by Anna Smith
‘Gie’s peace,’ Rosie snorted. She liked Harper, even if he was regarded as a bit loopy by all the other journalists and photographers. He might be eccentric, but he was the best there was, especially on a snatch job like this, where you only got one fleeting opportunity to bag a picture of your victim. Harper would lie in wait for hours, days if necessary, but he always came back with his picture. He was also discreet. That was why McGuire told the picture editor to give Harper the job with Rosie. She wasn’t even comfortable with telling the picture editor the story she was working on, but he had to know.
McGuire had told the picture editor straight, while the three of them were in his office, that he would sack him on the spot if he found him blabbing about this investigation to anyone.
‘You see, I could sit here all night if it was necessary.’ Matt caressed the camera on his lap. ‘Nobody is coming out of that place to go anywhere unless I’ve got a shot of them. So just settle down, darlin’, and tell me some stories. What about your sex life? Are you getting your leg over?’
‘Piss off, Harper. And do you think I would tell you if I was?’ She shook her head and looked out of the window.
‘Well,’ Matt sighed. ‘I just thought it would break the monotony, you know, hearing a wee bit about what you do when you’re not pissing the polis and everyone else off. What do you do for relaxation?’ He flicked his tongue across his top lip and grinned.
‘I’m in a sewing bee,’ Rosie said without looking at him. ‘Every Thursday. Most uplifting.’
Harper chuckled.
She thought about TJ, wondered how he was. He’d looked hurt the other day at the cafe, and she’d never seen that side of him before. She would get in touch with him as soon as she could. She thought about the night in his flat and how she had loved being with him – the intimacy and tenderness had felt so natural, so right. But she quickly put the thought out of her mind. What was the matter with her? She didn’t have the time or the inclination to throw herself into the rollercoaster of a big love affair again. No more of that, thank you very much. She would call TJ as soon as she had time, but where she was and what she was doing right now was more important than anything.
‘Uh-oh,’ Matt said, sitting forward. ‘Something’s moving, Rosie. Look.’
Rosie saw kids coming out of the back entrance to the children’s home. She counted five of them, scanning their faces. She saw Gemma first, then Trina behind her, and two boys with one other girl. Matt was already snapping furiously through the windscreen, twisting with the zoom lens.
‘Get the guy,’ Rosie said, as a balding, fat little man, who looked about fifty, opened the door of the minibus, and ushered the kids inside. ‘That’ll be the janny. Paddy. He’s the bastard who organises it all.’
‘Don’t worry. I hosed him as soon as he came out of the building.’ Matt started the engine of the car.
‘Okay,’ Rosie said, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline. ‘All we have to do now is follow them, but at a discreet distance. Really discreet. I’m depending on you, Matt.’
‘You’re talking to the man who gives masterclasses in discretion. Bear that in mind if you ever need someone to keep your feet warm at the bottom of the bed.’ Matt handed her the camera as he watched the minibus reverse then drive out of the gates of the home. ‘Unless something untoward happens we’ll tail them right to their destination.’
‘Great. Problem’s going to be, though, when we get into the country. There’ll be less traffic and he might notice if the same car is behind him for a while.’
‘We’ll just have to take our chances.’ Matt pulled out behind the van after allowing a car to go in front of him. ‘Give me that bottle of Coke over.’ His face was set with concentration. He swigged from the bottle, then said, ‘Here we go, Rosie. I just love this shit.’ He glanced at her and winked. ‘Game on.’
Rosie could feel excitement in her stomach and prayed they wouldn’t be spotted. She’d spent the last two days making sure that the man who’d be driving the girls was indeed Paddy the janny. Trina and Gemma had pointed him out when she visited them the other day, and they’d told her the outing was on for Friday. Paddy had been working in the yard as she said goodbye to them.
Rosie and McGuire had decided that the best way forward with the investigation was to try and track the next trip to the big house. She had already established whose house it was. When she told McGuire, he had punched the air with excitement.
She couldn’t believe it when she went trawling the files to find out which judge lived in or around Peebles, and came up with Lord Dawson, one of the most senior and respected High Court judges in the country. But, sure enough, there he was in a huge country pile, complete with grounds and forest much as the girls had described it. She swigged from Matt’s Coke bottle. So far, so good. The minibus was heading out of the city onto the motorway in the right direction. Matt stayed two cars behind.
‘Looking good, Rosie. Looking good, pal.’
‘Here’s hoping. What I wouldn’t give to nail this one down,’ Rosie said.
Matt stepped on the accelerator as the van sped along the motorway, but remained two cars behind.
It was still light by the time they came off the motorway and headed down the road towards Lanark and Peebles. They had already taken a run out to the location of Lord Dawson’s house yesterday to do a recce, and Matt had found a tiny road that seemed to rise up above the estate, where he could get a clear view of cars coming and going into the long driveway of the big house. The plan was to follow the van for as long as they could, then overtake and head for the high ground so that they could watch, and photograph it as it arrived. They both knew there was no way they could keep behind the van when it got closer to the house, because they would probably be the only two vehicles on the road.
As the car turned towards Peebles, Matt put his foot down, overtook and sped on. Rosie kept her head down in case any of the kids looked out and spotted her.
Matt cursed as his car wove in and out of the potholes on the twisting road. ‘I’d better be getting covered for damage,’ he said, as they bumped along.
Rosie was beginning to feel queasy. She didn’t know if it was the road or her nerves.
‘Shit. I feel like throwing up.’ She rolled down the window.
‘Well, make sure you upchuck into your handbag, sweetheart. I don’t want any more damage to my motor.’
‘Thanks for your support.’ She leaned towards the window to gulp the fresh air.
Finally they reached the top of the hill. Matt reversed the car and turned it so they were facing Lord Dawson’s house. They could see five big cars in the driveway. Rosie had binoculars and could make out Jags and Mercs. Matt aimed his camera and said he could see the number plates. He read them out to her along with the makes of the cars as he photographed them, and Rosie jotted them down. She would try to get them checked out. Lights were on in several of the downstairs rooms in the house, and in one or two upstairs. Matt got out of the car and attached his massive lens to the edge of his camera. They waited and watched.
‘Here it is,’ Matt said. ‘You fucking beauty!’ His camera whirred furiously as the minibus drove up the gravel drive and parked outside the front of the house.
‘Jesus!’ Rosie said. ‘I would never believe it if I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes. Keep snapping, Matt.’
The janny jumped out of the driver’s seat and quickly went to open the door. The kids piled out, and Rosie could see them with her binoculars. Some were laughing and smiling, but Gemma looked pale and subdued. Trina’s arm was around her as if she was trying to comfort her. Rosie wondered if the journey had made her feel sick. In the doorway of the house, a large, thin man in a black suit appeared and opened the doors. He motioned for the children and Paddy to follow him. Matt kept taking pictures until the last of them disappeared behind the large front door.
‘Did you get the guy?’ Rosie asked. ‘He might be the butler or something.’
‘
Yep. Everyone.’ Matt was already looking at his images on his digital camera.
He came back into the car and they sat in silence, staring down at the house. Rosie’s heart sank, thinking of what was going on inside that place. Matt shook his head.
‘Fuck it,’ he said, eventually. ‘I’m going to go down and have a look in the window.’
‘What?’ Rosie turned to him. ‘You’re bloody joking!’
‘No. Look, Rosie, I know what I’m doing. The last thing these bastards will be thinking of is someone shuffling around the bushes taking photographs. It just won’t enter their heads.’ He started to get out of the car. ‘Trust me. You don’t have to come. Just let me do it. We don’t have enough. One snap. That’s all I need. One frame of something in that room that will bury every fucking one of them. Come on, Rosie, it’s your call.’
She looked at him, then back at the house. McGuire had told her at all costs to keep her distance, and not to do anything daft that might blow the whole investigation. But Matt was right. They didn’t have enough to string everyone up.
‘Okay, go for it. But if you’ve got any doubt at all as you get closer then come back. Don’t do anything that will bugger it up.’ She turned away and looked out of the window. ‘Shit, I don’t believe I’m doing this. I must be as mad as you.’
‘Don’t worry, Rosie.’ Matt flashed a smile. ‘Trust me. I’m a snapper.’
Rosie watched as he started to walk down the road with his camera tucked into a small rucksack on his back.
She sat back and waited.
It took about ten minutes for Matt to get down the road and find a suitable place to enter the grounds without being noticed. No one was around, but there was always the chance a dog might come tearing out of nowhere. He sneaked up to the back of the house where a light was on, and peered through the window. The tall thin guy who’d answered the door was sitting alone in an armchair by an unlit fire in the huge kitchen, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. Matt ducked back down and crept alongside some bushes, popping his head up now and again to steal glances into each room. All were empty and dark. Soon he was close to the front of the house, and outside a window where he could hear voices. He stuck his head up and looked into the room. He ducked down quickly with his back to the wall. He could hear his heart beat. He’d seen three or four children, dressed only in their underpants, with their arms folded across their pale skinny chests as if they were embarrassed. Men sat on the large sofas around a blazing fire, smiling and drinking. From the corner of his eye, he saw a camera flash go off inside the room. He twisted round, and lifted his own camera then pressed it against the window. Now he could see quite clearly. A silver-haired man was taking pictures of the children sitting on top of each other, and horsing around in front of the fire. The children weren’t smiling or laughing. They just looked bewildered. Matt zoomed in on their faces. One of the little girls had tears in her eyes. His camera roamed across the room, taking pictures of every face. One of the men took a little girl on his knee and caressed her thighs. Then he took her by the hand and left the room.
Matt kept taking pictures. He had plenty, but he kept going. After a few more minutes the silver-haired man who had been photographing the kids went out of the door, leaving it open. Matt could see Paddy sitting on a long-backed chair in the hall, and took a quick snap of him. The silver-haired man made a gesture to Paddy, who got up, went into the room and seemed to tell the children to get dressed. When he returned to the hall, the man handed him a wad of notes. Then he went back into the room and gave some coins to each of the children.
After he’d taken his last picture, Matt crouched down and made his way out of the bushes and into the back gardens. He climbed the fence, and reached the road, where he sprinted up the hill towards the car.
When he reached Rosie he was puffing and panting, his face red. She jumped out of the car.
‘Holy shit, Rosie.’ He was bent over, hands on knees, getting his breath back. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Was there stuff happening?’ Rosie asked, anxiously.
‘And how.’ Matt shook his head. ‘Rosie – we’ve got enough pictures here to bury whoever these fuckers are.’
He told Rosie how the kids were cavorting half naked in front of the fire, and that one of the men took a little girl away.
‘Bastards. Did you get all that on film?
‘Oh yeah. Everything.’
‘What about the kids? How did they look? Were they scared? Crying or anything?’
Matt turned and looked back at the house. ‘Don’t know . . . Not crying, just kind of confused looking. Fucking awful.’ He got into the car and they drove back down the twisting road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Gavin Fox had never felt so rattled as since this whole bastard of an episode had begun that morning on his boat. Even then, as Bill and Jack had slung the dead girl’s body over the side, he’d never considered that all this would come unstuck. But now that weird-bitch daughter of Jack’s was threatening to blow it all sky high. She always was a snooty little bugger, her head constantly in books, always the one to disagree or to ask questions if they were having dinner at Jack’s. Little smartass wasn’t going to bring him down . . . His buzzer went, and Patsy announced that Bill had arrived. Foxy said to show him in.
‘How’s it going, boss?’ Bill was chipper. ‘You sounded a bit edgy. What’s up?’
‘What’s up?’ Foxy got up from behind his desk. He blew hard and shook his head. ‘Tell you what’s fucking up, Bill. Sit down.’
Bill sat on a chair and Foxy stood over him.
‘Fucking Alison Prentice has been in here.’ He rubbed his hand across his chin. He noticed he was trembling and hoped Bill hadn’t seen it.
‘Jack only left a fucking suicide note,’ he said. ‘No, Bill. Correct that. Not just a suicide note. A fucking signed confession sticking all three of us in. Complete with a photo, according to her. The ratbag bastard. He’s given Alison enough material to put us away for ten years.’ He threw out his arms. ‘I mean when the fuck did Jack take pictures? That must have been ages ago. I can’t even remember.’
Bill’s face had turned chalk white. He stood up and walked around the room without speaking. Then, ‘Oh fuck, Foxy,’ was all he could say. ‘Oh fuck.’
They stood in silence, Bill watching Foxy taking long, deep breaths.
‘Well,’ Bill’s voice had a quiver to it. ‘Either we chuck it – resign, as fuckng Alison demands – or we stay here and tough it out. And I’m not fucking resigning. We have to get to her somehow. Get that stuff back. She’s not clever enough to have done anything with it.’
Foxy nodded agreement. He bit his lip.
‘That’s what I wanted to hear, Bill. It’s already done. I talked to the Big Man, told him he has to be careful. I don’t want another stiff on my hands. And I told him to keep watching that Gilmour woman. Just in case.’
‘Good,’ Bill said. ‘Good. Reynolds says she’s been very shifty this past week. Holed up somewhere in the West End, not in her own flat. He followed her.’ He gave that address as well as Rosie’s home address to Foxy, who wrote it down.
Alison had walked around the city for two hours after she left Fox’s office, until she felt calm enough to go home. She didn’t want to go back to Edinburgh and be on her own, but she had to be sure she wouldn’t crack in front of her mother. It wasn’t that she really cared if her mother felt betrayed by her dad, but she didn’t trust her. She knew that, rather than risk a scandal that would ruin her husband’s reputation, her mother would do everything she could to keep a lid on the situation, but she herself was determined to see it through.
She left the following afternoon. On the train to Edinburgh, she sat drinking a cup of sweet tea and looking out of the window at the countryside whizzing past. For the first time since her father died, she didn’t feel like crying. There was no choking sadness in her every time she was alone. Suddenly she felt strong. She knew she could carry this thro
ugh. Uncle Gavin had been a lot more upset than he pretended. He had tried to fob her off and treat her like the kid she once was, but she knew that underneath the bluster he was terrified. His lip had even trembled at one point. She’d never seen him upset before, and she knew that the show he’d put on at her dad’s funeral was just that – a show.
Alison tried to work out how she should handle this. She knew Uncle Gavin would not resign. He thought himself too powerful to buckle under the threats of someone like her, but she had to give him a couple of days to see if he did. If nothing happened she would go to the papers, but she didn’t know any reporters. Her father had always said they were scum, constantly looking at ways to undermine the police and not to be taken seriously. But since moving to Edinburgh and studying at university, Alison had developed her own views. Her friends were intelligent and they questioned everything. Growing up as an only child, she had felt isolated at home. Her parents were very strict Catholics. Even though her dad doted on her she knew his word was law, and would never answer him back or question his judgement. How wrong she had been about him! All those years of deceit. Now it was driving her forward.
She got off the train and started to walk towards her home a few streets away from Haymarket Station, but stopped in her favourite cafe and drank a cappuccino. Sitting at the window, she watched people making their way home from work and wondered what burdens they carried. Everyone had something – but she doubted many of them would have what she had right now. She finished her coffee and headed up the side streets to her flat in the West End. Through habit, she took the keys to her flat out of her handbag and put them into her jacket pocket. The streets were empty and it was beginning to get dark. Alison quickened her step. Then she heard footsteps behind her, quickening to her pace and was afraid to look around. She told herself she was panicking for no reason, and slowed down. Suddenly she felt a hard push against her back and she was grabbed from behind, swung around, and had her head pushed against the side of a building. She was dizzy, confused, trying to work out what was happening.
