by Anna Smith
There was enough dubiousness about Viktor Daletsky to cause a stir if it was revealed that he was entertaining the Home Secretary and one of his ex-public schoolboy pals, the millionaire businessmen Oliver Woolard of Woolard Institutions. That kind of stuff never looked good on paper.
McGuire’s political connections had established that Carter-Smith had been staying at Woolard’s villa on his annual jaunt, so now the pieces were beginning to fit together. There was no proof that Carter-Smith and Woolard had been on the yacht, other than the word of a rent boy, but he decided to wing it and see if Carter-Smith burst. He’d never thought there was any substance to Carter-Smith, and believed that if put under serious pressure, his bottle would crash. McGuire loved a bit of bluff. His attitude was that Carter-Smith would already be bricking it because he knew he’d lost his House of Commons pass. The longer the pass was missing, the more it became like a ticking time bomb, waiting to end up in the wrong hands.
So Rosie and Matt had found themselves staking out Woolard’s villa since early morning, without any real plan. It brought a whole new meaning to the phrase flying by the seat of your pants.
‘Here he comes,’ Matt said. ‘Come on you big smug fucker.’
Matt was already firing off several pictures, as they came out of the villa towards the chauffeur-driven Daimler.
‘Who’s that with him, Rosie? That Woolard? He’s got that public schoolboy face. Why is it these guys, no matter how old they are, always have that youthful, fucking pampered tosser expression on their faces?’
‘Something to do with self-belief,’ Rosie said, shrinking down into her seat out of view. ‘They don’t teach self-belief in the kind of schools we went to, Matt. The first thing public school kids learn is that they are being prepared and groomed to go out and run the world. It’s their destiny. They expect.’
‘Well, fuck them.’ Matt, put the camera down on Rosie’s lap, and started the engine as Carter-Smith and Woolard got into the back of the Daimler. ‘They’ll not be expecting this.’
They waited until the car had gone down to the bottom of the steep hill and turned onto the street before they went after it.
‘Let’s see where they go. Nothing to lose.’
The Daimler whispered its way out of the pueblo and onto the main drag towards Marbella. They kept a discreet distance as the car continued beyond Marbella and turned into the harbour at the town of Estepona.
‘Maybe they’re going to Daletsky’s yacht. Now, that would be the equivalent of a decent pools win.’
‘Well, it looks like they’re going to someone’s yacht.’
Matt pulled the car over when they got into the harbour. The Daimler headed for the biggest yacht in the harbour, moored at the far end.
‘Don’t get any closer. Just do what you can from here, then we go away and discreetly find out who owns that big bastard.’
Matt did as Rosie said, firing off a few shots of Carter-Smith and Woolard getting out of their car and walking up the gangplank behind what looked like a bodyguard.
‘I like the look of this, Matt.’ She slapped his thigh. ‘I like the look of this very much. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.’
In a little tapas restaurant from where they could keep their eye on yacht, they ordered lunch and sat in the shade watching how the other half lived.
‘I was made for this kind of life, Rosie,’ Matt said, wolfing down tapas as though he was in the office canteen.
‘Yeah, I can see that, Matt. The Spaniards spend generations honing the subtle flavours of their delightful tapas and you’re horsing it into your mouth as though it was a fried egg roll with brown sauce.’ She stabbed at a little dish of potatoes before they disappeared.
‘Hmmm,’ Matt mumbled with his mouth full. ‘But you know what I mean, Rosie. This life. This pavement café lifestyle. Yachts in the background, sunshine and long lunches. I could settle into this quite well. And you know what? I’d always make sure I was kind to the hired help. That’s important if you’ve got class.’ He drank his coke and stifled a belch.
Rosie smiled at Matt’s attempt to converse with the waiter.
‘Si, senor. We are touristas. Beautiful. Bueno. Beautiful harbour. Magnifique boats.’
The waiter nodded at him and looked at Rosie.
‘It is a beautiful place. Fantastic yachts,’ Rosie said. She pointed her finger. ‘The one at the end. The big one. Is it English people who own it? Arabs? Spanish?’
‘No, no.’ The waiter shook his head. ‘The big boat is Russian. Is owned by Russian. Mr Daletsky. He come here some time to this restaurant for lunch. Very nice man. Very rich.’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘Very nice man.’
‘You fucking beauty,’ Matt whispered, picking up a prawn. ‘You fucking beauty.’
‘Who says I’m not a lucky reporter,’ Rosie clinked her coffee cup with Matt’s glass.
Over the long lunch they’d talked tactics and decided not to approach Carter-Smith here. If Daletsky was anything like his heavy reputation, he’d dispose of a couple of tabloid hacks – and not in a good way.
Just before five came the first sign of movement. Matt was positioned so he could get into the back seat of the car with the yacht in his sights. Carter-Smith was first to appear on the deck, and at his side a tall foreign-looking figure, chatting and slapping Woolard on the back.
‘Jesus, it’s him! Fuck me, Matt!’ Rosie recognised him as Daletsky from the pictures she’d seen on the web.
‘No problem, darlin’. Just let me hose these bastards down first.’ He kept snapping all the way until they walked to the edge of the gangplank. Carter-Smith turned and shook hands with Daletsky, then Woolard did the same. The big Russian was smiling broadly and puffing on a cigar.
‘Just sit tight,’ Rosie said, as the pair got into the back of the Daimler.
It couldn’t have been any easier if Carter-Smith had organised a photo-shoot. What was it with the arrogance of these people? They thought they were untouchable. Rosie and Matt waited until the Daimler was well out of the harbour before they set off, following discreetly until the car pulled up at Woolard’s hilltop villa. Matt took more pictures as they got out of the car.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here,’ Rosie said when the two men disappeared into the house.
They headed back to the hotel. McGuire would be ecstatic.
Rosie had just stripped off and was about to go into the shower when her mobile rang. It was McGuire.
‘By this time tomorrow, Rosie, if you listen closely you’ll be able to hear the sound of arses clanging shut in Number Ten.’
‘You like it?’ Rosie laughed.
All they had to do was put a late afternoon call in to the Home Secretary’s office, and by the time the Post was coming off the presses, the whole Cabinet would be in a flap. They didn’t even have to suggest anything inappropriate. Having the Home Secretary and his pal photographed on a yacht with this dodgy Russian was enough.
‘This is brilliant, Rosie,’ McGuire said. ‘It weakens Carter-Smith so much, and he’ll be wondering just how much we know. We’ve got him by the balls, so to speak.’
He told her the copy was already with the lawyers, and he had no doubt the story would be cleared in time for tomorrow.
‘So, I tell you what we want to do now, Rosie,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a hold of that little Toha, or whatever his name is, and go over this with him again. See if he knows any more. I’m going to talk to the lawyers tomorrow about the possibility of running the story of the rent boy and the Home Secretary.’
‘You serious?’ Rosie knew this was the word of a rent boy who could prove nothing. He did have the security pass, but it could have been found anywhere.
‘Yeah,’ McGuire said. ‘What I’m thinking is, once we’ve stitched Carter-Smith up with the Russian story, then we let it be known to him that we have more. We drop it on his lap that we know he was with a rent boy nearby when this kid went missing. If he tells us to fuck off, then we’ll tell
him we have his security pass, left behind when he was podgering the boy. Carter-Smith might look arrogant, but he won’t be able to handle that. He’ll be coming out with some kind of damage limitation.’
‘Mick, there’s something else you need to know. A development. The boy Taha told me last night. If it’s true then it’s dynamite.’
‘I’m on the edge of my desk, Gilmour. Come on.’
‘Taha,’ Rosie said. ‘The boy told me last night that when he was on the boat – remember that first night Carter-Smith was on it with Woolard? Well, Taha was in the office of this Daletsky character and he overheard him and one of the other bosses talking to him about a girl and that she was in Tangiers.’
‘What do you mean, Gilmour? You mean Amy? The kid?’
‘Well, that’s what Taha thinks, but he doesn’t know. He just told me this last night. He said they mentioned some guy called Besmir – some Albanian – and taking the girl to Tangiers. Taha knows this Besmir, and now he’s thinking that’s who took her, so they could sell her for money. How explosive is that?’
‘Holy fuck, Gilmour! So, if this boy’s right, then Carter-Smith was not only a few hundred yards away from the spot where this kid vanished, he was later with the people behind the kidnapping? Are you serious?’
‘Yep. I’m serious. But Taha doesn’t know for sure. He didn’t get a look at the man’s face, and he wasn’t paying much attention at the time because he didn’t know until later that a kid had been stolen.’
McGuire made a soft whistling sound. ‘We’ve got to get this story, Rosie.’ He paused. ‘But tell me this, why would Daletsky or any of this mob want to steal a little girl? And why this little girl?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that, Mick.’
‘Okay. Well, we have to just work on the information we have, and maybe we’ll find out soon enough. But there has to be a reason.’
Rosie agreed. She looked at her watch. Taha would be calling her soon. ‘Okay. I’ll speak to the boy tonight, then I need to throw him some money. He wants to go away.’
‘Not yet, Rosie,’ McGuire said. ‘He can’t go away yet.
Just get him into hiding somewhere. Make sure you know where you can get him for the next couple of days.’
‘Okay,’ Rosie said.
McGuire hung up.
CHAPTER 11
Rosie had been waiting for over an hour. Taha hadn’t turned up for their arranged meeting last night at the chiringuito in Fuengirola, nor had he phoned her mobile. She was worried, but when she got back to the hotel later there was a message in the reception saying simply, ‘Sorry. See you in Cafe del Rey, seven tomorrow night.’ She ordered more tea as her mobile rang. It was McGuire.
‘Paper is just about ready for bed, Rosie. All going swimmingly.’ McGuire was buoyant.
‘Brilliant.’ Rosie’s mood lifted. ‘Have you put the call in to his office?’
‘Just been done. Vincent did it from Westminster. We thought that would be better.’
‘Yeah. How did it go?’
‘Well, Vincent says there was a stony silence. The kind that deafens you. Then he was told snootily that Mr Carter-Smith was on a private holiday and what he did was his business. They tried to strong-arm it a bit, but Vincent is too smart for that crap. He said all they were after was a reaction. The story and pictures were going in the newspaper, and it was perhaps a good idea to say something. So. We’re still waiting. But I’d say Carter-Smith’s just about lost his appetite if he was going out for dinner tonight.’
Rosie laughed. It was a good start, but she was preoccupied with Taha. She looked at her watch.
‘Great. Can’t wait to see what they say.’ She paused. ‘Mick. I’m still waiting for Taha, the boy. He didn’t turn up last night and left a message to say he would meet me tonight, but he hasn’t shown up. I’m getting a bit worried.’
‘Rent boys don’t keep office hours, Rosie. He’s probably out getting shagged by some rich ponce.’
‘Maybe. I’m just worried he’s been got at.’
‘Nah. Nobody knows anything yet. Look, I need to go, Rosie … Give you a buzz later once we get word from London.’ McGuire hung up.
Across the crowded cafe, Rosie saw the skinny figure coming through the door and furtively looking around. He had a black baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, but Rosie knew it was Taha. He spotted her, came across quickly and sat down. Rosie felt sick when she saw his face. His left eye was puffed up like a balloon with fresh bruising, black and red. The eye was almost closed, and when he tried to look at her, she could see it was raw and bloodshot. Taha touched his face with trembling fingers. Then he started to cry. He looked like a little boy.
‘Shit, Taha.’ Rosie automatically reached out and touched his arm. ‘What happened?’
The weeping made his injured eye look even more painful. His lip quivered.
‘They beat me. I knew they would. I told you, Rosie. Look.’ He quickly lifted his tee shirt, and Rosie flinched as she saw his skinny ribs swollen and streaked with angry red welts. ‘Is pain to breathe. They hit me with the bat.’
‘I’m sorry, Taha. Who did this to you? Tell me what happened.’ She looked at him and her mind flipped again to Mags Gillick in the Glasgow cafe, describing how the cop had beaten her. Suddenly she felt hot and sick. Panic rose from her stomach and surged through her and she felt her face burn and her head swim. Taha looked at her a little confused. She managed a deep breath.
‘Sorry, Taha.’ She tried to compose herself. ‘It’s just … I’m shocked. Upset for you.’
She couldn’t tell him that for months after they’d tried to kill her back in Glasgow, every now and again something triggered the flashbacks, and the panic would come flooding through her without warning. She hadn’t told anyone about it except her GP. Anxiety attacks, post traumatic stress, he’d told her. It would just take time. Fortunately it had only happened once at work and she was able to pass it off. But she’d never been put to the test like this, because the safety of the job as assistant editor never pushed her that hard. In the office, she never had to speak to people like Mags or Taha, or the other battered, damaged individuals she’d spent a lifetime with back in Glasgow.
Rosie lifted the cup to her lips only when she was sure her hands had stopped trembling. She wanted to walk away there and then. To phone McGuire and say, sorry, she was out. But where would that leave her? She could never live with herself. She would get through this. What if there was even a slim chance she could find Amy? She cleared her throat and took a deep breath.
The waiter came, but Taha said he wasn’t hungry and wanted nothing. Rosie ordered a coke and a sandwich anyway. She moved her chair so she was closer to the boy.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, squeezing his arm. ‘Taha, I’m going to organise for you to go away somewhere safe. I promise. I’ll get some money from the bank and take you to the train. You can go wherever you want.’
Rosie looked over her shoulder. She didn’t feel safe. She took out her mobile and phoned Matt to come with the car and meet them at the cafe. Right now, she had to keep going and do the job. This was not her fault, she told herself. She didn’t seek this boy out, he had tracked her down. Same as Mags had done. Now she had a job to do. She knew she had to get a picture of Taha like this. She was about to phone McGuire to clear giving Taha some money, but changed her mind. Just do it. Worry about McGuire later. She went into her bag and took out a tape recorder and sat it on the table.
‘Taha,’ she said, ‘I want to ask you to go over everything you said the other day about when you and the man you were with saw the little girl on the beach. I want to have that on tape as it’s important for me, if I am going to do the story. For the newspaper. Do you understand?’
He looked at her and then the tape. There was no way this kid would understand the full implications of being taped. Rosie told him it was for the lawyers, that they would probably never use it. Same as she had told Mags that day. She told herself to get on
with it. Either she did it properly, or she walked away now. He nodded. Rosie felt sick. But she still switched the tape on.
‘Go from the beginning, Taha. Just tell me everything.’
He told his story. He’d come to Spain from Morocco where he lived in the country with his parents, four other brothers and two sisters. He got a job in a hotel kitchen at first, but another boy told him he went with men for money and urged him to do it too. He introduced Taha to the Russian guy who would be his pimp. He could make a lot more money by doing this than working ten or twelve hours every day in a kitchen. He didn’t care what the work was. He just wanted the money. He said he wanted to know what it was like not to be poor. He described the British man and the sex they had. Then he described seeing the girl and the man who took her, and afterwards the woman screaming on the beach. He had found the pass on the floor and wanted to give it back, but by that time the client was gone and he had no way of getting in touch with him. If he’d told his boss, then he would have accused him of stealing the pass and would have beaten him. That’s why he’d got the beating now. The client must have gone back to the contact and told him he had lost something and maybe it was when he was with him. They didn’t even stop to ask first. They just beat you, Taha said. They beat you and maybe you will tell. They know no other way. Now he had nowhere to go except to run. He told about the night on the boat and how Daletsky and Leka had mentioned Besmir and the girl he had taken to Tangiers. He said he thought the man he saw taking the kid was Besmir. He had met him only once and remembered his name, though on the beach that day he only saw the back of the man who took the girl.
When he finished talking, Rosie took his hand and held it. It was soft and damp.
‘Thank you, Taha.’
‘Will you help me, Rosie?’
‘Yes, Taha. I will help you. I promise.’
She told him to eat the sandwich as she got up and crossed the room to speak to Matt who had just arrived. She explained that they had to go somewhere to take photos of Taha and his injuries. Then she was going to put him on a train.
