Kill Me Twice: Rosie Gilmour 7 (19 page)

Rosie hadn’t wanted to take Dan and Mitch to Bertie’s hotel when she was working out where to keep them safe: she didn’t want to give him the aggro of two smackheads messing up his place. But a couple of middle-aged respectable women were no problem, and the hotel, nestling two miles off the beaten track at the edge of a wood, was a perfect hideout.

*

Rosie came out of the shower in her bedroom and checked her phone. Another missed call from TJ. She felt a twinge of guilt. Their relationship wasn’t one where they kept each other informed of their every move, but she’d forgotten to call him last night to tell him she was heading south. TJ knew the story she was involved with, and he would understand, but she, more than anyone else, was always irritated when her calls or messages went unanswered. And now she was doing it to the man she didn’t want to lose.

She
looked at her watch on the bedside table. She’d arranged to have dinner with Millie, Bridget and Matt at seven thirty and didn’t have enough time to give TJ the attention of a phone call. She texted him a message explaining and promising they’d get together over the weekend. ‘Keep this up,’ she told herself, as she stood up and let the bath towel slip onto the floor, ‘and you’ll screw up your relationship again.’ She sighed, glancing at her naked body in the wardrobe mirror. More than anything, she would love to be heading out for a night with TJ, where they would drink too much then fall into bed and lose themselves in each other.

Her mobile rang, and she picked it up: Declan. ‘Howsit going? I hope you’re not going to give me bad news. Is Dan all right?’

‘Yeah. He’s fine, Rosie. I’m just checking in to tell you a couple of things. Dan’s been taking his methadone religiously, and I’m up here like Mary Poppins, keeping him sweet. He’s a good guy.’

‘Are you managing okay, Declan? Sorry to land you with a junkie.’

‘Yeah. I’ve had plenty of experience, Rosie, so babysitting a smackhead is no big deal.’

‘What do you mean, plenty of experience, Dec?’ Rosie was curious. She didn’t know much about Declan other than that he’d been raised in one of the Glasgow housing schemes.

‘My brother John was a heroin addict.’ Declan paused. ‘We
lost him the year before I joined the
Post.
He was only twenty-four. Broke my ma and da’s hearts. They didn’t last too long after that.’

‘Christ!’ Rosie said. ‘I’m really sorry. I had no idea about your brother. I wouldn’t have put you in this position if I had. Are you sure you’re okay?’

She knew from Declan’s voice that the pain was still raw, and she didn’t want to ask any more. but she inwardly chastised herself for not having found out a bit more about the smart young reporter who sat opposite her. She made a quiet vow to take him out when they got back and see if she could be more supportive. So many people carried such a lot of misery on their backs. You just didn’t know what was going on in their lives. Half the time you were too busy to notice anyway.

‘I’m fine,’ Declan assured her. ‘I’m probably your best bet to look after Dan right now. It’s not everybody at the paper who’d be comfortable with a heroin addict to babysit. But he’s all right. He’s not misbehaving, and I’ll bell you if anything happens. But one thing, Rosie. He’s had a call from some guy called Merv, and he seemed a bit upset by it. I didn’t ask him anything, but he says you know about him. This Merv guy wants to meet him in the next couple of days. He said he’d come to Glasgow, but I heard Dan tell him he wasn’t in Glasgow.’

‘Oh,’ Rosie said softly. ‘Tell Dan he did well. If Merv calls back, tell Dan to stall him. I’ll be up tomorrow morning,
all being well, and we can work something out. Don’t worry.’ She paused. ‘And, Declan, thanks.’

‘No sweat, Rosie.’ He hung up.

*

As they sat at the table in the small private room off the restaurant, Rosie could see that Millie was a little edgy. She probably needed a drink. Whether she was an out-and-out alcoholic, Rosie had no idea. Millie hadn’t spoken a great deal on the journey up, other than to declare that the letter was genuine and she was going all out to do what she could to expose everything. But right now she looked like a woman who needed a drink, and it didn’t take much soul-searching for Rosie to decide to take a chance. They could probably all do with a drink. As long as they kept a lid on things, and Millie didn’t start asking for large gins in the next half-hour, they’d be all right.

She ordered a bottle of wine from the waiter as he took their dinner order, and saw the relief in Millie’s face when it arrived and the waiter poured her a glass. What the heck? Rosie thought. A couple of bottles of wine isn’t going to kill things, and it would loosen her up a little. She needed the interview, chapter and verse, on tape tonight, as she knew McGuire would be on the phone before midnight.

‘Here’s to you, Millie.’ Rosie raised a glass. ‘To your courage.’ She turned to Bridget. ‘And yours, Bridget. Few people would go out on a limb the way you have.’

Millie
sipped her wine. ‘Thanks.’ She glanced at Bridget, then Rosie. ‘For believing me.’

Over the meal they drank two bottles of wine between the four of them, and Millie wasn’t showing any immediate signs of wanting more. But now it was time to get her on tape with everything she knew.

‘Are you ready to have a longer chat, Millie?’ Rosie asked. ‘About everything? All the stuff from Madrid? I want to ask you about what you said in the letter regarding the sexual abuse.’

Millie nodded. The alcohol had made her face a little flushed, which emphasized her high cheekbones. She was still a fine-looking woman, Rosie thought, but there was a sadness in her expression, as though life had not measured up to the promises and dreams she’d once had. Rosie pulled her tape recorder out of her bag.

‘I’m going to tape our conversation, Millie, if that’s okay. The newspaper’s lawyers insist on it, these days.’

‘I know how these things work. That’s fine.’

She seemed relaxed, and Rosie assumed she was probably still backing herself up with a couple of painkillers to take the edge off her anxiety. But she was perfectly lucid and looked keen to go ahead.

Matt looked at Rosie, then at Bridget. ‘Why don’t I take you for a drink in the bar, Bridget, while they talk? You can tell me about growing up in Ireland. I’ve got relatives from Dublin.’

Bridget
smiled. ‘I’m happy to do that.’ She turned to Millie. ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Yes,’ Millie said. ‘And thanks.’

Millie’s eyes moistened a little and Rosie could see she was still fragile, despite the strong front she was trying to put up. For a few moments they said nothing as they watched Bridget and Matt walk towards the bar. Then Rosie switched on the machine and placed it in the middle of the table between them. ‘Millie, I want to ask you first if you can tell me what took you to Madrid. I’d like to know about your life. You said in the letter that you were suicidal, and it was a shocking thing to read. But you must have been very low to feel like that, so can you tell me what happened?’

Millie looked at Rosie, then beyond her, as though she was trying to figure out where to start. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shaking her head.

‘So many things, Rosie. It’s hard to know where to begin. But what I can say is that by the time I went to Madrid I had made up my mind to end my life. I know it sounds dramatic, but I just didn’t want to go on. I was living with Colin in a marriage he didn’t want any more. He’d stopped loving me a long time ago.’ She bit her lip. ‘In fact, I think after the second miscarriage, he had begun to resent me. He wanted children as much as I did, and not being able to carry a child was something that I had never even considered, so it was a huge blow to both of us when I lost the first. But when it happened a second time, Colin changed.
I think he blamed me.’ She sipped her wine. ‘Anyway, he became distant, began to stay out late, not just with work but all night. He’d stay in the flat we had in the centre of the city, and it wasn’t long before the rumours reached me about women.’

‘It must have been very hurtful, given your losses.’

‘Of course. I had all that grief to deal with, and on top of it, the realization that he didn’t want me any more. We would have furious rows that he would initiate, and now when I look back, it’s clear it was just so he could go out and slam the door. The rows became more frequent, and Colin became more aggressive. He hit me. More than once. But the first time it happened . . . I think that was when I started drinking seriously.’ She swallowed and tightened her lips. ‘I was so lonely. I felt so abandoned, and the only way I could get through the evenings on my own was to drink. It got worse and worse, and sometimes I’d pass out on the sofa and Colin would come in and drag me to bed. I must have disgusted him. I can see that now. But the marriage was over.’

Millie looked down at the table, fidgeting with her napkin.

‘Then, a couple of times over the years, I took a handful of pills on top of the alcohol.’

‘You were attempting suicide then? When was that?’

Millie seemed perplexed. ‘Twice in the past five years. Pretty half-hearted attempt. On both occasions before I
passed out I was on the phone to Colin, telling him what I’d done. I – I suppose I can see why he lost patience.’ She sighed. ‘I just wanted him to see me, to notice me, to understand that I was falling to pieces. I needed help. But I don’t need to be locked away. Do you know what I mean?’

Rosie nodded and listened as Millie went on to describe her descent into depression. She still had to be the political wife, appearing on his arm at functions, conscious that he was watching what she drank. She’d never made a spectacle of herself, but away from the glare of other people, their evenings always ended up in a brawl back at home, with Colin becoming more and more violent. Of course, she could have just left, Millie admitted. But she’d kept holding onto the hope that the Colin she’d fallen in love with, when they were young students at Cambridge, would come back to her. She knew they had come from very different backgrounds. Millie told her she was actually born in Glasgow but had moved to Manchester with her Scottish parents when she was a baby. She was working-class and had had a poor upbringing compared to Colin who had inherited a fortune from generations of privilege. She’d managed to get to Cambridge University on a scholarship to study English literature, and though she’d always felt she didn’t fit in, none of it mattered once she and Colin had met and fallen in love. She shook her head, as she said she still couldn’t comprehend how it could all have gone so wrong, how it could have come to this.

Rosie
watched as Millie sniffed back tears, then began to talk about Madrid: she had seen a girl on her own, crying in the hotel bar in the afternoon. ‘She was just a waif,’ Millie said, ‘but very beautiful. The bar was completely empty, and I sat there watching her, feeling miserable, downing drink after drink. I was on the verge of going over to ask her if I could help when the door opened and in came this entourage. I still had no idea who she was, but the barman mentioned that she was called Bella Mason. I vaguely knew her name and face from newspaper pictures. And that was it. She got up, gave me a slight smile and went out into the street. I followed a little later and watched as they all flounced around her taking pictures. But I had my own problems. I knew what I was going to do.’

‘You really had made your mind up?’

‘I’d made it up before I left London, Rosie. I felt I had nothing to live for.’ She paused, as though remembering. ‘All I had were memories. So I walked around Madrid, going to the cafes Colin and I had gone to, drinking, crying, just feeling so isolated and alone. None of the things I yearned for in life were ever going to happen. Not Colin, and there was nobody to leave behind, no children who could have given me a reason to live.’ She sniffed and dabbed her cheeks with the napkin. ‘Goodness, look at me. Maybe deep down I was desperate for someone to stop me, but right at that moment, when I went onto the roof, there was nobody. I had made my mind up. I was smoking my last
cigarette.’ She clasped her hands on the table. ‘Then it all happened. I had seen this party on the rooftop when I was making my way up there and I had no idea what it was, but I saw through the little porthole window on the door that Bella Mason was in there. Everyone was fussing around her, like she was holding court, and she seemed happy enough and smiling. Then for a brief moment she looked across the room and our eyes met. I have no idea to this day what that meant, but we actually locked eyes for a couple of seconds, and I can still see her right now. You might think I’m truly mad, Rosie, but something tells me that that moment was somehow meant to be. I had no idea what was about to happen to her, but something drew the two of us together for a few seconds. Do you think that’s even possible?’

Rosie had no idea, but she was loving Millie’s words. There was a headline on almost every line, and she could see McGuire doing somersaults if the lawyers allowed him to publish this story. But there was a long way to go.

‘I don’t see why not. It was a strange moment, given what happened next.’ Rosie raised her eyebrows, gesturing for Millie to continue.

Her expression grew dark. ‘So I went outside through the fire door. I was crying. I was so sad, Rosie. My heart was so badly broken that I felt the pain in my chest for everything, for my dead babies, for Colin, for all the plans I’d made over the years. I knew I was a drunk and I didn’t even
want to find the road back. It was easier just to go.’ She composed herself. ‘I was just seconds from stepping off that roof when I heard the door burst open, then raised voices and arguing. I stopped and stood there, barely breathing. I automatically stepped back from the edge and slipped into the shadow behind a pillar and peered out. I had a clear view. I could see three men. One with weird bleached-blond hair, another built like a tank – they were like bouncers. The third was older, with a goatee beard and glasses. And Bella. The older man had his hands on her shoulders and he was shaking her. She was crying and he was saying that he owned her. What a peculiar thing to say. I have no idea who he was, but that’s what he was saying. And the poor girl was sobbing, and she was saying she was going to the police, she was going to tell them everything, that she’d had enough. I stood there, my heart in my mouth, afraid to move. Then, to my horror, these two burly men grappled with the girl and they were pulling her to the edge of the roof. I wanted to step out and shout to them, and when I think back now, I’m ashamed I didn’t. Even if they still threw her off the roof, at least I’d have done something to stop them. Even if I didn’t succeed, and they also killed me, then at least my death wouldn’t have been so self-centred. I watched as they dragged that poor girl to the edge, and she was fighting for her life every second, and just a minute earlier I had been going to end mine. I felt ashamed and angry, and I almost called out.
But the next thing . . . they threw her off.’ Millie’s hands went to her face and she wept.