A Cold Killing (Rosie Gilmour) (2 page)

Rosie switched on her mobile at the screech of the aircraft’s wheels on the tarmac, and it plinked with a message alert. It was Marion, the editor’s secretary. ‘Phone Mick as soon as you land,’ it read. Christ, Rosie thought. So much for easing yourself back into work. If Mick wanted to talk to her immediately, there must be something big on the go. Her stomach did a little nervous roll, somewhere between excitement and dread. Given that she’d been away for nearly two months, for her own safety, after her last big investigation into Loyalist gangsters, she hoped that it was only a story Mick wanted to talk about.

Heathrow Airport was mobbed, as usual, and Rosie managed to ease her way through the throng at the luggage carousel to get her case. Only then did she press the speed dial to the editor’s private line.

‘Gilmour! Welcome home! The wanderer has returned.’

‘I’m not home yet, Mick. I’m only at Heathrow,’ Rosie said, deadpan.

‘Well, fatted calves will be butchered in preparation for your return,’ McGuire joked. ‘How were your travels?’

‘Brilliant. I grew a moustache and everything, like a proper nomad.’ Rosie was glad to hear his voice. ‘But what’s going on, Mick? I know you’ve not been missing me that much that you couldn’t wait till I got home before we speak. So what’s up?’

‘Murder. King’s Cross. Scots guy. Older. Retired lecturer at Glasgow Uni.’

‘Really?’ Rosie’s mind was immediately firing off half a dozen scenarios. ‘Mugged? Stabbed? What happened? What did he lecture in?’

‘Shot.’ McGuire said. ‘Point-blank range. Looks like an execution. Definitely a hit of some sort. He was some kind of history lecturer. It’s not clear yet.’

‘Christ! When did it happen?’

‘Yesterday afternoon. In the middle of a crowded café in front of women and weans. Some fucker just came up, pointed the gun and blew his brains all over the wall.’

‘Bloody hell. What’s the word? What do we know?’

‘Not much at the moment. His name’s Tom Mahoney. He was with a friend – Hawkins. Gerard Hawkins. Another former lecturer at Glasgow. They’d been mates since they were both students a hundred years ago. We still don’t know very much, because the cops are saying bugger all. But it seems that there were four men in the café – Eastern Europeans, the word is – and as they got up to leave, one of them pulled a gun and shot our man through the head.’

‘So it’s not a random nutter then.’

‘Nope. Definitely looks like a hit. But the question is why . . . So I want you to take a run over to Scotland Yard and see what the score is. The papers are all over it. Especially the posh papers, because he was a lecturer. If he was just some Romanian fruit-picker coming off the Eurostar looking for a job in London, nobody would give a fuck. But he’s a moth-eaten old lecturer, therefore he matters.’

‘Fascinating,’ Rosie said.

‘Aye, that’s what his wife said when they told her he was dead.’ McGuire gave a little chortle. ‘Glad you’re still a hard-bitten hack and not just a nomad with a moustache.’

Rosie felt a little twinge of shame that she’d said ‘Fascinating’ out loud, without even considering the horror for Mahoney’s family. She’d gone from nomad to journalist in one nanosecond. She couldn’t help who she was.

‘Sorry. But you know what I mean. I’m intrigued,’ she said.

‘Great. Me, too, Gilmour. So take that intrigue of yours across to the cop shop and see what the plods are saying. I’ll put you on to Marion. She’s got you booked in somewhere for a couple of days, then we’ll see what’s what. There will be a lot to find out up here as well. I’ll email you what we’ve got.’

‘Okay. I’ve just picked up my bags. I’ll jump in a taxi and get to the hotel.’

‘Oh, Rosie,’ McGuire said, almost as an afterthought. ‘And how are you feeling? You know, with everything. How’s your arm? Did you have a good rest?’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie said, not really sure how to answer that one. ‘I did. It was great. I’m good to go.’ She touched her arm, pushing away the image of the blowtorch. ‘I’ll bring my photos and maybe we can have a slideshow some afternoon in your office with some popcorn.’

McGuire chuckled. ‘Good to have you back, Gilmour.’ He hung up.

*

In the hotel room Rosie sat on the edge of bed and hauled off her suede calf-length boots, tossing them in a corner. Then she unzipped her jeans and eased them over her hips, kicking them off her ankles, and pulled off her T-shirt and bra. The drone of the King’s Cross Road traffic below was too far away to disturb her as she lay back on the bed, relishing the tranquility for a few moments before she had to head back into real life.

Scenes of the last few weeks in Sarajevo ran like a movie she was watching herself in. She was either holding court, or listening intently in smoky cafés and bars late into the night with the noisy, good-humoured Bosnians who had taken her to their hearts. And Adrian, laughing and telling stories his friends revelled in hearing, as they all swapped tales of life before the war and where they’d been in recent years as they tried to move on from the hell. She’d seen Adrian relaxed and at home before, when she’d come to Bosnia eighteen months ago and he’d helped her chase down the monsters who were butchering refugees in Glasgow and selling their bones and tissue for money. That was the first time she’d had a different picture of the big, resigned-looking Bosnian who she’d met by chance four years ago. By a twist of fate, he had saved her life not once but twice since, had become her close friend and sometimes minder on big, difficult investigations abroad that required the kind of guts and commitment he brought to the table.

She knew she was playing with fire when she called him last month after they’d returned from Spain following the cocaine-smuggling exposé that almost got both of them killed. She knew in her heart, with the editor sending her away because of the UVF contract on her life, that she should have gone to New York to be with TJ. She should have headed straight into the arms of the man she loved and worked at the relationship that was teetering on the edge. But it had been Adrian she’d phoned. In her head, she’d convinced herself she’d just wanted to run, and she knew she could run safely to Adrian. He would protect her, as he’d done so many times in recent years, without conditions. Or had it been more than that? Her mind drifted and she ran her hand across her breasts and downwards to the softness of her thighs as she drifted into a semi-conscious slumber.

Her laptop bleeped with an email. She sat up, rubbed her face vigorously and opened up her computer. What happened in Bosnia should stay in Bosnia, she told herself. She had work to do.

*

Rosie had been too late for the Met Police’s press briefing, which had taken place earlier in the afternoon at the makeshift incident room they’d set up on the pavement across from the café where Mahoney was murdered. But from what she’d picked up from the Press Association copy on her laptop, she hadn’t missed much. She’d also read and re-read the various newspapers that had splashed the story this morning – none of them with any different line than that a former university lecturer had been gunned down in what looked like an execution. The nature of the murder was a big enough line in itself, but there was no detail, and that was the mystery factor. Who shoots an ageing lecturer in broad daylight in a busy café? And why? The story had swirled around in Rosie’s head while she showered and got dressed before heading out to meet her old newspaper pal Andy Simpson for dinner. He’d called her mobile after being told by her office in Glasgow she was out of town. She was glad, and would have phoned him anyway, as much to pick his brains as for the company in London. Grizzled old hack that he was, Andy didn’t miss much, and she knew that, when in London, and surrounded by the so-called big hitters and egos, it was good to have a Scottish ally. Rosie knew Andy would be his usual wily, charming self, out to prove he was ahead of the pack but watching her like a hawk in case she stiffed him on the story. And at the same time she knew there would be a faint hope on his part that he could get her into bed, now that she was down in the Big Smoke on what he had made his own turf after fifteen years as a top front-line hack in Fleet Street.

Rosie smiled as she clocked him coming into the bar and striding across the wooden floor. Simpson certainly walked the walk. A grin spread across his face when he saw her.

‘There she is. Scotland’s finest.’ He pulled Rosie to her feet. ‘Let me get a kiss at you right on the lips.’

He planted a too-lingering kiss and held her tight.

‘Steady the buffs.’ She pulled away. ‘Do you do that to all the hacks who come from Glasgow?’

Still holding her, Andy scanned her face.

‘Only the ones I’m secretly in love with . . . and you know I’ve always loved you.’ He touched her face. ‘You’re looking well . . . Seriously.’ He gave her another tight hug then released her. ‘Oh, and I read all about that shit in Spain. Fuck me! You could have been a dead woman.’

‘Aw, don’t you start, Andy. Everybody says that. But believe me, nobody knows it more than me.’ She ruffled his hair, picked up her glass and drained it. ‘Come on. It’s your round. Tell me what’s been happening to you these days. How’s life?’

They walked towards the bar.

‘I’m good. But listen. About the UVF and the coke story. Fucking hell! Some mad bastard tried to burn your arm off with a blowtorch? Is that true? Christ almighty! Are you all right? Really?’

‘Of course I’m all right.’ Rosie shrugged, as the image flashed behind her eyes. ‘I can’t play the piano as well as I used to but, apart from that, it’s all good.’ She puffed. ‘Come on. I can’t be arsed talking about that now. It was nearly two months ago. I’ve been in hiding in Bosnia since then. The UVF put a hit out on me.’

‘I heard that, too. You need to watch yourself.’ He grinned. ‘I mean, a bullet or a stab in the leg doesn’t do your reputation at the front line any harm. But you don’t want to be getting killed. Because then you’ll just be a dead reporter . . .’ He leaned into her and whispered. ‘. . . And we’ve not even been to bed yet.’

Rosie laughed and shook her head, remembering the drunken clinch with him a few years ago back in the days when she drank a lot more than she did now, and could be reckless with it, too. She knew better now. She paced herself. And she didn’t get involved with other reporters. Most of them were a bit mentally deranged, like herself, anyway. They were good fun, focused on the job, and the job was their lives. But the part that didn’t involve work was usually well fucked up. She knew that better than anyone.

They sat back, clinked their gin and tonics, relaxed in each other’s company. Rosie was genuinely glad to see him, but she knew Andy would be looking for an equal share of anything she came up with from the Scottish side of the investigation. She’d see what he’d got first, she thought, watching him take out his notebook and flicking through the pages, but she wouldn’t be throwing her lot in with him, or any other hack in the press pack who liked to work together to make sure none of them missed out. That wasn’t how she operated.

‘So what’s the rumour mill spewing out on this, Andy? Don’t tell me the lecturer was a drug dealer,’ Rosie said.

‘No. Nothing like that. Strangely enough, there’s not been that much speculation at all. We’re all over it down here at the moment, but that’ll die down if the cops can’t keep the interest up. They have to keep giving the hacks something to keep us going. I’ve told my Met contacts that we need new lines every day to keep it alive.’

‘So have they given you any intelligence at all?’

He took a swig of his drink and flipped over a page.

‘One line for tomorrow that I’ve got to myself, but I’ll share it with you, for old time’s sake,’ he winked.

‘I’m all ears,’ she said, ignoring Andy’s game face.

‘It’s not much really, but just that he had a flat down here in London, or he had access to a flat. That’s all they told me. Didn’t say if he owned it or whatever, just that he had been down here for the past three or four days. Looks like he came down quite a bit. I’ve been round to the place. Neighbours remembered him coming and going over the years. But, typical for London, no bastard knew who he was.’

‘Where was the flat?’

‘Just off Kensington High Street. Close enough to the posh part but far enough away, if you get my drift.’

‘What . . . central London? On a university lecturer’s pension?’

Andy shrugged. ‘Could have been left to him by a rich relative or something. I’m still checking it out. But there’s nothing too mysterious about that. It’s not the kind of thing somebody shoots you for.’

‘Was he a perv? Maybe using the flat for rent boys?’

‘Nothing to indicate that. He was married. Grown-up family. Two sons. One in the USA and the other in Hong Kong . . . And anyway, this was an execution. Professional job. No doubt about it.’

‘What about the four guys? The
Sun
story said they were Russians.’

‘That might be right, even if it was a flyer by the
Sun
. One of our crime boys got a nod from the cops today that the waitress said she thought they were Russian. And you probably know that Mahoney used to lecture in East European Studies at Glasgow.’

‘You think it’s connected?’

‘Who knows. We don’t have enough information on his background yet. That’s what’s really annoying.’

‘Are we likely to get the names of any of the people in the café? Anyone we can get to for a bit of colour? Eyewitness accounts?’

‘We’re working on it. The café’s closed today while Forensics sweep the place. But it’s supposed to reopen tomorrow.’

‘Great. It’ll be good for a colour piece anyway . . . But we really need something more to go on. What about the friend he was with? Apparently, he’s an old mate from university. What’s his background?’

‘Haven’t been told much. He lives in Glasgow. But the cops have said he’s in a right old state. In shock. I don’t think we’d get much change out of him at the moment, and anyway, we don’t even know where he is.’

Rosie nodded.