by Anna Smith
Alison seemed relieved. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as she opened the door of the car to leave.
Rosie didn’t really know what to say. She squeezed her hand reassuringly and said, ‘Okay, Alison. I’ll call you in a couple of hours. Take care.’
She watched in her rear-view mirror as Alison walked up the street into the grey afternoon until she disappeared from view, then she drove along the road until she saw Adrian standing in a shop doorway. He got into the car and they drove off. He pulled down the sun visor and looked in the mirror.
‘They are following us, Rosie. Two men. A black BMW.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There was no way Rosie’s Vauxhall could outrun a BMW. Even if she drove with her foot to the floor, ripping up the inside lane on the M8 to try to lose it, she knew the BMW would catch her.
Adrian kept checking the mirror. ‘Still there . . . four or five cars back . . .’
‘Shit.’ Rosie’s heart was pumping. She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white as she zipped into the fast lane, almost taking the nose off a car in the middle lane, whose driver honked his horn indignantly. ‘Yeah, yeah, asshole,’ Rosie snapped. ‘You want to be where I’m sitting.’ She saw the driver giving her the finger.
‘Coming now,’ Adrian said. ‘On inside lane.’ He turned to Rosie. ‘Do you think they will shoot us when they pass?’ he asked, as though it would be a minor inconvenience.
‘What?’ Rosie was stunned. ‘Shoot us? Jesus, Adrian.’
Adrian shrugged. ‘I am thinking, maybe, if they want something you’ve got they will shoot us. I think, maybe, you should drive off the highway.’
Rosie dropped a gear, cut back into the middle lane, then across to the inside. She saw a sign for Bathgate. Her tyres screeched as she took the slip road too fast and she struggled to keep control of the car.
‘Shit,’ Adrian said. ‘They’re behind us.’
Then suddenly the BMW was on her bumper. It tried to overtake her on the narrow country road and she swerved to block it. ‘Christ almighty,’ Rosie muttered. ‘I don’t believe this.’ A long stretch of road ahead and the BMW was right beside her. She glanced quickly and saw a bald, heavy man in the passenger seat. It was a mistake to take her eye off the road. The car started weaving and she was heading fast into a field.
‘Oh, fuck, Adrian!’
‘Take your foot off the gas.’
She did. They ploughed into the field. She waited for the car to roll over, the airbag to pop out, and her whole life to flash in front of her. But it didn’t. The field was soggy and the car stopped. The BMW was nowhere to be seen, but running towards them was the bald, fat guy and a big, burly man in a woolly hat.
‘Quick.’ Adrian opened the door. ‘We must run.’
They got out of the car and ran. Rosie had no idea where to, she just kept running. She couldn’t breathe. She held tightly onto her bag. Up ahead she saw a large building.
‘In there.’ Adrian held her arm. ‘Hurry, Rosie.’
The building was derelict, with smashed windows; rusting machinery sat in the yard. Adrian pushed open the front door and they went inside. It was dark, but not pitch black. Another half hour and it would be. They picked their way through the warren of rooms with overturned desks and chairs scattered around.
‘In here.’ Adrian motioned Rosie into what looked like a long cupboard. They stood there, trying to get their breath back.
‘Ssssh, they’re coming.’ He put his finger up to his lips and stepped out of the cupboard. Rosie looked at him. ‘Wait there,’ he whispered, then disappeared behind a pillar. Rosie could hear his footsteps walking away. Sweat broke out all over her body and she felt sick. Please, God, don’t let me be sick . . . She heard footsteps in the distance. She breathed softly and waited. It seemed like a good time to pray. Where was the Holy Ghost when you needed him? Where was Adrian? I promise I’ll change, God. I’ll never do anything bad. Don’t let me die.
‘Rosie.’ It was Adrian’s voice. She breathed a sigh of relief. She peered into the semi-darkness. Her heart jumped. Adrian was being held by the fat guy who was behind him, holding a knife at his throat. Adrian’s face was grey.
‘Your fucking pal just stabbed my mate.’ The bald guy took a step towards her, pushing Adrian, the blade nearly through his skin. ‘He’ll pay for that.’ He stretched out one hand.
‘Gimme the stuff, bitch.’
Rosie didn’t answer.
‘Hurry the fuck up.’
‘What stuff?’ she managed to say.
‘Aw for fuck’s sake. Hurry up, or I’ll cut his throat and you’ll be next.’ He grinned. ‘I just do this for fun, hen. It’s no for the money.’
Rosie reached into her bag and tried to fish the envelope out. Her hands were shaking as she held it out towards him. He was reaching out a hand to grab it, when he gave a loud gasp.
‘Bastard.’ The fat guy slumped over clutching himself between his legs. He looked shocked. He let go of Adrian, who turned swiftly and grabbed the knife from his hand. Rosie watched in shock as he plunged the knife into the man’s stomach.
‘Let’s go.’ Adrian wiped the knife on the man’s jacket as he lay bleeding on the ground. He was gurgling. Then he stopped. Rosie seemed unable to move. Adrian tugged her arm.
‘Come on, Rosie. We must go.’
‘Have you killed him?’ She stepped over the body.
‘Does it matter?’ Adrian said, flatly. She followed him out of the building and ran back to her car.
‘I will drive,’ Adrian said. ‘If I can get the car out of this field.’
Rosie got into the passenger seat in a daze. She didn’t feel sick any more. Adrian put the car into reverse and was soon out of the field and onto the road, the tyres screeching as he sped away. Rosie wondered if he had a driving licence, if he was insured.
At that moment, it didn’t seem to matter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
In the internet cafe off Buchanan Street, Rosie drank a second cup of tea while she sat staring at the blank screen. She was somewhere between hysteria and collapsing from exhaustion, and she wasn’t sure what would come first. On the way back to Glasgow, Adrian had driven like a maniac and she had to keep telling him to slow down. The last thing they needed was to get pulled over by the cops. But Adrian told her it was important they got far away from that place as fast as possible because the other guy had got away. He might have called for help and there could be others on the way.
‘Do you think the fat guy is dead?’ The image of him lying gurgling was even more vivid now.
‘I don’t think so.’ Adrian pursed his lips. ‘Maybe.’ He glanced at Rosie as they overtook another car on the M8. ‘Maybe. But I didn’t pull the knife up to his chest. Then I would be sure.’
‘I have killed men before. Three.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘No. Four.’
‘Great,’ Rosie said. ‘That’s all right then.’ She shook her head, incredulous. ‘Jesus wept, Adrian, forgive me. But it’s not something I see a lot of in my work.’
Adrian smiled, for only the second time today. ‘No. Rosie. Please. You must understand me, please. I do not kill for sake of it. Never. The men I killed were bad people who came to our village and murdered people. Me and other men in the village had to fight back.’ His eyes were black. ‘The soldiers were butchers, just like that man. He was going to kill me anyway, even if you gave him the things he wanted. And maybe he would kill you also.’ He shrugged. ‘If he is dead, that’s fine.’
There was no answer to that, Rosie decided. They drove the rest of the journey in silence. She was relieved when they reached that rise of the M8 after Townhead and you could see the West End spread out before you. Home at last. When they got to Charing Cross, Adrian stopped the car and turned to her.
‘I think now I have paid you back, Rosie. For being kind to me that day. And saving me from things.’
There was no answer to that either. They both got out of the car and Rosie came ar
ound to the driver’s side where he stood, buttoning up his jacket against the wind.
‘I must go now. Tomorrow I am at work in the biscuit factory from six. Long day.’ He reached out both hands and took Rosie’s, holding tight. ‘If you need me, you know how to find me, my friend. Take care.’
‘Thank you, Adrian.’ Rosie wanted to say more. She wanted to probe, to try to understand how someone could experience the horror of what had just happened, then seem to completely forget about it. She watched Adrian stride along the street, wondering if he would turn to wave. He didn’t. He was used to moving on.
In the cafe, Rosie reached into her handbag and took out Alison’s letter and photograph. She had decided to scan them onto a disc which she could hold onto, just in case they disappeared when they got to McGuire’s office. Matt had already given her a disc of the pictures he took at Lord Dawson’s house. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust McGuire. In all the time she had known him, she’d respected his integrity and the way he acted on his instinct. But, deep down, she worried that when McGuire’s back was really against the wall and political pressure was raining down on him, he just might fold.
They now had two explosive stories on the go. Lord Dawson and the paedophile ring, and the bent cops at the top of the tree. You could wait all your life for a sniff at stories like these and never get near them. But Rosie knew they were too hot for safety. If push came to shove, she wanted to have the option of resigning and taking them elsewhere, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She called McGuire and told him that everything had gone well and that the letter and picture were in the bag. He was waiting for the car that was taking him to a dinner with the Secretary of State for Scotland, and he didn’t want her to give the material to anyone but him. He would see her first thing in the morning. Rosie was relieved. She was completely drained. You’re a star, he told her, as he hung up. If only he knew . . .
She finished her tea and sat back, waiting for the disc to complete. She felt achingly alone and exhausted. She’d been running on empty for the past few days, yet when she lay in bed at night, sleep wouldn’t come. She kept thinking about Gemma and Trina, remembering their innocent faces that afternoon in the cafe when she promised she would take them to her home one night. They needed so little to make them happy. She knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight either, after everything that had happened. There was only one person in the world she wanted to talk to.
‘What took you so long?’ The sound of TJ’s mild sarcasm made Rosie feel warm. ‘What’s wrong?’ TJ’s voice was suddenly concerned.
‘TJ.’ Rosie choked back tears. ‘Can I come over? I need to see you.’
‘Of course you can, Rosie. Where are you? Do you want me to come and get you?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
The disc popped out. Rosie put it into her handbag and walked out of the cafe into the night. She looked over her shoulder as she got into her car. Her hands were shaking and she gripped the steering wheel hard to stop them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When TJ opened the door, they stood looking at each other for a moment. Then he put his arms around Rosie and held her tight. She buried her head in his shoulder, and the tears came. He didn’t speak, just held her there in the hallway, caressing the back of her head.
‘I’m shattered, TJ.’ She eased herself away. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got nowhere else to go but here. I’m just . . . I just feel lost.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks. TJ stood with his hands on her shoulders, then he wiped her face with the palms of his hands and kissed her on the lips. She was ashamed of cracking like this in front of him.
‘Come on, Rosie. Sssh . . . It’s okay now. You don’t need anywhere else to go. Come on.’
He put his arm around her shoulders, and she allowed him to lead her down the hall and into the living room. He sat her down on the sofa in front of the flickering fire.
‘Tell you what I’m going to do with you, Rosie.’ He turned her face towards him. ‘I’m going to pour you a large drink and run you a hot bath. I’ll scrub your back for you.’
He went to the table and poured from an open bottle of red wine. He handed Rosie a glass, then disappeared. She took a long slow drink. She could hear water running. She sniffed back her tears, but the heaviness still pressed on her chest. TJ appeared in the living room and drank half of his wine in one gulp. He refilled both their glasses.
‘Bath’s ready. On you go, you look done in.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to molest you.’
Rosie caressed his face gently, then she took off her jacket, and went past him into the bathroom. In the candlelight, it smelled of incense. She stood in the steam watching little rivers of condensation run down the blue and white tiles. She stripped off and sank into the bubbles, moaning softly as the water warmed the raw chill of her body. She lay watching the flickering candles, and closed her eyes. The door opened and TJ came in with her glass of wine.
‘You’ll need this.’ He handed her the glass as she sat up.
She saw him looking at her body and she smiled up at him. He knelt down by the side of the bath, took the sponge and began to wash her. He rubbed the sponge gently across her shoulders and back, then her breasts, caressing them with the sponge, then with his hands, making her nipples immediately hard. He touched them softly with the tips of his fingers and Rosie felt a twinge of desire. TJ looked into her eyes and pushed back her hair. He leaned forward and kissed her.
‘I can see you now, Rosie. More clearly than ever.’ He got up and sat on a chair beside the bath so he was facing her.
‘Talk to me. Tell me what made you who you are. Tell me why you cry in your sleep, Rosie.’ He drank from his glass and looked at her.
She lay back in the bath and closed her eyes. Now she would talk – for the first time in her life. She was tired of fighting from behind the wall. She took a deep breath and began.
‘It’s always the phone ringing.’ She swallowed. ‘Always the phone, TJ. That’s what wakes me up. And when I finally open my eyes I know I’ve been crying. Because – because I know where I’ve been.’
TJ studied her face. ‘Tell me.’
She began at the place where her childhood had ended.
She had walked slowly home from school that day, slower than usual. That’s what had always preyed on her mind afterwards. Perhaps if she had run home from school like the rest of the kids, she could have been there on time and then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But Rosie was never in a hurry to go home because she knew what she would find. Her mother would either be asleep on the chair or couch, the mug by her side and an ashtray filled with fag ends, or else she would be fussing around the house trying to look sober, drinking from the mug as she bumped into furniture or dropped pans while she attempted to cook. Rosie wished her mother wouldn’t bother with the pretence of pouring the cheap wine or strong lager she drank into the mug, trying to pass it off as tea. She might as well have swigged it from the bottle, instead of trying to hide it. Rosie knew that her mother was drunk from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning until she collapsed on the bed at night. Usually, that was after the men visited, and were taken into the bedroom while Rosie was sent to the shop for sweets.
Sometimes she sneaked back into the house and listened outside the bedroom door where she could hear the groaning noises. Through the keyhole once, she saw a man with his trousers at his ankles lying on top of her mother and moving up and down, huffing and puffing. At first she thought he was trying to murder her and she considered bursting through the door and hitting him with the poker. But then she heard her mother moaning, and she didn’t sound as though she was being hurt or in danger. After that night, she didn’t look through the keyhole any more.
Her mother never spoke about the men to Rosie. She thought maybe her mum was just lonely, because her father had been away for so long. Rosie waited and waited for him to come home, and the memory she had of him faded with each passing
year. All she had to remember him by was a cracked black and white photo of the man she last saw when she was four years old. That seemed to be the time when her mother started to drink. And the more she drank the more she cried, and the less she cared about the state of the house. Rosie would come home from school and start to peel potatoes for the dinner. She cleaned the house and went to the shops while her mother slept off the booze. That was why she didn’t rush home from school, because while she wasn’t in the house, she could pretend she lived a different life. The kind of life that the other kids lived, with dads who had jobs and mums who had dinner on the table when they got home from school.
These kids used to tell Rosie how they sat at night and told stories around the fire and sometimes played card games with their dads. Rosie used to tell them her dad was in the Merchant Navy, and was coming back next year with presents and exotic things from every country he had ever visited. She wondered if they believed her. And she wondered if the stories they told her about their own lives were real, or if they were all living like her.
There was nobody she could talk to about her mother. If she did, they would send the social welfare in and take her away to one of those big damp children’s homes where the nuns would bash you up every day. Rosie had heard stories about them and she was terrified of being sent there. Her mother wasn’t much, but she was all she had. And anyway, she wasn’t a bad person. She loved Rosie and would sing to her sometimes, and they would sit some nights, just the two of them, and her mum would tell her of places they would visit some day when they had enough money. Nights like that, Rosie would fall asleep in her mother’s arms on the couch and dream of the countries they would see together. She only told her pals at school of her plans once though, because they all sniggered after Ann-Marie Grattan said it would be hard for her ma to go anywhere because she could hardly stand up, she was that drunk. Deep down she knew they would probably never go anywhere, but there was no harm in dreaming.
