by Anna Smith
‘Can’t tell you right now, just trust me.’
‘So what’s going on? You’re talking in riddles. I’m getting excited here because you’re excited.’ He blew smoke out and smiled through his craggy face. ‘Come on. Spit it out, pal.’
‘It’s to do with passports, or part of it is. I’ve discovered that Rabia’s passport has been used for smuggling. It’s been doctored and faked up with another picture. But it’s definitely her passport.’
He looked bemused.
‘How in the name of fuck can you know something like that, Rosie?’
‘I just do, okay? Put it this way: I’ve seen it. I know someone who is in possession of stolen passports, and I’ve seen them all. Much to my surprise, one had her name – her maiden name actually – and date of birth. But a different picture.’
‘Really? Aye but there’s bound to be more than one Pakistani girl with the same name and date of birth. I hope you’ve got more than that.’
‘I’ve had it checked out with my connections in the passport office, and the address where the passport was issued to is the same address Rabia put on her wedding certificate.’ She watched his face light up. ‘And before you ask, yes I’ve checked the wedding certificate too. I have a copy of it.’ She reached into her bag and brought out the certificate, handing it to him. ‘Here. It’s a present, don’t say I’m not good to you.’
He glanced at it.
‘Fuck me, Rosie! Are you sure? Where’s the passport?’
‘It’s with some people I’ve met, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes and it’s been photographed.’
‘Christ. But if all we’ve got to go on is a wedding certificate—’
Rosie interrupted.
‘Don. All you do is go to the house and ask to see Rabia’s passport. They can’t show you it, because it’s not there. Just watch their expressions and how they try to get out of it. Listen, if she was married a couple of months ago, then her passport should be around the house somewhere, because she would need it for the registry office to register the marriage. So ask them where it is. Ask them to show you it. They’ll shit their pants.’
‘So what have they done with it? What are they getting used for? You said smuggling?’
‘They can get used for anything once they get into criminal hands. A passport legitimises just about anybody, as you know.’
Don let out a long sigh, scratching his chin.
‘The boss is going to want to know what’s going on.’
‘Well he’ll have to start by asking them where the passport is. What I’m saying to you is that you have to put some heat on them. Let them know their arses are being felt, and see what happens.’
‘But they could say the passport is missing, or stolen.’
‘Well, just bluff it then. Come on, pal. You’re the cops, don’t tell me you’ve not bluffed your way through an investigation with a suspect, telling him you know everything so he’ll confess.’
‘How very dare you!’ Don grinned, stubbing out his cigarette.
‘But here’s the catch.’ Rosie finished her wine. ‘You can’t knock their door until I knock on it first. And I mean that. In fact, I’ll have them shitting themselves, so that by the time you hit the door, they’ll be just about ready to confess.’
Don smiled.
‘You’re making me an offer I can’t refuse, Gilmour.’
‘I know. That’s why you love me. And if you play your cards right and keep me out of it, then something bigger might be going down in a few days.’
‘To do with the Pakistani girl?’
‘Don’t ask. Just trust me . . . I’m a journalist.’ She gently eased down her rollneck jumper to expose the scar on her neck, still red and angry.
‘What the hell’s that?’ Don looked shocked. ‘Somebody try to cut your throat?’
‘Well. They threatened it. The cut is just the first bit of what’s to come.’
‘Christ’s sake, Rosie! Who did that? Just tell me.’ He was angry. ‘I’ll kill the bastard myself.’
‘Listen, Don. I’m going to tell you something else here, about me getting attacked. But right now, I’m not making an official complaint, so have you got that?’
‘’Course. Who did it? Just tell me, I’ll deal with it.’
‘Okay. It was done as a warning because I’ve been digging around on the Rabia story. I spoke to a girl I saw in the house that day I went in. This young woman kind of gave me the eyes, and I thought it was worth pursuing. I met her in Queen’s Park along with a cousin who’s only fourteen. It turns out, the kid was getting whisked to Pakistan to marry some old bastard.’
‘Christ! What is it with these people?’
‘It’s how they do business. It’s their culture.’
‘Culture, my arse. So how did this happen to you?’ He reached across and touched her neck softly with the back of his hand, shaking his head. ‘Makes me really fucking angry, Rosie.’
‘Somebody must have rumbled that the woman and her cousin talked to me, and a few days ago, as I was going into my flat, I got attacked. He was a Pakistani, that much I know. He warned me to stay away. “Stay away from my family” is what he said.’
‘Fucker!’
‘It was a warning, but I was so scared, Don. I thought I was done for.’
‘Your paper should be getting you protection round the clock.’
‘I don’t want it. I can’t be arsed with bodyguards. I had them before, it’s like my life isn’t my own.’
‘But nobody would cut your bloody throat.’
‘I know, but still. Next thing is, I get a phone call from the woman that her cousin has been taken to Pakistan to get married.’
Don drained his pint and gestured to Rosie if she wanted another. She shook her head.
‘Don’t tell me you went there to rescue her.’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Got it in one. It’ll be all over the Post tomorrow.’
‘Jesus wept! You’re off your head.’
‘But it’s an amazing tale – we brought the kid back! Okay, nothing is perfect, but she was saved from being more or less a prisoner in a foreign land with some old bastard dragging her to bed every night.’
‘So the knife man will be after you again.’
‘He already was. Last night.’
‘Christ almighty!’
‘But luckily, I had someone there. A friend of mine who happened to be in town and was meeting me at the flat.’
‘I presume it’s not a lady friend.’ He put his hand up. ‘Not that it’s any of my business.’
Rosie smiled.
‘No. Someone who can handle himself.’
‘He wouldn’t by chance be from Bosnia?’ Don gave her a playful dig in the shoulder.
‘Never mind where he’s from – he dealt with the bastard. And I mean a right battering. Not sure if it’s the same guy from last week, but I’d say it was. He dropped the knife during the beating.’
‘You’ve got a knife? With fingerprints?’
Rosie nodded.
‘But I don’t want to do anything about this right now. I will pursue it. I will get him done, if we can find him. But there is so much going on in this bigger picture I’m working on that I can’t take my focus off that. Do you understand?’
Don puffed impatiently.
‘Yeah. I do, Rosie. I won’t do anything, but get me the knife and I’ll find him. We’ll get prints from it and see where it takes us.’
‘It’s obviously someone attached to that family, or the extended family.’
‘Fuck them! When we hit them tomorrow about the passport, I’m going to get every fucking one of them fingerprinted, just to noise them up.’ He reached across and touched Rosie’s face. ‘I’m going to get this bastard, Rosie. I promise you that. I’m not having this. Where’s the knife?’
‘In my bag. I’ll give you it when we get outside. She slid off the stool. ‘Now I really need to get home. So do I have your word?’
‘Com
e on, do you really need to ask?’
‘Just making sure.’ They walked towards the door. ‘So . . . I’m going to knock on the door in the morning, and after that I’ll call you. If I were you, I’d get in there quick, before people start disappearing and all sorts of shit hits the fan.’
They walked out into the cold, blustery night. Rosie hailed a taxi, then discreetly reached into her bag and brought out the padded envelope that held the knife.
‘Don’t worry. My friend picked it up cleanly. There are no other prints on it.’
‘We’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants – I mean, we the cops, that is. Because we haven’t seen this passport you’re talking about, and we only have your word, which, of course, is good enough for me. I hope the boss buys it, but I’ll have to tell him about the knife attack, because we need to use this as leverage tomorrow.’
‘Okay. I’ve met your boss. He knows me. So tell him all this is from me, that should be enough.’
Rosie gave Don a hug and blew him a kiss as she climbed into the taxi.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The raw wind slapped big Gordy flush in the face, but that wasn’t what was making his eyes water. As he stood at the graveside, he sniffed and flicked the tears away, glancing over his shoulder in case anyone was around to see him. Gordy MacLean didn’t do tears. Everybody knew that. Except his ma. He could speak to her here as though she was still sitting across the table from him in their kitchen, gazing at him adoringly while he polished off a massive Saturday morning fry-up. Hard to believe that it was five years ago. Five years, yet he could still feel the warmth of her peachy cheek next to his when he had hugged her. He sniffed again, recalling her final weeks in the hospital bed where he sat holding her hand, watching as she slept. Even at the funeral, when his ma’s coffin was carried in a horse-drawn carriage through the Maryhill streets where he grew up, to the chapel, Gordy kept his face like flint. Everyone was there. Faces from the criminal world, legends, many of them who’d spent more time behind bars than on the streets. All of them respected among their own kind, and all who remembered Dolly MacLean from the old days, when she was the buxom beauty that his da had landed because he was the biggest fish in Glasgow. Dolly had seemed to shrink after his da got a bullet in the back that winter afternoon, on his way home from the Old Firm match fifteen years ago. It had obviously been a well-planned execution by their biggest family rival. And it worked; sent messages everywhere.
Gordy was a respected young hardman at the time, but everybody knew he was no Gavin MacLean. No matter how big his dreams were, he could never match his father’s reputation. Even after a stint in jail for armed robbery, when he’d swaggered out of the gates into a waiting Rolls Royce, Gordy would always be the nipper. But all of that changed when he sorted Joe the Pole out for his father’s murder, blowing up his car with him and his wife in it. Gordy’s reputation across Glasgow and beyond went right off the scale. He was feared as he built up his own empire. El Paradiso, which his da had opened as a cabaret club twenty years ago, had been lying derelict, but when he renovated it and re-opened with a massive party, everyone knew the MacLean dynasty would live on. He’d never be his da, who had bumped off anyone off who’d got in his way. Gordy knew he couldn’t kill them all. He had to adapt. There wasn’t so much money to play with in the beginning, but there was still some, and it was Gordy’s goal to make it grow. Gordy made a fortune from the club, and from investing in coke at the crucial time when it hit Glasgow. He reinvested in property, bought houses in Spain and on the Clydeside, and Dolly had proudly watched the progress of her boy. But the club was their most treasured possession, where his father had held legendary poker games for big stakes, where bare-knuckle fights in the back court were gambled on. The club was where his heart lay, and now this fucking bitch, Julie – and her pal – had made him sign it over to them.
He wished he could just shoot the two of them, but he couldn’t because Vanner was on his back every fucking day and night. Where are the diamonds, Gordy? Your time is running out, he kept saying down the phone, with that bastard, irritating Coronation Street accent. Gordy could, if he wanted, arrange for him to be done in, but the shit would just keep on coming. In the end, he had to deal with it. But it broke his fucking heart handing those two dizzy birds the document signing over El Paradiso. His lawyer told him he must be nuts, but Gordy warned him to zip his mouth and draw up the necessary paperwork. Now he was at the graveside telling his ma the tragic news. He knew she would understand, but it would have broken her heart. He was glad she wasn’t here to see it. But someone was going to pay for this, he vowed to her. Killing those birds wouldn’t be enough. But right now, he had to be Mr Nice Guy, all flowers and chocolates for that stupid one-armed tart. Fuck me. If his da could see him . . .
Gordy picked his way through the mud and puddles on the way back to where his Jag was parked, the engine softly purring. Terry kept his gaze fixed on the windscreen as he approached, and Gordy knew his trusted driver was careful not to look at him in case he witnessed any slip in his boss’s steely mask. You didn’t get much more loyal than Terry. Well, apart from wee Alex, who was shot by that fucker Vanner. Terry just did what he was told. He wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed. A big, bumpy face, and a bottom lip you could hang your jacket on, made him look a bit like a village idiot. But he was handy with his fists and even handier with a knife. And he’d shoot anyone he was asked to and not even question it. When Gordy thought about it, part of him wished he’d sent him that night with Nikki. At least he would only have lost his driver and bodyguard. It would have been tough, but Terry wasn’t his best mate. Even thinking about Alex made Gordy’s insides hurt with rage.
‘Take me through to Stirling, mate. I need to see these birds.’
‘Sure, boss.’
They drove in silence, Gordy staring blankly out of the window as the city and suburbs gave way to countryside and rolling hills in the distance. He saw pictures of himself as a kid on trips to the Trossachs with his ma and da, where they holidayed in a caravan. They could have afforded a hotel no sweat, but the caravan was what you did, and Gordy would kick a ball in the park with Alex and other kids while his parents drank and had sing-songs, getting pissed with other families on the campsite. He remembered fighting with one of the other kids, a bigger boy than him, who had bullied him at the football. Gordy had snapped, and punched him till the others had to drag him off the kid. That was the first time Gordy knew he was capable of killing, if the circumstances were right. And that’s when it started. When his da got to hear about the fight, he beamed with pride at his son. And his ma did too, but with a sad look in her eye that the time was coming when she was going to lose her wee boy.
The car turned off the motorway and up the Bannockburn road, then into the farm lane. In the yard Gordy could see pigs in a pen and some guy in a wheelchair being pushed by an older guy. They were scattering something out of a bucket into the pigsty, while the pigs snorted and gorged themselves, pushing each other out of the way. The old guy stopped when the Jag pulled up. He pushed the wheelchair towards the cottage. Gordy got out of the car as the farmer approached.
‘Can I help you?’
The silver-haired farmer eyed him suspiciously.
Gordy looked him up and down.
‘No, you can’t.’
Gordy closed the car door and turned as the younger man in the wheelchair came towards them.
‘Who are you looking for?’ the old man asked.
Gordy pushed out a bored sigh.
‘Who do you think?’ He looked through him, then away.
‘Are you a friend of theirs?’ The farmer jerked his head in the direction of the cottage.
‘What are you – their fucking bodyguard?’ he snarled, throwing a look of contempt at the guy in the wheelchair.
‘They’re very private. They don’t like visitors. They like to keep themselves to themselves.’ The man in the wheelchair spoke slowly, as though he was finding the word
s somewhere in his head.
‘Aye, fine, Chief Ironside. I’ll bear that in mind. Now you two just go back to feeding the pigs. The girls are friends of mine, okay? So fuck off.’
The older man’s face fell and his lips hardened in rage. If his face hadn’t been so red and weatherbeaten in the first place, he might have been blushing with anger. He stared at Gordy for a long moment and then went behind his son’s wheelchair and turned away.
‘Come on, Euan. Our dinner will be ready.’
Gordy muttered ‘Fuck me’ to himself as he rapped the knocker against the old door, and watched as the pair made their way to the big house. It took about a minute before the voice shouted. ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me. Gordy.’
Julie opened the door. Gordy went back to the back of the Jag and brought in the bag.
Julie opened the door and beckoned him in.
‘I bought you girls a present. Some champagne and chocolates. You can have a wee celebration of your new business venture.’
‘Very big of you,’ Julie said, as he put the bag on the table. ‘I hope they’re not poisoned.’
Gordy’s face moved to a smile.
‘Nope. I’m over it. Fuck it, it’s only bricks and mortar. To be honest, I’m out of the whole fucking shebang. I’ve decided to move over to Spain for a while, get some sun on my back. I’ve had enough of this shithole.’
‘Aye? Well, bon voyage and all that, Gordy. But I hope you’re not going to be calling in here every day now. We’re not mates. We’ve done a deal here, that’s it. Are we clear about that?’
‘Aye?’
‘So, are you lonely or something? Are there no sixteen-year-old Eastern European birds to suck your dick?’
Gordy spread his hands.
‘Look, I’m trying to do the decent thing here.’ He glanced at Nikki, who was sitting on the sofa watching the scene. ‘I’ll honestly never forgive myself for that. Because I played along with that bastard Vanner’s game and set her up, I lost my best mate. Believe me, I am lonely without him. But I’m more angry than lonely, and this Vanner fucker’s getting it.’