To Tell the Truth

by Anna Smith

  The Globe, smack bang in the middle of Saltmarket, ticked all the squalid boxes. It was close enough to the High Court to ensure that most of its patrons were either on their way to jail, or had just been freed because some clever bastard QC managed to outwit the prosecution – so sending another lowlife scumbucket back onto the streets to resume his career. It was in this dingy hole of a place, which stank of piss and stale tobacco, that the ‘not guilty’ or the ‘not proven’ came to celebrate alongside their brief – who would later repair to the posh O’Brien’s in the city centre and regale the other movers and shakers with tales of his glimpse into the underbelly. And it was at O’Brien’s that he would quaff vintage champagne on the strength of the grand a day he was paid in legal aid to defend the indefensible.

  The other punters in the Globe, who sat in dark corners, were the old whores and drunks from the street, who’d come in out of the cold for enough cheap wine to blot out the night and the memory of a squandered life.

  Rosie was lucky. She was always guaranteed a safe passage out. She’d been in and out of the bar a million times before, during and after a million High Court trials, and down the years she’d become only as close as you would want to be with the bar staff and the owner. She was respected, and nobody bothered her. Sometimes she would come here to gather her thoughts before writing up her copy after a trial, and other times just to soak up the atmosphere, when her mood became melancholy the way it occasionally did.

  Anything could happen at any time in the Globe. On one memorable afternoon, Rosie’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she became aware of a blootered old wino in her sixties giving her equally blootered pal a hand-job under a table in the corner. It finished in a punch-up as he jolted his knee upwards when he came, spilling her drink, and she hooked him with her free hand. The romance of the city.

  Now, as she stood at the bar, she saw ghostly images of herself down the years as a young reporter learning her craft in and out of places like this. One time, she was here with a prostitute. There were only the two of them in the bar, and a punter came in and beckoned the hooker out. She’d returned, a tenner richer, about six minutes later, laughing that the punter had said it was the other hooker he’d wanted – meaning Rosie.

  Now, Rosie was talking to Billy the barman when the swing doors opened and a vision stepped in. She hoped her mouth hadn’t dropped open with shock. The guy had no face, in terms of the kind of faces the rest of the world had. His forehead was the size of a biscuit tin, but half his chin was missing, and Rosie could only see one eye. Two holes, as though moulded out of plasticene, were stuck in the middle of this monstrosity. His nose, she assumed. What passed for a mouth was a kind of slanted slit. The entire effect looked as though someone had made a really bad job of hollowing out a Halloween pumpkin. Trick or treat. The whole bar fell silent waiting to see which it was.

  Billy leaned over covertly and whispered to Rosie. ‘Fuck me. I’m tempted to say “Why the long face?”’

  Rosie didn’t even flinch. This was her man – which explained the muffled voice. She straightened up, composed herself. She needed a strong stomach for this.

  He walked towards the bar and, with the one eye, looked at her squarely and made a sniffing noise.

  ‘Rosie?’ The muffled voice. She was right.

  Rosie nodded, offered him a drink.

  ‘Aye. Guinness,’ he managed to say, then slowly turned his head to the barman. ‘Got a straw, mate?’

  Billy looked at him, and with all the deadpan delivery of a comedian at the Glasgow Empire in the good old days, he said, ‘Happy Hour’s just about to start, mate. Straws are compulsory.’ He smiled.

  If the man was smiling back it was hard to tell.

  They moved over to a quiet corner where they could talk in private, and where Rosie hoped people wouldn’t keep staring at him. She got up and went to the bar to bring the drinks over.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Rosie, where did you dig up John Merrick?’ Billy whispered, his face straight.

  ‘Shut it, Billy,’ Rosie said. ‘He’s a contact. How much?’

  She paid for the drinks as Billy put the straw into the Guinness and gave her a look. She returned to the table and sat down.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, keeping her eyes on his face.

  It was the kind of face you saw in fevered nightmares, a face you wanted to look away from, and definitely one you hoped you’d never meet in a dark alley.

  ‘I don’t even know your name.’ Rosie stuck out her hand.

  ‘Danny.’ He took her hand and shook it warmly, and with a firm grip.

  If he was able to have an expression, Rosie felt it would have been one of sadness, resignation. It would be hard to look on the bright side with a face like that.

  ‘You’ll be wondering what happened to me,’ Danny said, pointing to his face. ‘This.’ He sniffed through the holes-for-nostrils. ‘Some state, eh?’

  Rosie didn’t know what to say. He lifted the pint of Guinness and pushed the straw into his mouth, sucking in a long drink.

  ‘Shotgun,’ he said. ‘I shot my girlfriend when I caught her with another guy. Shot him too. Then I tried to do myself in. I didn’t make a great job of it.’

  ‘Christ,’ Rosie said. ‘Did you kill them?’

  ‘Naw.’ He sucked on the straw. ‘But I made a right fuckin’ mess of them. Couldn’t finish the job right on myself though.’ He put his head back and pointed with his finger. ‘I put the gun under my chin, but it slipped when I fired it and all I did was blow half my fuckin’ face off.’

  Rosie felt she should say something but she didn’t have a script for this.

  ‘Look, I don’t know you, Danny. But surely nothing is worth killing people for – or killing yourself?’

  He put his drink down, took a deep breath and sighed.

  ‘So they tell me. They took ten years in the jail to tell me that – all the different shrinks. But you know what? I knew it wasn’t worth it about five fuckin’ seconds after I fired the gun at them. I thought I’d killed them. Then, as soon as I did it, I knew it wasn’t worth it. I knew I was going down for it. And I just thought, let’s get to fuck out of here.’

  He turned to Rosie. There was a little dent where his other eye used to be. The eye that was looking at her filled up.

  ‘Fuck. Why am I even telling you this?’

  ‘Who knows? People tell me things. Must be the reporter in me.’

  His swollen forehead was peppered with buckshot scars.

  ‘You paid a big price, Danny. A big price.’

  ‘Aye.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, I’m out now, did my time, so I have to get on with it. Try and get some work. I could always haunt houses.’

  Rosie kept her face straight. Time to move on.

  ‘So, did you get the pass?’

  ‘Course.’ He went into his pocket and handed her the pass for Frankie Nelson, HMP Barlinnie. ‘He gets a few visitors, so it’ll not be suspicious. Your name’s down as Jean Martin.’

  ‘Thanks, Danny. What’s he like? I mean to talk to. I know what he is, but what’s he like?’

  ‘He’s a creepy cunt.’ Danny shuddered. ‘Makes my flesh crawl. He takes pictures of weans being abused by paedos like him and makes films out of it and sells it to other beasts all over the world.’ He shook his head. ‘He needs shooting. Big time.’

  ‘Is he a hardman?’

  ‘He was alright with me. One look at my face and he knew he better not mess. But in the wing with the other beasts he’s got a reputation as some fucking sadist. Who knows what these poofy fuckers do, but he likes to hurt people. Sicko.’

  ‘Can you remember anything specific he said about the missing girl in Spain? Amy? Can you talk me through how the subject came up?’

  Danny drank from his pint.

  ‘It was that day it had been all over the telly. There was a longer bit on the news, with people – experts, you know? – talking about what could have happened. Some ex-copper or something said kids g
ot stolen for paedo and sex films. Mostly it happened in foreign countries, like in Thailand and stuff. There was some mention that it had spread to other countries now and people had to be careful with their weans abroad. That kind of stuff.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘And?’

  ‘Well, I’d got to know him a bit more with being the turnkey, and sometimes he would tell me things. I just listened, because I wanted to see if I could pass any information on. So the day after the news thing, he told me he knew stuff. He didn’t say he knew where she was or anything, but he said he’d bet she’d be sold for the paedo films.’ He paused. ‘Bastards.’

  He looked at Rosie.

  ‘And you know what? He even said he knew places where them snuff movies got made. You know, the ones where they film people getting murdered? He said there’s some weans get stolen from places in Asia and now and again they get used for snuff movies. So many weans missing in places like that, nobody really gives a fuck. Unbelievable.’

  Rosie thought of the picture of Amy the family had put out to the media. Her little white shoes, her curly hair, blue eyes.

  ‘Do you think he was maybe bullshitting, about knowing about the snuff movies?’

  Danny shrugged. ‘Dunno. He says he doesn’t make them movies, but he says there’s a market for them. He distributes them films. That’s what he and that other fucking poofy paedo pal of his were doing when they were living in Tenerife. I wouldn’t put it past him to steal a wean and sell it.’

  ‘But he’s been in jail,’ Rosie said. ‘So he can’t have known anything about Amy.’

  ‘Naw, that’s right,’ Danny said. ‘But what he says to me is that he has the connections. He says he can tell people where to look. That kind of thing.’

  Rosie was beginning to wonder how much of what Nelson would tell her would be total crap, just a way for him to try to ingratiate himself because he was appealing against the length of his sentence.

  She sighed. ‘Thing is, you can’t really trust that bastard as far as you can throw him. That’s the problem. It might just be total rubbish. But I want to see him anyway. You never know.’

  Rosie looked at her watch. She’d got as much as she was going to get here. She finished her drink.

  Danny pushed his empty glass away and got up. They walked towards the door and Rosie glanced over her shoulder in time to see Billy grinning and giving her the thumbs up, as though she’d pulled.

  Outside, the street looked dismal under the squally shower.

  ‘Okay, Danny,’ she said, sticking out her hand. ‘Thanks for your help. And I really appreciate you phoning me in Spain and getting this organised. Honestly. Thanks a lot.’

  Danny fixed her with his eye as he shook her hand.

  ‘If it helps, then good. Help get that wee lassie back.’ He let go her hand. ‘I’m not like all them other fuckers in jail. I was alright one time. I had a trade and stuff. Joiner. I just flipped my lid and I don’t know why. I’m trying to live with it.’

  He stared into the rain.

  Rosie didn’t know what to say, and found herself giving him a supportive pat on the shoulder.

  ‘I can see that, Danny. It must be tough for you now.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve got a bedsit in Bridgeton, so now it’s up to me to get on with it. Anyway, hope it works out for you with Nelson.’ He started to walk away.

  ‘Thanks,’ Rosie said. ‘It was good to talk to you. Take care of yourself.’

  He walked towards the traffic lights, and Rosie headed for her car. She was looking forward to getting to her flat and closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sleep had been fitful, nightmarish. Rosie was running, terrified, up a cobbled street in the rain, trying to escape. But terror sprang from every corner. Danny’s face, bloodstained, the mouth gaping and laughing, his hands grabbing for her. She ran down a dark alley and pushed open the big oak door at the bottom, and was suddenly blinded by the light. When her eyes finally adjusted she looked up, and all she could see were the slippers on the feet of a body, twisting at the end of a rope. Then the phone, ringing and ringing in her dreams, the way it had done that day when her world caved in. And once again she awoke with – as so often all her life – her face wet with tears.

  She closed her eyes. She hadn’t had the dream in over a month. She’d learned to deal with the nightmares down the years. A shrink friend once told her to imagine her mind like a linen cupboard full of neatly folded sheets and blankets. Sometimes, something happened and got pushed into the cupboard, mixing everything up, disrupting the order, the straight, pristine lines. It stayed messed up until you took out each sheet, folded it, placed it neatly back. That’s what she’d taught herself to do. The nightmares always came back. But now they didn’t overshadow her whole day. Well, mostly they didn’t.

  She swung her legs out of bed and stood up, looking at her naked frame in the full-length mirror. She was tanned and pleasantly toned from all the sun and exercise during her month in Spain. She looked at her pale blue eyes in the mirror and they looked back at her sadly. She smiled and they smiled back.

  ‘Come on, Gilmour,’ she said aloud. ‘Let’s get moving.’

  She padded, still naked, into the kitchen of her flat and switched on the ring of the stove to brew the jag of Colombian coffee she needed to start her day. Then she went into the living room, pulled open the drapes and opened the doors to the balcony that looked down onto St George’s Cross. The sound of the traffic below drifted up in the breeze. It was good to be home.

  She noted the screen on her answer machine showed there were twenty-three unanswered messages. She pressed the button, hoping one would be from TJ, even though she knew in her gut it would not. As she listened to all of them, her stomach sinking a little with each one, she made coffee, squeezed two oranges and spooned some Greek yoghurt and muesli into a bowl, then went into the bedroom and pulled on a towelling robe. She put her breakfast on a tray and went out onto the balcony and, amazingly, the sky was bright blue. Al fresco breakfasts were a rarity in Glasgow, so such moments had to be seized.

  She sipped her coffee and relished the familiar sounds of the city, but then her mind drifted to the one thought she’d been pushing away from the moment she got home. Her father.

  Rosie had lain in her bath last night, trying to find what it was that she felt about him. But there was nothing. He was a figure who had been missing for so much of her life that he was scarcely even a childhood memory now. Those times, when she was just five or six, and he’d come home from wherever he was and take her and her mother to the fairground or to the seaside, were now so distant that she wasn’t even sure what she felt. What she did remember clearly was the disappointment on her mother’s face every Christmas. She would receive a letter with some far-off postmark, saying he was on his way home, and she’d stay sober during those weeks, as she cleaned and polished and waited. They both waited. Maybe tomorrow, her mother would say each night as she tucked Rosie into bed. But he never came. After a while, they both just stopped waiting and hoping.

  Years and years later, Rosie could still call up the depth of that disappointment, and she had never really believed anyone’s promises after that. It had taken a very long time for her to find belief in anything again. The only person she could believe in was herself, and she did that without anyone’s help. After TJ had gone out of her life, she didn’t feel like putting her trust in anyone ever again.

  But still, she knew she would have to go and see her father. She finished her coffee and stood up. It was for another day.

  First, she must go to Barlinnie Prison and share the same breathing space as a sick bastard called Frankie Nelson, a convicted murderer who raped children. She shook off her ghosts and went inside to get dressed.

  Rosie eyed the mountain of mail she’d shoved into a corner when, armed with two bags of supermarket shopping, she’d pushed opened the door of her flat last night. By the look of it, most was junk mail. Saving rainforests was for tre
e-huggers like Sting with nothing better to do, but if there was a petition to pass a law stopping junk mail, Rosie would sign on the dotted line anytime. She scooped it up with both hands and headed for the bin in the kitchen.

  It was only when she tried to stuff it all down to make room, that she did a double take. It was the childlike handwritten scrawl of her name and address on a yellow envelope that caught her attention. She fished out the envelope and examined it, turning it over to open it. Three little kisses were on the back and spidery writing said, ‘From Gemma’. Rosie was surprised by the little skip in her stomach. She tore it open carefully as she walked into the living-room.

  It was only one page, the writing slanted downwards with words scored out as though she’d taken time to get it right. Rosie’s eyes scanned to the last words and she felt a catch in her throat.

  I miss you Rosie. Lots and lots of love, Gemma.

  Rosie swallowed and read the four lines again.

  Hi Rosie. It’s Gemma. I’m fine. Are you fine? Can we still get the pizza on your balcony? I like you. I live in a nice house now. My foster mum says it’s okay to see you. Can you come please? I’d like that. I miss you Rosie. Lots and lots of love, Gemma.

  The Glasgow phone number at the end looked as though it had been written by an adult hand.

  Rosie sat back on the sofa and pictured Gemma’s face that day in the cafe with the wreck of a junkie that was her mum. She wasn’t much, but she was all the kid had. Something in Gemma’s eyes had haunted Rosie since then, and she’d never realised what it was until now. It was optimism. That belief of a child that anything is possible as long as your mother is there to hold your hand. Even a hand as fragile as her mum’s, as long as she’s telling you everything will be fine, even though you know she’s lying.

  That day when they first met, Gemma didn’t know any better than Rosie had at that same age, that in reality everything would not be fine, and one day she’d wake up and her mum wouldn’t be there any more. That for the rest of her life she’d long to hold that hand one more time, and no matter how many other hands she held, she would never find one as warm and soft. Yet Gemma still looked forward. She had tracked her down, written a letter. And that single act of optimism in itself gave Rosie hope.