Speechless: A gripping serial killer crime thriller (Detective John Marco crime thriller Book 1) by Stephen Puleston

Author:Stephen Puleston [Puleston, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

It was late September, not yet autumn but cool enough to remind me that summer was over. The window behind me was firmly closed but I could hear the stifled shouts from the takeaway restaurants on the street below. I sipped from a coffee mug with multi-coloured stripes, trying to decide what needed my attention next. I should have listened to the management gurus, made a to-do list, and structured my morning carefully after checking my emails. Instead I put my feet up on the desk, chewed on a chocolate bar and then finished my coffee.

It had taken Boyd a couple of days to produce a pile of paperwork two feet thick linking Frankie Prince to the various properties in the Splott area occupied by the Eastern European immigrants. Boyd came to the door and I waved him into my room as I dislodged my shoes from the desk.

‘I didn’t think it was possible for one man to own so many properties,’ Boyd said, making himself comfortable in one of the hard-backed chairs. ‘Frankie’s got thirty properties that I’ve been able to find so far. And that’s only with one company. The properties have all been registered in the past three years. And I’m waiting for a search from Companies House that’ll tell me if he’s a director of other companies.’

‘So where is all the money coming from?’

‘I spoke to Didi Hawes in Economic Crime. She got all jittery when I spoke to her. Told me that I’d have to speak to her boss DCI Banks.’

The memory of the brief meeting with Banks was still raw in my mind. I had a murderer to catch and they wanted to bang on about a dishonest shopkeeper.

‘I don’t want to tread on anybody’s toes, boss.’

‘I suppose we had better talk to Banks.’

‘I agree.’ Boyd sounded relieved.

I picked up the telephone and, after a skirmish with Banks’s secretary in which I had to insist that the matter was urgent enough to justify a meeting today, we arranged to see him after lunch. I turned back to Boyd.

‘Lech Balinski,’ I said out loud.

I’d had two conversations with the colonel and each time I knew he wasn’t telling me everything he knew. Maybe it was the language or maybe cooperation for him was a one-way exercise. But something had been niggling me and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

‘Have you had anything from the Polish embassy?’ Boyd said.

‘Sorry,’ I said, not paying Boyd any attention.

‘Have you had any response from the colonel about Janek?’

Then it struck me what was wrong about the colonel and his reaction when I mentioned Janek. I hadn’t told him that Janek lived in Warsaw and yet he was going to talk to the police there. I picked up the telephone and scrambled for the business card.

After patiently explaining who I was to a voice at the Polish embassy I was put through.

‘Inspector Marco. I have news of Pietrek. He was not in Polish forces. He was two years in seminary and then go back to college to learn English and become a plumber.

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