Blood, Salt, Water (25 page)

37

Glasgow International was a hard place to stroll into. After a failed terrorist attack, bollards and traffic-calming measures had been introduced on all the roads. Traffic was streamed within touching distance of the terminal but then drawn suddenly away again to the back of a high-rise car park. The boarding area for private planes seemed to be exempt from the general air of caution. A mess of bad signage and pot-holed roundabouts was deemed sufficiently stringent security. It was very hard to find.

Morrow and Thankless had shown their ID to the camera at the car park barrier and then were made to show it again outside the door to the small smoked-glass building sitting on the edge of the runway.

The doors slid open to a shallow lobby with plastic plants, double doors and a two-way mirror on the back wall. A young man with a long hipster beard and grey suit slid out from a side door, smiling and pulling his suit jacket straight. He was panting.

‘DI Morrow? Come in here, please.’ He held the door behind him open to them and followed Morrow and Thankless into the narrow corridor, excuse me-ing until he was ahead of them. Bit of a squeeze, he said, so sorry. He led them to an office at the far end of the building. A small window faced onto the runway. A desk below it held a bank of security monitors. On their left, a smoked-glass wall faced into the departure lounge.

Once inside the office he shut the door behind them, stepped over until he was between them and the monitors, straightened his jacket again and smiled as if they were just meeting now. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the building.

He introduced himself as the manager and asked for the flight number. As Morrow handed it over for scrutiny she realised that the small room was cold and the computer wasn’t switched on. The manager was the only person here and he’d just arrived. In all probability, A7432 was the only private airplane to have left in the past few days.

He turned on the computer and they all watched the monitor as it booted up. It seemed to take a long time to churn on. The manager kept catching their eyes, giving a service smile and looking back at the screen, willing it faster. Morrow left Thankless to catch the smiles and eye contact and looked through the smoked-glass window into the departure area.

Square chairs in black leatherette sat neatly side by side, facing floor-length windows onto the runway. Attempts had been made to dress the lounge as something more than a waiting room, but they had failed. A coffee machine sat on a side table next to a platter of individually wrapped biscuits. A small fridge with individual bottles of wine was locked.

‘Here we go,’ said the manager, bending down to use the mouse. He called up the latest file and double-clicked.

They watched expectantly. A split screen view: the empty departure lounge next to a small hand luggage X-ray machine elsewhere in the building. They watched for a full minute. Nothing happened. The manager smiled an apology.

‘Let me put that on fast forward for you,’ he said and did. They watched again. On screen, in fast forward, the bearded manager and another man in a customs uniform scurried into view and turned on the X-ray machine. They chatted manically, then ignored each other as they form-filled and checked their watches. The customs man gave a speedy yawn.

The manager pressed play and there, languorous by contrast, Martina Fuentecilla and Hector sauntered in to the X-ray shot. Both were dressed in school uniforms. They waited by a high desk. The time was ten a.m. Morrow had just arrived at Hettie’s house in Clydebank.

Seen from a high angle on the wall, as a god might see them, the children stood close to each other in the empty room. The manager looked at them and smiled warmly. In the small, cold room Morrow saw him watch himself on the monitor. She saw a small echoing smile flit across his face. On the footage neither child reciprocated his warmth. The manager on screen was embarrassed by that and turned his smile to the clipboard in his hand. He checked their passports, wrote something down and smiled more formally as he handed them back.

‘What is that you’re writing there?’ asked Morrow.

‘Passport numbers.’

They watched on. Martina and Hector put their backpacks on the conveyor, separating out their phones into plastic trays and sending them through the X-ray machine.

A third person in their party arrived on screen. She handed over her passport. She was wearing a long grey skirt, a blue cardigan that reached the back of her knees and a black beret. Seen from the back she could have been anyone. The screen manager smiled and pointed at the hat, asking her to remove it. He held up the passport, checked her face against her photo and handed it back. The woman put her bag on the conveyor belt and twisted towards the camera as she moved on. They could see her face.

He paused it. ‘There?’ he said. ‘Is that the photo lady?’

She woman was in her fifties maybe, had grey hair, cut in a bob, and a long, straight nose. Susan Grierson.

‘It is,’ said Morrow, aware that he was looking for an acknowledgement. ‘Well spotted.’

Satiated, he nodded. ‘She’s using a different name.’

‘Seems to be. Can we see your passenger records for these people?’

‘Of course.’ He minimised the footage file and opened the passenger record. Theirs was the only plane to leave that day and there were three people on board: Martina and Hector Fuentecilla and a woman called Abigail Gomez. Gomez was travelling on a US passport but was resident in Ecuador.

‘Can you check for this passport number coming in during the past week or so?’

He said he would but she didn’t think he would find it. Gomez would have needed a visa to get into the country. She would have come in as someone else.

The private plane’s flight record showed that the party had already landed in London City Airport. They had a connection booked on a commercial flight to Miami from City. They were travelling first-class and had an onward connection to Guayaquil in Ecuador.

‘Did they make that connection?’

The manager checked a further file. They were presently on their way to Miami.

‘What time do they land in Miami?’

‘Just under an hour.’

38

She emphasised that it was urgent but had been waiting on hold for eight minutes. Now DCC Hughes was asking her for information that was available in the notes he had in front of him. Look, sir, she said, we need the warrant right
now
or they can’t detain her at Miami.

Where was Fuentecilla found? In the house of a woman called Susan Grierson. The woman who passed herself off as Susan Grierson is travelling as Abigail Gomez and lands in Miami in twenty minutes. She’s taking a connection to Ecuador with the children and this is our last chance to detain her.

Is Susan Grierson from Helensburgh?

Yes, sir, but Abigail Gomez is not Susan Grierson.

But Susan Grierson is from Helensburgh?

Morrow hesitated. Yes, Susan Grierson is, but this isn’t Susan Grierson.

Did she call herself Susan Grierson? Yes.

Did she live in Susan Grierson’s house? Yes.

In your notes you’ve said several people identified her as Susan Grierson and she seems to have detailed information about the local area.

Morrow had put that in to draw Hughes’ attention to how well briefed Grierson/Gomez was, how professional she was. She’d meant him to realise that these were serious professional people, that they should move urgently to detain them.

So, DCC Hughes continued, voice close to the receiver, his breath buffeting her ear, realistically, she could be local?

Morrow shut her eyes. She bit her tongue. In desperation she began to tap her knee with her forefinger, because she understood then. If the case was local, Police Scotland would get the Injury Claims 4 U money. But all of the money would go to the Met if a connection was made with the London case through Miami, through Abigail and Vicente and Maria Arias.

Morrow had thought that the set up was shoddy. The body was dumped in the house, the alcohol wipes left a residue, even the semen sample was badly applied to the body. But it seemed to her now that it was less slapdash than cynical. Whoever she was, Gomez hadn’t just killed Roxanna, got the kids out and implicated some hapless locals. She’d written a script for the police, constructing a pursuable case against the Fraser cousins. Gomez understood that the police needed an excuse not to spend money chasing her halfway across the world. If they let her go and charged the local boys instead they’d get a case cleared up and a slice of the seven million pounds. A wrongful conviction was in their interests.

‘Sir, this is urgent. We need you to authorise the warrant within the next twenty minutes.’

There was a pause on the line and then Hughes spoke:

‘Look, the Ariases’ assets have been frozen. The Fraud are clawing back all their accounts and deposits.’ His voice dropped to a shamed murmur. ‘Have you got enough evidence to charge either of the Frasers?’

Morrow stopped tapping her knee. She was so angry that she felt her heart rate slow down.

‘Sir,’ she said very carefully, ‘this is exactly what she wants us to do.’

He drew a breath but didn’t speak.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just to clarify my position here, Sir: there is insufficient evidence to charge either of the Frasers with this offence. If a case goes against them I’ll be forced to resign and offer my evidence to the defence.’

It was a threat but Hughes knew she was lying. She heard him suck his teeth and then he lied back: ‘I’ll attend to that warrant as a matter of urgency.’

He hung up.

39

Iain Fraser had fallen into a delicious Largactil sleep in the car on the way to Glasgow. They managed to walk him part of the way to the cells but had to help him beyond the desk when he lost his balance.

They drove him to Glasgow in a police car, took him to a police station in Bridgeton and then took his pills and money and tobacco off him and put him in the cells. He slept on his back. Iain had been thinking about Andrew Cole, about the fire, about the heat in his fingers as he fell asleep. But he didn’t dream of those things. He dreamed of the high-pitched sound of snapping glass.

He slept with his hands on his belly and when he woke up they were numb because he hadn’t moved and it had been maybe two hours. He lifted them up, these dumb blackened fleshy things, and looked at them through sleep-puffed eyes. They were swollen. They looked like cartoon fingers.

He rang for a cup of tea and asked for sugar. He didn’t usually take it but he was hungry now. They didn’t let you smoke in cells any more. It was torture. He should have asked for a patch.

He waited and waited. He could hear people outside being attended to and processed.

He could feel her, sitting in his chest, heavy. She was waiting inside him. A solid heavy lump of a thing but they were at peace now. They weren’t fighting each other any more. They were just looking for a way out of this together.

A door opened. A man gave him a plastic yellow plate, Ikea stamped underneath and a cheese sandwich on it. Iain ate the sandwich and drank tea, not hot tea, but strong. He was used to taking what he was given. Prison made you used to that.

A man, the same man, came for him and brought him out of the cells into the lobby of the holding cells and two cops he hadn’t seen before took him upstairs. They sat him down and asked him if he was all right. Maybe he wanted to wash his face, he was awful dirty.

Nah, Iain breathed the word out as if it was his last
shee-laah
, I’m all right.

The lady cop and the man, the ones from Susan’s house, sat down. No, thanks. He didn’t want a lawyer. Iain rubbed his face hard. It felt grainy. He said the word, ‘grainy’ and looked at his massive black hands. They had a packet of baby wipes, would he like one?

Did he answer? He was holding a baby wipe and rubbing the moist cloth on his face. It smelled of perfume and felt oily on his skin. He rubbed his hands with it, like those flannels they gave out in the curry shops. It was black and ragged now. He put it at the side of the table.

Tell us about the woman from the loch.

He picked her up at her house in Clydebank and she went with him. She seemed quite happy to come. Who sent you to get her? No one. Did you know her? No. Where did you get her address? Don’t know. He felt her nuzzle in his chest, listening to him tell her story. She approved and he was pleased because he didn’t want to make her angry again. Above all, not that.

Where did you get that photograph in the envelope from? Susan Grierson gave it to me. In the envelope? Yes, in the envelope. Who is in the photograph? I don’t know. Why did she give it to you? To get Andrew Cole out. She told me to tell you it came from Tommy Farmer but it didn’t. Who is Tommy Farmer? Works for Mark Barratt. Small time. Never done time. Who is Boyd Fraser? I don’t know. He’s from Helensburgh, isn’t he? I don’t know. Who is Mark Barratt? Mark Barratt gets in tomorrow at seven fifteen. Prestwick.

Do you know Frank Delahunt? Iain didn’t know anybody by that name but it was an odd name. He mouthed it back to them. Frank Delahunt. Half fancy, half Irish. No. I don’t know anyone by that name.

Then he looked up.

She was the absolute double of Danny McGrath. The police woman, staring at him across the table, talking, he saw her mouth moving, grinned that she was Danny McGrath as a woman. Dimples, blond hair, thinner face but the same mannerisms, the same blank face and undertone of fury. She saw him looking at her.

I know you, Iain said, your face.

She said, Really?

And he grinned and said, You look exactly like Danny McGrath.

Do I? Do I look like Danny McGrath?

Yes, you do. His total double and you know what is most like Danny McGrath about you? Your stony face. The way you sit and move your hands. You’re cold.

And who exactly is Danny McGrath?

So Iain told her: I knew him in Shotts. No, I didn’t know him. I’ve seen him but I don’t know him. He’s a gangster in Shotts Prison and he’s a bad man. He’s a blank-faced hard nut and you wouldn’t know he was coming at you until he was on you. And you look just like him.

And she said, Well, you’ve got a good eye for a man who can’t even wash his own face, Mr Fraser, because Danny McGrath is my half-brother.

A slow smile rippled out from Iain’s nose, crossing his face and warming him behind the ears. You, he said. You’re that cop who put her own brother in prison.

He’s not in prison because of me. He’s in prison because he was convicted of conspiracy to murder.

She was as cold as her brother. Her voice never even wavered as she said it.

You’ve no loyalty, said Iain. You don’t know who you are belonging to.

She looked him in the eye then, and she was smiling but angry with it. She said, No, Mr Fraser, I know
exactly
who I am belonging to. And I know who I am: I’m the person who tells the truth even when it doesn’t suit me. Even if it hurts me.

The talk went on. Questions went on. Eyebrows rose, asking questions of him, but all Iain could see was this woman in front of him who looked like Danny McGrath but tried to tell the truth. All he could think was what a sublime thing it would be, to stop lying. He saw her standing in front of fires in pubs, standing in Lainey’s hall, taking orders from Barratt. She was staring at him, at Iain. She asked another question.

Iain opened his mouth and out came the truth: Mark Barratt gave the orders. I killed her at the loch and I’m sorry. Andrew Cole lent us his boat. Tommy drove the van and Tommy started the fire at the Sailors’ Rest that killed Lea-Anne and Murray.

No, I don’t need a lawyer.

His mouth opened wider and more came out, yellow came out, and the woman told the truth too: I was killed on the dockside, in sand dunes on the dockside. I trusted bad men. That’s why I came willingly. These are bad men.

‘No, Iain,’ the honest woman said, leaning close to him, ‘Hester Kirk came with you because she was blackmailing someone. She thought you were going to give her a pay-off. That’s why she came with you.’

‘A pay-off?’

‘It was about money. She thought you were going to give her money.’

A pay-off. That was why she waited so patiently. That was why she didn’t try to run or talk them out of it. That was why she walked with them, from the van, through the high dunes of yellow yellow sand. She wasn’t a martyr. She didn’t say Sheila. She didn’t go into his chest to teach him anything.

Iain felt his chest, but she was gone.

Iain spoke to her but heard nothing. She had never been there. There was nothing in him.

He knew something was coming. His vision was framed with a jagged bright white light. With a terrible sense of urgency he pleaded with her: tell them, will you? Annie and Eunice tell them that it wasn’t me. Please? It wasn’t me. But his lips were sliding across his teeth and his tongue was swelling and the light got suddenly brighter and the world was gone.

A slow wave, as high as a hill, washed over him, the cold of it touching his forehead, the point of the third eye, folding over him, a white wave, a cold wave, a salt wave.