To Tell the Truth

by Anna Smith

  Now, with her dream still fresh in her mind, she felt the urge to call him. She looked at her watch. It was too early. She watched the sun beginning to emerge behind the palm trees, and thought of TJ. She pictured him strolling somewhere in Manhattan, his sax case slung over his shoulder. She remembered the look in his eye when he’d told her he hated goodbyes, and if she wasn’t at the airport he’d take it she didn’t want to be with him. For the hundredth time she asked herself how he could do that, just go and never get in touch after everything that had happened between them …

  Nothing had ever felt as right as those mornings waking up in his bed, the warmth of him next to her, and never once did she have that urge to get up and slip quietly away that she usually had when she’d spent the night with a man. With TJ the mornings were special, lounging around listening to music while he cooked breakfast.

  Rosie went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, staring dreamily as steam filled the room. She stood under the water and washed her body, watching the soap run off her breasts and down her thighs. Her hand automatically moved down between her legs and she felt an overwhelming ache for TJ, for his touch, and for the tenderness he’d shown her the night she’d opened up to him about her childhood. She remembered him kissing every part of her until she was breathless and crying out as he held her tightly, and she searched for some release from the crushing loneliness she’d felt since he left.

  There was a missed call on her mobile when she got out of the shower, and a message from McGuire to call him.

  ‘Hi, Mick. What’s up? It’s not even daylight there.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re just getting out of your bed, Gilmour. It’s not a holiday, you know.’

  McGuire sounded the way he always did when he was running a big story. He lived and breathed it, and Rosie guessed he’d probably been up half the night reading her Carter-Smith copy and planning their next move.

  ‘Listen, Rosie,’ he said. ‘That’s great stuff on that shirtlifter Carter-Smith. I can’t wait to see his face turn puce when we put all this to him.’

  ‘You going to use it in the next couple of days?’

  ‘You bet I am, the whole shooting match. That’s why I’m calling you. Here’s the plan: The lawyers will take a good look at all the copy this morning, and I’m getting Vincent to doorstep Carter-Smith down at Westminster. He’ll be told this is not up for discussion. I want to put the rent boy stuff to him as well – that Taha boy. And by the way, I need you to write what the boy told you and I need it on my desk in the next hour, before you hit the trail to Morocco. Oh, and also, get Matt to take a pic of Carter-Smith’s ID pass. I want Vincent to shove that under his nose. He’ll shit his pants when he sees we’ve got that.’

  ‘Mick, do you think it’s wise to do the Carter-Smith hit when I’m trying to discreetly dig things up in Morocco?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘Yes, Rosie. I’ve already thought about that, but here’s my take. The main thrust of the story right now is Carter-Smith’s link to Daletsky, and how we can pinpoint Daletsky to people-trafficking via that rescued bird’s interview in Sarajevo. But if we can get Vincent to put the rent boy stuff to him, and the fact that they may have seen something the day the kid got snatched, then that will change things. That’ll be the splash. Carter-Smith, the rent boy and the kidnapped girl. That should leap off the newsagents’ shelves.’

  ‘Don’t you think it will have an impact on what’s happening in Morocco?’ Rosie was not convinced.

  ‘No, Gilmour, I don’t think so. There will be no mention anywhere in the story about Morocco. In fact, to put everyone off the scent, I think we’ll put a line in saying that we believe the girl has been taken to northern Spain or somewhere like that – maybe even Amsterdam. Let them think that.’

  ‘Okay, Mick,’ Rosie said. ‘If we do it that way, then it should be safe.’

  ‘Course it will. Plus the fact it will give everyone something to chase while you’re away digging in Morocco. It’ll be a good distraction tactic. That’s part of the reason I’m doing it. That, and the fact that we need to freshen this story up a bit with a right rollicking scandal.’

  ‘Fine.’ Rosie looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got the Taha words half written anyway, so I’ll put it together and send it within the hour. But don’t forget to say that it’s believed Amy’s been taken somewhere north. Anywhere that’s far enough away from Morocco.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Gilmour, just you take care. And phone me tonight.’

  An hour later, as promised, Rosie pinged over the interview with Taha to the editor, including the full details of how he and Carter-Smith had sat on the balcony and seen a man pick up a little girl, who now appears to be Amy, off the beach. She told Matt they should be able to hear the sound of Carter-Smith’s bottle crashing from Tangiers. Matt had taken a snap of the ID pass and Rosie had hidden it away again.

  She stepped out onto her terrace to phone her father. It rang a few times and Rosie was surprised to find herself worried something had happened to him. She pictured him collapsed in the kitchen or lying unconscious in bed. She was thinking of phoning her neighbour to ask her to check on him when to her relief he answered.

  ‘Hello?’ He sounded out of breath.

  ‘Hi. Er … It’s me … Rosie.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘dad’, and there was an awkward moment. ‘Are you okay? You sound breathless. It took you a while to answer the phone.’

  ‘Rosie. Oh, I’m okay,’ he said. ‘I was lying down. Didn’t have a great sleep last night so I was a bit tired.’

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Silence. Rosie could hear him breathing.

  ‘My chest’s been a bit tight to be honest, so I’m taking things easy. The doctor phoned me and I’ve to go and see them tomorrow. How are you, Rosie? Are you alright over there? You watching yourself?’

  Rosie smiled. ‘Yes. I’m fine. Very busy.’

  She struggled for things to say to him. But despite that, she found herself missing him.

  ‘When do you think you’ll be back? It’s quiet here.’ He sounded a bit forlorn.

  ‘Might be a couple of weeks at least. I’ve a lot to do.’

  Another silence. Rosie wondered if he was fed up already with being in the one place. He’d spent so much of his life on the move and he’d told her that he was restless by nature. Part of her wondered if he’d still be there when she got back. It was a weird feeling.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘When I get back, we’ll do some things together. Just go out in the city a bit, maybe take a run down the coast or something. See some things.’ She paused. ‘Like the old days.’

  Rosie saw herself years ago with her mum and dad on the train to Helensburgh, and falling asleep on his shoulder on the way back at night. It could never be like the old days.

  ‘I’d like that, Rosie.’

  ‘Great. So make sure you get to the doctor tomorrow and I’ll phone you to see how you’re doing. Just try and rest as much as you can. If you’ve got any problems give me a call and I’ll get my neighbour to look in on you.’

  ‘I’m okay. I’ll be fine.’ He paused. ‘And Rosie. Thanks for everything. I mean that.’ His voice shook a little.

  Rosie swallowed the lump in her throat.

  ‘I’ll see you.’

  She hung up and shook herself out of the gloom. She had work to do.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rosie and Matt stepped out of the Rembrandt Hotel into the stifling heat of the Tangiers night.

  Adrian would be waiting for them in a cafe close to the Zocco Grande, the square in the bustling heart of the city that was the gateway to the Kasbah. It had been agreed that all three of them were to stay well away from Javier, who’d also be in the cafe but was working on his own.

  When they had arrived off the ferry, Javier was picked up by his contact and asked Rosie to take his bag to the hotel. By this evening, he’d told her, he’d know exactly where to find Vinny Paterson. Javier
was in bullish mood, the way Rosie had seen him before when he was on a mission, and when he was on this kind of form nothing could stop him. His machismo cards were firmly on the table – in case anyone, including Rosie, thought they were calling the shots. She was prepared to indulge him a little when he was like this – it always got results.

  In the back of the taxi Matt and Rosie exchanged glances as the driver sped through the city like a maniac, cutting up other motorists who honked their horns.

  ‘If ever a man needs to chill with a joint …’ Matt was in the front, fumbling around unsuccessfully trying to clip the seatbelt.

  Rosie gripped the back of the passenger seat as the car swerved and bounced along the road. ‘There’s just too much traffic in this city, but we’re not far from the square. Javier said we could have walked, but I’m uncomfortable when I arrive in a place at night. It always seems a bit spooky.’

  ‘Yeah. Something tells me it might get a lot spookier in the next couple of days,’ Matt said.

  The plan had been worked out during the ferry crossing from Algeciras. Once Javier had located Paterson’s whereabouts, he would make the approach by himself. His contact in Tangier was a fixer he’d used before when he was a detective with the Guarda Civil, and he was confident that he could establish very quickly the places where Vinny hung out. Javier would then pose as a dealer who wanted to distribute porno films in Spain. He knew he could carry that off, but he was hoping to strike up enough of a rapport with Vinny to find out if the scumbag had information they could use. No matter how you handled this it was risky, Javier told them. Shadowy bastards like Vinny were always suspicious but they were also greedy, and that made them careless. If a tempting proposition was put to Vinny Paterson, Javier’s instincts told him he might go for it. Rosie, Matt and Adrian were to be elsewhere in the cafe looking like ordinary tourists having dinner.

  Rosie felt hot and tense. The back of her neck was wet with sweat. She pushed her hair up with one hand and rolled down the car window, hoping for a breeze. Instead she got the thick, hot air and the pungent aromas of the city wafting from bars and restaurants, mingled with the fug of pollution. She leaned her head back. Some food and a couple of drinks would perk her up.

  The driver dropped them off at the edge of the Zocco Grande, already heaving with tourists. Matt handed him the money, knowing they were being ripped off. They walked quickly across the square, dismissing the various guides and hustlers who traipsed after them offering everything from tours of the Kasbah to fake Rolex watches.

  Beggars looking for easy pickings eyed up tourists who lingered long enough to listen to the buskers sat on the ground in traditional garb, scratching out a mixture of Berber and Arab music on a violin and rattling tambourines and bongo drums. A snake charmer coaxed a cobra out of a basket and his friend invited tourists who were daft enough to pose for snapshots with a snake draped around their neck.

  As they left the square towards the labyrinth of the Kasbah, a skinny youth grabbed Rosie by the arm and asked if she wanted a boy for the night.

  ‘I give you good price,’ he said. ‘I am very good sexy boy.’ Just a kid in jeans and a vest, he walked briskly alongside her, and she caught the whiff of days’ old sweat.

  ‘I don’t think so, pet.’ Rosie pushed him away.

  ‘That might be as good as it gets, Rosie,’ Matt sniggered.

  ‘I hope it doesn’t come to that,’ Rosie laughed. ‘At least he didn’t offer me a shave.’

  Once into the Kasbah it became hustling on an industrialised scale, with sellers surrounding them shoving trinkets into their faces. They could barely pick their feet through dimly lit alleys.

  ‘Where the fuck is this place?’ Rosie gripped Matt’s arm as they tried to squeeze their way through the throng in the tight sloping streets towards the old Jewish quarter. She stifled a wave of panic and claustrophobia. ‘We should have got a guide from the hotel to take us. It’s not safe here if we get lost.’

  ‘Look. Rue de la Kasbah,’ Matt said, pointing up at the street sign. ‘We’re here.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’ Rosie breathed a sigh of relief.

  Inside the cafe it was dark except for the candlelit tables and some small eyelights over the bar. Ceiling fans rotating slowly did little to disperse the smoke from the hookah pipes bubbling at nearly every table. The beat of an African drum thumped from speakers. Rosie glanced around and saw Adrian sitting at a table close to the bar.

  They made their way across the room, and Rosie felt almost relieved that the crowd was mostly tourists. She wasn’t in the heart of some dingy Tangiers bar filled with locals where she might disappear and never be heard of again. She wasn’t paranoid, but she’d been in some terrifying scrapes working on the frontline. She’d been mugged in a street in Nairobi by a little kid who smiled up at her and called her ‘mama’ before he ripped the gold chain off her neck as well as some lumps of her skin. In Bokhara Market in Mogadishu, where the guys with the biggest guns ran the show, she was almost lynched by a baying mob as she sat frozen with fear in the back of a pick-up truck. In Bucharest, she was once left stranded in the middle of nowhere by her thieving driver. From then on, whenever she was out of her comfort zone in some distant land, she would look over her shoulder, anticipating trouble on every corner. She was relieved to be with Adrian, and even more so when she spotted Javier in the corner of the bar, deep in conversation with a man she hoped was Vinny. She needed a drink.

  ‘So this man here,’ Adrian said, inclining his head a little, as they sat drinking bad wine, ‘this man in the corner is the one who makes porn films with children? And kills them in his movies?’ The shadows beneath his eyes looked darker under the flickering light. He shook his head and looked at Rosie. ‘If is up to me, this man would not make any more movies.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Rosie said. ‘I feel the same, but he might turn out to be useful to us. In his kind of business, maybe the people who have Amy will get in touch with him.’ Just saying the words made Rosie feel sick at the thought of it.

  From where she was sitting she saw that Javier had evidently struck up some kind of rapport with Vinny. The waiter brought them drinks and both of them appeared to be doing plenty of talking. In the half light she could see the lean face of Vinny, his eyes narrowed in concentration as Javier spoke. Next to the robust figure of Javier, he was very weedy, with wispy hair that was too thin to be worn long.

  ‘He certainly looks like a wee pervert,’ Rosie said to Matt. ‘I can’t wait to hear what he and Javier are talking about.’

  ‘Me too,’ Matt said. ‘Looks like your Spanish pal has got him eating out of his hand.’

  They ordered a platter of local dishes and house specials recommended by the waiter. Adrian told Rosie that he already had some ideas of where to look for Besmir, but he didn’t say what he would do if and when he found him. The once or twice he’d met Besmir, he found him distant and quiet, and he always looked unhappy. He couldn’t understand what kind of man could steal a small child from its parents. The fact that Besmir could do that meant he was capable of anything. He would tread warily in his hunt for him, he told them.

  Later as they sipped coffee, Matt ordered a hookah pipe, joking that it would make them blend in with the tourists. Rosie went along with it, and at one point she caught Javier’s eye as she was puffing on it. He gave her a look that said he was getting on well with his new-found pervert amigo.

  ‘When this Vinny leaves, I will follow him,’ Adrian said. ‘Is useful to know where he goes, where he lives.’

  ‘Good idea. But I don’t want any harm to come to him.’

  Adrian nodded, his face blank.

  After a while Vinny stood up, and Rosie could see just how skinny and creepy he looked. He was wearing baggy combat trousers and his bony chest was exposed by a tight, low cut tee shirt that wouldn’t have been out of place on a girl. He looked clammy and pale with hair that had been dyed so many times it wasn’t any definable colour.

&nb
sp; ‘He looks like a wee faggot,’ Matt said.

  They watched as he left the cafe, then Adrian got up.

  ‘I will call you later, Rosie.’

  He put his hand into his pocket, but Rosie waved him away.

  Rosie’s mobile rang. It was Javier, and she looked up to see him in the corner with his phone at his ear.

  ‘Buenos tardes,’ she said, smiling at him.

  ‘Hola, Rosie. I am going to the hotel now. I will eat there, so you can join me. We can talk.’

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Very well. He took the bait. I’ll tell you later.’

  Rosie saw him get up and put the mobile into his pocket. He walked out onto the street.

  On the terrace of the hotel rooftop restaurant, Javier poured wine for Rosie and Matt. In between polishing off a steak dinner he related the conversation with Vinny.

  ‘He’s a pervy little coño,’ Javier screwed up his face in disgust. ‘I felt like I needed a shower after just talking to him. But I think he’s the kind of bastard who will do anything for money, and that’s good for us.’

  ‘So he wasn’t suspicious of you?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘No.’ Javier shook his head. ‘The little shit can only see pound signs. Once I told him how much money I wanted to move on this deal, he would have listened to anything I told him. I was purely an investor, and he would assume it was dirty money, from drugs or something. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has bought a stash of films from him with dirty money.’

  Few people could think on their feet as well as Javier when faced with an ever-changing situation. Rosie was glad she’d got him involved.

  ‘I told him I wanted to buy a collection of films for distribution in Spain. I said I already had a market and clients, and I asked him about the snuff movies. He became a little bit reticent then, but I mentioned the names of one or two films I’d been asked for by clients and he was impressed enough, or stupid enough, to think that I have connections. I got the titles from some contacts I spoke to before I left. I didn’t want to see this bastard and not be prepared.’