by Anna Smith
‘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 righ
t.’ 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.
She sat up on the bed and swung her feet onto the floor, rubbing her face gently. Her eyelashes were still wet from crying in her sleep again, yet the troubled dream seemed like hours ago. They say you actually only dream for a few seconds before you wake up, but it never felt that way in Rosie’s dreams. Hers were powerful protracted dramas buried somewhere deep in her psyche, lying in wait for her to sleep so they could torment her. Rosie’s dreams were big stories in full Technicolor, but the end was always the same. Always the tears, and the phone ringing and ringing, the way it had that day.
She hadn’t had the dream about her mother for nearly a month now, though since she’d returned from Kosovo she’d been plagued by other nightmares. But last night her sleep took her somewhere different, standing under a streetlamp in the rain, shivering in the cold, and waiting for TJ to come out of his flat as darkness fell. Eventually he emerged, with his arm around a pretty girl who was giggling as they walked along the street together. They’d been so engrossed in each other, they didn’t even notice her as they strolled past her. But further down the road she could hear their shrill laughter, and when eventually they looked over their shoulders, their faces turned into her mother and father. She’d woken herself up shouting for them to wait, not to leave her alone.
Rosie threw a towelling robe around her nakedness and padded into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. Hopefully the jag of strong coffee would make her mind so busy she could push last night away. She switched on her mobile phone and saw there were four missed calls from TJ, and one message. Last night she’d sat watching the mobile shudder and ring on the sofa beside her, but she couldn’t answer it. She couldn’t trust herself to speak to him until she dealt in her head with the shock of seeing Kat coming out of his flat. Get it in perspective, she told herself. What did you actually see? she asked herself. There could be any simple explanation. She knew they were friends, they’d worked together in New York. Christ! They worked together now. Maybe TJ was helping her with her vocals for a new song she was learning. Any simple explanation could be made as to why she saw her there last night. But it didn’t make the pain and the paranoia any easier.
She picked up the mobile and listened to TJ’s message, her stomach tweaking at the sound of his voice. ‘Rosie, ‘Where the hell are you, woman? I got a missed call from you and been calling you since. Thought you might fancy a bite to eat. Give me a bell when you get this, sweetheart.’
Paranoia. Insecurity. That’s all it was. She settled down on the sofa with her breakfast and plonked on Sky News. She would phone TJ later and meet him tonight. By then, she hoped she’d have got her head around it. Her mobile rang, and Matt’s name came up on the screen.
‘Hi pet,’ she said.
‘Rosita. Howsit going, darling? I hear we’re off out this morning.’
‘We are Matt. We’re going on an adventure. A wee spying mission.’
‘Shit. I’m still traumatised after the last one.’
‘Yeah, but it was a lot of fun though. I mean who else has got dinner-party patter like you and can rattle off stories like that?’
‘True. As long as we keep on living to tell the tale. Where we off to?’
‘Out of the city. Will tell you when I see you. Listen Matt, I’m not going into the office. Can you pick me up here? I just have to jump into the shower and get sorted. Give me forty minutes.’
‘No worries, Rosie. If you need me to scrub your back give me a shout.’
‘I think I can manage. Text me when you’re outside.’
She hung up.
*
To Rosie’s surprise, the location Jan Logan had given her wasn’t that far out of the city, but what did surprise her was the building itself – if they were at the right place.
‘I can’t believe they’re actually doing this in a slaughter-house.’ Rosie looked out of the windscreen at the flat-roofed, long, low building in the distance.
‘I know,’ Matt said, firing off some shots with his zoom lens. ‘But if we can knock this off, it’s a great headline in itself. Slaughterhouse of Horror … Slaughter of the Innocents … Nazi-Style Slaughter of Asylum Seekers.’
‘You’re in the wrong job, pal,’ Rosie chuckled. ‘You should be on the back bench.’
‘No end to my talents, darlin’. I’m not just your ordinary monkey pushing buttons you know.’ He rested his
camera on his lap.
They’d been sitting at the edge of the farm road where they hoped they wouldn’t be seen by traffic, but could still see at a distance any movement at the sprawling building a few hundred yards away. In the past two hours, there had been nothing except one small delivery van going in.
Rosie had been astonished when Jan phoned her from Spain and told her that the place where Tam had made the pick-ups was actually a slaughterhouse on the outskirts of the city, on the road towards Loch Lomond. It had been out of commission for over a year, and to the outside world it was closed. There were padlocks and chains on the main gates and the high wire fences were topped with razor wire. From where Rosie and Matt were sitting it looked as if nobody got through the gates without prior arrangement. There was no one guarding the front gates, but when the delivery van had arrived, someone came out from the building and let them in just far enough to take the package. Matt had taken pictures with his long lens of the package being handed over and the van leaving. There were only three vehicles parked out in front of the building, inside the gates. One looked like a big refrigerated van, the other was a jeep, and the third looked like a big luxury saloon car – a Vauxhall Carlton, Matt had said, when he zoomed his camera in. He’d managed to capture an image of its number plates.
‘I should be able to get someone to run them through for me,’ Rosie said. ‘That’ll give us a handle on who owns what.’
‘But if they are doing grisly operations in there,’ Matt said, ‘it must be almost impossible to keep it tight just among the few people involved. How do they do that? It’s so horrific, there’s always the danger of someone who might blab. Look at Tam Logan, for instance.’
‘Yeah,’ Rosie said, ‘but look what happened to him. This mob don’t mess about with traitors.’ She opened a packet of peanuts and gave Matt a handful. ‘The thing is though, the building itself might be a front for something else. If it’s an abattoir, then there could quite easily be areas of it that are under lock and key that nobody else goes into. I don’t know the set-up in these slaughter-houses, but maybe there’s an area that only certain people can go into, where they prepare the meat for the butchers’ shops. Maybe that’s where they do the cutting up.’ She shrugged. ‘Just thinking.’