A Cold Killing (Rosie Gilmour) (22 page)

Rosie lay awake, watching the darkness give way to a pale-grey sky. Then she slipped out of bed and pulled on her bathrobe, standing for a moment to gaze at Adrian sleeping peacefully, his muscular chest rising and falling with each soft breath. The cold light of day brought with it a stab of apprehension. She had no idea where she was going with this relationship – in truth, it wasn’t even a relationship. She could have stopped Adrian at any time last night or before, and he was the kind of man who would have understood and moved on. But Rosie couldn’t stop
herself
. An image flashed into her mind of them last night in the throes of passion. She shook her head. The rights or wrongs of it would have to wait.

She padded quietly around the flat, brewing up coffee, preparing her breakfast of Greek yoghurt and blueberries, then switched on Sky News and kept the volume down low as she sat on the sofa, thinking over what Adrian had said about the girl.

*

Her name was Olenca. She was Polish. She and her friend Lujca had been here for over a year working, as many of the Eastern European immigrants did, in the vegetable-packing factories on the outskirts of the city. Adrian described how he’d waited until she came out of her flat at the address he’d been given, then followed her into the café downstairs, where he sat at the next table. He’d started a conversation and they chatted about living in Glasgow and the things they missed about back home. That was all. She’d spoken about working in the vegetable factory and also with the escort agency. He didn’t broach the subject, but at one point she’d told him her best friend, another girl, had gone, and that was when she suddenly burst into tears. When he asked her what had happened, had she gone back to Poland, she’d nodded her head. But Adrian said she looked like she was hiding something. He didn’t want to ask any more. He couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure, but there was too much of a coincidence for it not to be the girl. Rosie was grateful, but the girl wasn’t today’s priority. She picked up her mobile phone from the coffee table and was about to phone Ruby when it rang.

‘I was just thinking of calling you,’ Rosie said. ‘Are you okay?’

Rosie heard her puffing.

‘Yeah . . . I mean . . . Well, as okay as I can be . . . Rosie, I just had an email from that fucker. He wants me to meet him today. This afternoon.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. I’ve been awake since five this morning, watching my laptop, waiting for a message. Twisted bastard.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘I’m to meet him, bring along all the paperwork, the contacts I’ve talked to at the banks, all the letters with me signing over the accounts. I spent most of yesterday talking to the people I deal with at the banks. A few of them are abroad. There were also investment fund managers I had to talk to, to tell them I was taking another job.’

‘Did that all go well?’

‘Yeah. Only this shit to get through now.’ She paused, and Rosie could hear the tension in her voice. ‘I’m a nervous wreck. What if I go and Judy’s not there? What if they’ve killed her? I can’t stop thinking about that.’

‘Don’t, Ruby. You can’t think that way today. You need to be totally focused on this. What’s the plan?’

‘No plan yet. I’m to meet him in Glasgow. He said to be ready and waiting for his call, that he’d email me in an hour or so with the location and time.’

‘Okay. I’m going to get hold of these guys – the big cop from London and that SAS guy. We need to work things out.’

‘Rosie, them guys scare me and I haven’t even met them. What if they go swinging in there like the cavalry and it all goes wrong?’

‘That’s not going to happen. This is what they do,’ Rosie said, more in hope than real belief. ‘Look, I don’t even know myself what these guys will do or how they’ll go about it. But we have to trust that they know what they’re doing. Don’t worry. I’ll talk to them, then be down to see you soon.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

The line went dead.

*

Rosie watched through her windscreen in the car park of the Grosvenor Hotel in the West End as Superintendent Boswell-Smith and the captain came through the revolving doors and out into the rain. She flashed her lights and they acknowledged her with a nod. They walked over to a black Range Rover and the captain waved at her to join them.

‘Morning, Rosie.’ Boswell-Smith turned his body around as she climbed into the back seat of their car.

‘Chaps.’ Rosie nodded to both of them.

‘So’ – the Superintendent adjusted his tie – ‘looks like this nasty bastard, Devlin, means business, eh?’

The captain pulled the sun visor down and his blue eyes met Rosie’s in the mirror.

‘Yep,’ Rosie replied.

An unexpected wave of anxiety swept over her and she suddenly felt claustrophobic. Christ! This was no time to get wobbly. Get a grip, she told herself, trying to pull in a controlled breath through her nose. She opened the window a little, feeling the blast of damp air.

‘You all right?’ The superintendent searched her face.

‘Yeah.’ Rosie managed a deep breath, exhaled slowly. ‘Well . . . if I’m honest, I’m a bit edgy about all of this.’ She felt mortified admitting weakness in this kind of company.

Boswell-Smith glanced at the captain then at Rosie.

‘That’s good. Nerves are normal before going into any operation. Especially something like this.’ He clasped his hands together. ‘But then again, from what we’ve heard about you, you’re no stranger to the hazards of investigative journalism.’

The superintendent’s expression softened, and in the mirror Rosie saw the lines around the captain’s mouth crinkle a little and the corners of his lips nearly curl to a smile.

‘You didn’t expect us check up on you?’ the captain said.

Rosie smiled back, feeling a little more relaxed.

‘Oh, right. I forgot. You guys are in the spooks game.’

The superintendent and the captain didn’t answer, but the iciness was gone.

‘Okay, Rosie,’ Boswell-Smith said, ‘we’ve got a bit of a game plan here, so let’s go through it while we wait for this contact of yours to come back with some firm arrangements for the meet. You all right with that?’

She nodded.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I think it would be a good idea if you and this contact of yours could find a way so that the two of you both go to meet this character.’

Rosie felt her stomach flip. She hadn’t expected this.

‘Go together? Why? I mean, how are we going to do that?

‘Well, your contact could say you’re a friend, or someone she knows in the city that she can trust. Tell them she’s in a bit of a state about losing her sister and needed a bit of moral support. She’s in a tight corner and all that.’

‘But she doesn’t even live here . . . She’s . . . er . . . she’s hardly ever here. Lives abroad.’

‘Yes,’ the superintendent replied. ‘But you could be a friend who she’s turned to in her hour of need, as it were. Someone she knew a while ago.’

‘Maybe,’ Rosie said through gritted teeth. ‘I suppose so. I . . . I mean, would they not be suspicious?’

‘Perhaps. But it’s a reasonable scenario for them to believe. Girl here in trouble, nobody to turn to, confides in old friend for help and support . . . that kind of thing. You with me?’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie agreed, but she could see the danger signs screaming all over this. McGuire would never wear it, for a start. ‘But obviously, er . . . even if my contact agreed and this Tony character agreed, I still have to run it past my editor. I’m not sure he’d want me to do that.’

The two glanced at each other.

‘You won’t have anything to worry about, Rosie,’ the captain said. ‘We’ll have your back. You will never be out of contact with us.’ He turned away, clicked open an aluminium case on his lap. ‘We’ll get you all wired up. You don’t have to worry.’

Rosie glimpsed inside the case, all tightly-packed little compartments and what looked surveillance hardware far superior to anything she’d used undercover before. The captain dug into one of the sponge-lined compartments and plucked a tiny disc no bigger than a wristwatch battery.

‘You see this?’ He held it between his thumb and forefinger. ‘This is a tracking device. If where you meet is away from our view, which I’m sure it will be at some stage, we can pinpoint where you are when we have to come looking for you. If you go into a car and are driven elsewhere, then we can track you all the way. It’s brilliant. Never fails. You won’t disappear.’

‘Okay. But why do you need me there at all?’ Rosie swallowed. Nobody spoke for a moment and she felt the heat rising in her face. ‘Look, guys, it’s not that my bottle is crashing or anything like that. But if you’ve researched me, then you’ll know I’ve been in a few shit storms of late. So if I’m sounding a bit apprehensive . . . no, actually sounding scared, then it’s because I am. And that’s the honest truth . . . I . . .’

The superintendent put his hand up to interrupt.

‘Rosie. Listen to me.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘If you weren’t shitting yourself when we asked you to go into what will be a dangerous situation then we wouldn’t consider even asking you. Of course you’re scared.’ He glanced at the captain, who stared out of the window. ‘Everyone gets scared. Don’t worry about that. But we’ll look after you. Your contact won’t meet us, so we can’t get her wired up. And if something happens, then we have no control because we don’t know where she is. If you can get her to see us, then we’ll wire her up instead.’

Rosie shook her head.

‘That’s not going to happen. She won’t see you. But I understand what you mean. Actually, I hadn’t considered the finer points. I was thinking . . . well, I don’t really know what I was thinking . . . but I imagined that . . . maybe this would be done in an open place. I don’t think my contact will agree to go anywhere with this character and his henchmen because there is a very real possibility that once she gives him what he wants he’ll just bump her off . . .’ Rosie looked from one to the other.

‘Of course. But she may not have an option,’ the superintendent said. ‘And if we’re being honest, it’s a very real possibility that there will be some danger for both of you, if he agrees to let her bring you.’ He paused. ‘Incidentally, I think he won’t allow you to go with her to the meeting, but if he does, that tells us he’s a lot thicker than we anticipated. And that’s a good thing, from our point of view.’

Rosie nodded, not quite knowing what to do. The captain turned around again and half smiled.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll make sure nothing happens to you.’ He spoke as though this was routine for him.

‘Famous last words.’ Rosie gave a nervous smile.

She sat back and folded her arms, staring out of the side window, and seeing Matt’s car at the far end of the car park, where she’d left him and Adrian. Images flashed through her mind of being thrown into the back seat of a car when she’d been kidnapped in Belgrade, of kicking the door open and running for her life through the streets. Then her fingers automatically went to the arm that sometimes still ached from the blowtorch on the rooftop in Seville. She closed her eyes to blink away the flashback of being held over the edge of the building. During the two months she had spent in Bosnia to recover from that ordeal, Rosie had been filled with dark moments when she felt that the Seville trauma had really pushed her over the line. She couldn’t go on living like this, on the edge all the time. She’d used up most of her nine lives. She should walk away while she still could. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clenching her fists so they wouldn’t notice her trembling hands.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

Rosie drove across Jamaica Bridge, her guts churning with nerves. From the corner of her eye she saw Ruby wringing her hands as if gripping them tight would stop them trembling. Her striking features seemed to have faded into a ghostly paleness and her expression was drawn from lack of sleep. Seeing her like this, with all her defences down and jangling with nerves, made Rosie even more edgy.

‘I’m so fucking wrecked,’ Ruby sniffed and swallowed. ‘Is it okay if I smoke?’

‘Sure. You need to try to take things a minute at a time right now, Ruby. You’re tired, and I can sense your panic from here. Try not to look any further than getting through the next five minutes. That’s how you deal with panic. Try taking controlled, deep breaths and letting them out slowly.’

‘What, are you a yoga teacher now?’ Ruby snorted, and a kind of nervous chuckle came out.

Rosie smiled. The tough nut was still in there.

‘Seriously, though, I’ve been there with panic. It takes over. You feel like you can’t see any way out, and that makes the panic worse. Trust me. I sometimes feel it now and again.’

Ruby opened the window a little and blew out a trail of smoke.

‘I wouldn’t have had you down as a bottle merchant.’

‘It’s not about bottle. It’s about shit that happens – one thing after another – and sometimes gets too much. There’s no shame in admitting that sometimes you can’t cope. You just . . . well . . . find someone to lean on and admit that you’re not Superwoman.’

‘Aye. Well, I’ve never had anyone to lean on.’ Ruby gazed out of the window disconsolately. ‘Not really. In the children’s homes, the staff weren’t big on hugs. More likely to try to get into your pants if you showed weakness. And that wasn’t just the men.’

‘Believe me,’ Rosie said, ‘that I do know.’

‘How come?’

‘I was in care. From when I was nine.’

‘What happened? Is it all right to ask?’

‘Yeah. My father went AWOL on the boats – he was a merchant seaman. My mum died, broken-hearted.’ An image flashed up and Rosie swallowed. ‘Suicide. She hanged herself.’

‘Fuck me!’

‘Yeah. Was rough. I found her when I came home from school, hanging from the staircase.’

‘Christ almighty! I’m sorry.’

Rosie nodded, the memory still catching her chest after all these years. She tightened her mouth and kept her eyes on the road as she turned off the bridge.

‘I was in one home,’ Rosie went on, ‘then I ran away. I’ll tell you about it sometime – when this shit is all over. Anyway, I ended up living with one of my aunties – my mum’s sister and her family. They were a bit mental. But by that time I already knew quite a bit about survival. Eventually, when I was sixteen, I upped sticks and ran away again. To London. Lived on the edge for a while. Not long, but at the time it seemed long.’ Rosie shook her head, recalling the lonely days and nights, the drifting in and out of menial jobs until she got her first break. ‘It’s a story for another day.’

Ruby sighed and said nothing. Rosie went on.

‘Obviously, I’ve never witnessed anything like you did that night with your mother and sister, but you know something? There are so many people out there carrying a load of shit on their backs, and somehow we all just have to find a way through.’ She paused. ‘Look how far
you’ve
come.’

‘Yeah. But I’m a headcase, though.’ Ruby said, matter-of-factly.

Rosie half smiled.

‘Well. Nothing like a fucked-up childhood to prepare you for growing up in the big bad world. You’ll be fine – once you get all this crap out of the way.’

Rosie drove on, and in the silence she could hear Ruby trying to take a long, slow breath.

*

When Ruby had phoned her earlier to say that Tony had agreed to let her bring an old friend, Rosie had to pretend she was glad. There was no backing out of it now. She should try a few deep breaths herself. She automatically called McGuire to brief him on the plan – but decided not to mention that she was going in with Ruby. She knew he’d hit the roof and instruct her to leave it to the professionals. She’d given Boswell-Smith and the captain the low-down on the location of the meet, and they wired her up with the tracking device and camera. What if they frisk me, Rosie had asked, as she’d pulled up her shirt to let the captain fit the wire around her body. They won’t, the superintendent had insisted. How do you know? she’d asked, perplexed. Because he’s fundamentally a thicko, he’d replied, with such conviction that she’d had to believe him. She hoped Boswell-Smith had got this far up the chain by doing more than just talking the talk.

‘Just hold your nerve and leave the rest to us,’ were his parting words. ‘It’s best you don’t know the plan.’

She’d agreed, tight-lipped as she left, praying that they actually
had
a plan. Whatever. It was too late now, because the old grey sandstone warehouse they were headed for in Kinning Park on the edge of the River Clyde was up ahead.

‘This has to be the place,’ Rosie said.

‘Jesus!’ Ruby murmured.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Rosie heard herself saying, as though she believed it.

She slowed down along the broad, deserted street. The whole area had once been the lifeblood of the ship-building industry, when Scotland was turning out battleships and cruise liners on a yearly basis. Along the banks of the Clyde were the ancillary yards of chandlers, workshops and supplies. Now it was all back-street car repairs and Asian cash-and-carry warehouses. It was a creepy, desolate enough place at any time of the day, Rosie had always thought, never mind at a time like this. She glanced around to see if she could see any cars. Nothing. Matt and Adrian knew where she was, and she knew they’d be somewhere close. Boswell-Smith and the captain were nowhere to be seen. She drove up to the entrance, where a BMW with blacked-out windows was the only car parked outside. Two men emerged from it as Rosie pulled in.

‘I’ll get out,’ Ruby said. ‘I recognize these guys. They were with Tony last week when I met him. Fucking apes.’

‘Are you okay?’ Rosie squeezed her arm. ‘Are you ready for this?’

‘Nope. But I don’t exactly have a choice.’ Her eyes took in the deserted street and the fading late-afternoon light. ‘Are your guys somewhere out here?’

‘I’m sure they are.’

Rosie tried to sound reassuring as Ruby pushed open the door and stepped outside. Her mouth was dry as a stick and she swigged from a bottle of mineral water, watching as Ruby seemed to pull herself up tall and walk with something bordering on a strut towards the two big oafs with the shaven heads and shiny suits.

‘Wait there,’ the guy with a neck like a tree trunk snapped at her.

Rosie opened the window a little and saw him stab a beefy finger into his phone. He mumbled something into it as his mate stood, arms folded, giving Ruby a long, lustful look. The guy talking on the phone flicked his narrow eyes at Rosie.

‘Tell your mate to get out the car.’

Ruby turned around and beckoned her. Rosie slipped her hand inside her blouse and switched on the tape and the tracking device. She prayed that a signal was going off somewhere. Her mobile was on silent. A few seconds later it vibrated twice – the sign they’d agreed with her earlier. At least they knew where she was.

She got out of the car and walked across to the two men, her legs a little shaky. She acknowledged them with a nod, and both of them looked at each other slyly as they gave her the once-over, the way a hungry beast would eye a piece of juicy meat. They looked like an experiment between the DNA of an ugly human and a silverback gorilla. She looked away, her eyes taking in the flocks of starlings making stunning patterns against the grey sky as they soared and dived towards Jamaica Bridge, as people headed home to the security of their normal lives. They followed the boss silverback towards the entrance of the office block, where he pushed a button on an intercom and the door clicked open. He jerked his head to Rosie and Ruby to go in ahead of them. They went inside and stood in the dark hallway, which was damp and eerily silent.

The boss man went ahead, towards a winding stone staircase, as his mate hung back, then jabbed a finger roughly into Rosie’s shoulder, grunting for them to move forward. She exchanged a fleeting glance with Ruby as they walked along the short corridor and followed him up the stairway. Rosie could feel sweat on the back of her neck, but at least they hadn’t frisked her. Well, not yet. At the top of the stairs there was a long, narrow corridor and off it were rooms that may have been offices at one time but now had no doors. From brief glimpses inside, Rosie could see they were completely empty, with old telephone wires hanging out of the damp walls. Large wooden windows were smeared with years of grime. Outside, the sky was growing black and she could make out the Kingston Bridge over the M8 in the distance. The last room facing them at the end of the corridor had a closed door marked ‘Manager’. Silverback knocked on the door and a rough voice shouted, ‘Come in.’ He pushed open the door and they followed, Ruby first.

The man behind the desk sat back in a grey padded chair that looked out of place in the derelict surroundings. He glanced up, fixing his gaze on Ruby and holding it for a long moment, as though everyone else in the room were invisible. This was obviously Tony Devlin. He didn’t speak, and Rosie ran her eye over him. He was handsome and fit-looking all right, suited and booted in black pinstripes. But despite his clothes he was the kind of scumbag Rosie could spot straight away as the thug in any roomful of businessmen. He had pond life stamped all over his Costa del Sol tan. Guys like him, who got rich from punting smack and coke in the city slums, could dress in the best handmade suits and shoes but they would still be the dregs of the earth. Rosie felt a rising disgust that this piece of shit had taken the only person that Ruby had in the world . . . because he could. Bastards like him should be taken out and shot. She swallowed her hatred and stood in the tense silence.

‘Ruby.’ He sat back and swung his feet onto the desk, then he shot her a smug look. ‘Took you long enough.’ His voice was dripping in sarcasm.

‘I’m here now, Tony.’

Ruby’s tone belied the nervous wreck that had been in the car not ten minutes ago. She folded her arms in defiance. Rosie wasn’t sure if this was a good tactic.

‘Listen. What the fuck, Tony? I ca— . . . I can’t believe what you did. Where is she? Where’s Judy?’

Tony stared at her and said nothing.

‘Why did you take her like that? What did you think I was going to do? Run off with the fucking money? Christ, Tony!’ Ruby shook her head, her tone softening a little. ‘I’ve been frantic. Totally freaking out, man.’ She paused, shifted on her feet. ‘So where is she? I want to see her.’

‘Where’s the stuff?’

Ruby held up her bag.

‘In here, for God’s sake. Everything. I was two days speaking to all the relevant people in banks and investment companies. These things take time. A lot of them were abroad. I told you that. Why did you do this?’ Her voice quivered a little, and she swallowed.

‘You disappeared off the fucking radar, that’s why,’ Tony snapped. ‘And by the way, I don’t like people threatening me. Especially a fucking bird. So you want to watch that mouth of yours.’

Silence.

‘I’m sorry about that, Tony. I was a bit upset that day in the hotel. Look, Judy is all I’ve got. It’s been a hard road for us, and I felt threatened. Okay? Right. I was out of order, and I’m sorry. So where is she? Is she here?’

‘Aye. In a minute. Gimme the stuff.’

‘I need to explain it all to you. Not here. Another time. But I’ve written a lot of details down, so you should be able to follow what’s what. It’s a bit complicated.’

‘Gimme it.’ He shoved a hand out.

Ruby brought out the folder from her bag and handed it to him. He opened it up and sat for a few moments, leafing through it. Rosie was praying it made sense to him. Then he put it to the side and looked up.

‘Who’s your pal?’ He nodded in Rosie’s direction but kept his eyes on Ruby.

‘Linda.’ Ruby looked at Rosie. ‘We went to school together. She’s the only one I’ve ever kept in touch with from here. But I hardly ever see her.’

‘So what makes you think you can trust somebody you went to school with? Most of my schoolmates are in jail or dead. I wouldn’t tell them the fucking time of day.’

‘Tony, you can trust her. Believe me. She doesn’t know anything. All I’m doing is coming in here to give you the documents, then taking Judy back to the home . . . Anything else, we can talk about later.’ She gave him a lingering look, moistening her lips. ‘That’s if you still want to.’ Her voice lowered.

He didn’t reply, but his eyes took in Ruby’s long legs in her short black skirt. His mobile rang and he swung his feet back down from the desk as he answered it.

‘Sure. I’ll send somebody down to let you in.’ He signalled to one of the henchmen, who nodded and left.

‘So is Judy all right? She’s been here for nearly two days. I need to see her, Tony. Come on. Stop fucking around.’

He turned back to the folder.

‘Right. I hear you. Give me a minute. There’s a couple of things I want to talk to you about.’

The bastard’s stalling, Rosie thought, and she exchanged an uneasy glance with Ruby. She could hear footsteps along the corridor getting closer. Then the door opened. And in walked Tam Dunn.

Rosie’s eyes met his, and their mouths dropped open. She felt the colour drain from her face.

‘What the fuck, Tony?’ He pointed to Rosie. ‘What’s she doing here?’

‘Eh?’ Tony looked startled.

‘This bird.’

‘It’s Ruby’s pal. From school. Linda.’

‘What? Linda? No it’s fucking not. Hold the fucking fort here. What the fuck is going on?’ He stood in front of Rosie. ‘You’ – he stabbed a finger in her face – ‘are in deep fucking shit, Linda. Or Melissa. Or whoever the fuck you are.’ He turned to Tony, glowering. ‘Are you totally fucking clueless or what?’ he bellowed.

Tony stood up, his face crimson.

‘Wha—? . . . I . . . What do you mean, Tam?’