To Tell the Truth

by Anna Smith

  The first thing she’d need, Rosie told him, would be an inside track with the Guarda Civil to see if there was anything, even off the record, about the girl who was found after she escaped the kidnappers. That was the first strand of the story she wanted to tackle. When she stopped talking, Javier looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You finished?’

  He sat back, stretching out his long legs, then crossed them, his khaki trousers riding up his leg a little, exposing a slim, brown ankle. Sign of breeding, he’d once told her. Rosie stole a glance at his tanned feet in the soft, buff loafers he always wore.

  He took a deep breath and blew out a sigh.

  ‘To be brutally honest, Rosie, when you mention Albanians and Russians, one thing I know for sure is that it’s time for me to get up and walk away. You mess with these people, they kill you just for fun. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, they don’t care. They are a different breed of gangster. You really don’t want to get involved in this. You should walk away now while you still can.’

  She knew he was right. Her mind flashed back to the night in Glasgow when she nearly got killed. Javier genuinely had her best interests at heart, but she also knew that he knew she would never walk away.

  ‘Javier, you know me well enough to know that I cannot do that.’ She paused. ‘But I understand totally if you want to walk away.’

  He handed her a cigarette and sparked the lighter as she placed the Marlboro Light between her lips.

  ‘What?’ He smiled. ‘And leave you to get shot by some Russian gangster?’

  He slammed the lighter on the table.

  ‘No chance, Rosita. I’m in.’

  CHAPTER 21

  They drove in silence, the windows rolled down, the stifling night air starting to cool a little once they picked up speed. They didn’t speak for some time, and Besmir was aware that Hassan was stealing little glances at him. He knew the driver was afraid to speak.

  Besmir had realised quite young that he had a quiet power over people. Instinctively they could sense a danger behind his flat expression. He’d used it to protect himself, but tonight his silence was not about power. He couldn’t blink away the images of what he’d seen: children caged like animals, caked in filth. He remembered that desolation, that fear, from a childhood he’d tried all his adult life to blot out.

  A red mist clouded his head. Everything had changed. Everything he had done since he was in Spain, working for these people, gaining their respect, didn’t matter a damn. It didn’t matter that they were much more powerful and dangerous than he. He couldn’t stop himself now. He was out. He would deal with the consequences.

  ‘Besmir,’ Hassan ventured. ‘Is very late to drive all the way back to the city. You come to my house tonight? Please? Eat with my family, stay with us the night. I will drive you to the port in the morning.’

  Besmir didn’t speak. He stared straight ahead. He knew he wasn’t going to the port. Not tomorrow anyway.

  ‘I will come,’ he said, without looking at Hassan.

  They drove the rest of the journey in silence, through tiny villages that were no more than a scattering of tin or wooden shacks, an occasional oil lamp throwing light on the shadowy figures hunkered down around fires flickering on diesel drums. This was the Morocco the tourists didn’t see, where people scratched a living from the land. The smell of spices and cooking meat mingled with the smoke. Ragged children giggled and kicked a burst football in the dark. They drove on along winding roads that led deeper into the countryside. In the blackness, the headlights from the car shone on the stray goats scampering away when the car sped past.

  ‘Is here,’ Hassan said, pointing ahead. ‘My house. My father’s house.’

  Besmir could see smoke circling from somewhere, and a dim light coming from what looked like a house built of corrugated tin sheets and brick. The door opened as the car drew up and a man appeared at the door with a woman behind him. She came out from behind her husband into the yard, and the headlamps lit up the big smile on her face. Hassan got out of the car and went towards her and kissed her on both cheeks. His father came outside and Hassan embraced him, too. They spoke in Arabic and Hassan’s father looked towards Besmir, his thin face expressionless.

  Hassan came back to the car.

  ‘Come, Besmir. Meet my mother and father. We will have dinner soon. Fresh goat.’

  Besmir got out of the car and stood up, stretching his legs after the long journey. He walked towards the couple and held out a hand. The woman smiled and took it. The man, who looked much older than his wife, shook his hand, but eyed him suspiciously.

  ‘Please.’ Hassan beckoned Besmir to come to the table outside and sit. ‘We will have some tea while my mother cooks.’

  The men sat in awkward silence while the woman went to the fire and turned meat over on a long blackened grill. She lifted the lid off a huge iron pot and stirred the contents, smiling over to her son and Besmir. He nodded back, not sure what to do or say next.

  The door of the house opened and Besmir blinked when he saw the girl, standing like a vision in the half light. She looked straight at him, then her eyes darted away. He swallowed, stunned by her beauty. He glanced at Hassan’s father whose eyes burned a hole in him. Hassan looked a little nervous.

  ‘Salima!’ Hassan jumped to his feet and went towards his sister, speaking excitedly in Arabic.

  She looked at Besmir. Her eyes were a striking green. He stood up when she came towards the table as Hassan moved to introduce him. The girl put down the tray she was carrying and took the glasses of tea and placed them on the table. She smiled awkwardly at Besmir as he stretched out his hand. He could feel her father’s eyes on him. He turned and held his stare until the old man looked away.

  Later, after they’d eaten, Hassan walked with Besmir around the building, showing him how they worked, proud of his little farm. Besmir feigned interest, unable to get Salima out of his head. He was also unfamiliar with this kind of family warmth, the way they’d sat round the table, laughing, sharing stories and easy in each other’s company. Every now and again as they’d all talked over dinner, Hassan would translate the conversation for Besmir. He told them of his twin sisters, asleep in bed, who would be excited to see the stranger in their midst when he awoke in the morning. Besmir smiled politely, though he had no way of relating to this kind of family spirit.

  But he did relate to the modest glances of the beautiful Salima who Hassan proudly told him, was working hard at school and hoping to go Tangiers to study medicine. She’d be a doctor and make the family and the whole village proud. The old man continued to eye Besmir as a threat, but he didn’t care. He’d made his mind up there and then, before he’d ever had a conversation with her, that she would be his. He was never going back to Spain to work for Leka or anybody else.

  But his immediate problem was not Salima, it was the blue girl, and the thought that she could end up in cages like the rest of the captured children. He would not allow that to happen. If there was shame inside him for what he had done, for stealing her, he wouldn’t recognise it as shame or remorse. All he knew was that he wanted to put it right.

  ‘Hassan,’ Besmir said, as they stood looking out to the pitch darkness. ‘Thank you for allowing me to share this night with your family. But I must ask you something now.’

  Hassan looked at him.

  ‘Yes, my friend?’

  ‘Can I trust you?’

  Besmir asked the question, but he already knew the answer.

  ‘You can trust me. I think you know that.’

  ‘I want to help the children, Hassan,’ Besmir said, surprising himself at the choking feeling he had in the back of his throat. ‘I want to set them free.’ He looked away from Hassan into the dark landscape. ‘And I want to find the blue girl and take her back.’

  With those words, he knew he was signing his own death warrant. If Hassan was going to betray him then it was already too late. He didn’t care.

&nbs
p; Silence hung in the air. Crickets rattled in the scrubland. Besmir was conscious of Hassan scrutinising his face.

  ‘You took the girl, Besmir. Now you want to give her back?’

  Hassan’s tone was measured, but the reprimand was clear in his voice.

  ‘The blue girl. She is under your skin. I could see that.’ He smiled a little. ‘Like my sister Salima. I can also see that she is under your skin.’

  Besmir said nothing.

  ‘But what you are saying, my friend, will get you killed. I think there are some things that when you do them, you cannot go back. They cannot be undone. You may find out that taking the blue girl was one of them. You cannot fight these people, Besmir. Nobody can. Not even a man as angry as you can fight them.’ He shook his head and looked away. ‘They will kill you.’

  They both stood in silence, looking at each other.

  ‘But they will have to kill us both.’ He reached out and touched Besmir’s arm. ‘Come, we will sit at the table and make a plan.’

  CHAPTER 22

  ‘You must have hollow legs, the amount of food you shift,’ said Rosie, watching as Matt chased the last of the baked beans around his breakfast plate. ‘I had so much to eat last night, I can’t face a big breakfast.’

  Matt looked up from his plate.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Gilmour. More like you were kept up all night by the big Spaniard, and you’re not fit to eat.’ Matt winked, biting off a chunk of toast.

  Rosie ignored his jibe and poured some more coffee, but she knew he wouldn’t let it go. Matt had already been asking what was the story between her and Javier, having watched the chemistry between them at dinner the previous evening.

  ‘Come on, Rosie,’ he said, pushing his plate away. ‘You can tell me. What’s it all about, Rosita?’ He chuckled, mocking Javier’s accent. ‘Bit of an old holiday romance there? That it?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘We’re friends. Close friends, Matt. We worked together on a story here a couple of years ago. He’s a top drawer operator.’

  ‘And?’ Matt raised his eyebrows.

  ‘And nothing. I said friends. I haven’t seen him for a while so we had a lot of catching up to do.’

  ‘Hah! I could see that, Rosita. That’s why I bailed out after the coffee. I was beginning to get a hot flush.’

  ‘Piss off!’ Rosie drank her coffee, then changed the subject. ‘Tell you what, though. Javier already had some good info for me by the time he arrived, and I only enlisted his help yesterday afternoon. That’s what I call an operator.’

  One of his Guarda Civil contacts had confirmed off the record the story about the Bosnian girl, Katya, being found, and that she’d been kidnapped by traffickers.

  He hadn’t said too much, but after Matt left, Javier took her to a small flamenco bar in the old town and they talked into the night. The Guarda Civil had never released the information about the kidnapped girl, according to his man on the inside, and the case was being handled by a specialist team investigating organised crime on the Costa del Sol. But Javier said the information was solid.

  ‘Yeah. He’s one sharp bastardo,’ Matt said. ‘I liked him.’ He laughed. ‘I couldn’t believe the way he shouted “caballero” to the waiters. The last guy I saw doing that was Manolito in the High Chaparral.’

  Rosie smiled. ‘Yeah. It’s a Spanish thing. They respect age. They celebrate growing older. Not like in our country, where youth is perceived to be everything, and everyone over fifty is past it.’

  ‘So is Javier past it, Rosita?’ Matt lifted Rosie’s hand and pretended to kiss it.

  ‘Piss off. It’s not like that.’

  Rosie’s mobile rang. She lifted it off the table, looked at the screen. No name, and she didn’t recognise the British number. She looked at Matt and put her finger to her lips for him to keep quiet. It might be Jamie O’Hara offering to give an interview.

  ‘Hello?’ Rosie’s tone was sharp.

  ‘Rosie Gilmour?’ The voice was rough, a little muffled.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘You don’t know me. Doesn’t matter who I am. You Rosie? Don’t fuck about.’

  Definitely a lisp or some speech impediment. Or he was disguising his voice. Rosie’s brain switched to overdrive. She knew voices like this. Thugs, gangsters, and plenty who just talked the talk.

  ‘Hey, listen, pal.’ Rosie’s voice hardened. ‘I don’t know who you are, or where you got my number, but don’t come on the phone and swear at me. Now, you’ve got about ten seconds to tell me what this is about or I hang up.’

  Silence. Rosie looked at Matt. If the caller was genuine he would start talking. If he was a crank, he’d hang up. Fuck it. She didn’t have time to piss around. Whatever this headcase wanted he’d have to be quick.

  ‘Somebody wants to talk to you about that missing kid. That wee lassie that got stole fae the beach.’

  Rosie’s stomach tightened.

  ‘You in Spain?’

  ‘Naw. Glasgow. It’s not me who wants to talk.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘He’s inside. Just got fifteen years. He’s in the Bar-L. For murder. He’s a beast. He told me to contact you. He knows things.’

  Rosie could feel her heartbeat.

  ‘I’ll see him. Of course. I’ll come over and see him in jail. Who is he? What’s his name?’ Rosie’s mental filing system tried to remember who had been done for murder recently, but she’d been away for over a month now.

  ‘Frankie Nelson,’ the voice said. ‘He got done for killing that woman twelve years ago. She was going to the cops about wee boys him and his bum boy Vinny Paterson was shagging. They’re paedos. Paterson’s on the run so he never got done, but Frankie got caught and he’s banged up. It’s Frankie who wants to talk to you. Says he knows stuff. Something about films.’

  ‘Films? About kids?’

  ‘Aye. Don’t know any more. Films with weans in them. Sick films. For paedos. Look, I don’t know. I’m passing the message on, that’s all.’ The lisp was quite pronounced now.

  ‘I’ll come over straight away. Next couple of days. Can you get me a pass for the prison? But I have to go in there as a friend, not as a reporter. It’s not allowed. No notebooks, tapes or anything. Make that clear on the pass. That I’m a friend. Just tell him I’ll be there, if you get me a pass.’

  ‘I can do that. Will take about two or three days to get. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘By the way, can I ask you something?’ Rosie ventured.

  ‘Whit?’

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘I’m not a poof, right?’ he snapped. ‘I’m just out of jail. I was a turnkey before I left and I got talking to Frankie the last wee while. I did ten years. I shot somebody. Frankie’s a cold fucker alright, but he wouldn’t mess with me or I’d rip his lungs out. He was alright with me. He says to me, he can tell things that might help find that wee lassie. That’s all. I said he should tell the papers. If I can get him in touch with you then I’ve done my bit.’

  ‘You did the right thing, but why is he doing this?’

  She already knew the answer – if his information helped to find Amy then maybe he wouldn’t be locked up for the rest of his life.

  ‘He’s lodged an appeal against his sentence, and he thinks it might do well for him if he helps get this wee girl. I don’t give a fuck what happens to him, he’s a beast. But if he knows things, then maybe they’ll get the wee lassie back.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rosie said. ‘Call me as soon as you get a pass, and I’ll be there the following day.’

  The line went dead before she had a chance to say thanks.

  Matt looked at her inquisitively. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m going to have to go back to Glasgow. Some beast in jail says he has information about Amy.’

  ‘That him on the phone?’

  ‘No. It was some guy just released from Bar-L. Says a beast called Frankie Nelson wants to talk to me.’ Rosie looked for McGuire’s number in her mobile.

>   ‘Fuck me, Rosie. That could be mega.’ Matt stretched out his legs and put his hands behind his head. ‘Fucking mega.’

  ‘Yeah. Could also be a complete header, but we can’t take a chance. If he wants to talk then he’ll talk to someone, and if it’s not me it’ll be another paper. I need to call McGuire. I want to see if we can nail the people-trafficker story before I go. Don’t go anywhere, Matt. We’ve got addresses to hit this afternoon, offices where the recruitment company is holed up. Javier’s coming in a little while.’

  Rosie got up and looked at her watch. McGuire would be coming out of the editorial conference around now. She headed to her bedroom.

  Once the usual pleasantries were over, with McGuire telling Rosie he was getting impatient waiting for O’Hara or Jenny to buckle and tell all, she was able to get him focused on the people-trafficker story.

  She told him her Spanish contact had come up with addresses for the recruitment firm, and he was already running checks on them. Hopefully they’d lead somewhere. But she had to admit that at the moment she only had information that these were connected to Daletsky’s widespread empire. She hoped to have something more solid by this afternoon, she told him.

  ‘It has to be buttoned down, Rosie, if we’re going to connect this Daletsky to people-trafficking. Nobody has ever had the balls or the evidence to turn him over before, and if we can’t prove it one hundred per cent, I’m telling you now it’s not going in my paper.’

  ‘I know, Mick. I’m working on it.’

  ‘Same goes for Carter-Smith. He’s the fucking Home Secretary. It was fair enough to have him on a yacht with some dubious Russian businessman. But to start talking about people-trafficking … well, we’re in deep shit if we say that and it can’t be proved.’