Betrayed (4 page)

‘Sure, boss,’ Jimmy and Mitch both said at the same time.

From where they were sitting, they had a clear view of the motorway slip road. The evening traffic was quiet, only a trickle of cars coming off at the junction.

After a few minutes, Mitch piped up.

‘I see a silver Mondeo, Eddie. Look.’ He squinted through binoculars and read out the registration number. ‘That has to be them. Two guys.’

‘Right, I see the car.’ Eddie strained his eyes. ‘There’s about three cars coming off at the same time. But ours is the Mondeo. Get ready.’ He turned to Jimmy. ‘When they come off here, hang well back until they cut up the country road. I know where they’re headed. They’ve been told they’ve got a meet outside Coalburn to hand the gear over.’

Jimmy reversed his car and took off up the road, arriving
at the junction just as the third car came off. They drove behind it for a few hundred yards, then it indicated and went left.

‘Shit,’ Eddie scowled. ‘I’d hoped for a couple of cars in front to keep us covered. Just slow down a bit, Jimmy, so we’re a good distance behind. They’ll be turning off in about a mile or so. We’ll wait till they’re well up the lane before we go. Then we hammer it.’

Jimmy dropped back then followed the Mondeo as it turned off the main road and into the narrow country lane.

After a few seconds, Eddie spoke. ‘Right, let’s go now, Jimmy. You got the stuff in the back there, Mitch?’

‘Got them, boss.’

In his rear-view mirror Jimmy could see Mitch fiddling with the pickaxe handle and the expandable police batons. His close-cropped blond hair made his neck look even thicker on his chunky shoulders. His eyes sparkled with adrenalin, or he’d snorted a couple of lines of coke before he left his house. He handed two batons over to Eddie who flicked his so it was twice the length. He gave the other to Jimmy, which he rested on his lap. They turned into the lane, so overgrown with bushes it made the road narrow and difficult for cars to pass. There was no sign of the Mondeo but they knew it had to be up ahead around one of the tight bends.

‘Right, lads. Showtime.’ Eddie pulled his balaclava over his face.

Jimmy and Mitch did the same.

‘Now do it exactly as I said.’ He turned to Jimmy and barked, ‘Right. Get the fucking boot down. Let’s go!’

Jimmy dropped a gear and shoved his foot to the floor as the car surged forward, sending up clouds of dust. Within seconds the Mondeo was in sight, and it seemed to slow down, pulling over to the side as they approached, to make way for them to pass.

‘They probably think we’re boy racers out for a spin,’ Eddie sniggered, cocking his gun. ‘They’re in for some shock. Now, Jimmy! Right in front of them! Just as we planned. Wedge the fuckers in!’

He sped up to the car that was now almost stationary. Just as they were about to pass, Jimmy pulled in and slammed on the brakes, the car spinning so it was in front of the Mondeo, blocking their path. He caught a glimpse of the stunned looks on the faces of the two guys in the front seat. Before they had time to register what was happening, Mitch was out of the back seat and rushing towards the car with the pickaxe handle, smashing the windscreen. Eddie was instantly at his side, and fired a shot through the side window. Jimmy pulled out his gun and jumped out of the car. Mitch was already dragging the driver out, smashing him on the side of the head so many times with the baton that he lost consciousness quickly. The passenger jumped out and fired off a couple of shots at Mitch who was only about three feet in front of him. But he missed. He then
stumbled over the ditch and tried to escape across a field. But Jimmy was after him, and when he got close swung his baton, striking the back of his head and knocking him off his feet. He stood over him and, as the guy looked up, defenceless, Jimmy hit him hard on the face, making blood spurt from his mouth. Mitch arrived at his side.

‘Get him up, Jimmy. Take him back to the car.’

They lifted him by the shoulders and dragged him the few yards to the car, where Eddie was attempting to shove the barely conscious driver into the back.

‘Stick him in,’ Eddie said.

Jimmy went back to his own car and started the engine. He drove on, just as they had planned, to the edge of the lane and then down towards the forest where the road ended and became a dirt track, towards the quarry.

In his rear-view mirror, he could see Mitch driving the car; Eddie’s body was half turned so he could keep a gun on the guys in the back. Not that they would need much guarding, Jimmy thought, judging by the state of their faces.

The dirt track road opened onto a flat expanse and Jimmy drove his car to the edge of the quarry. He got out and took a couple of steps towards the cliff. It looked like a steeper drop to the murky water than it had when they’d done the recce a few days ago, as they meticulously planned every step of the hit. The other car arrived, also driving right up to the edge, and Jimmy walked towards it. He reached into the back and along with Mitch hauled one of the guys out,
shoved him into the front seat and closed the door, then helped Eddie pull the other one from the back and into the driving seat.

‘Right. Check the car. Get the stuff out and take what they’ve got in their pockets. Take everything.’ Eddie stood back.

Jimmy and Mitch opened the boot and brought out a grey holdall and took it to Eddie. He opened it and brought out one of four bricks wrapped in masking tape, tearing open a corner of one of them with a knife.

‘Fucking smack.’ He held it up to them. ‘Fuckers deserve all they get. We’ll send it to Belfast and let them shift it. I don’t want to touch that fucking stuff.’

Jimmy moved the passenger roughly so he could get into his jeans pockets. He only had two tenners and a bank card. He held the card up to Eddie then handed it to him. Mitch said there was nothing in the driver’s pocket, but he put his hand under the seat and pulled out a small bag and handed it to Eddie.

‘Fuck! There must be ten grand here.’ He grinned at them. ‘We better hand this into the police station. Maybe we’ll get a reward if someone comes to claim it.’ He tossed the bag to Jimmy and told him to put it in the car.

For what seemed like an age the three of them stood silently in the fading light. All they could see were each other’s eyes behind the balaclavas. Jimmy saw Eddie’s eyes fixing his, and for a moment he thought he was going to
ask him to finish them off. He steeled himself, ready to do it. If he needed any justification, it was the fact that they were heroin dealers – the scum of the earth. It would be no problem for him to put a bullet in them if he was asked, even though he had never killed before. But Eddie said nothing. He took a step towards the driver’s door and opened it. Jimmy and Mitch watched as the guy raised his blood-smeared face and looked at Eddie as he took the gun from his waistband. For a split second the driver’s lips seemed to move in protest. Then Eddie fired, the driver’s head exploding, sending sprays of blood and bone across the windscreen. And as the gunshot echoed in the vastness of the gully, Eddie leaned across and shot the passenger in the side of his neck, blood gushing out like a burst pipe.

‘Right, boys.’ Eddie jerked his head in the direction of the quarry.

Jimmy and Mitch got behind the car and pushed it slowly towards the edge. They watched as the front wheels went over, then with one final push the car dropped down the eighty-foot ravine as if in slow motion. All three of them stood as it plunged, bumping off rocks, then hitting the water with a splash before disappearing beneath the blackness.

Eddie pulled his balaclava off and wiped the sweat from his face.

‘Well done, lads. Let’s go. I’m choking for a pint.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘If I’m really honest, Rosie, I’m more excited about the UVF bringing drugs in on Rangers supporters’ buses than I am about the missing barmaid.’ McGuire gave a mischievous grin over the top of his reading glasses.

‘I knew you were going to say that. To hell with the poor missing girl!’ She rolled her eyes sarcastically.

‘Yeah, sure, Gilmour.’ McGuire took off his glasses and sat back, shoving his feet up on the desk. ‘You’ll be telling me next it never occurred to you. A Loyalist drug-smuggling exposé is worth five missing barmaids – and you know it!’ He wagged his finger.

Touché. Rosie half smiled, feeling a little ashamed that he wasn’t far from the truth. She was prepared to chip away at the missing barmaid story for as long as it took, but her heart only really started pumping when Liz opened up about the drugs on football buses.

‘Well, you have a point,’ she conceded. ‘But it might all
be connected. Maybe Wendy has vanished for a reason – like she’s involved with the drugs and had to disappear.’

McGuire nodded slowly, tugging at his cufflinks, then smoothing his pristine pink shirt and navy spotted silk tie as though congratulating himself on how immaculate he managed to look when he arrived at the office each morning. He was a fastidiously sharp dresser, and it wasn’t unusual for him to pull up a young reporter who arrived on the editorial floor looking shabby.

‘Possibly,’ he said, steepling his hands under his chin. ‘But then again, she might just be shacked up somewhere and doesn’t want anyone to find her.’

‘Or she could be dead, Mick. The cops said her passport and bank cards are still in the house.’

‘Well … Nothing to suggest she’s dead yet.’ He shrugged. ‘So we have to assume that she might turn up. And if she
is
dead, she’ll turn up sooner or later. We can’t wait around for that. Right now, we have to look at how we can get to grips with the drugs story. That’s a belter. We need to find a way inside this.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, actually. Ideally, we’d want to be on a supporters’ bus, but that’s just not going to happen. That’ll be as tight as a drum. They’ll all know each other. And the thing is, most of the Rangers fans on the bus will know nothing about drugs. They’ll just be travelling to see their team.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes, I do. Not every Rangers fan is up to their knees in Fenian blood. Lots of them are just football fans who worship their team. Same as loads of Celtic fans are disgusted at the IRA slogans and chants that have taken root in the terraces.’

McGuire glanced at his computer screen as an email pinged. ‘Well, if you say so. I think they’re all nutters anyway. I’m sure the rancid bigotry runs through the lot of them. Bred into them down the generations.’

He got up from his desk and came around to sit on the leather armchair opposite Rosie on the sofa.

‘What about this Eddie McGregor character? Any way to find out more about him?’

Rosie sat back and folded her arms, gazing at the ceiling.

‘What I’m thinking, Mick, is that if we go trampling around the undergrowth anywhere near McGregor, the pub where the barmaid worked, the parents, or the boyfriend, we’ll blow any cover we have if we want to properly investigate the drug smuggling.’

‘Agreed. We need to tread softly, see if we can discreetly find out when they go, what pub the bus leaves from.’

‘There’s more than one bus brings drugs, Liz told me. But she only knows of the McGregor connection and the bus he travels with. She says she’ll find out what pub it leaves from. Really, what we have to do, Mick, is follow the bus from here. Tail them by car to wherever they are going in the next
Champions League match.’ She checked her notebook. ‘They play Eindhoven in two weeks. We should go there, establish who McGregor is, and follow him everywhere. If nothing happens, then we just put it down to experience. Their next match after that is in Seville, two weeks later. We do the same again. If we want to look seriously at it, we have to put the time in. If they’re doing it in Eindhoven, they’ll be doing it in Seville. With a bit of luck we’ll get them doing it in two places.’ She paused. ‘But we might end up with bugger all. It’s a chance we take.’

McGuire nodded. ‘What about this Liz bird? The pal. Do you trust her? She seems to be all slack-mouthed about the UVF without much encouragement. I’m not sure I trust that.’

Rosie puffed. ‘Who knows? Nothing we can do right now but trust what she says. I have a couple of contacts I can speak with who might throw a bit of light on who’s who in the UVF in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. See if McGregor’s name comes up. Also, I’ll try to find out about the coke dealing and how deep he’s into it. Treading carefully, of course.’

McGuire looked at her. ‘Yeah, Rosie. And I mean very bloody carefully.’ He went back behind his desk.

Rosie stood up and walked towards the door.

‘Oh, and don’t go pissing off any UVF men, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to have to check under my car for bombs every morning,’ he said, pointing a finger. ‘And I want to
be kept informed. Or I’ll get very annoyed.’ He raised his eyebrows for emphasis. ‘And I mean it.’

‘I’ll be discreet. Discretion is my middle name, Mick. You know that.’

‘Yeah. I’ve got an ulcer now, and I’m sure it’s all your fault. Every time you come in here with stuff like this, it starts acting up.’ He went into his drawer, took out a tablet and popped it into his mouth. ‘Now go. I’ve got a paper to put out.’

Rosie glanced at her watch as she ordered a gin and tonic from the silver-haired barman at O’Brien’s. Six thirty. In New York it would be just before midday. She pictured TJ lounging around his Manhattan apartment, drinking coffee, gradually easing himself into the day after gigging in the jazz club till three in the morning. The familiar ache in her stomach niggled as she reran little scenes of places they’d been and things they’d done during her recent trip to see him. It had been perfect. And she’d been surprised at how totally relaxed she’d felt, how for the first time in as long as she could remember, she’d managed to switch off completely. Even when Rosie went on holiday with her friends to chill on a beach, she was always taking phone calls from contacts, planning to see people for stories when she got back. Midway through a two week holiday, if she did manage to relax enough, there might be one moment when she’d become so accustomed to being away from the
office that the thought of going back filled her with dread. But every time, the moment she stepped back onto the editorial floor, it all clicked into place; this is what she did – that two weeks of fun wasn’t actual real life. But in New York with TJ she had felt different. It
had
felt like real life. She’d missed him from the moment they kissed goodbye at the airport. And it had made her lonelier than ever when she returned, especially when it now looked like TJ was going to be there for at least another couple of months. She took a mouthful of her gin and tonic, enjoying the kick as it hit her empty stomach.