by Anna Smith
‘TJ …’ Rosie didn’t want to hear it.
He held his hand up. ‘I know, Rosie. But honestly, this shit tonight. That guy. He could have killed you. That’s obviously what he does. It’s nothing to scumbags like him to squeeze the life out of someone. And then what? That’s it. It’s over for you.’ He shrugged. ‘Sure, the papers might say wonderful stuff about you, but people will be eating chips out of the paper the next day, and you’ll be dead, Rosie. And for what?’
Rosie touched her neck, still tender from the grip of her attacker. She knew that nothing she would say could make him understand what she was, what drove her every day. She’d been knee-deep in other people’s misery for so long, she didn’t really know how to be anything else. She did everything on instinct, gut reaction. She didn’t ever stop to think of the consequences, whether it was chasing the human traffickers who stole the kid in Spain last year, taking Emir to her flat to stay, or going out to Tanya’s house when it was obvious that someone had bumped off her man. Sure, she was reckless. But through all the investigations where she’d taken risks, the only question she ever asked herself afterwards was: What if she hadn’t? What if she hadn’t stuck her neck out, taken the risk? It was irrational, and she couldn’t even begin to explain it to TJ or anyone else. She just didn’t know who else to be other than the person she was right now, even if her face hurt and her lip was raw. She pushed her chair back and stood up.
‘I’d better phone McGuire,’ she said. ‘He’ll go nuts.’ She walked away from the table, lifting her mobile, then turned, smiling. ‘And where’s this curry you promised? I’m starving. Oh yes. and I’m ready for that glass of wine now, garçon.’
As she walked into the living room she was dialling McGuire’s number.
‘Gilmour. What’s wrong? I’m at the back bench up to my arse in the splash here.’
Rosie looked at her watch. She’d lost track of time. It was 8.30, and McGuire would be putting the finishing touches to the first edition.
‘Oh. Sorry, Mick. I’ll call later …’
‘No, Rosie. Something’s obviously wrong. What’s up?’
‘I got attacked.’
‘Christ. Where? Who? Are you hurt?’
‘I got a bit of a slap. Black eye and a fat lip.’
‘Fucking hell! What happened?’
‘I nipped out to Tanya’s house because I couldn’t get her on the phone. When I got there the door was open and suddenly I got dragged by the hair into the hallway. Don’t know who it was. Some guy had me by the throat, slapping me, demanding to know where she was.’
‘Fuck sake. How did you get away?’
‘I kneed him in the balls. He just collapsed. Christ knows where I got the strength or courage to do that, Mick. I’ve never done it before, but I hit him hard enough to make a run for it.’
‘Shit! Remind me not to mess with you, Gilmour.’ His tone lightened a little. ‘But listen. Are you okay? Where are you now? Should we get the cops?’
‘No, no, Mick. I’m okay. Honest. I’m with my friend TJ. He came and got me and brought me to his flat. I was a bit shocked though, but I’m fine.’
There was a pause, and Rosie knew what was coming next.
‘Right, Rosie. Listen. Don’t go back to your flat tonight. Just stay there. This is getting rough now. We need to take these fuckers seriously. I’m moving you somewhere with a bit of protection. A minder.’
‘I don’t need protection, Mick. What am I going to do with a minder? I don’t want a minder. Honest. I’ll go somewhere else to stay till it dies down. But no minder.’
‘We’ll talk about this in the morning. Just get yourself a rest and make sure that JT bloke takes good care of you.’
‘It’s TJ,’ Rosie said.
‘Yeah. Right. Just make sure he’s looking after you.’ He hung up.
TJ came in with two glasses of red wine and handed her one. He put on a CD, and blues music filled the room as he slipped onto the sofa beside her. Rosie took a mouthful of wine, kicked off her shoes and sat back.
‘I’ll have this drink, then a long hot shower. Then maybe we can eat?’
‘Sure.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m crazy about you, Gilmour. You know that don’t you?’
She smiled but said nothing as he brushed his lips against her bruised neck. Rosie was instantly aroused by his touch as he caressed her thigh, and closed her eyes as TJ’s kisses moved down to her chest and he unbuttoned her shirt.
*
In the morning, Rosie awoke to the aroma of fresh coffee as the sun streamed in the window. The sound of the radio drifted through from the living room. She groaned in pain as she tried to lift her head off the pillow. Her neck hurt from the whiplash as her attacker had thrown her against the wall. She touched her face and could feel it still swollen, but at least she could see out of both eyes. The cut inside her lip still felt raw. She sat up and leaned across to look in TJ’s wardrobe mirror.
‘Christ,’ she said aloud, as she saw the swelling round her cheekbone and eye. ‘How am I going to explain this in the office?’
She pulled on one of TJ’s shirts and went into the kitchen, where he stood at the cooker stirring scrambled eggs.
‘Hi, pal.’ She gave him a hug.
‘Look at you,’ he said, leaning back. ‘You look like a prizefighter.’
‘Feel like one too. Have I time for a quick shower? I’ve got to go into the office and talk to McGuire.’
‘Course. Make it a quick one though.’
*
Rosie was finishing breakfast when the phone rang. It was Don. She looked at TJ and he shrugged as though he could have predicted it.
‘Hi Don.’
‘Rosie. Listen. Very quickly. We’re moving on the slaughterhouse this morning. A team went up there at sparrow fart. No bastard in sight. So the forensic boys are going up now with a few of the lads battering down the door.’
‘Really? Brilliant. Thanks, Don.’
‘Listen. If you’re coming up, leave it for at least an hour or two, because this has been kept really tight.’
‘Will do. But, Don, how is Emir?’
‘Fine when I saw him last night. They’ve got him in a flat in the West End. Don’t worry. Look, I need to go.’ He hung up.
Rosie sensed TJ watching her and she resisted the urge to get up and start rushing around.
‘Cops are up at the slaughterhouse. They’ve already started. But there’s nobody there. They must have done a runner. Maybe they felt the heat was heading their way.’
‘Or maybe they got tipped off,’ TJ said.
‘Good thinking, Batman.’ The idea of a snitch inside the cops was nothing new. ‘You’re pretty on the ball for a sax player.’
TJ smiled. ‘So what you waiting for, Gilmour?’ He lifted her plate. ‘I know your arse is twitching to get in about it.’ He stood up and ruffled her hair. ‘Now bugger off to work and let me get on with my dishes.’
CHAPTER 24
The official version Rosie told about her black eye and fat lip was that she’d pranged her car and hit her face on the steering wheel. Anything else would have left too many unanswered questions. So she was prepared for the shocked expressions on the faces of reporters when she stepped onto the editorial floor of the Post. She put on a brave smile as one of them jokingly asked what the other guy looked like. She was tempted to tell the truth: that the last time she saw him he was writhing in agony on the floor, clutching his balls. She headed straight for McGuire’s office.
‘Bloody hell, Gilmour! What a state!’ McGuire quickly got off his chair and came round from his desk to greet her.
Rosie looked at him suspiciously. ‘You want a group hug?’ She said, attempting to smile through her puffy lip and shrugging him off.
‘Let me get a closer look, Rosie.’ He stood close to her, examining her face. ‘Hmmm … If his bollocks are as bruised as your face, he’ll not be doing much damage this weekend. What a bastard.’ McGuire shook his
head angrily. ‘What kind of man hits a woman like that? If I had my way, Rosie, I’d put these fuckers up against a wall and shoot them.’
He gently touched her shoulder and motioned her to sit down. ‘Want a coffee? Did you get some sleep last night?’
‘Yes, to both questions.’
McGuire buzzed Marion and asked for some coffee, then sat on the armchair opposite Rosie. He stretched his legs out and examined the perfect crease in his pinstriped trousers. ‘This is not good, Rosie. We can’t have you getting slapped around like that. We’ve sorted a place for you in the West End. Very secure, but I’m still thinking of putting a minder outside all the time. Or even in the flat.’
‘I told you, Mick,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘I’m not living with a minder. No way.’
‘Well, we’ll see how you get on. Play it by ear, no pun intended.’ He grinned.
Marion appeared with a tray of coffee and some biscuits and set it down on the table between them.
‘So,’ McGuire said. ‘We need to think where we go from here in terms of a story.’
She told him about her confrontation with Frank Paton, and about the slip-up he made about lawyers getting rid of refugees.
‘What a plonker,’ McGuire said. ‘Imagine an idiot like him defending anyone if he’s as stupid as that.’
‘Yeah. Just shows you how much pressure he’s under when he can’t think straight. He just about shat himself when he realised straight away what he’d said.’
‘I’m sure he did, but what can we do with it, Rosie? Is there a version we can write at the moment that will put more heat on him? I hope you’ve got it on tape.’
Rosie nodded, sipping her coffee, then said, ‘We could look at doing a piece on the names of those refugees we know who have already gone missing. Just ask the question where are they, and say that we put it to Paton and he refused to answer. But once we do that, the whole thing will start to open up.’ She paused. ‘I’m also thinking we should go to Bosnia. Check some things out on this Milosh – or Raznatovic, to use his real name. The cops are up at the slaughterhouse and there’s nobody there, so that could maybe mean they’ve shut it down and he’s done a runner back to where he came from.’
Rosie was keen to push the Bosnia trip, after Adrian’s call. On her way to the office, Adrian had called with information he’d dug up on Raznatovic and Boscovac.
‘You know this other guy I told you about – the one from Belgrade who’s on the board at PD Pharmaceuticals?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, my contact over in Bosnia has told me that Boskovac and Raznatovic go way back. They grew up together and both were involved in the political scene when they were at medical school. These two men are the key to this whole thing, and we’ve got to go over there and at least see if we can get a hold of them.’
‘I wouldn’t fancy your chances of tea and a sit-down interview with any of them. You might come out without your fingers.’ He gave her a cautious look.
‘Yeah, but I’d still like to go. We’re the only ones who have this much information, and we need to be in the right place if it kicks off.’
McGuire nodded slowly, looking thoughtful and steepling his fingers under his chin.
Rosie’s mobile rang.
‘Hey Don. How’s it going?’
‘Rosie, Listen. Frank Paton’s car has just been pulled out of Loch Lomond.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Nope. And he was in it.’
‘Christ almighty! Seriously? Suicide?’
Rosie turned to McGuire and mouthed the name Frank Paton, drawing her hand across her throat. He mouthed back ‘oh fuck’, and punched the air. Rosie shook her head and rolled her eyes upwards.
‘I can’t talk long,’ Don said. ‘It’s not looking like suicide, given that there wasn’t much left of his head. His wife reported him missing late last night when he didn’t come home and she couldn’t get in touch with him, but it was all kept hush-hush. The alarm bells only rang when a couple of amateur divers were in Loch Lomond this morning and saw the car. They saw a body in it, took the number plate and got the cops.’
‘My God,’ Rosie said. ‘He was under huge pressure, Don.’ As she said it, she felt a pang of guilt about their recent encounter.
‘Yeah, well not any more he isn’t. Looks like he’s been bumped off and the car driven into the loch. I need to go.’
The line went dead.
Rosie sat back and made a whistling noise.
‘I think we’ve got tomorrow’s splash taken care of, Mick.’
‘What the hell happened?’
Rosie told him what Don had said.
‘So they’ve done him in,’ Mick said. ‘Maybe they thought he was a loose cannon. Too edgy and nervous.’
‘I think so,’ Rosie said. ‘They wouldn’t take any chances of him buckling if the cops got to him. Bad move on their part – because the cops will be all over it now.’
‘And now they’ve got your man Emir.’ McGuire stood up, rubbing his hands as he went back behind his desk. ‘This is beginning to open up big time. I do love it when this happens, Gilmour.’
Rosie stood up. ‘I need to talk to the cops. They’ll be issuing some kind of statement shortly. It’s not as if they can keep Paton’s death a secret.’
‘Right,’ McGuire said. ‘Once the cops tell us what’s what, you can start writing your version. Let’s have a bit of intrigue about two lawyers dead, and connect the refugees going missing. Nobody else will have that.’
‘It will open up the story though, Mick.’
‘I know, but I don’t think we have an option any more. It’s already wide open now, so let’s get something in about it – not the stuff we’ve got from Matt at the slaughterhouse, of course. Let’s keep our powder dry on that. We’ll drip the intrigue and mystery first, then see what comes out.’
‘Okay.’ Rosie headed for the door. ‘I’ll start putting something together shortly.’
McGuire didn’t answer, just sat looking at the blank pages on his desk. He was already thinking headlines.
*
By the time Rosie had finished her story, Frank Paton’s death was already the number one item on the six o’clock news. Police had confirmed it was a murder inquiry, and the word coming to Reynolds was that Paton had been shot in the head. Rosie watched the TV coverage from the office where she was working, away from the main editorial floor. There was footage of the area in Loch Lomond taped off as a crime scene, and of the car being loaded onto a lorry to be taken for forensic examination. Paton’s body was already in the morgue. They showed library pictures of Paton leaving the High Court in Glasgow with one of his clients who had just got off on an armed robbery charge. There were also holiday snapshots of him with his wife and kids on some cruise liner a couple of years ago. Rosie pictured the misery and shock of the family right now and she felt sorry for them, but her own sense of self-preservation also made her glad he hadn’t committed suicide – especially since she was one of the last people to see him and heap pressure on him. At least she couldn’t blame herself. She remembered his face just before he left the pub, a mask of shock and fear. She told herself he got what was coming to him. Look what he did to the poor people who had come to him for help. People like Paton deserved no mercy – and it looked like he’d been shown none.
Rosie was on the landline phone to McGuire, who wanted to know how long before he got her story, when Don called her on her mobile. She told McGuire she’d call him back.
‘Don. How are you?’ she asked, but he didn’t answer. After a moment’s silence, Rosie spoke again. ‘You there, Don?’
‘Yeah. Where are you, Rosie?’
‘In the office, doing up the Frank Paton murder for the splash tomorrow. Some story.’
‘Uh … Listen, Rosie …’ He sounded nervous, even perhaps shocked.
‘What’s up, Don?’
She could hear him breathing heavily. He was struggling to talk.
‘Ros
ie … There’s been an almighty fuck-up.’ He paused. ‘It’s Emir. He’s been shot.’
Rosie slumped in her chair.
‘What? How can he be shot, Don? He was under police protection, for God’s sake! He … um …What … I …’ Rosie couldn’t think straight. All she saw was the look on Emir’s face as he hugged her before going off with the cops. ‘Oh, Christ, Don. Tell me this isn’t true.’
‘I’m sorry, Rosie,’ he said. ‘He’s in the hospital. It was a couple of hours ago. There’s a huge rammy going on to find out how the fuck it happened. Unbelievable fuck-up.’
‘Which hospital? Can I see him? Is he going to die?’
‘The Western Infirmary. It’s not looking good, Rosie. Shot in the stomach. Lost so much blood.’
Rosie was on her feet.
‘Will I get in if I come up?’ Rosie paused. She had to get in. ‘Don. You need to get me in to see him.’
‘I don’t know, Rosie. I need to speak to the DI.’
‘Don, you have to.’ Rosie’s throat was tight. ‘I’m all he’s got. The poor guy’s got nobody. Do you hear me Don? You guys owe me that. I brought him to you, and you fucking let him get murdered.’ She bit her lip, fighting back tears of anger and frustration. ‘Sorry, Don. Sorry.’
‘Just head up there, Rosie, and I’ll talk to the DI. I’ll meet you outside.’ He hung up.
Rosie sat back down, sent her story to McGuire, then dialled his number.
‘Mick. Story’s in your desk. Listen. I just got a phone call.’ She swallowed back tears.
‘What’s up, Gilmour? What’s wrong?’
‘Emir,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘They’ve shot Emir.’
‘Oh fuck. But how? He was under police protection.’
‘I know, Mick. Don’t know the details, just that it’s really bad. He’s in hospital, but he’s not going to make it. Listen. I’m going up to the Western Infirmary now. That okay? You’ve got the story. I …’ She paused. ‘I don’t want him to die on his own, Mick. He trusted me. Oh shit, Mick, he was just a poor innocent guy.’
‘Christ, Rosie,’ McGuire’s tone softened. ‘I’m so sorry. Just go up and be with him.’ He paused. ‘But Rosie? I want to know how the fuck this happened. It stinks. Call me if you need anything.’
