Screams in the Dark

by Anna Smith

  Rosie’s explanation seemed to take the heat out of the conversation and Margaret seemed less defensive. The remainder of the meeting went well with Margaret explaining some facts about how many people had come to Glasgow and various success stories over the years. She even volunteered that refugees did disappear from time to time and it happened in all of the cities where they’d been placed. She was honest enough to say – off the record – that they didn’t even have an accurate figure of people who had gone missing.

  Rosie feigned interest, but she didn’t need to hear it all. She’d already got what she came here for. All she wanted to know was did they keep track of people, and the answer was no they didn’t. It was all she needed.

  When they finished, Rosie stood up and shook hands with Margaret as she left, aware that the press officer was glad to see the back of her.

  As Christy walked her along the corridor towards the door, he stopped. ‘I don’t think you’ll be invited to the Christmas party,’ he said with an impish grin.

  ‘I don’t like parties anyway,’ Rosie smiled back. ‘All that laughing and enjoying yourself,’ she joked, feeling she had met a kindred spirit in him. Then she looked him in the eye. ‘There’s something dodgy going on, Christy. Refugees disappearing.’

  Christy made a face that agreed with her and they stood for a moment in silence.

  ‘I’ll call you.’ He turned and went back up the corridor.

  As Rosie left, she glanced into the waiting room where the Rwandan woman still sat with the same expression.

  *

  Rosie waited at the main door to the flats in the Merchant City in the hope someone would come out so she could slip through the secured entrance. She assumed if she buzzed the number Don had given her for the Ukrainian office cleaner, Tanya, she’d get a knock-back. She might only get one shot to talk to her, so she didn’t want to blow it on an intercom conversation that might get lost in translation. Eventually she heard the buzz from inside, and as the main door opened, she slipped in, grimacing at the young man coming out as though she’d forgotten her keys.

  She climbed the staircase to the second floor. There was no name on the door, so she checked her notebook again, took a deep breath and braced herself.

  She pressed the doorbell and heard it chime inside. She waited. No answer. After a few seconds, she pressed it again, but still no answer. Instinctively she bent down and peered through the letter box. She could hear music coming from somewhere down the hall and the sound of running water. She waited a while then rang the bell again.

  ‘Hello? Who is it please?’ The voice from behind the door.

  ‘My name is Rosie Gilmour. Could you open the door please?’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello? … Tanya? … I’m from the Post. The newspaper. I have something to talk to you about. It’s about the law firm Murphy & Paton.’

  Silence.

  ‘Are you there, Tanya?’ Rosie persisted. ‘Please. Won’t you open the door for just a moment? I want to talk to you about something specific.’ She paused. ‘It’s about refugees.’

  Rosie waited. The music stopped. Then she heard the key being turned and the door opened.

  Tanya stood inside the hallway, rubbing her blonde hair with a towel. Her skin was slightly flushed from the shower and she looked skinny in a clingy vest and baggy tracksuit bottoms. She looked at Rosie from big, ice-blue eyes.

  ‘What do you want with me? Why you come here?’ She screwed up her face, confused. ‘I only clean the office. Why you here?’

  She looked like she was faking.

  ‘Sorry, Tanya,’ Rosie said, looking her in the eye. ‘But can I possibly have five minutes of your time to tell you some things.’ She paused keeping her eyes fixed on Tanya. ‘I understand it was you who found Tony Murphy that morning. You were the first to see him?’

  Tanya nodded, then looked away.

  ‘I found him. He was already dead.’

  ‘Tanya. I want to talk to you about Tony Murphy and Frank Paton.’

  ‘I only clean the office. What can I say?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Tanya shook her head. She took a step back as though she was going to close the door.

  ‘Tanya …’ Rosie sensed time was running out. ‘Please. Give me a minute. I want to tell you something about the law firm.’ The door was beginning to close. ‘Tanya. They may have been mixed up in something with refugees. Something dangerous, Tanya. Serious.’ The door closed. ‘You might be able to help … to stop bad things happening.’

  Rosie cursed under her breath. It was too optimistic to hope that Tanya would talk, even if she had something to say. She’d only come to the flat as a long shot after Don had called her to say that the cops were sure it was Tanya who had sent Murphy’s suicide note to his wife. They believed she stole the letter, but they had no proof so could do nothing about it. They’d questioned her, but she had just given them blank looks when they asked if she’d removed a letter from Murphy’s desk. Don was convinced Murphy was having a fling with her, but he had nothing to go on but his instinct. He’d admitted to Rosie his hunch was really based on the fact that he thought Tanya was, as he’d said, ‘very shaggable indeed’.

  Rosie was about to give up and leave when the door opened.

  ‘Come in,’ Tanya said.

  Rosie followed her down the narrow hall and into the cramped living room. She glanced around at the sofa, the one armchair, and the open kitchen, all squeezed into a tiny area. You wouldn’t be swinging many cats in here, she thought.

  ‘I just moved in,’ Tanya said, as though she sensed Rosie judging. ‘Is very small. I left my husband, so now I am trying to be on my own.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Rosie said, slightly embarrassed in case Tanya had read her mind. ‘It’s good to be in the city centre. Handy.’ She changed the subject. ‘Look, Tanya. As I said, I’m from the Post and I’m looking into the death of Tony Murphy, but on a wider picture. Because …’

  ‘I know who you are,’ Tanya interrupted. ‘I saw your name in the newspaper. You were writing a story about refugees. About vigilantes? And a body in the water.’

  ‘Oh, you read that?’ Rosie said surprised.

  Tanya sat on the sofa and motioned her to sit down.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I read. I was thinking maybe to phone the newspaper and talk to you.’

  ‘Really?’ Rosie was astonished at the change in Tanya’s demeanour. She was a lucky reporter, but she wasn’t this lucky.

  ‘Yes,’ Tanya looked at the floor, then at Rosie. ‘Do you pay for information?’

  Terrific. Another hustler on the make. Whatever life the Ukrainians had led in the old Communist Soviet Union, it didn’t take them long to embrace the free market when the shackles were off.

  ‘Sometimes we pay for information,’ Rosie said, deadpan. She shot Tanya a look of mild disgust. ‘But to be honest, I don’t know that I’m ready to pay money for a story about refugees who may be in trouble, Tanya. Kind of sticks in my throat.’ She hoped she was getting through.

  Tanya pushed her hair back from her face and Rosie could see the dark shadows under her eyes, and traces of a bruise on her cheek. But she was still very beautiful, pale, translucent skin, high cheekbones and an easy elegance about her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tanya sighed. ‘But I have no money. I was looking for some help is all.’

  ‘Do you have any information that you think would be important for refugees?’ Rosie didn’t want to let it go.

  Tanya got up and went to the kitchen. She took a cigarette out of a packet on the worktop and lit it, and stood watching Rosie for a moment. Then she went into her handbag and pulled out a piece of paper. She came back and sat down on the sofa.

  ‘I have this,’ she said, unfolding the paper and handing it to Rosie.

  Rosie’s eyes quickly scanned the sheet of paper which had a list of foreign names on it, possibly refugees, and addresses in Glasgow. Each of them had the words, ‘alone, no fami
ly’ written at the side, and she could see that some of them had been scored through with a pen. It could have been a random list of refugees, and it wouldn’t have meant much to Rosie, had one name not jumped out at her. Emir Marishta. She remembered the surname he’d given her at the station. Next to it was Jetmir Hasani, his friend who’d gone missing, and the address of the door she had knocked on in Balornock. Her heart skipped a beat.

  ‘It’s a list,’ Rosie said. ‘Refugees I suppose. Where did you get it, Tanya?’

  Tanya looked at her with a sort of cold defiance.

  ‘I took it,’ she said. ‘From the file in Frank Paton’s office. It was the file he took from Tony’s desk when he came in that morning and found he was dead. He took the file away before the police came.’

  Rosie took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to talk to me, Tanya?’

  Tanya nodded, looking at the floor.

  CHAPTER 11

  Rosie was at her desk trying to make small talk with Reynolds, the crime reporter who was so far out of the loop he might as well still be in the pub. And that’s how it would stay as far as she was concerned. Reynolds was running down the clock on his final month’s notice after McGuire made sure the redundancy deal was an offer he couldn’t refuse. He may still officially have been the crime reporter, but he was kept completely out of any big investigations because the editor considered him a spy for the police.

  ‘So what are you hearing on the Murphy suicide, Rosie?’ Reynolds sat back, sticking his pen behind his ear.

  ‘Nothing much, Bob, that’s the problem,’ she lied. ‘I can’t get a damn thing on him – no reason why he would top himself.’ Rosie shrugged. ‘That’s the problem with suicide. No warning. It just happens. I reckon there was some personal trauma in his life, but the wife is saying nothing and neither is Frank Paton.’

  ‘Weird though, with that suicide note arriving nearly a week after he died.’ Reynolds looked smug. ‘I had a tip from one of my guys. I’ve passed it on to Lamont.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Rosie hoped her surprise didn’t show on her face. ‘I heard that too, but the cops have absolutely nothing to say on it. It’s up to McGuire if he wants to run it.’

  Rosie kept one eye on the conference room at the end of the editorial floor. Any minute now the door would open and the various editorial heads would spill out of the room, armed with their schedules and plans for tomorrow’s paper. Some would emerge flushed and agitated, having been given a good kicking by McGuire who could be a monster in conference, knocking back their stories, panning their opinions, or warning them they’d be out of a job by the end of the day if they didn’t buck up their ideas. Lately, Rosie had seldom attended the twice-daily conferences, even though she was officially an assistant editor in charge of investigations. When she was working on an investigation herself, everything she did had to be kept tight as a drum – usually just between her, McGuire and the picture editor. She’d managed to convince McGuire that Lamont should be kept in the dark on every investigation until the last minute, because he was a slippery bastard who couldn’t be trusted. Now she was champing at the bit, desperate to offload her latest information to McGuire. The door opened and out they came. Less than a minute later, Rosie’s phone rang.

  ‘You’ve to come through, Rosie.’

  ‘Thanks, Marion.’

  Rosie said nothing to Reynolds as she got up and headed for McGuire’s office.

  ‘Gilmour,’ McGuire said. ‘I feel as though you’ve been missing for days. You’re such a ray of sunshine.’

  ‘That’s touching, Mick. Not days, actually. Just yesterday. I was out all day seeing people.’

  ‘Right. Well I hope it’s paid off, because I don’t want this refugee story to go cold.’

  ‘Cold?’ Rosie said, sitting on the leather sofa opposite his desk. ‘You must be joking. This is so hot now, Mick, it’s burning a hole in my notebook.’

  ‘Christ, Rosie, when you say things like that I can hear the lawyers gasping for air.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think we should even go near the lawyers with this stuff, Mick. At least not yet.’

  ‘Now I am nervous.’ He took his feet of the desk and sat forward. ‘Come on. I’m all ears.’

  ‘Okay. Brace yourself.’ She fiddled with a pencil. ‘Here’s the scenario, Mick. Hold on to your pants for this. Refugees are being kidnapped and killed for the illegal trade in body tissue.’ Rosie put her hands out theatrically. ‘You know, a line like that should really have had a drum roll.’

  McGuire looked at her, his face serious. ‘Don’t fuck about, Rosie.’

  ‘I’m not, Mick. I’m absolutely not fucking about. I’m telling you. That’s what I’m hearing.’

  McGuire got up from his desk and came around to sit on the armchair opposite her.

  ‘Tell me. Chapter and verse.’

  Rosie began with the story from Tam Logan’s widow Jan, of how she’d spilled it all out to her that day before she disappeared to Spain. Rosie really hadn’t expected to hear any more from Jan, even though she felt she was holding out, but last night she’d called Rosie on her mobile with more information. She had found a piece of paper in the pocket of Tam’s denim shirt he sometimes wore to work.

  ‘She told me the name of the guy they called Doctor Mengele.’ McGuire shot her a come-off-it glance. Rosie put up a hand. ‘No, I’m not kidding! She gave me his name – Milosh Subacic. She says Tam told her he was Bosnian, but she isn’t sure. And she told me where the place is where they’re doing all this cutting up bodies stuff. When I spoke to her at first she said it was somewhere outside of Glasgow, but last night she was more specific. Said it was a disused slaughterhouse out near Drymen. But I think she’s given quite a good location, or area at least, so I’d say it’s findable. We need to go there, but I’ll come to that in a minute.’ She took a deep breath, ready to continue.

  ‘Fuck me, Rosie,’ McGuire interrupted. ‘Are you asking me to believe that some Bosnian guy is over in Drymen cutting people up like Josef Mengele?’

  ‘So it would seem, Mick.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘Wait. It gets better.’ Rosie uncrossed her legs and sat forward.

  ‘I also tracked down the office cleaner at Paton, Murphy, the Ukrainian bird, Tanya. My cop pal swears it was her who sent the suicide note to Murphy’s wife – thinks she swiped it from his desk when she found him swinging that morning. But of course they’ve no way of proving it. I mean who else could it have been? Apart from Frank Paton, and I don’t think it was him.’

  McGuire’s eyebrows knitted.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well why would he?’

  McGuire shrugged. ‘Well, if they were involved in something together …’

  ‘I supppose that’s possible.’ Rosie conceded.

  ‘Right. Okay. Carry on.’

  ‘Well,’ Rosie continued, ‘I went to see her and she wasn’t going to play at all at first, shut the door in my face. Then to my surprise she invites me into her flat.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Nothing, Mick. She asked if we’d pay for information and I put her right about my feelings about making money out of stricken refugees, and suddenly she changed her mind.’

  ‘You’re a class act, Gilmour. I’ll give you that.’

  Rosie smiled. ‘Wait till you hear. Next thing is she opens up. She’s been having an affair with Murphy – hotel rooms in the afternoon – and she made the mistake of falling in love, daft woman. He said he’d leave his wife … same old same old.’

  ‘Yeah. And?’

  ‘Well, she says on the morning he was found, she did take the suicide note meant for his wife, and also another one for Frank Paton. She showed me it.’

  ‘Oh fuck, Rosie.’ McGuire put his head in his hands. ‘You’ve looked at something which is evidence that’s been stolen from what may have been a crime scene.’

  ‘It was a suicide, Mick. Not a crime scene.’

  ‘Well
, maybe not when she took it. But I’ve got a sneaky suspicion you’re about to tell me something that will guarantee that Murphy was up to his arse in some kind of crime. That means everything they were doing was a crime scene.’

  Rosie put her hands up.

  ‘You got it in one, Mick.’

  ‘Christ! Go on.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I almost don’t want to hear what the suicide notes said.’

  Rosie told him the contents of both notes.

  ‘Fuck! Murphy and Paton! So you think they’re actually behind this, providing the refugees?’

  ‘So it would seem,’ Rosie said.

  ‘Go on.’ McGuire was on his feet now, walking around the office, concentrating, hands dug deep into his trouser pockets.

  ‘So Tanya told me she went into the office early one morning before Paton came in and looked in a file. A piece of paper dropped out and she photocopied it.’ Rosie went into her bag and took it out. She handed it to McGuire and he looked at it.

  ‘Names of refugees, I guess. Scrubbed out some of them.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. Scrubbed out. And you see the name of my man Emir? Him and his mate Jetmir – the one he told me about – they’re also scrubbed out. Maybe, in Jetmir’s case, in more ways than one.’

  ‘So you really think Murphy and Paton have been hand-picking these people?’

  ‘Yes, it’s possible, Mick. Maybe they identify the ones who nobody will even report as missing – the ones who are all alone with no family. Sound plausible? Who’s going to give a damn about people like that who end up in a foreign country. They’re just a number in some filing cabinet at the Home Office.’

  McGuire took a deep breath and pursed his lips as he exhaled slowly. He scratched his chin. ‘But why? How the fuck does something like illegal trade in body tissue spring up in Glasgow. This just doesn’t happen here.’ He paused, then asked, ‘And what exactly is body tissue?’

  ‘I checked this out a bit. Body tissue is anything from skin to eyeballs to bone and veins. In other words, anything that isn’t an organ.’