Screams in the Dark (3 page)

*

Tanya sat in the cafe, sipping coffee and drawing the smoke from her cigarette deep into her lungs as though her life depended on it. She ran a hand over her face and leaned back, so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open. She ordered another coffee, black this time.

The questioning by the police when they’d descended on the offices of Paton, Murphy was much more involved than she’d imagined. While the paramedics and medical team worked in Murphy’s office, two detectives had taken her to another room. They sat her down and reassured her their questions were just routine, but they needed a statement from her of exactly what she found when she’d arrived at the offices. She turned down their offer of an interpreter, telling them she’d been in Glasgow for nearly three years and understood the language. The female detective had made her a cup of tea and talked
sympathetically to her, as Tanya gave them an account of what she’d found. All during the interview she could feel sweat trickling down her back and was glad she’d tucked the letters into her bag before they spoke to her. Eventually they told her she could go. As she left, she put her head around the door of Frank Paton’s office, where he sat staring into space.

*

Now, glad the cafe was almost empty, she sat in the corner booth furthest away from the counter and took out the letter Tony had addressed to Millie. She opened it carefully, took out the single sheet of notepaper and read it slowly, her heart sinking with each line:

Dear Millie
,

The picture of your lovely face, and our smiling, beautiful children, is the last image I see. Please forgive me. I could not go on any more with the lies. I love you forever, always have. I’m sorry. Tony.

There were three kisses at the end.

The knot in Tanya’s stomach turned to anger. It had all been one big lie. Everything. He’d never had any intentions of leaving his family so he and she could be together. He’d promised her they would settle in Spain, somewhere in the countryside where nobody would find them, where they could live off the land and begin a whole new life. They would have a child together, he told her, their own family. Nothing of their past lives would matter as long as they had each other. She was so stupid to have fallen for it.

How naïve she’d been, believing it was so much more than just sex, given how they had met in the first place. She had been working as an escort girl in London when she came to Britain from the Ukraine – a step up from hanging around the international hotels in Kiev, where middle-aged businessmen paid well for the leggy Russian ladies who told them they were the most wonderful lovers. She had moved from London to Glasgow, and she’d met Tony at a party in a city hotel where the escort agency had sent her, assuring her that she would be mingling with the top drawer and reminding her that discretion was more important than ever in this kind of company. Tanya had been surprised to find that the party was mostly made up of thuggish men in shiny suits, snorting coke from a glass-top table along with other escort girls, half naked, and cavorting with two of them at a time.

She’d caught Tony’s eye as soon as she came into the room, and he made his way across to her and offered her a drink. He wasn’t like the others in this party, he told her, and he could see she was different. They went somewhere quiet, just to talk. And that’s how it all began.

She finished her coffee and pushed the cup away. She brought out the other letter, addressed to Frank, and opened it:

What have we done, Frank? What happened to us? We were the wide-eyed law students who were going to change the world. Remember? I told you we should have stopped. See you in hell … Tony
.

CHAPTER 3

Rosie looked at her watch while she was agreeing to meet Don Elliot, her Strathclyde Police CID contact and friend. She had time for a quick coffee, she told him and no, she didn’t want to go to O’Brien’s tonight. She ignored Don’s digs asking her if she had a hot date. She had, but that was her business.

She smiled to herself as she drove up Byres Road towards the cafe in Ashton Lane, feeling that little rush in her stomach because later she was going to TJ’s flat where he was cooking dinner. Happy Friday. Rosie checked herself for behaving like a lovestruck teenager of late, waiting for TJ’s call, anxious if it didn’t come, stressing out that perhaps he’d disappeared again. Get a grip woman. Her mind drifted to the moment six months ago when he’d turned up on her doorstep, but she pushed it away in case the memory would become diminished by reliving it. She wanted to cherish the moment so she could call it up now and again like a treasure. On the way to the cafe she called TJ to let him know she’d be a
little late, but he pre-empted her before she spoke, joking, ‘Yeah, Rosie. I know. You’ll be late. Don’t worry, I won’t start cooking till you come.’

*

‘So, whatever happened to a few stiff gin and tonics when you finish work on a Friday?’ said Don, sidling into the booth opposite Rosie. ‘What’s got into you, Gilmour?’

‘Health kick,’ Rosie replied. ‘Skinny lattes.’ She held up her frothy coffee. ‘Decaf, by the way.’

‘What a faggot you turned out to be.’

‘You should try it some time.’

‘What, being a faggot?’

‘No. The decaf latte.’ Rosie sipped her coffee.

‘No thanks, I’ll have a beer.’ He looked up at the waitress. ‘You got Peroni, sweetheart? Might as well join the yuppies.’

Rosie watched as Don poured the lager into the frosted glass and took a long, thirsty slug.

‘I needed that,’ he sighed. ‘Long day.’

Rosie raised her eyebrows, knowing he was bursting to tell her.

‘So, Don. What’s the craic with the torso? Grisly stuff, I dare say.’

‘Too right. I was in at the post-mortem. Didn’t take very long, as you can imagine, given that there wasn’t much left of it.’ He shook his head and downed another mouthful of lager. ‘Tell you what, Rosie. Something very strange going on here. Very fucking strange.’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie said. ‘What kind of psycho cuts someone’s arms and legs off? Shades of Dennis Neilson, remember
him from Aberdeen? Cutting up his victims and cooking their limbs in a big pot. Some very weird people out there.’

‘You bet,’ Don said. He waved the waitress over and ordered another Peroni. ‘But hey, it gets worse, Rosie.’ He lowered his voice and beckoned her closer. ‘Somebody took this fucker’s heart and lungs out. Kidneys and all. The lot.’ His eyes widened. ‘Aye. And his … er … tackle. I mean, they even took the poor bastard’s tackle!’

‘Jesus! You’re kidding.’

‘Seriously. The pathologist couldn’t believe it when they opened it up.’

‘What’s the thinking? Is it some kind of ritualistic killing? Any ideas where the body is from or anything like that? White? Black? Brit?’

‘White,’ he said. ‘And yeah, there was something interesting. Some tiny wee tattoo up above the groin. Looked like a flag of some description. Green with a yellow half moon and a star. How’s your knowledge on flags?’

‘About as good as your stamp collection.’

Don sniggered. ‘Well, good job we have forensics then. Me neither. The boss just got a call an hour ago to say it’s some kind of ancient Bosnian flag. Dates back to the Middle Ages.’

‘So it’s a Bosnian. Who chops up Bosnians? I mean, in this country?’ But Rosie’s mind was already doing double time.

‘You know, Don, I was up in Balornock this morning and there were some real angry scenes with the locals protesting about refugees getting so many handouts.’

‘I know. I heard about it.’

‘There’s been vigilantes attacking refugees. You don’t suppose they could have done something like this, do you? Chopping people up?’

Don looked at Rosie, then lit a cigarette and blew smoke slowly into the air.

‘Like the Shankhill Butchers, you mean?’ he said. ‘Remember the nutters in Belfast back in the seventies? Picking Catholics at random off the street and butchering them?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘The Balornock Butchers …’

Rosie nodded. ‘Anything’s possible, I suppose.’

‘It is. Actually, a vigilante mob was mentioned, but I’m not sure they’re seriously thinking in that direction right now. And you see, just because the torso had a tattoo like that, it doesn’t mean he was from Bosnia. Loads of people these days get tattoos in everything from Arabic to Chinese – it’s all very trendy to have some ancient proverb or shite written in Egyptian or Hebrew or some crap. Doesn’t mean the guy was Bosnian. He could be from Govan.’

‘Yeah, but Bosnia’s not a bad place to start though,’ Rosie said, keen to pursue her line. ‘There was certainly enough anger up at Balornock, and there’s plenty of nutjobs there and anywhere else capable of mutilating a body.’

Don shrugged. ‘Suppose so. Might just be a one-off though. Might not be a refugee. And even if he was, he could have been into anything, might have got mixed up in the drug scene here. There’s a few psychos working
for any one of the drug bosses who would chop somebody up if they needed to pass on a lesson to the rest of the troops. Or if they got paid enough. That’s a more likely scenario.’

‘So what happens now?’

Don finished off his drink. ‘They’re keeping an open mind. Still doing more tests. All that crap. Will be a few days yet before anyone knows what’s what.’ He got to his feet as Rosie drained her coffee cup. ‘We’ll have a drink after the weekend and I’ll keep you posted. A proper drink. I’ll give you a bell Monday.’

‘Great,’ Rosie looked at her watch as they walked out of the cafe together.

‘Enjoy your hot date.’ Don squeezed her shoulder and they went off in opposite directions along the cobblestone road.

*

‘Good evening, madam.’ TJ did a maitre d’ bow as he opened the door, a teatowel folded over his arm.

‘Evening sir.’ Rosie smiled and stepped into the hallway.

TJ slipped off her jacket and dropped it on the floor. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the lips long and hard. She caught the freshness of his skin, and ran her hand over the back of his hair, still damp from the shower. Slow jazz music drifted from the living room.

‘Goodness me, sir.’ Rosie patted her chest theatrically. ‘I hope you don’t welcome all your guests like this.’

‘Only the ones with money and influence.’ TJ put his arm around her shoulder as they walked to the kitchen.

Various dishes and ingredients were strewn across the worktop. Plump fresh scallops on a dish topped with breadcrumbs, and salmon fillets with some kind of sauce in an oven dish. Vegetables, herbs and bags of salad were stacked up on a chopping board next to the sink.

‘Don’t worry,’ TJ said. ‘It’s not as disorganised as it looks. I’ll have this restaurant up and running in no time, but I didn’t want to start until you were actually here and I had your full attention.’ He dropped some cut limes into tall glasses with ice and reached for a bottle of gin. ‘Let’s have a drink.’

‘All looks great to me, TJ,’ Rosie said. ‘But first, I’d like to jump into your shower if you don’t mind. It’s been a long day.’

‘Be my guest.’

*

Rosie closed her eyes and stood under the shower, enjoying the surge of warm water on her face. But almost immediately her mind flashed up the picture of the refugee at the Balornock flats, his face pale and haunted. It triggered a rush of the disturbing images from Kosovo that often woke her in the night since she’d come back. Her head flicked through them.

So many bewildered people on the move. The bruised faces of men and women, battered and burned out of their homes. Before the conflict, they’d been farmers, teachers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, housewives. Now they were collapsing in front of her after trekking across the mountains, huddling together in the open as they’d fled from Serb soldiers. Some had no shoes and festering blisters
on their feet. And always, always the picture of the old woman with the broken hip slumped in the bucket of a dumper that was being used to ferry her down the rocky hillside to safety, her husband limping at her side, his face grey with worry. On a daily basis since she had come home, when Rosie passed a building site she still couldn’t look at a dumper without seeing the image of the old woman in the bucket. So many flashbacks like that. She didn’t need the doctor to tell her she had posttraumatic stress. She’d been there before in horror stories across the world, and she’d always told herself to get it into perspective. She was only the witness, after all. None of the shit she saw was actually happening to her. It was happening to others. That helped her deal with the pictures, but it couldn’t make them go away.

‘Come on Gilmour. Scallops are in the oven, and there’s a G and T here with your name on it.’ TJ’s voice from the other side of the door broke Rosie from her reverie, and she was glad.

‘Two minutes.’ She stepped out of the shower, trying to shake herself out of the gloom.

*

After dinner they sat in the kitchen sipping red wine and smoking TJ’s cigarettes, listening to the sudden thunderstorm. Rosie gazed through the large open window as torrential rain made the tenement buildings opposite look dark and eerie.

‘You okay, Rosie?’ TJ reached his hand across and ruffled her hair. ‘You suddenly looked a bit dark a little while ago. What’s happening?’

Rosie took his hand. ‘I’m okay.’ She shrugged. ‘You know me, usual stuff. There’s always something lurking in the background. I felt a bit sad today up at that Red Road protest I told you about. I saw this guy crying. Reminded me about a lot of stuff.’

‘Tell me about it.’

Rosie told him about the protest, and about the intrigue over the torso, and the vigilantes. TJ listened as she set out the various scenarios of refugees going missing, lawyers hanging themselves.

‘So you think it’s all connected, but you’ve got nothing really to go on.’ TJ sat back watching her. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. You know how you are, Rosie. You’re choking to wade right in there.’

She took his packet of cigarettes and handed one to him.

‘Gee thanks, sweetheart.’ TJ gave her a sarcastic look.

Rosie smiled and held his hand while he gave her a light. ‘Well, maybe I am getting ahead of myself here,’ she said, ‘but I’m just trying to lay out all the possibilities. I’m not really connecting it all, but I can’t stop thinking about that refugee in tears today.’ She blew smoke. ‘Wish to hell now I’d been able to hold onto him for just a minute longer.’