A Cold Killing (Rosie Gilmour) (6 page)

Rosie remained in her car close to the Mahoney house after the friendly but emphatic knockback on the doorstep. She looked at her watch and decided to give it another ten minutes. The man who had opened the door of the big sandstone villa to her earlier was around her own age, handsome, tall and athletic-looking with lush sandy-coloured hair and a foppish fringe he pushed back to reveal blue eyes that looked red-rimmed from crying. He bore a striking resemblance to a younger snapshot of Mahoney that Declan had dug out of the
Post
’s picture library archives, so Rosie assumed he was one of the sons who’d flown home from abroad. She was genuinely as sorry as she’d said she was to be intruding at this time, and for a moment the man hesitated as though he were going to say something more, but then he told her the family wanted to be left in peace. He understood she had a job to do, but there would be nothing for her here. He was polite, but unambiguous. As she was backing away she caught a glimpse of an older woman crossing the wide hallway, glancing over her son’s shoulder, and their eyes met. She must be the wife; her pale face was etched with sorrow. Rosie remembered from the newspaper cuttings that they’d been married for forty-five years.

From where she’d parked she had a decent view of the steps up to Mahoney’s three-storey Glasgow West End villa, and her car was hidden behind the huge sycamore trees that lined the tranquil street in this leafy, affluent part of the city. Rosie watched a steady stream of visitors to the house, mostly older couples, some carrying flowers, grim-faced as they climbed the steps towards the massive stained-glass door. She peered over the steering wheel as they went in, then left after a few minutes, tearfully hugging the young man she’d spoken to on the doorstep. She looked at her watch again. It was already seven, and she still had to hit the door of Gerard Hawkins. Time to move on. She was about to start her engine when another car pulled up close to hers and a woman stepped out. She was tall and slim, dressed in that kind of silky, Bohemian get-up circa late seventies or eighties, big flowing blouse and skirt and flat pump shoes. When she had got out of the car, the woman reached back in and picked up a bunch of white carnations from the passenger seat. She seemed hesitant walking towards the Mahoney house, glancing through the big bay windows, and her steps faltered a little as she got closer. Then she stopped altogether, turned on her heels and came back towards her car, bursting into tears as she opened the driver’s door. Rosie dropped her sun visor and slid down a little so she could get a better look without being noticed. The woman got back into the car and sat for a few moments, her head bowed. Then she drove off, wiping her face. Rosie followed discreetly out of the West End avenue and down towards Byres Road.

The woman parked her car in a side street and got out, heading towards Ashton Lane. Rosie found a parking space nearby and jumped out of her car, then followed her as she went up the cobblestone alley of Ashton Lane and turned into the Ubiquitous Chip wine bar. Rosie waited until she knew she’d be in the bar on the first floor before she opened the swing door and headed up the steps.

The Chip was bustling with the usual early-evening drinkers. As well as the Glasgow University students who could afford it, the Chip was a trendy haunt for the luvvies who worked at the BBC TV studios nearby and a known watering hole of all the arty folk who liked to be seen or wanted to network. For any other punters, it was a place where you worked on the assumption that most of the people you met there had at least half a brain. On any given Friday night the Chip may have been full of people who were just as blootered as any other punter in the city-centre bars, but in the Chip you met a better class of eejit, or so the story went. It was busy almost every night of the week, and a number of staff from the
Post
lived in the West End and socialized there.

Rosie ordered a glass of red wine and stood at the bar. The woman sat at a table in the corner, dabbing at the smudged make-up around her eyes, then she sat staring bleakly into space. She’d been a looker in her day, but her lined, tanned face showed the effects of too much sun. She lit up a cigarette as she took a long gulp from a large glass of white wine, and Rosie watched, surprised that by the time she had finished her fag she was more than halfway down the glass of wine. Safe to say that, whoever she was, she liked a drink.

The bar was even busier now, so if there was to be a scene, nobody would really notice. Rosie took a sip of her wine, walked towards the empty table next to the woman and sat down. She picked up a newspaper from the table then put it back down.

‘Excuse me,’ she said quietly. ‘Could I possibly have a word?’

The woman gave her a surprised look but didn’t answer, just lit up another cigarette, a slight tremor in her hand.

Rosie lowered her voice to a whisper then moved to the chair so she was opposite the woman. The noise level in the bar increased as a crowd of students came bursting in.

She looked at the woman’s eyes, dark brown and bloodshot. No easy way to say it, Rosie decided, so just be up front.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I couldn’t help seeing that you were walking towards the house of Professor Tom Mahoney earlier on.’

The woman screwed her eyes up, puzzled.

‘What?’

‘I was there, too. I saw you. But I noticed you didn’t go in.’ She paused as the woman’s eyes did a double take around the bar. ‘Look’ – Rosie drew her chair a little closer – ‘my name is Rosie Gilmour. I’m a reporter. From the
Post
.’

The woman glared at her in disbelief.

‘For goodness’ sake. Are you serious?’ Her expression twisted as though there were a bad smell under her nose. She opened her mouth to speak but Rosie interrupted.

‘Look, I know . . . I’m really sorry. But I didn’t want to bother the family any further. I’m . . . I’m working on an investigation into the murder of Tom Mahoney. It’s a terrible tragedy.’

‘Did you follow me here?’ The woman looked at her, incredulous.

‘Yes, I did. I’m sorry.’ Rosie plumped for honesty.

‘What the fuck? Have you people got no respect?’

Her voice rasped, a mixture of outrage and too many cigarettes, and her dark eyes blazed. Rosie held her stare and didn’t speak for four beats. If she was as incensed as she looked, she’d jump up and leave. She didn’t.

‘Yes, we do.’ Rosie leaned forward. ‘We do have a lot of respect. Especially for a man like Tom Mahoney, who was adored by students and colleagues alike, as well as his own family. That’s why my newspaper is determined to find out who murdered him and why.’ She ran a hand across her face. ‘Please forgive me. I know it’s a difficult time. But I was in my car close to the Mahoney house and I saw you going to the door with flowers and then changing your mind. So I’m guessing it was too much for you.’ The woman shook her head. Tears came to her eyes.

‘What the hell do you know?’ She sniffed. ‘You people don’t know anything about Tom Mahoney or anyone else.’ She shook her head and swallowed.

‘Please,’ Rosie said. ‘Bear with me. Can I buy you a drink? I only want a little chat about Tom. I’m trying to build up a background of who he was, from his early days . . . The kind of man he was. I know he was a hugely popular figure at the university.’

The woman stared at the table, tears streaming down her cheeks, as though the floodgates had opened. A waitress came past and Rosie touched her companion’s arm.

‘Have a drink with me. Just one? Off the record, if you want. What’s to lose?

‘A Chardonnay,’ the woman said softly.

‘Large one.’ Rosie turned to the waitress. ‘And another glass of Merlot.’ She stretched out a hand. ‘Rosie Gilmour.’

‘Marianne Brown . . . Mari.’

Rosie shook the damp hand then let the silence hang for a few seconds. She was in.

‘Were you a student of Tom’s?’ she ventured.

Mari nodded, swallowing.

‘You’re obviously far too young to be a colleague.’

She hoped it didn’t sound patronizing, guessing that Mari would be forty-something, but younger looking, with high, fleshy cheekbones and full, soft lips. Rosie was relieved when they curled into a smile.

‘I’m not young. Not by a long shot.’ She sniffed and puffed out a gust of air. ‘I was once, though.’ She glanced around the bar, shaking her head wistfully. ‘God! The nights we had in this place all those years ago . . . students and lecturers together . . . A different world. All full of dreams and big ideals . . . impossible ideals.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve been away so long.’

‘You live abroad?’

‘Yes. France.’

‘You’ve lived there a long time?’

‘Nearly twenty years.’

‘What took you over there?’ Rosie probed. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

Mari sat back and touched her neck, looking at Rosie then beyond her into the throng of people at the bar.

‘I just needed to get away. From here . . . From everything . . . Initially I went for a few months, then stayed on. Ended up teaching English in one of the international schools.’

‘I’m wondering why France,’ Rosie asked. ‘What’s a former student of East European Studies doing in France?’

The waitress arrived with the drinks and Mari drained her glass and put it on the tray. She took a sip of the fresh drink, then pulled out a cigarette and offered the packet to Rosie. She took one and lit them both.

‘I wanted to put it all behind me.’ She inhaled and let out a stream of smoke. ‘I had to. I went down south first and did a post-grad in French so I could teach. I just wanted all the Eastern European crap out of my life.’

They fell into silence and, for a moment, Rosie pictured this tired, defeated figure back in her heady, carefree, student days flouncing around the bar.

‘I take it you were Tom Mahoney’s lover?’ Rosie raised her eyebrows, knowing it was a bit of a hand grenade.

For a moment, Mari stared straight ahead, as though the question had triggered a raft of images. Rosie waited. Eventually, Mari turned to her, sniffed and nodded.

‘How very astute of you,’ she said, with something of a defeated smile. ‘That was before . . .’

Rosie raised her eyebrows.

‘Before what?’

Silence.

‘Before Katya.’ She flicked a glance at Rosie then stared into her wine glass.

The tears came again and she let them run down her cheeks.

*

Mari had been a final-year student of Eastern European Studies at Glasgow University. She almost blushed as she recalled how just about every female student in the faculty was a little bit in love with Tom Mahoney. One or two of the boys were, too, she smiled, as though she were back on the campus in her heyday. Mahoney was in his mid-forties and drop-dead gorgeous: more than that, he was a force of nature, a highly intelligent, passionate lecturer who could take a subject as dull as the Five-year Plans for the economy of the former Soviet Union and bring it to life so that his students hung on his every word, feeling as though they were living through it. He was also relaxed and witty, drinking in West End bars, where he was sought after by students and lecturers alike. Everyone knew he was married, but it was the early seventies and there was a new sense of freedom among the students and women everywhere felt empowered to be able to sleep with whoever they wanted without judgement being passed on them. There were always rumours that Mahoney had bedded a couple of his students, but that didn’t stop Mari from falling for him. She’d slept with him on three or four occasions, none of them planned, and no commitment ever made. Sex was what it was, and Mahoney was quite clear about that. Just before their fling, Mahoney had been on a sabbatical, teaching students in East Berlin for a year. When he returned he was bursting with enthusiasm and determined to make the USSR, its history and current situation more understood and accessible to his students. He took eight of them on what he called a field trip to East Berlin.

‘It was there,’ Mari said, ‘that I saw him with Katya. He introduced her to us as a cultural representative of the East Berlin Department of Education. So, you could take it for granted she was a member of Stasi, the secret police. All government officials were part of Stasi,’ Mari said, matter-of-factly.

‘Can you explain a bit more?’ Rosie asked.

‘At that time,’ Mari said, ‘in East Berlin, and in fact all over East Germany, there were about seven Stasi government spies for every single person in the country. Everyone was spying on each other and informing on each other. It was that kind of climate – even in places of work or in apartment blocks, there was always someone informing on their neighbours or workmates. So when this woman Katya was introduced as some kind of educational attaché, we kind of assumed she’d be a spy. The students joked about it during the few days we were there, because she stuck to us like glue.

‘But all the time we could see the little looks and secret glances between her and Tom. It was as if they shared something that none of the rest of us did, and we suspected it wasn’t just their love of all things in the USSR. We’d be taken to various areas within the education system and the workplace and given demonstrations of how hard the people worked and strived for their country, and Katya was at the forefront of that. But we could see there was more. Or I could. Maybe it’s because, by the time of the field trip, I’d been involved with him, so I was perhaps more sensitive. But to me they were lovers, and my heart sank every single day I saw her.’

‘But you knew Mahoney was married, surely? Did you really think more would come of the . . . er . . . situation you had with him?’ Rosie didn’t want to call it a fling, which is clearly what it was – for Mahoney, anyway.

‘Of course I knew he was married and we could never be more to each other than lovers. Look . . . I know it sounds stupid and naive, but I thought we had something special.’

Rosie didn’t want to say any more and make her feel worse.

Mari went on to tell her that the week passed with dinners, outings and lectures, visits to historical sites. But she’d sensed that the whole city was shrouded in secrecy and suspicion, and everywhere the people had a glum look of resignation. They’d kept on being shown buildings where industrial innovations were apparently taking place, but the truth was they were far behind everyone in the West. Except in gymnastics and some other sports.