Dead Won't Sleep (7 page)

‘So,’ Rosie said, gently. ‘Tell me about Tracy, Mags. How did all that come about.’

Mags started talking again. She said that Margo died of an overdose after jagging heroin for the first time in over a year. Mags didn’t go on the boat for a few weeks after that, but one night Prentice came to her again and asked who that wee girl was along the road standing in the doorway. Mags knew she was called Tracy and that she lived in a children’s home. She thought she was about fourteen, but she had seen her picking up punters night after night. And she’d told her that she was just turned sixteen. Some of the girls didn’t like young birds, because they were in big demand, but Mags had been friendly to her. Prentice gave her twenty quid and asked if he could get the girl to go on the boat. Just by herself this time. Mags didn’t think anything of it, because even though she had never been on her own with them, she wouldn’t have been worried if she had to go by herself. They were cops. It had always felt safe enough.

She didn’t tell him how young she thought Tracy was, or that she was from a children’s home.

When she told Tracy that she might get at least fifty quid and a bit of coke, she was up for it. That was the last time she saw her, getting into the car with Prentice months ago.

Mags went quiet and stared beyond Rosie and out into the street. Her cheeks were wet. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘If I didn’t get her into that, she would still be here. I should have said to Prentice she was only fourteen and maybe he wouldn’t have risked it. I shouldn’t have let her go on her own.’ She shook her head. ‘But I was that desperate for the money I didn’t care.’

Rosie handed her a flimsy napkin. She didn’t know what to say. She knew that sooner or later Tracy would have ended up like the rest of them. In a flat somewhere, surrounded by filth and squalor, jagging up or smoking. But at least she was at peace now, away from the horrors that took her into that world in the first place.

‘So,’ Mags said, ‘that’s the story. Well most of it.’

‘What do you mean most of it?’ Rosie finished her coffee.

Mags fidgeted around and lit up a cigarette. ‘Well, the word is that it’s no just cops,’ she said. ‘Since Tracy died, I’ve heard the children’s home where she stayed was dodgy. Funny stuff goin’ on.’

Rosie leaned forward, making sure the tape was still running.

‘What do you mean, other people? What home?’

‘Woodbank. I don’t know exactly what goes on. Maybe it’s just shite.’ Mags shrugged. ‘But I heard it was judges and lawyers and people like that. I heard that the guy at the children’s home gives them boys and wee lassies.’

‘You can’t be serious, Mags. Kids? Jesus.’ Rosie’s disbelief was obvious.

‘I dunno.’ Mags looked at Rosie. ‘I only know what I did and who I was with. And I know Tracy. But I don’t know about anybody else for sure. But I heard that they get boys from the train station sometimes and they take them to some house in the country. It’s all posh people. Judges and stuff.’

‘Who told you this? Can I meet them?’

‘No.’ Mags shook her head emphatically. ‘I can’t trust none of the other girls. I can’t trust nobody. I could only trust Margo and she’s dead. I only knew Tracy a bit, and now she’s dead. I bring anyone else into this, then they might talk an’ I’ll be dead meat too.’

Rosie knew the chance of her ever using what Mags had just told her and getting it into the paper, was highly unlikely. One thing at a time, she decided. She needed to hear Tracy’s message on the mobile.

‘Okay,’ Rosie said. ‘Have a think about it. Right now the first thing is to work on the Tracy story.’ She stretched over and touched Mags’s hand. ‘What about the mobile? Have you got it with you?’

Mags went into her pocket and brought it out. Rosie
watched as she punched in some numbers and stuck the phone to her ear. She listened to it, then nodded to Rosie.

‘That’s it,’ she said, calling it up again. ‘There’s some noise in the background, but you can hear Tracy’s voice.’ She handed over the phone.

Rosie immediately squeezed the tape recorder between her ear and the mobile to make sure it was recording, just in case she didn’t get a second chance to listen to it. Mags watched her. Rosie concentrated as she listened, and a chill ran through her.

‘Mags . . . It’s me. Tracy . . . Are you there, Mags?’ The voice was clearer than Rosie had expected. ‘Fuck sake, Mags, where the fuck are you? It’s Tracy. Listen, I’m out ma box, I feel funny. Loadsa coke. I feel sick. I’m in the toilet, Mags . . . Mags. Can you hear me? I feel sick. I want off of this fucking boat. These guys are mental. They’re all blootered and coked up. That big Jack guy that brought me doon here in his motor, he’s all right. But that Fox guy, the one whose boat it is? He told me to shut it when I said I wanted to go back, said I could swim . . . Bastard. They’re fuckin’ polis, Mags. Mags . . . Can you hear me? . . . I feel sick, Mags, I want outa here . . .’ The voice trembled and trailed off.

‘See?’ Mags said. ‘She was tryin’ to get me, tryin’ to talk to me, and my fuckin’ phone was switched off. I was out ma face that night. She needed me, Rosie. It was me who got her on that boat, and she wanted to
get off, because maybe she’d took too much stuff. Maybe she was dyin’ or somethin’. And I wasn’t even at the other end of the fuckin’ phone. Shit.’ Tears spilled out of her eyes.

‘You couldn’t have done anything anyway, Mags,’ Rosie said, consoling. ‘She was on a boat, miles away. There’s no way you could have got to her.’

Mags nodded. ‘I know. But maybe I could at least have calmed her down or somethin’. At least talk to her. Poor wee lassie.’ She bit her lip and looked away.

Rosie still held the phone. ‘Can I take this with me, Mags? Just for a couple of hours? I’ll get it back to you tonight or tomorrow, but I want to let the editor hear it, and get the number checked. It’s better if I have the actual phone.’

Mags looked edgy.

‘No. No way, Rosie. Sorry. No way.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m no bein’ a fanny or anything, but I need my mobile for the day. I’ve got somebody phonin’ me. Guy I owe money to, and if I don’t take his call then he’ll just come and find me and kick the shit out of me.’ She put her hand out. ‘Sorry. I need it back, Rosie. I’ll get it back to you. Anyway, you’ve taped it haven’t you.’

Rosie didn’t see the point in telling her that a taped conversation recorded from a phone meant nothing. She needed the phone, and she would get technical people onto it, voice experts, anyone who could prove that message came from that number. Anything that would
give an indication of where the call was made. Pity there were no other voices in the background, nothing that could link it with Fox and the others, but it was still good. She knew the problems with ID when a mobile wasn’t a contract phone, but she was desperate for technical people to see just what they could find. The phone could be crucial, but she knew Mags wouldn’t part with it. Not today. She conceded, and handed it back.

‘Okay. Tomorrow then, Mags?’

Mags nodded, and Rosie leaned across and touched her wrist.

‘Listen, Mags. The important thing is for you to keep quiet about this. Never – and I mean
never
– tell anyone you spoke to me. You understand that, don’t you, Mags?

‘Aye, I know.’ She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I’m not as fuckin’ daft as I look. I’ve got three certificates you know, from school. I did exams. I was goin’ to be a fuckin’ schoolteacher.’ She smiled widely at the thought.

‘Really?’ It wasn’t the first time Rosie’d met junkies who didn’t fit the usual profile. ‘What happened?’

Mags was quiet for a moment. Gemma looked from her mum to Rosie, and back again.

‘My ma died and my da just got drunk all the time.’ She stared ahead, remembering. ‘It was miserable in the house. I was cryin’ all the time, so I started goin’ up to my pal’s house and we were all smoking some hash. Then one night, I tried smack. It was brilliant. Like a blanket. Like my ma had come back and cuddled me.
But it’s not like that now. It doesn’t feel like a cuddle any more. It’s just cold all the time. Cold inside.’ She put her arm around Gemma. ‘I’m going to get better though. For her.’

Gemma smiled up at her mum, and Rosie felt like crying. She looked at Gemma and she could see herself all those years ago. She squeezed Mags’s hand.

‘I’m sure you will.’ She swallowed.

Rosie’s phone rang in her pocket. She lifted it out. It was McGuire on his mobile.

‘Where the fuck are you, Gilmour?’ His voice was sharp but Rosie was used to it.

‘Oh, hallo, Mick. I’m with somebody. I had to spend most of the day with them. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Then I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘It better be good,’ McGuire said. ‘You’ve disappeared off the radar screen. The whole point of these fucking fancy mobile phones is that people can keep in touch. Especially you.’

‘I’m on my way.’ Rosie pressed the button, cutting him off.

She told Mags she had to go, and asked her to phone her that night, just to let her know she was all right. As she left, Rosie gave a couple of pound notes to Gemma for sweets and the kid thanked her with a beaming smile.

On the ground floor of the
Post
, Rosie shot into the lift just before the doors closed. She could see by the looks on the faces of the telesales girls from upstairs that they were in a hurry. They were carrying a box of cakes and biscuits as well as steaming coffee in plastic cups. Rosie squeezed in and nodded to them, and they all stood in silence watching the little light flash on as it hit each floor. What was it about lifts that rendered people speechless?

When the lift was almost at the editorial floor, the girls started chattering. One of them addressed a middleaged woman next to her.

‘So what about your anal fissures, Shona?’ she asked. ‘Are they any better?’ The other passengers in the lift looked at each other in disbelief.

Shona flicked her eyes upwards and shrugged. ‘Same,’ she replied. ‘Still agony, bleeding every time I—’

‘Thanks for that, Shona,’ one of the younger girls said,
cutting her off. ‘I was looking forward to that strawberry tart.’ The girls giggled, and the lift pinged for editorial.

‘Enjoy,’ Rosie said, getting out at her floor.

On her desk was a note saying, ‘See editor’, but before she could pick it up, her phone rang. It was Marion, McGuire’s secretary, who had spotted her coming onto the editorial floor.

‘You’ve to come straight through. The boss is waiting for you.’

‘Should I bring some Chardonnay? Or is it already chilling.’

‘Chilling’s not the word,’ Marion said.

Rosie hung up her coat and went straight across to McGuire’s office. She wasn’t going to tell the news editor, Marty Lamont, what Mags had just told her. She didn’t trust him. He’d only been in the job five weeks, and the pair of them had already clashed. Lamont had flexed his muscles in the first week and sent Rosie to follow a trivial story that a junior reporter could easily have covered. She did it, though, without question, but when she came back in, she took him to one side and told him in no uncertain terms never to pull a stunt like that again. Some fat-arsed news editor, who couldn’t report himself missing when he was a hack on the streets, was not about to push her around. Things had been a little frosty since.

She walked past Marion and knocked on McGuire’s
half-open door, then walked in before he could tell her to enter.

‘Come in,’ McGuire said from behind the newspaper, his tone sarcastic. He crumpled the paper and looked at her over narrow reading specs. His heavy, black eyebrows and slicked-back hair made him look like some city finance dealer.

‘Where in the name of Christ have you been, Rosie?’ He motioned her to sit down and leaned back, resting his shiny black Oxford shoes on the desk. He checked that the crease on his blue pinstripe trousers was perfect. As if it was ever anything else.

‘It’s a long story, Mick,’ Rosie said as she sat down, and rubbed her hands across her face. ‘But it’s mega. In fact it’s so mega, I’m scared to repeat it.’ She smiled. McGuire had his hands folded behind his head. He took one hand to remove his glasses and look directly into Rosie’s eyes.

‘Well? Go on.’ He raised his finger to point at her. ‘But before you start, I’m not happy that you pissed off all day and didn’t even phone. You know the rules.’

‘Sorry. Won’t happen again.’ She smiled at McGuire, because they both knew it would. But Rosie was confident that he liked her enough for her to get away with just about anything – so long as she kept delivering the goods.

There was no easy way into the story, so Rosie just spilled it out, painting the picture for him and watching
him reacting to it, just the way she had done. She would trust McGuire with her life, and she knew this was right up his street. He was a ballsy, instinctive editor, and he always relished laying one on the establishment. But Rosie knew that, even as she spoke, he would also be considering the political implications of a such an explosive story.

McGuire punctuated her story with exclamations of ‘Fuck me!’ and ‘Jesus wept!’ and she decided not to tell him anything of what Mags had said about the children’s home. No point in getting him overexcited at this stage. She was still trying to take it all in herself, and would wait until she had done a bit of digging. When she got to the end of her story, McGuire was silent. He lifted his feet off the desk and got up to pace around the room. Rosie’s eyes followed him as he walked up and down, his hands dug into his trouser pockets.

‘So, right. Let’s see what we’ve got here. We have the word of a hooker.’ McGuire turned to Rosie, scratching his chin. ‘A junked-up hooker. That should give the lawyers a good dose of the trots.’

‘I think it’s true, Mick,’ Rosie said. ‘I believe she’s telling the truth.’ She needed him to be on her side on this, but she knew the lawyers would tell him not to touch it with a barge pole, and she felt her confidence weakening a little already.

‘She might well be telling the truth.’ McGuire ran his
hand across his thick black hair. He surveyed the awardwinning front pages that were framed and mounted on the wall. ‘Poor bastard probably is. But you can’t go around saying the head of the CID is humping junkie girls on his boat. Under-age hookers, no less. We’d be printing fivers instead of papers.’ He turned to Rosie, saying, ‘You know that, don’t you?’ and went back behind his desk.