Screams in the Dark (11 page)

Rosie smiled. ‘Wait till you hear. Next thing is she opens up. She’s been having an affair with Murphy – hotel rooms in the afternoon – and she made the mistake of falling in love, daft woman. He said he’d leave his wife … same old same old.’

‘Yeah. And?’

‘Well, she says on the morning he was found, she did take the suicide note meant for his wife, and also another one for Frank Paton. She showed me it.’

‘Oh fuck, Rosie.’ McGuire put his head in his hands. ‘You’ve looked at something which is evidence that’s been stolen from what may have been a crime scene.’

‘It was a suicide, Mick. Not a crime scene.’

‘Well, maybe not when she took it. But I’ve got a sneaky suspicion you’re about to tell me something that will guarantee that Murphy was up to his arse in some kind of crime. That means everything they were doing was a crime scene.’

Rosie put her hands up.

‘You got it in one, Mick.’

‘Christ! Go on.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I almost don’t want to hear what the suicide notes said.’

Rosie told him the contents of both notes.

‘Fuck! Murphy and Paton! So you think they’re actually behind this, providing the refugees?’

‘So it would seem,’ Rosie said.

‘Go on.’ McGuire was on his feet now, walking around the office, concentrating, hands dug deep into his trouser pockets.

‘So Tanya told me she went into the office early one morning before Paton came in and looked in a file. A piece of paper dropped out and she photocopied it.’ Rosie went into her bag and took it out. She handed it to McGuire and he looked at it.

‘Names of refugees, I guess. Scrubbed out some of them.’

‘Yeah, exactly. Scrubbed out. And you see the name of my man Emir? Him and his mate Jetmir – the one he told me about – they’re also scrubbed out. Maybe, in Jetmir’s case, in more ways than one.’

‘So you really think Murphy and Paton have been hand-picking these people?’

‘Yes, it’s possible, Mick. Maybe they identify the ones who nobody will even report as missing – the ones who are all alone with no family. Sound plausible? Who’s going to give a damn about people like that who end up in a foreign country. They’re just a number in some filing cabinet at the Home Office.’

McGuire took a deep breath and pursed his lips as he exhaled slowly. He scratched his chin. ‘But why? How the fuck does something like illegal trade in body tissue spring up in Glasgow. This just doesn’t happen here.’ He paused, then asked, ‘And what exactly
is
body tissue?’

‘I checked this out a bit. Body tissue is anything from skin to eyeballs to bone and veins. In other words, anything that isn’t an organ.’

‘Right,’ McGuire nodded. ‘So why Glasgow?’

‘Don’t know that yet. But it looks like the lawyers are working with Al Howie and Jake Cox’s mob. Except Cox isn’t around now – he’s mostly still in Spain, but you can bet he’ll be pulling the strings. In fact that’s probably where he hooked up with the Eastern Europe connection. This is about the gangsters broadening out to new ways to make money. I’ve had a brief look in cuttings and on the internet at the organ harvesting and body-tissue trade. It’s a billion-pound business and it’s worldwide – particularly in Eastern Europe – places like Macedonia, Ukraine, Russia. In fact everywhere – the Philippines, USA. It’s huge. If these gangsters are working with the hoods in the UK then they’re all at it. They’ll
have identified that refugees are easy pickings, with so many of them coming and going. Nobody watches them. Nobody cares, actually. I’ve already been up at the Scottish Refugee Council and established that there’s no stringent check on refugees, so it’s easy to disappear – or be made to disappear. And it looks like that is what’s happening.’

‘Fuck me!’ McGuire sighed. ‘Unbelievable, Rosie! It really is.’ He sat down. ‘I want this story, Rosie.’

‘We’ve a long way to go, Mick.’

‘So what’s your thinking?’

‘First up, I want to get Matt involved. I like working with him. He’s the best. We can take a run out to the this place and see what we can see. And I need to find more about this Milosh character, what he looks like. I’m going to get my private eye friend on that. It’s obviously going to be tight and secret in whatever location they do it, so we need to tread very carefully.’

‘Goes without saying.’ McGuire almost smiled. ‘I wouldn’t want you to end up with someone ripping out yout liver and selling it on the open market.’

Rosie laughed. ‘If it was my liver, it might not be worth much.’

They both sat in silence for a moment, pondering the enormity of the story.

‘Cops?’

‘No, Mick. Definitely not yet.’

‘Rosie. People are being kidnapped and having their bits cut off and sold. Can you imagine where we’ll be if it comes out we’re withholding stuff?’

‘I’m just saying not yet Mick. Let’s have a look for a few days. Maybe the cops already know. If they do, why are they not doing anything about it? Let me just look at it.’

Mick sighed.‘ All right, Gilmour. You can have a look from a safe distance, but don’t go rattling any cages.’ He went back behind his desk and wagged a warning finger at her. ‘And I mean that this time, Rosie. After that Moroccan shit last year, where you nearly got killed. No more of that.’

There was a little moment between them and Rosie looked away.

‘Don’t worry, Mick. I’m not going to do anything daft.’ She left.

*

The Irish pub O’Flaherty’s in Buchanan Lane was filling up with office workers dropping off for a quick drink on their way to nearby Queen Street train station. It was the kind of typical Irish theme pub you could find these days in any big city from Bucharest to Bangkok, and all of them were about as Irish as the Rev. Iain Paisley. At least that was the standard view of the purists. But Rosie liked all of them, no matter where they were, and no matter if the battered old suitcase and trinkets on the dusty shelves were purely for show, they still made her feel at home. It felt Irish to her. Rosie hadn’t been to Ireland until she was twenty-five, though she knew her ancestors on both sides had been part of the wave of immigrants who’d crossed the water fleeing persecution.

She’d never really felt Irish until she found herself on a freebie press trip to Dublin and discovered that so many of the mannerisms and ways of the Irish people were exactly like all people she’d grown up with who were of Irish descent. Call it genetic memory, but it had occurred to her that this was where she should have been all her life. She fitted. Maybe that’s what was wrong with her, she’d joked to anyone who would listen when she came back. She should have been living in Ireland. And it was true. The Scots, largely Presbyterian and a little buttoned-up by nature, somehow didn’t get the Irish. Though with so much crossing of the water and intermarrying over the generations all of that was becoming more and more diluted. But wherever Rosie was in the world, she always liked to sample a little bit of Irish – even if the bar did look like something out of a Disney movie.

She took her drink from the barman and went to a corner with the evening newspaper to wait for Christy Larkin. The earnest young man from the Scottish Refugee Council had called her as she was about to leave the office and asked if they could meet. She was up here like a shot.

She watched as Christy came into the gloomy bar and looked around. He smiled broadly when he caught her eye and strode across the room, a big, rangy kind of guy, pushing his hair back from his face.

‘Hi Rosie. Can I get you a drink?’

‘No thanks, Christy, you sit down. Let me get it.’

‘If you’re sure, pint of Guinness,’ he said, and sat down.

Rosie brought back his drink and settled into the corner, clinking her gin and tonic with his pint.

‘Our press officer was a wee bit rattled by you, Rosie.’ Christy grinned. ‘I was loving it. She’s a bossy bastard.’ He took a mouthful of stout.

Rosie smiled. ‘I could see she wasn’t used to people being persistent with their questions. She must surround herself with yes men.’ She glanced at Christy. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’

Christy shrugged. ‘She doesn’t like me much actually. Not that I give a fuck, I’m leaving in a couple of months. Taking a year out. Going travelling.’

‘Good for you, Christy. Best time to do it when you’re young.’ Rosie flicked a glance across his face, noticing how handsome he was behind his big specs.

‘You sound like an old person saying that, Rosie.’ He smiled and cheekily looked her up and down. ‘And you’re not old.’

‘No flirting. I could nearly be your mammy.’ Rosie gave him a reproachful look but half smiled.

‘Well, why not? You’re not old at all.’

Rosie laughed. She liked his cheek. ‘Come on, Christy. Let’s talk. I got the feeling when we were in the office you wanted to talk to me – not ask me out.’

‘Yes,’ Christy nodded, and his expression grew more serious. ‘I do want to talk to you, Rosie.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Can I trust you?
Really
trust you?’

Rosie put her drink down and gave him a perplexed look. ‘If you didn’t think you could trust me, Christy, you wouldn’t be here.’

‘True.’

‘So, let’s talk. I’ve also got something I want to ask you about, so trust goes both ways.’

‘Of course.’

Christy moved a little closer to her. ‘You know when you were asking about the tabs that were kept on refugees and if some of them disappear into the black economy? Why were you asking that? Are you investigating them working illegally?’

Rosie watched him as he took a long drink of his pint.

‘No, I’m not actually. I was asking because I was wondering what happens when they disappear, how many go missing. How many have gone missing.’

‘Why?’

Rosie looked at him. He knew something. He was fishing.

‘Why do
you
think, Christy? Tell me.’

He didn’t reply immediately, but took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. Then he said, ‘I think there’s something going on Rosie. Something bad.’ He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. ‘There
are
refugees going missing. I’ve been looking back over the lists and checking addresses and stuff. There’s been quite a lot in the past year, and it’s been quite sudden. I’ve been working there for three years and it never used to happen, but now people are disappearing. The thing is, though, nobody knows if they’ve gone off to work illegally or whether something else is happening. There are just so
many
refugees. I’ve checked with colleagues down south and they’re going missing there too. It’s not right.’ He sipped his pint. ‘But nobody wants to make a big public thing
about it because it’s bad for the government if there’s a perception that refugees are just coming over here and disappearing into the black economy.’

‘So what do you think could be happening?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I was thinking maybe the refugees are being kidnapped and sold to gangmasters – people-trafficking, that kind of thing – but I’ve got no evidence. All I know is every time I flag it up that someone’s gone missing, nobody reacts. So I just stopped flagging it. Everyone’s so busy processing the ones that are coming in and stuff, that nobody wants to know anything complicated. To be honest, I don’t think anybody cares that much.’

They sat in silence for a moment. Rosie drank her gin, but turned down an offer of another from Christy. She felt he was someone she could take into her confidence, but not enough to tell him everything she knew. But she did need his help.

‘Listen, Christy,’ Rosie said. ‘If I give you a name of somebody, a refugee – Bosnian, I think – could you maybe run a check on him for me? Find out who he is? Maybe even get me a photograph?’ She paused. ‘I don’t want to say at this stage why I need that, so I hope you’ll respect that. I’m working on something, having a look at one or two individuals, and this guy’s name has come up. Could you help me?’

Christy nodded. ‘Of course I will, if I can. Shouldn’t be a problem for me to check a name. If he’s not from here, then I can put his name into the computer and see what comes up nationally. Who is he?’

Rosie handed him a piece of paper.

‘Milosh Subacic,’ he said. ‘Any age?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘Nothing. Just the name. But I don’t think he’s young somehow.’

Christy put it in his pocket and finished his drink. They both stood up and walked towards the door.

‘I’ll give you a shout as soon as I have the information. Shouldn’t be long.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe we can have another drink sometime, and I can chat you up a bit more?’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie laughed. ‘I love a bit of chatting up by a handsome young man.’ She patted his shoulder as they went their separate ways.

*

Rosie looked at her watch. It was nearly seven. She punched in TJ’s number on her mobile, wondering if he fancied a quick bite to eat. It rang out, but she hung up when it went on to his voicemail. I’ll surprise him, she decided, as she got into her car and drove towards his flat. But as she was just about fifty yards from the door she slammed the breaks on, stopping the car abruptly. Her heart stopped too. Unless she was mistaken, the woman coming out of the main door of TJ’s flat was Kat. She felt as though someone had kicked her square in the guts. Kat walked confidently along the road towards her. Rosie quickly turned her car into a sidestreet like a fugitive and found herself dipping her head below the dashboard, ridiculously, and waited until she passed. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror. She was white to the lips.

CHAPTER 12

It had been a sleepless night, and Rosie woke up groggy. She stared at the ceiling, listening to the sound of the Charing Cross traffic drifting through her open bedroom window. By the level of noise it must be nearly eight. The world was up and about, a thousand stories playing out in the streets below. She gave herself twenty seconds to be fully awake. It was her golden rule – because any longer could give you too much time to ponder on what the day could bring and you might end up just lying there, afraid to face it. Rosie had known the utter blackness of that feeling, and she’d battened down the hatches on it a long time ago. At least she hoped she had.