle to set up a drugs and prostitution network?”

“And he’s feeding girls from Romania through the company into France. He’s running two businesses at the same time.”

I tried to finish off his reasoning.

“And he’s had to act to protect each of his businesses. He gains control of Bioscope, either to get at their research data or, quite simply, to prevent them from making a complaint and he arranges the disposal of the girl to protect the drug business.”

“It’s possible. He could be the brains behind it all or he could be being used by the guys back in Bucharest.”

I mulled this over. It had a certain logic to it and it was a fit with what we knew.

“If that is the case how in the hell do we prove it?”

Then I had another thought.

“You said that you thought that Dugain was Romanian. Irina worked for LyonPharma in France and in Scotland. And I heard from Brian Dawson, the ex-Sales and Marketing director in Edinburgh, that there is a new girl in Edinburgh following on from Irina who has also worked for a while in Lyon. I wonder if we could find out if LyonPharma was the first job each of these girls had when they arrived in France.”

Antoine emptied the remains of the bottle into our glasses and said “So where do we go from here?”

I got up and wandered around a bit. I think better on my feet. An inkling of an idea was forming in my head.

“We do this. You try to find out, discreetly, Dugain’s origins. Is he indeed originally from Romania? And if you could find out if LyonPharma was Irina Vasilescu’s first job in France that would be useful. I’ll ask Pierre to go to Bucharest and talk to Irina’s parents and try to find out what the name of the outfit is that recruited her and, if possible, the names of the guys who run it. I can get their address from Inspector Ross in Stirling.

“And we’ll see what that gives us.”

The whole thing was delicate because Dugain had that damned photograph and we had to ensure that he couldn’t use it.

“Do either you or Pierre have any friends reasonably highly placed in the police in Lyon? Someone you can trust?”

“Yes, I do.”

“If I can organise it that Dugain is hauled in for questioning could he raid LyonPharma’s offices and get possession of the camera with the original photographs and agree to destroy it? You’d have to tell him why. Do you know him well enough to ask that?”

“If I give him an idea of what’s behind it all I think that would be possible.”

“I would need his name and phone number so that I can give it to Ross. He would contact him, tell him what’s happened and make the request.”

“I’ll talk to him and let you know. But what have you got in mind?”

“Using Dugain’s weakness - but something else needs to happen first.” Antoine looked puzzled but I didn’t explain any further. He’d probably think I was crazy.

I had been reviewing in my mind all I knew about the man and had an idea.

I was back home in Letham by late afternoon the next day.

We had had a very pleasant dinner ‘à trois’, marred only by the difficulty I had had to begin with, in the presence of Madeleine, as images of the photograph kept coming into my mind – a thing which I suppose was only natural. But I soon managed to wipe them out. Before leaving the next morning I asked them both not to mention to Pierre that I had visited them. Antoine readily agreed although Madeleine was a bit puzzled by the request.

The following morning, as soon as I had breakfasted I called Inspector Ross who had no problem giving me the address of Irina’s parents. I phoned Pierre and asked him if he fancied a trip to Bucharest. I explained what I wanted him to do - discreetly – and he agreed to go. He’d report back to me as soon as he could.

I checked up on Liam who was happily recuperating at the farm.

I phoned Helen to see if anything more had happened while I’d been away. Nothing. But I did warn her that if by any chance she was contacted by Dugain about selling her own shares she shouldn’t reject the idea completely. She should give him the idea that it might be possible. “Stall him,” I said.

“What do you mean? I’m certainly not selling to him.”

“I’m not saying that he will. But there’s an outside possibility that he might. So if, by any chance, he does contact you don’t discount it out of hand. Trust me, Helen. I have an idea. I’ll explain more fully next time I see you.”

She agreed, but reluctantly.

There wasn’t much more I could do for the moment. I was waiting for Dugain’s next move - if he made one.

Then I called Mike. ”I’m back,” I announced.

“So you didn’t get a bullet in your head?” he growled, obviously still a bit pissed off with me.

“No, but I did learn a few things and I think we have to act. Is Sophie still with you?”

“Sure.”

“Good. I’ll treat you both to supper. I can update you then.”

“Are you paying?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Blimey. Must be good news if Bob Bruce is putting his hand in his pocket. Can I choose the restaurant?”

“How about the George Hotel in Perth at around seven thirty?”

“Fine. We’ll be there.”

“By the way, before you hang up. Did you get in touch with Brian Dawson? Did you manage to get the name and address of that girl?”

He said he had.

Mid-way through the afternoon Antoine called me with the news I had been expecting.

“I’ve just had Dugain on the phone asking me if I would be willing to sell him my shares in Bioscope. You were right.”

I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

“What did you say?”

“As we agreed, I told him that I wasn’t interested in selling. He pushed a bit and I told him that I had a loyalty towards Helen Mackie and I had promised her that as long as she kept her shares I would keep mine. He asked me if I would sell if she did.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I would think about it. It wasn’t impossible, I said.”

Having dealt with all that I decided I needed a break. Too much excitement at my age wasn’t good for me. There was a day when I would have taken it all in my stride but I had to admit that I was slowing up a bit.

After lunch I retired to my comfortable armchair to return to the further adventures of T.E. Lawrence.

*

When Mike and Sophie arrived at the George that evening they looked a picture of health – Sophie as gorgeous as ever, Mike as proud as ever. A couple of long mountain treks had resulted in Mike and Oscar bagging another couple of Munros.

We settled into our corner table and halfway through the meal I steered the conversation towards the problems we had.

“So, Mike, how much have you blabbed to Sophie?”

He looked uncomfortable. “Just enough so that she has a rough idea of what’s going on.”

“So what does that mean?”

Sophie replied for him. “Don’t be hard on him, Bob. I could tell that something was going on after he slammed the phone down on you the other day. He was worried about you so I wheedled it out of him. He didn’t have any choice but to tell me.”