by Anna Smith
‘No way.’ She sat forward. ‘A press interview will be the last thing on the police agenda.’
‘So, what’s the score?’
‘Well, my cop pal tells me the thinking is she’s a hooker, but no drugs have shown up positive, so if she is, then either she works on her own or with an escort agency. Police are all over that. But these escort agencies and girls working from flats are all so difficult to pin down. It’s not as though they clock in.’
‘So what else?’
‘CCTV. Cops are going through the cameras on the M8 to see if they can get a sighting of the car that took her there.’
McGuire sat back and sighed.
‘This is not good. We need to get into the hospital, or the cops have to give us something more. This is one of the most brutal attacks we’ve ever seen in this country, so they need to get their arses in gear and give us something good to latch on to. We already want to get a piece together on hookers and the dangers out there. I’ll get Features to do that – speak to all these do-gooders and welfare workers who deal with them. Maybe we can get a couple of women on the game who’ll talk anonymously? But the main thing is to build up a picture of who this girl is.’
‘My police contact said the couple who found her have told them she kept calling out for Julie. They found her number on her mobile, but can’t get through. No answer. So we have to find Julie, hopefully before the cops do.’
‘Well, let me know if you need a hand.’
Rosie looked at him.
‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
‘What?’ McGuire looked bemused, then half smiled. ‘Oh, the hand!’ He chuckled. ‘Actually, no. I didn’t even think of it – but you know what I mean.’
‘Yeah.’ Rosie stood up, ready to leave. ‘By the way, I got hold of the girl I was staking out on the Pakistani bride story.’
McGuire perked up.
‘Really? Did she talk?’
‘Not really. She was terrified. Her name’s Sabiha, and she’s the bride’s sister. She’s been here for four years and has two kids. I took it as far as I could with her, following her up the road as she was trying to get away from me. I finally put it to her that I didn’t think Rabia committed suicide. She stopped at that point, turned and I could see she was on the verge of tears. She said no way would Rabia kill herself. But she wouldn’t speak to me.’ Rosie sighed. ‘So I’m not sure where I go with that. I tried to give her my card, but she wouldn’t take it. But all I can do is hope for the best that she’ll find my number and get in touch. I’m not really expecting her to contact me. Living in that house with all the family members, she’s scared out of her wits. So I have to find another way. I’m working on it.’
McGuire pursed his lips.
‘You haven’t told me anything good yet, Gilmour.’
‘I know, Mick. You’ll be the first to know if I’ve got anything good to tell.’ She stood up. ‘But look on the bright side . . . At least you can clap your hands.’
Rosie headed for the door.
Chapter Eight
It was risky to pursue the girl again when the knockback had been so emphatic. But there was something about Sabiha’s eyes, the desperation, the very fact that she had agreed that Rabia hadn’t committed suicide. All Rosie’s instincts were telling her that she was bursting to talk but was too terrified. McGuire’s words kept coming back to her – that she hadn’t told him anything good yet. It wasn’t that she was under pressure, but she was acutely aware that she wasn’t the only one who was impatient that nothing was moving on her stories. She was as desperate as the editor to get a handle on the background to Rabia’s death, but these days, with the press trying to regulate itself so that they didn’t step over the line, it was dodgy keeping on going back to someone if they’d already said they didn’t want to talk. If they were a criminal you just waded in, regardless of the rules, as long as you were satisfied you could expose them all over the front page for what they were. But Sabiha was innocent, young and clearly damaged from whatever was going on in her life. Rosie knew it would only take the girl breaking down and blabbing to one of the elders in her family that she was being harassed by a newspaper reporter for lawyers’ letters to start flying all over the shop. You had to tread carefully – even more so with ethnic minorities. I shouldn’t even be here, Rosie thought, draining her coffee cup, keeping a close eye on the newsagent’s across the street. Then she saw Sabiha coming out of the shop. One last shot, Rosie thought. One last shot.
She jumped up, left money on the counter and dashed out of the door and into her car, which was parked just a few yards away. To her surprise, the girl did not turn the corner to take the long straight road up to her house, but she crossed the street and went in the opposite direction. Rosie switched on her engine, turned the car and followed her slowly along the road. She kept well behind her, but could see her cross at the traffic lights, then walk towards the gates of the massive Queen’s Park. Rosie pulled her car in to the side of the road and got out, following a long way behind her but keeping her in sight. She watched as Sabiha went into the park and walked towards the benches around the boating pond. From what she could make out, there was someone on the bench who stood up when approached. A young girl dressed in traditional Pakistani garb embraced Sabiha as she approached. Rosie glanced around the park, looking for somewhere to watch for a few moments without being noticed. A couple of joggers came up behind her and padded past her down towards the girls. Beyond where they sat, the park was quiet, except for one man walking his dog in the distance and two women pushing prams. Rosie walked on to the grass away from the girls, but where she could still see, and stood under a tree, watching. But she felt edgy. In a place like this you looked conspicuous if you just stood around under a tree. She had to make up her mind, fast. She strained her eyes and could see that the younger girl was crying, her head in her hands. Sabiha put her arm around her shoulder and leaned into her, comforting her. Rosie automatically found her feet taking her towards them. Just do it, she told herself. As she softly approached the bench, the girls glanced up at her and a flash of fear registered in Sabiha’s eyes.
‘Please, don’t be afraid,’ Rosie held out her hands in a calming gesture. ‘Just, please, hear me out. Listen, I can see something is upsetting you. I know you are frightened, and I apologise for barging in. But please let me talk for a moment.’
The girl who had been crying suddenly stopped, looking bewildered, and turned from Rosie to Sabiha. She said something in Urdu, and Sabiha squeezed her arm as though she was reassuring her.
‘What are you doing following me like this? Please. Can you not see we are upset? We are frightened. Can you leave us?’
‘But perhaps I can help you,’ Rosie chanced, because they made no attempt to stand up or run away from her. ‘Is this your friend?’ She gestured towards the bewildered girl. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘She is my cousin.’
‘What’s wrong? I promise you can trust me.’ Rosie looked the young girl in the eye, holding her gaze for a moment.
The younger girl again spoke in Urdu to Sabiha and she replied, glancing at Rosie as though explaining who she was.
‘Please, tell your cousin not to be afraid, that I may be able to help. But I can only help if you talk to me.’
‘I did already tell her who you were a couple of days ago. We have talked about you.’
Something was beginning to give. Rosie’s gut did a little flip. She was nearly in. She took a breath, stepped a little closer.
‘What’s the matter with your cousin? Look, I don’t know her name, or anything else about the two of you, so I promise, I’m not here to write a story or say anything to your family or anything else that would get you into trouble. I am just trying to get to the bottom of something that all of my instincts tell me is wrong. About Rabia’s death. Can you understand that?’
The younger girl looked up through tear-stained eyes, and Rosie saw the dark under-eye circles of someone who had
n’t slept in a while. Her skin was blotchy from crying, and she pushed back her headscarf, exposing lush, black hair. She turned to Sabiha and sniffed, wiping her nose with a tissue. Then, to Rosie’s surprise, she spoke in a broad Glasgow accent.
‘Maybe we can talk to her, Sabiha,’ she said, her eyes pleading. ‘Maybe we can find someone to trust. I don’t want to go to Pakistan. I can’t. I’ll kill myself if they make me go.’
For a long moment, nobody spoke and Rosie held her breath. She was in. She glanced over her shoulder. The park was almost deserted.
‘Can we talk for a few minutes?’ Rosie asked. ‘May I sit down?’
The two girls shuffled up together to make room for her on the bench. She looked straight at Sabiha.
‘What’s wrong, Sabiha? Why don’t you just start at the beginning? I think your cousin is right. You need to talk to someone, and I may be able to help.’
Sabiha sat for a moment in silence, then glanced at her cousin, who reached out and squeezed her hand. Rosie looked at both of them, desperation and helplessness written all over their faces. It brought a lump to her throat.
‘My sister.’ Sabiha began. ‘I know my sister didn’t kill herself.’ She swallowed. ‘We will never know the truth – if she jumped from the window or was pushed. But all I know is that her husband and his father were in the room with her at the time, so if they saw her about to jump, then why didn’t they stop her? They drove her to her death. They locked her in the room. Punished her.’
‘Have you told this to the police?’
‘No . . . No way. I haven’t even been interviewed by the police.’
‘But wasn’t everyone in the house interviewed? Everyone who lives there?’
‘No. They must have told the police that I don’t live there. Maybe I’m not registered as living there. I don’t even know. I can’t ask questions. If I ask any questions they . . . they . . .’ She broke down. ‘They beat me, the way they beat my sister.’
She held out her arms and pulled back her sleeve to expose the red welts on both wrists.
Rosie looked at them and her heart sank.
‘What happened?’
‘It was after Rabia died. The day after. I was crying and screaming that it was their fault, and I said I was going to run away and take my children with me. They dragged me to the bedroom and beat me up, then tied me to the table so I couldn’t move for hours.’
‘Who did this?’ Rosie asked.
‘Farooq’s uncle. And my mother-in-law.’
‘They beat you like that?’
Sabiha nodded, wiping her tears.
‘It’s what happens if you disobey. It’s normal. But I was so upset at my sister’s death. I know in my heart she did not kill herself. She was very unhappy. She just wanted to be back home, but it wasn’t allowed. She was here now and that was the agreement between the families. Nothing we could do about it.’
Rosie watched as the younger girl linked her fingers through Sabiha’s.
‘So, who are you married to?’
‘I am married to the cousin of Farooq, but he is not here a lot of the time.’ She dropped her eyes to the ground. ‘He has another wife in Bradford, and he spends time there. For business as well. I cannot ask. Is not my place.’
‘I understand,’ Rosie said, even though she didn’t. She didn’t understand any of it – not the multiple nor the arranged marriages or the culture of fear – where young women had no say in their lives or their future, even within their own families. But you couldn’t say that out loud in Glasgow or anywhere else without being accused of racism. The truth was that in most people’s everyday lives you just let everyone else get on with it, as it was none of your business how anyone lived. But these girls were miserable, terrified and vulnerable.
‘So,’ Rosie turned to the other girl, ‘why are you crying? Why do you not want to go to Pakistan?’
‘Why do you think?’ the girl answered.
‘I can make a guess,’ Rosie said. ‘Are you to be married over there?’
The girl nodded.
‘Yes. To a man I have not even met. I am fourteen years old and he is forty-eight. Old enough to be my grandfather.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m to go with my uncle to Peshawar later in the month, the wedding will take place immediately and then our families will be linked in marriage and in business.’
Rosie didn’t know what to say.
‘Do you want to tell me your name?’
‘My name is Laila. I’ve been here all my life. I go to school here. I’m studying to go to university and I want to be a doctor.’
‘Do you want to get married? I mean, in the traditional Pakistani way?’
The girl shrugged and stared into the middle distance.
‘Who knows? I’m fourteen. I don’t even think about things like that. I just know I don’t want to go there and be married to some old man right now.’ She bit her lips tight.
‘It’s not just about the marriage,’ Sabiha suddenly said. ‘It’s the whole criminal thing.’ She paused, glancing at the younger girl. ‘They are part of . . . of something dodgy. People go missing and their passports are used by criminals.’
‘What do you mean? What criminals?’ Rosie screwed up her eyes.
‘I have heard they use people for smuggling and then they kill them over there. But they keep their passports, then they use them and doctor them so they are fakes for other people. But I have only heard it, so I don’t know any more.’
‘That’s unbelievable,’ Rosie said. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I don’t know for sure. But I overheard them talking.’
‘But is it organised? Who is in charge?’
Sabiha shook her head.
‘I don’t know who does this and that, but I know that my husband is part of it and that is one of the reasons he is down south a lot of the time. They are all criminals.’
‘Smuggling what?’
Sabiha looked at her cousin, who seemed to give her the slightest nod of her head. Then Sabiha glanced up at Rosie.
‘Diamonds.’
Rosie looked straight at both of them for any sign that they were lying in their eyes. There was none.
Rosie got into her car and sat back, shaking her head, still aghast at what Sabiha had said and wondering how McGuire would react. As she switched on the engine, her mobile rang in her bag. It was Don.
‘Hey, Rosie. What you up to?’
‘Actually, I’ve just been walking in the park.’
‘Must be nice to be idle, strolling around all day, listening to the birds.’
‘Yeah, sure. I was meeting someone.’
‘I didn’t know you were into dogging.’
‘I’d bet that you know more about dogging than me, pet.’
She could hear him chuckling.
‘Tell you what . . . I’m going to make your day.’
‘That would be great. I’m all ears.’
‘You see the dead Pakistani in the Albany? Remember I told you we were looking at CCTV from the foyer?’
‘I do.’
‘Well, wait till you hear this . . . We’ve homed in on two girls coming out of the hotel, one of them carrying a case. The place was really busy with some kind of function, but these girls kind of stood out. And guess what . . .’
‘Oh, come on, Don. I’m dying of curiosity here.’
‘The bird who’s along with the one carrying the case is the same bird who’s lying in the Royal Infirmary, minus part of her arm.’
‘You have to be kidding me.’
‘I’m not. We still know very little about her, but she bears an uncanny resemblance to the girl in the hotel. And the other one – we don’t know who she is yet. But I’d say they’re both hookers, and taking the theory further, maybe they’d just been with the Asian guy.’
‘Why lump them together? If they were hookers at the hotel, they could have been to anyone’s room, couldn’t they? What’s the link?’
‘The case.’
‘What case?’
‘The attaché case the bird was carrying. Are you not listening?’
‘Sorry. I forgot about that. My head’s all over the place.’
‘The word on the street is that this Malik punter had a case full of money and whatever other shit he was dealing with – he was up here on a drop. We think he had diamonds, but we’re not sure. And the case was definitely not with him when the cops went to the room.’
‘So you’re thinking the girls, who you believe are hookers, went into the room, bumped him off and took his case? It’s a bit far-fetched, is it not? They wouldn’t even know what was in the case, would they?’
‘Nobody is saying they bumped him off. Maybe he died during a sex game. The pathologist is looking at that too.’
‘So during the sex game he croaks and the birds steal his case? That about it?’
‘Well, it’s certainly a credible theory. Especially if one of them ends up with her arm cut off and the other disappears.’
‘And the case?’
‘The case is nowhere to be seen.’
‘I like the sound of this,’ Rosie said. ‘When are you talking to the girl in hospital?’
‘We’re hoping, this afternoon.’
‘So, when she wakes up and realises she’s lost her arm, she’s going to see your face and discover she’s in a shitload of trouble?’
‘Something like that. But hey – I don’t make these things happen, Rosie. I just catch the bad guys.’
‘Sure. I wish I could talk to the girl.’
‘Yeah. I know you do, but unless you’re dressed as a doctor, I’d say that’s highly unlikely.’
‘But she’s not a suspect, is she?’
‘Not on paper. But she’s a suspect alright, until we establish more on Malik’s death.’
Rosie had to keep quiet about her conversation with Sabiha and Laila.
‘Okay. If you get a word with her, it would be great to get a line, Don. One line would do it – nothing that would screw up your investigation, but just a line to keep it in the paper. This is beginning to sound like it’s all irresistibly linked.’
‘I like it when you’re excited, Gilmour.’
