Old Friends and New Enemies

by Owen Mullen

  ‘Where are we? What are you going to do to me?’

  Sean Rafferty whispered in her ear; his breath was warm. ‘In Spain Selkirk was your oppo and, judging by the turnout at his funeral, you were the only friend he had in the world. You two go way back. Where does Cameron fit in?’

  Fiona didn’t hesitate. ‘Charlie discovered Ian’s body at the mortuary and called me. I hadn’t heard from him in years.’

  ‘What’s the plan, get the cash and you two run off into the sunset together?’

  ‘No! No! He’ll give it to you, then you can leave us alone.’

  ‘Think my head buttons up the back, Fiona? About Cameron maybe, as for the rest, I don’t believe you.’

  Rain started to fall, a few drops that became a steady drizzle. Rafferty held out his upturned palm and sighed. ‘We’re all going to get wet. Don’t fancy getting wet. What did Selkirk do with it?’

  Fiona’s head sank to her chest; she sobbed quietly. Kevin shot a glance at Jimmy and spoke to the heavies. ‘Untie her. Lift her up.’

  Fulton and Tumelty did as they were told, gripping her on either side so tightly she couldn’t breathe. Soon she’d know why. Kevin Rafferty said, ‘Take a look. And think before you answer. Where is it?’

  Fiona loosened the cloth. Terror shot through her, she buckled and almost blacked out. She was on a wall no broader than her foot, on the roof of a block of high rise flats. Under a dark sky, Glasgow sprawled as far as the horizon; low lying clouds close enough to touch, lines of miniature cars crawled in both directions on the motorway, and beyond, Celtic Park, rising silver against the landscape.

  ‘Some view isn’t it? Even better where you are. Sorry about the weather. On a clear day you can see the coast.’

  The wind tugged her skirt, her hair matted her head, she didn’t notice. Her legs wouldn’t support her. All that prevented her from falling were Rafferty’s men.

  Kevin said, ‘Twenty eight stories, a long way down.’

  ‘Please. Please...’ The words were lost. Fiona swayed over the edge.

  Sean stood in front of his father, he said, ‘Jimmy, listen to me. The instructions were clear: the woman has to be returned unharmed, that’s the most important thing. Fuck the money, the money doesn’t matter, we don’t need it. Rocha doesn’t care about it. Or the thief. If we kill her he’ll come after us. And we won’t be on the winning end. Give her to me. I’ll get whatever she knows out of her. But either way she goes back. We can still make this all right.’

  It pleased Jimmy Rafferty to see his sons competing against each other. He had no intention of cutting the rivalry short. Sean wasn’t like his brothers; secretive and deep as the ocean. At last he was showing some gumption. Thank Christ for that.

  ‘Calm down, Sean, you’ll get your turn.’

  Kevin said, ‘People who jump are dead before they hit the bottom. Heart attack, so they say. Think that’s true?’

  Fiona howled into the wind.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’

  ‘Twenty eight floors. Seven seconds from here to the bottom. Two hundred and six bones in the human body, every one of them broken.’

  ‘Please. Please. Oh please. Ian didn’t tell me.’

  He prodded the small of her back and felt her shudder. ‘Last chance, Fiona.’

  Fiona Ramsay bawled and collapsed against the men supporting her. Kevin lost patience, he turned to his father. ‘The bitch is at it, Jimmy.’

  Jimmy had seen enough. He said, ‘Get her off before she falls off.’

  They lifted Fiona down. She knelt, shaking, crying hysterically. The old man stood over her, unmoved. ‘You’re a tough lady, give you that much. Just remember, what comes next you’ve brought on yourself.’

  She looked up at him, emotionally spent, rainwater and tears rolling down her face. ‘Bastards. How can I tell you what I don’t know?’

  Rafferty signalled his eldest son to come forward. ‘Make her talk, Kevin. Any way you like. To hell with Rocha. I’m done fucking about.’

  Twenty-Two

  Tracing missing people took patience and instinct. Ruling out the possibles, hospitals, haunts, jails and the like was the necessary slog; often it was enough. When it wasn’t I tried to get in touch with their motivations and followed my gut. Then there were other times when I couldn’t get there on my own and frustration or desperation drove me where I didn’t want to go. This was one of those.

  Off the main square the Spanish flag moved in the breeze, yellow and red, vivid against the bleached white walls. In front, a row of parked cars with POLICIA on their sides sat idle. No one had the energy to break the law during the day. At the desk I told a uniform I wanted to speak with whoever was in charge. He asked me to take a seat. Two hours later I told another officer the same thing. Since Fiona failed to answer her phone fear had been building inside. Now it screamed. A calendar on the wall told me it was the thirtieth of March, three weeks since Cecelia McNeil came to see me and sent me down this road. Eventually I was shown to an interview room where a policeman sat at a table; his eyes said there was nothing left in the world to surprise him. I gave him a version of the truth: I was visiting my girlfriend, she worked for RealSpain, but instead of a happy reunion the office was closed and her villa was ransacked. He heard me out without interrupting, got up and left, leaving me to sit through the longest three hours of my life.

  When he returned a man in plain clothes was with him. He didn’t speak, even to introduce himself. I got it. He was a detective. They were taking me seriously. The questions came slowly, most of them about me and why I was in the country. I wanted to drag the cop over the desk and beat some urgency into him. Didn’t he realise what I was saying? Fiona had been abducted; she might even be dead. If I was involved why would I stick around to report it?

  The detective caught my irritation. ‘Mr Cameron, I’m Inspector Santimaria. I understand your anxiety. I’ve just come from your girlfriend’s villa. It’s as you say. My men are going over it. So far we’ve found nothing to suggest a struggle. It may be a straight forward case of burglary. However, the fact that RealSpain isn’t open may be significant. The neighbours tell us it’s been closed for weeks. Your woman might have already gone, which would bring us back to robbery.’

  ‘Not possible. I spoke to her a couple of days ago. She didn’t mention going anywhere.’

  ‘In that case we have something more serious to consider. Any idea who might wish her harm?’

  ‘Absolutely none. In her work she met different people, strangers, any one of them could have her.’

  He toyed with a ragged nail. ‘You’re suggesting she’s been taken against her will. What makes you think that?’

  I admired his skill, the casual tone in his voice as he teased my opinions from me and made me test them. ‘What else is there to think? Her home’s been trashed, the business is closed and Fiona’s disappeared.’

  Nearer the truth than I wanted.

  ‘Then the question is why. Why would anyone do it? Why destroy her beautiful home unless they were looking for something?’

  He sensed I wasn’t telling all of it. ‘I wonder, what could they have been looking for, Mr Cameron?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  He made some notes. ‘You’re not planning to leave, are you? Not a good idea, not at the moment. Try the Dolphin Hotel. I’ll contact you when I need to.’

  The Dolphin Hotel wasn’t a hotel at all; it was a bed and breakfast not far from the Lord Stanley. My room was functional, a cramped bathroom, tiny bedroom and an even tinier kitchenette with one ancient electric ring. I lay on the bed and studied the plaster cracks on the ceiling. Sometime later I fell asleep and woke in the dark, hungry, with two missed calls on my phone; Patrick and Jackie. The will to return them wasn’t there.

  It seemed my thinking changed with every new development. Given what I’d discovered at the villa, they, whoever they were, could have Fiona; a prospect too terrible to consid
er. The alternatives were few, straws to cling to, and I did; she was still in Spain, hiding, or she had made it back to Scotland. The latter appealed most because at least she’d be free, and she’d need transport. I got hold of Pat Logue and asked him to check.

  He said, ‘How’re you doin’, Charlie?’

  I lied. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Fiona hired a car at the airport the last time. Might have done the same again.’

  ‘I’m on it.’

  I ended the call, threw some water on my face and went out. The illusion of action made me feel marginally better, although illusion was what it was.

  The town was livelier at night; tourists roamed the harbour drawing easy promises from the touts about the food in their restaurants. Neon added to the holiday atmosphere. In different circumstances I wouldn’t have minded. Arm in arm with Fiona, far from Glasgow and gangsters, I might have enjoyed its down-market charm. As it was I hated it almost as much as the inedible pizza I had for dinner.

  The crowd at the Lord Stanley were watching Tottenham play Huddersfield in the cup on the big screen in the corner. Conversation was limited to whispered asides apart from one spectator, standing rather than sitting, offering wide ranging opinions on every aspect of the game, and shouting ‘Dirty northern bastards!’ whenever Huddersfield had the ball. Where I was from, both teams were dirty southern bastards. I didn’t correct him – he wouldn’t have appreciated the geography lesson. Instead I sat at a table on the crumbling shelf of cement that passed for a pavement, ordered a beer and listened.

  Every voice was English, holidaymakers and a few ex-pat residents. When Spurs scored, a cheer went up. I left them to it and walked the cobbled lanes until the noise faded and I came out in a street with RealSpain facing me, dark and abandoned behind the window. The reason I was in Porto Estuto struck me so hard I almost fell.

  Damn Ian Selkirk. Damn him to hell. I had found Fiona and lost her again. Images of what Rafferty might be doing haunted me, and I blamed myself for not keeping her with me.

  There was no sleep that night. Or the next. I wandered in bad dream country, tossing and turning, and on the second morning drove to the villa and sat in the car, watching, willing her to appear. Or failing that, somebody, anybody to lead me to her. In the old town I hung around the Lord Stanley, staring into my drink, filtering the chatter and despising the people around me because they were safe and Fiona wasn’t.

  ‘Still here?’ It was the barman. ‘The police were asking. I told them about you. No sign of her yet?’ He wiped the table with a filthy cloth. ‘Probably gone off with some bloke – no offence – she’s a good looking woman. Had to beat them away with a stick in this place. Maybe why she stopped coming in.’

  ‘Who were her friends?’

  ‘Apart from the guy she worked with I never saw her with anybody.’

  ‘There must’ve been somebody.’

  ‘Not that I noticed. It was always just her and him, nobody else got a sniff.’ He laughed. ‘Thought about trying myself more than once. Don’t worry. She’ll turn up with some rich Arab in tow.’

  The nightmare wasn’t happening to him – he could afford to be confident. Patrick called to say the newspapers had hold of it. “Scots Woman Missing on the Costa Blanca” headlines in the Daily Record with a muggy picture that could’ve been anyone. There was little to report though that didn’t stop them spinning the few facts into a story. Fiona’s disappearance would be discussed over JC and tequila by beer-bellied lechers in every bar on the coast. Pat said, ‘And nada on the car, at the airport or anywhere else.’

  But he hadn’t spotted any of Rafferty’s crew and took that as a positive. I didn’t. Instinct told me the answer to everything was back in Glasgow. That was where Ian Selkirk had gone with whatever was so important to Rafferty and, assuming she was free, Fiona would make her way there too. Our future together depended on ending this thing. There could be no life until it was over, and we both knew it.

  After two days hanging around Porto Estuto Inspector Santimaria informed me the police had made no progress and I was free to go. At the airport I tried every desk for a cancellation. Thompson’s had a seat on a flight to Newcastle leaving at noon the next day. I called Jackie and Patrick and told them I was on my way home. But not before I’d had a look inside the RealSpain office. In the early hours of the morning the street was deserted; there was no one to hear the glass door panel shatter or witness the only crime I’d committed on foreign soil. To my surprise the place wasn’t alarmed. Inside I turned on a light and hurriedly thumbed my way through a couple of unlocked filing cabinets looking for God alone knew what. All I found were folders, set out in alphabetical order, filled with contracts and correspondence. Suddenly I felt sad. Fiona had put her energy into building this business from scratch. Now, thanks to Ian, it would fold. He was dead but, as so often in the past, somebody else had been left with the job of clearing-up the mess he had created.

  Pat Logue was there when the plane touched down, older than when I last saw him. Depressed and hung-over, the down-side of drinking his way round the city on my behalf.

  ‘So what happened? Any word?’

  ‘Tell you later,’ I said. ‘How’re things with you and Gail?’

  ‘Don’t ask. McNeil was a waste of time.’

  I’d hardly given Cecelia McNeil’s husband a thought. Patrick had been left to pick up the slack and his efforts in the east end of the city had come up dry. No Stephen McNeil. I’d be getting a call from his wife or one of her notes thanking me and making me feel bad.

  He said, ‘Your pal was askin’ after you.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Rat eyes.’ He meant Platt. ‘Told him I hadn’t seen you.’

  We drove north. Neither of us felt like talking. The weather fitted the mood. Twenty miles from the Carlisle by-pass Patrick noticed the dark green Vectra cruising behind us, no attempt at disguise. There were two men in it.

  ‘You didn’t tell anybody I was back, did you?’

  His reply was defensive. ‘Like who?’

  ‘Like anybody.’

  The car trailed us to Glasgow and when we left the motorway at the Royal Infirmary it kept going, but the message had been delivered.

  At the flat so had the television.

  Twenty-Three

  Fiona Ramsay’s mistake hadn’t been stealing – that came later. Her error was listening to Ian Selkirk’s dangerous fantasy, a dream that had become a nightmare, and allowing his obsession into her head. In the end greed triumphed over logic. This was the price of failure. Ian had always been a reckless fool. Now he was dead and the man in front of her was his killer. Charlie hadn’t told her the details – it wasn’t necessary – she could guess and knew what to expect. They would torture her until she gave them what they were after. Except she couldn’t; she had no idea where the money was.

  Kevin Rafferty let her see the knife and savoured her fear; they’d wasted enough time.

  ‘Which part of your face don’t you like? Your nose maybe? Personally, I think it’s fine but no problem, I’ll cut it off for you. Or you can tell us about the money and keep the nose.’

  Her eyes fixed on the weapon, her voice trembled. ‘Ian had it.’

  Rafferty grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. ‘Don’t fuck me about, bitch.’

  He held the blade to her throat, ice against her skin. His fingers brushed her lips, her neck, and moved to her nipples. She closed her eyes and shouted. ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! Please, I don’t know!’

  Sean Rafferty walked past his father and put his hand on his brother’s wrist. Kevin glared at him. ‘Let me try.’ He looked to Jimmy for permission. Jimmy nodded.

  The woman was familiar to Sean; he had seen her lying by the side of Emil Rocha’s swimming pool, her body slicked with oil. Behind the sunglasses her eyes would have held no fear that day. Not like now. He bent close and said, ‘You have to tell us, Fiona, it’s your only chance. What did he do with it?’

/>   She sobbed like a little girl. ‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know.’

  Sean Rafferty was gentle. ‘What was the plan?’

  ‘To meet at the Lomond Inn.’

  ‘And he had the money?’

  ‘Yes. He called me when he was driving north, said it was done.’

  ‘Did you speak to him about it after that?’

  ‘Once more. He was high. He said it was with someone safe.’

  ‘Who?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Where did you intend to go?’

  ‘Somewhere. Anywhere. New Zealand.’

  He shook his head. ‘Selkirk was your partner. You understood him, if he told anyone it would be you.’

  ‘Why would I still be here? I’d have disappeared. He didn’t tell me.’

  Sean wiped tears from her cheeks. When he spoke his voice was reassuring, almost tender. He sighed. ‘Then I can’t help you.’

  She panicked. ‘No! No! He’d seen Charlie.’

  Sean said, ‘When?’

  ‘Before he went to Loch Lomond.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Ian told me.’

  ‘Told you he’d seen Cameron but not a word about where the money was? No, you’re making it up.’

  ‘It’s true. They were friends. Ian was afraid something would go wrong. Charlie knows where it is. I can get it. He’s in love with me and thinks I’m in love with him.’

  ‘Still don’t believe you. If Cameron knew where it was hidden you’d have it by now. You’ve got three choices, Rocha, my brother, or me. The truth, last chance.’

  Fiona burst into tears again. ‘How many times. I know Rocha. I’ve seen what he does. I wouldn’t be here if I knew what Ian did with the money. I don’t. I don’t know.’

  Jimmy turned away, Sean tried one more time. ‘Jimmy, Jimmy...’

  His father kept going. Sean had lost. Jimmy spoke to Kevin, ‘And get the mobile this time.’