by BRM Stewart
And now I was wondering how much I could tell her about my life, and how that would affect her. If we could sort out the computer problems, then I need hardly lie to her at all – might even tell her the truth. But if things didn’t change…
My mobile rang, jerking me from my thoughts. It was Charlene. I swallowed and answered. ‘Hi there.’
‘Come up to my room,’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘I’m in 214.’ And she hung up.
I stared at the phone, and then texted Grosvenor telling him where I would be. I gulped down the rest of my lager and burped across to the lifts, pressing the button till one came. As it rose quickly, I could see down the river, the way I’d walked earlier; I watched the cyclists and runners, the city dark under fading light and thickening clouds. I came out of the lift and then through the doors into the corridor – her door was opposite, beside the ice machine. I knocked, wondering just what might happen, what Charlene was really like, what motivated her.
The door opened, and she was there, still the young blonde with the pretty face and enigmatic gaze, and the neat figure in tight black lycra. Her face and hair were damp with sweat, and she was still breathing hard.
She showed me into the huge room and pointed me to the soft chair by one of the double beds. She stood by the desk and poured two gins-and-tonic, complete with ice, handing one to me. ‘Sorry there’s no lemon. Cheers.’ She took a big swig, and I did the same. Then she took a bigger drink from a collapsible blue water bottle with MOMA written on the side. ‘I need a shower. You watch TV.’ She tossed the remote onto the bed beside me.
The bathroom door closed behind her and I heard the shower start up. I turned on the news and listened to various items about the English education system, and then a brief mention of a shooting in Glasgow of a man, and an interview with the BBC’s Scotland correspondent, who said that a shooting was unusual even for Glasgow and that there were no clear details available but the man had been under investigation by the police. Then we were onto the state of the NHS in England.
The shower went off, and a few minutes later the door opened and Charlene came out, a big white towel wrapped round her – I saw the reflection in the wardrobe mirror first, and then the reality. She bent from the waist to delve into a drawer, retrieved what she wanted and went back into the bathroom, the reflection showing her unwrapping the towel as she back-heeled the door closed.
When she emerged again, she was wearing a short black dress with a broad white belt. She sat at the desk, took a sip of her gin-and-tonic and a big gulp of water, and began drying her hair.
I sat with my drink, watching her. Was she really trying to seduce me, I wondered, or simply wanting me to desire her? Or was she really just innocent of her attraction?
The Scottish news came on, leading with the story of Ken Talbot’s murder, pictures of his car in the Tesco car park, its windows shattered. The reporter looked serious; there was an interview with a chief inspector, pictures of a forensic team working round the car, policemen walking slowly in a line looking at the ground. Charlene’s hairdryer drowned out any words; she didn’t so much as glance at the screen.
She finished with her hair, put on some moisturiser, eye makeup and lipstick, a white plastic watch and pearl earrings, little white shoes, and stood up. She drank the rest of her gin-and-tonic, and I finished mine and stood up too. She leaned to switch off the TV.
We walked to the lift in silence, and down to reception and along to the restaurant area; she gave her room number – ‘Good evening, Miss Brown,’ the woman said – and we were taken to a table in the far corner by the angled window, below the mural depicting the heyday of a shipping industry now gone. We sat down with the menus.
‘Any drinks to start with?’ the waitress asked.
‘Two gin-and-tonics,’ Charlene said, without looking at her. ‘Tanqueray. Doubles. Diet tonic.’
‘Certainly.’
We read the menus, and I realised that I was not in the slightest bit hungry. I was nervous of Charlene – unsure of what was going on.
Our gins came, and we ordered food – just a main course: chicken for her, salmon for me – and she ordered a bottle of red wine: a Chilean merlot. We sat and looked at each other, sipping our gins, and I looked at her impassive face, just the way it had looked when I’d first seen her in Alvor.
The waiter brought the wine and showed Charlene the label, but poured some for me to taste. Charlene reached for my glass, sniffed the wine and rolled it round the glass, then sipped it and nodded. ‘That’s fine.’ She gave me the glass back. The waiter, embarrassed, filled our glasses and set the bottle down.
‘Can we have a jug of tap-water too?’ Charlene asked.
‘Certainly, madam.’
‘Cheers,’ I said. We paused on our gins and chinked wine glasses.
The restaurant was quite busy, but there was no one close by. Once our food arrived, and then the follow-up visit to confirm it was fine, I felt able to talk – but I didn’t know what to say.
‘What will you do now Talbot’s dead?’ I finally blurted out.
She flicked her eyes over me. ‘Who have you got working with you, Martin?’
‘Just a couple of guys.’
She nodded, sipping her wine as she held the glass cupped in her right hand. ‘We could work together,’ she finally offered.
‘Yes we could, but I’d need to know a lot more about just what the fuck has been going on for the last year or so.’ I hadn’t meant to let any anger show, but I couldn’t help it.
‘What brought you back to Glasgow?’ she asked.
‘They found me. I tried to run, but they knew where I was all the way. So I let them bring me back here. No choice.’
‘Where were you hiding?’
‘Orkney.’
She raised her eyebrows at that.
‘I did a bit of a detour round Spain and the rest of the UK, but I thought Orkney would be the last place they’d think of.’
‘So you’re back in B&D, trying to make contact with your network. Who have you got working with you?’
I wondered how much to say to her, how honest to be. ‘I’m helping the authorities. To track down the online criminals out there.’ I gave a shrug. ‘I have no choice,’ I said again.
Her face was impassive. We ate our meal for a few more minutes.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what really happened in Portugal?’
She shrugged. ‘Just what you saw and what I told you. The guy was killed by his former partners when some of their funds disappeared. Nothing to do with me – I was as shocked as you were.’
‘But you arranged for that photograph to be taken and then you sent it to Helen.’
She nodded, no apology on her face.
‘How did you get involved with that situation?’
A sip of wine and a calm gaze. ‘I needed funding. I wanted that guy alive so I could keep getting funding.’
‘And what about Romania? What happened there? What did you do? Was that funding as well?’
She finished her meal and eased the plate aside, then topped up our wine glasses with a steady hand. I couldn’t eat any more. The waitress materialised, and we assured her that everything had been fine and we didn’t want any dessert or coffee. Charlene indicated the near-empty wine bottle – ‘Certainly, madam.’
Charlene pursed her lips. ‘Romania got complicated. It started off with me wanting to get into the East European carders’ society – the UK scene was too crowded, no one needed another partner. So Sandy helped me out with contacts – Gheorghe, who was a major player in the Russian criminal scene and was setting up an online operation using some Romanians he had recruited, in a genuine small computer company – just like B&D. It all started just the way you saw it: you were there to help train the group, and it all went swimmingly at first.’
‘Till I was date-raped and three people were murdered.’
The waitress arrived with the fresh bottle, catching the end of my sentence; she checked the
label with Charlene and opened the bottle, and Charlene took it from her and waved her away.
‘None of that was anything to do with me.’
‘You were around, you must have known something like that might happen. You knew what Gheorghe was like.’
‘I was looking out for you, Martin – honestly.’ She took a deep breath, and I could almost see the internal struggle. When she spoke, I wondered whether she was about to be honest or to lie. ‘My guess is that it was set up to look like Tudor raped and murdered Coralia and then killed himself.’ Her voice was a low whisper. ‘But either Gheorghe himself did it, or he had help from one of his thugs. He lusted after Coralia in a big way – I’m pretty sure he would have wanted to be there when she was stripped and assaulted. I’m sure they would find his DNA all over her. But he hasn’t told me directly, and I don’t expect him to.’ She swallowed, and looked me in the eye. ‘I thought they were probably planning to frame you for something too, to do with Rodica – her murder. That’s why I had to get you out. And I was right. She was expendable to these people – she was just a sex worker, not important to them. Photographing you having sex with her would be part of the frame-up. When you left the country before she was killed, well… I think they sent the photographs to your girlfriend out of spite – revenge.’ She gave a shrug.
I looked hard at Charlene. Maybe she was being honest now. Maybe. OK, so she had got me out – but she’d also got me in.
She topped up our wine from the new bottle. I realised that she had told me she was still in contact with Gheorghe: that was interesting – but what would their relationship be, since she had virtually double-crossed him? I was starting to feel quite drunk, my brain trying to cope with everything I was being told, trying to work out what I wasn’t being told; however, she didn’t seem to be suffering any effects at all from the gins and the wine.
‘So,’ she went on. ‘That’s what happened. You never properly thanked me for rescuing you.’
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Now, Martin. Your turn. Who is working with you?’
I ignored her question. ‘With Talbot dead, do you have a legitimate claim on his estate – assuming the police don’t manage to confiscate the whole shebang?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I take it some of shareholdings and companies are really in your name, and not Charlie’s.’
‘Some.’
‘I knew your dad,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you ever did.’
She shook her head. ‘He was only my biological father.’
‘Are you in touch with your real mother?’
‘No.’
‘When did you find out about Charlie?’
She was gripping her glass firmly, and her jaw was taut as she spoke: ‘Five years ago, when I was told I had been adopted – when I noticed I was nothing physically like my parents or my brother. Then I did my research.’
‘And got in touch with Ken Talbot.’
‘I visited him at his home – thought he’d be delighted to see his granddaughter, especially since his son was dead. Turned out to be totally wrong. But he passed me on to Sandy, to get some kind of financial settlement worked out. I told him I didn’t want to be bought off, so we made a deal: he used me – ‘Charlie Talbot’ – as a named shareholder in various companies that they were using for money laundering – you know the kind of thing they did. I went away for a while, happy with the arrangement: but then I realised I could get more, and I came back. He told me about the situation that you all had at B&D, and suggested that I could maybe set up the same kind of thing – but elsewhere. I went off to get some computing courses under my belt so I could understand more of what was going on, and set up a hairdressing business back home in Wales – cover. Met a few people in the field.’
I nodded. That all seemed logical and believable. ‘Who was the guy with you in Alvor? Is he really your husband?’
She shook her head with a wry smile. ‘Jimmy’s just a guy: a bit of muscle.’
‘While you play the dumb blonde.’
She looked at me with wide eyes. ‘I find it helps to be underestimated and patronised. So,’ she said yet again, ‘who is working with you?’
‘A couple of guys from the FBI.’
She nodded. ‘Who are they?
I noted that she hadn’t registered any surprise. ‘Guy called Mark Grosvenor is in charge, and Steve Roberts is the computer expert. The Scottish police are around, but they’re letting Grosvenor and the FBI take charge of all the cybercrime aspects.’
‘How did the FBI get onto all of this?’
‘Grosvenor told me a bit about it. He says the dead guy in Portugal had credit card numbers on his computer – as you know. The Portuguese police were trying to investigate it all. But a couple of the numbers belonged to Americans, so the Portuguese got in touch with the FBI, who deal with such things. They investigated. Later on, when the Romanian thing happened, two names popped out as being in both places at the right time.’ I pointed to myself and then her. ‘So they contacted the Scottish police – DS Amanda Pitt – and sent Grosvenor over to find me and talk to me. And he brought Steve.’
And suddenly I could see she looked a little rattled, the calm enigmatic façade cracking for the very first time. There was a milder version of my reaction when Grosvenor had told me who he was.
‘So,’ I went on, ‘you see my problem. Working with you would be difficult.’
She seemed to have nothing to say to that, holding the big wine glass in front of her face, focusing on it.
‘But I guess that you could come in with us, with the FBI, help them get into the network. You must have useful information – your contacts with Eastern Europe.’
‘Have you discussed this with them?’
‘Not as such.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping our wine. I had a big drink of water too.
‘How much money do you have, Martin – cash?’
‘Loads actually, I suppose – plenty to be going on with. I could have managed, if I’d got away.’
She pursed her lips and nodded, a faraway look in her eye. ‘I don’t have much, beyond what I got from Portugal at the start, and what Sandy gave me. It’s all tied up in the companies. I hoped to get more out of Ken Talbot, but… well, his accounts are all frozen now. I have to carry on, Martin. I don’t have a choice.’
‘Yes you do. You can work with the FBI.’
I looked at her, her new vulnerability making her almost attractive to me. Inside my trouser pocket my mobile phone vibrated; I ignored it.
She finished her wine and shook her head when I reached to refill it, so I filled my own glass. God, over a bottle of wine and a couple of large gins; last night’s hangover was gone, but tomorrow’s was building up. I had no idea what I was trying to do here: I needed to get home, talk to Grosvenor, and go and see Nicola and have a break from all of this. I’d thought I had Charlene worked out, but now I saw a young woman who was as trapped as I was.
‘I need to go,’ I said.
She nodded.
We stood up and walked by the desk at the entrance to the restaurant area, where Charlene stopped to sign the bill. I looked at her in the slim-fitting black dress, and thought of her emerging from the bathroom in the towel… and I took a deep breath said: ‘I’ll speak to Grosvenor. I’ll phone you tomorrow.’ She didn’t look up, and I walked away, out of the hotel into the cool wet evening.
I headed up past the SECC and across the covered footbridge over the expressway and the railway, making my way towards the west end via Finnieston, and phoned Grosvenor as I walked.
‘How did it go?’
‘She’s registered under the surname Brown, room 214. She’s still got working connections to the Romanians, but I think she would work with us if you and the police could give her some kind of immunity from prosecution, and income of course.’
‘She said that?’
‘Not as such. But she’s cornered, she doesn’t ha
ve much cash, everything she has is tied up in Talbot’s companies. With him dead, she can’t get at it. She’s cornered,’ I repeated.
‘Mmm – I don’t buy that, son. Where are you now?’
‘Going home. I’m pissed and I need to sleep. How’s Steve getting on?’
‘No idea. He sits there with his laptop and grunts when I ask him. I’m bushed, so I’m going to chase him out and lock up. He’ll come over to your place, I’ll go to my hotel.’
‘Anything from Amanda?’
‘She’s snowed under with the fallout from the Talbot killing. I’ll maybe try her tomorrow.’
‘OK. I’ll come down in the morning.’
I hung up.
I passed the Kelvingrove museum, and found some more memories rising into my tired, drunken mind – the red wine was catching up with me. Then along Dumbarton Road and turning into Byres Road.
I saw a couple walking the other way through the dark night and the increasing rain, not holding hands or linking arms, but their bodies close together, eyes down as they spoke and laughed. As I passed them, I caught a glimpse of the woman’s face and recognised the laugh and the voice: it was Helen.
I kept my head down and walked quickly by, hearing their continued conversation and laughter recede behind me. More memories, the past haunting me.
I turned into my road and along by the lines of parked cars, fumbling for my keys as I reached the steps up to the entrance of my close – desperate for a pee, and feeling full of the wine.
I heard the running steps, and half-tensed by instinct. I’d never been mugged before, but the possibility was always there in the back of my mind. Still, when the heavy weight of a body crashed into me, knocking me against the railings, I was surprised. I had an impression of a man in a hooded top, and then a fist hit my stomach hard, and I gave up the bottle of wine in a parabolic stream, some of it over him. He hit me again in the side of my head, and pulled me off my feet onto my knees on the wet, cold paving stones, and dragged me across to the kerb, one hand in my hair, the other on my arm. There was a rattling diesel engine nearby and a door opening. I tried to struggle, but any balance I’d had was lost as I came off the kerb and hit the bumper of a car and another pair of hands grabbed me. My shins hit the sill of the car door as I was dragged and pushed into the back of it, and the door hit my feet as it was slammed shut.
