by Anna Smith
‘How long you been here?’
‘One month.’ He started crying again. ‘I alone. My mother, my father …’ He drew his hand across his throat. ‘They killed.’
‘The Serb soldiers?’
He nodded.
‘Do you not have friends here? Other Kosovo refugees? There are a lot of Kosovan people here now.’
He shook his head and bit his lip. ‘My friend. They take him.’
‘Who?’ Rosie asked. ‘Who took him?’
He took a cigarette out of his jeans pocket and his hands trembled as he lit it.
‘I not know.’ He glanced over his shoulder.
Rosie screwed her eyes up, confused. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I run away. They take my friend. I not know where he is.’ He wiped his tears with the palm of his hand.
Rosie automatically extended a hand of comfort, but he flinched and drew back.
‘Let me take you for a cup of tea.’ She pointed to the cafe across the road. ‘We can talk there. Maybe I can help you.’
He shook his head, and began to back away.
‘Don’t be afraid. It’s okay. My name is Rosie. Rosie Gilmour. I am a journalist. Do you understand? Newspaper?’
He nodded, then shook his head. ‘I am frightened. I must go.’ He began walking away, with Rosie pursuing him.
‘Please. Wait. Hold on. Please.’ She caught up with him and he stopped. She reached into her bag and pulled out her business card. ‘I just want to give you this.’ She held out the card. ‘It’s okay. I promise.’ She reached out and touched his arm. ‘Don’t worry. I want to help you. I was in Kosovo in April. I was there. And in Blace. I saw … things.’
He seemed to calm down a little. He looked at her, took the card and put it in his pocket.
‘What is your name?’ Rosie asked.
He paused and looked around him.
‘Emir,’ he whispered. ‘My name is Emir.’
Some of the protesters were making their way across the car park, and he glanced at them.
‘I go.’ He backed away.
‘Emir. You can phone me. Any time. I will come.’
CHAPTER 2
‘Dear oh dear! Two stiffs and it’s not even lunchtime,’ McGuire chuckled as Rosie walked into his office. ‘This never happens when you’re not involved Gilmour. Must be down to you.’
‘Yeah, very funny, Mick.’ Rosie plonked herself on the leather sofa opposite his desk. ‘You should try and incorporate that air of sympathy the next time you’ve got a funeral eulogy to make.’
‘Ha! That’s good coming from you,’ he grinned. ‘By the time you got home from Spain last July, there were bodies everywhere. By the way, is that paedo Vinny Paterson still trying to climb out of the well your mates chucked him down in Morocco?’
‘Touché,’ Rosie half smiled, ‘but I can assure you this morning’s unfortunate stiffs have nothing to do with me.’
‘Don’t worry, Rosie. We’ll soon change that.’ McGuire took off his reading glasses and placed them on his desk. ‘That’s a real shocker about Tony Murphy. Hanging from the ceiling in his office? Very strange. Got to be something dodgy there. I feel a scandal coming on. What’s the word on the street?’
Rosie sat back and rubbed her face with her hands. The whole protest scene up the road had somehow exhausted her.
‘I talked to one of my lawyer pals on the way back from Balornock. Like everyone else, he’s stunned. Murphy seemed to have it all. Married, two kids at university, big house, didn’t appear to have money worries. Mostly did a lot of refugee work in the past couple of years, helping asylum seekers stay in the country, fighting for their rights. All that sort of stuff. Wasn’t always like that though.’
‘Yeah, I’ve seen his face on the telly talking about refugees. What do you mean?’
‘Few years ago,’ Rosie said, ‘he and his partner Frank Paton were more into criminal law. They defended any hoodlum with a wedge of money, or some lowlife toerag as long as they got legal aid. You could sometimes see the pair of them in O’Brien’s with a couple of wellknown gangsters. I’ve seen them myself a few times, but not for a while. I thought it was a bit strange that they suddenly became these white knights fighting for poor bastard refugees. They never struck me as woolly-headed liberals.’
‘Money, Rosie,’ McGuire said. ‘It’s all about money. These lawyers fighting asylum cases make a fortune in legal aid fees. It’s all appeals, fights against deportation, long drawn-out hearings. Every time some asylum seeker turns up at a lawyer’s office, the tills start jingling like Christmas Eve.’
‘True,’ Rosie agreed. ‘That sounds like Paton and Murphy. Naked greed. But why hang himself? He must have been into something. I’m waiting for a few people to get back to me, in case he was into drugs or anything.’
‘Any suicide note?’
‘Nothing. It might not have been suicide. Maybe it was just made to look that way.’
McGuire raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that just your vivid imagination, Gilmour, or are you basing it on actual evidence?’
Rosie paused. ‘No, nothing really. But something drove him to suicide, Mick. I’m going to do a bit more digging.’
‘Good. Nothing like a bit of intrigue to give a shape to the weekend – as long as the Sundays don’t come up with any revelations about what made Murphy cash in his chips.’ He turned to his computer screen. It was time to go.
‘Oh, Mick,’ said Rosie as she stood up. ‘Talking of intrigue, something else up at the Red Road.’
McGuire was still looking at his screen.
‘Never mind,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘What, Rosie?’ He looked up. ‘Don’t fuck about.’
‘Well, it’s just that as I was about to leave the protest, I came across this refugee. A Kosovan guy, late twenties or early thirties. Always hard to tell with refugees as they’re kind of old before their time. But he was crying.’
‘Crying?’
‘Yeah. At the back of the flats. Just standing there sobbing by himself. My heart went out to the guy. Poor bastard is probably traumatised by everything in Kosovo and just feels desperate and alone. Who knows, but I went over and spoke to him.’
‘Go on.’
‘He didn’t speak great English, but from what I understood his parents were murdered by Serb soldiers. Then he said he was alone now, that he’d been here a month, and that his friend was taken.’
‘Taken? Here or in Kosovo?’
‘Here. He said “my friend they take him”, and then he said that he ran away. But when I pressed him for more information he just backed off. The guy was absolutely terrified. Something has happened, but I don’t know what. I gave him my card, and told him I’d been in Kosovo. I think he’ll phone me.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Sometimes you just know, Mick. I feel it. He’s got something to tell and he just doesn’t know how to yet, but something has scared the shit out of him. And his pal is missing.’
‘You need to find him, Rosie. Can you stake out the flats?.’
‘If it comes to it I will. But I’m hoping he gets in touch before I have to do that.’ Rosie changed the subject. ‘What about the torso? Any word on that? What’s Reynolds saying?’
‘Not much. All we’ll get from him is what the cops want us to get. He told Lamont that cops are still trying to identify it, but they’ve revealed it’s a male. These plods are amazing. I guess they came to that conclusion because the torso had no tits.’
Rosie chortled.
‘I’ll see what else we can find out as the day goes on, but I want to have a better look at Tony Murphy. Find out a bit more about his work as a refugee lawyer. I’ll talk to some contacts.’
‘Fine,’ said McGuire, ‘but I hope your weeping refugee guy phones you. He sounds interesting. Either that, or back in Kosovo they told him he was going to Madrid or somewhere exotic, and he’s just depressed he ended up in Balornock in the rain.’
*
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. ‘Th
e 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.