A Cold Killing (Rosie Gilmour)

by Smith, Anna

  *

  The nurse on reception looked up and smiled when Ruby came through the swing doors and into the sterile tranquility of the main foyer.

  ‘Hello, Ruby.’ She put down a folder and came out from behind the desk. ‘How lovely to see you. Are you well?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Ruby said from behind dark glasses. ‘I’m good.’

  She couldn’t remember the name of the middle-aged nurse who always greeted her with a caring smile each time she visited. Ruby viewed it with the cynicism with which she had viewed most things as she grew up. You get what you pay for. If it had been the NHS hospital, you’d hardly have got a nod from the staff, they were so hard pressed. Here, amid the oil paintings and leather sofas in the foyer, it was all grace and charm. If you weren’t coming in to visit a loved one who was either in a permanent vegetative state or wired to the moon, you’d think you were in a boutique hotel.

  ‘How is she?’ Ruby asked, as they walked along the polished corridor to Judy’s room.

  The nurse turned to Ruby and made a sympathetic face.

  ‘The same, I’m afraid.’ She sighed. ‘We just have to keep hoping. We should never give up hope.’ She paused, turning to Ruby. ‘She’s up, and we got her dressed. We told her you were coming.’

  Ruby nodded as they turned the handle on the door and walked in.

  Judy was sitting in a glossy white wicker chair by the window, a shaft of setting sun catching the paleness of her cheeks.

  ‘Look who’s here, Judy. Your wee sister.’

  Judy stared straight out of the window, where acres of soft green grass stretched and spread into foothills in the distance. A male nurse pushed a wheelchair carrying an elderly patient down a tiny path towards the lake.

  Ruby gave the nurse a nod.

  ‘Thanks. We’ll be fine now.’

  The nurse backed away, smiling, knowing she’d been dismissed.

  Ruby took a deep breath and swallowed back her tears. Every time she came here it was the same. It ripped the heart out of her. Judy was all she had in the world. Even as children they had clung to each other, both somehow aware of the fragility of their lives. Then, after the fire, the terror of that night and the awful brutality, everything died – not just their mother – in the inferno of their home. Judy had retreated into her silent world, and she hadn’t spoken a word for years. While Ruby grew up shunted from one children’s home to the other, she had believed her sister was dead. The social workers had even told her so. No details. Nothing.

  Ruby walked towards Judy and stood in front of her and the window.

  ‘Hey, Judes. How’s it going, big sis?’

  She bent over and kissed her cheek. She put her arms around her and held her close, wanting to bury her face in her sister’s hair and again feel safe, like they used to when they had curled up in bed like spoons at night.

  ‘Oh, Judy,’ Ruby said, fighting back tears. ‘I do miss you so much.’

  She composed herself and pulled up a chair so that they both sat facing each other. Judy stared past her. Ruby moved around again, so that she was in her line of vision. She knew she could see her. Judy had to know she was there. She had to.

  ‘Guess what, Judy,’ Ruby said, pouring them both a glass of fizzy water from the bottle in the ice bucket. ‘He’s dead.’ She smiled broadly. ‘I did it.’

  She reached out and stroked her sister’s hair with one hand, while clutching her soft hand with the other.

  ‘He’s gone, Judy. I did what I said I would do. I killed the bastard.’ She squeezed Judy’s hand and looked into her eyes. ‘They say shit doesn’t burn, Judy. But it’s a lie. Because let me tell you, pal, that piece of shit burned like a fucking stick.’

  She smiled, willing Judy to respond – anything. Then, to her astonishment, Judy’s empty gaze slowly moved from the window. Her eyes flickered a little, then focused on Ruby, who sat barely breathing, terrified to break the spell. Then Judy’s pale eyes glistened with tears, and Ruby watched as they spilled over and down her cheeks. But it wasn’t like crying, because Judy’s lips had a hint of a smile. Then Ruby felt her sister squeeze her hand tight.

  ‘I know you can hear me, Judy. I know you can.’

  Ruby wrapped her arms around her sister, and her own tears fell as she felt Judy’s arms slip around her for the first time in twenty-five years.

  *

  Ruby lit up a cigarette as she sat in the conservatory of the home’s cafeteria. She took a long, satisfying draw, held the smoke in and then let it out slowly, still feeling elated over how Judy had reacted. Somewhere behind those eyes, her sister was there, and her chat afterwards with her specialist was encouraging. It would take time, he said. Time, she told him, was all she had now. But he stressed there were no guarantees.

  The couple from the table at the window got up and left, and Ruby squinted at the copy of the Post the man had left on the table. She could see a headline on the front page: ‘MYSTERY SCOT FLED CAFÉ BLOODBATH.’

  She automatically glanced around the empty café before getting up and going across to the table. Beneath the Post was a copy of the Sun, and another headline jumped out at her: ‘RUNAWAY SCOT MAY HOLD KEY TO CAFÉ EXECUTION.’

  ‘Fuck me!’ Ruby said quietly, scooping up both newspapers and going back to her table.

  Her eyes quickly scanned the front page of the Post.

  A mystery Scots woman fled the King’s Cross café murder scene before police arrived, the Post can exclusively reveal. The woman vanished seconds after the assassins blasted university lecturer Tom Mahoney in the head at point-blank range. Police have confirmed that this woman is the only person in the café unaccounted for. One witness to the execution told the Post, ‘The woman had a Scottish accent. She was very edgy, and as soon as it happened and the men left, she left right behind them.’

  The witness described the mystery Scot as in her thirties with dark hair and wearing shabby denims. Scotland Yard would not say if she was a suspect, but confirmed they are eager to speak to her as a witness.

  ‘Christ almighty!’ Ruby muttered. ‘Fucking little bitch of a waitress.’

  She quickly scanned the Sun’s front-page story: ‘Police have not ruled out that a mystery Scot who fled the scene of a horrific execution could be involved.’

  Ruby stubbed out her cigarette. ‘In the name of Christ! Do they just make this stuff up?’

  She folded the newspapers under her arm and left the café to wait outside for her taxi.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Jesus! Look what the wind blew in.’ Jean, the big, busty receptionist at the Post glanced up and grinned as Rosie came through the revolving doors. ‘We heard you were dead.’ She put down the phone mid-dial.

  ‘Yeah? I hope you sent flowers.’

  ‘We had a whip-round in the canteen. But in the end we thought you’d appreciate it more if we just got pished with the money. So we did.’

  ‘Class,’ Rosie chuckled. ‘That gives me a warm glow.’

  ‘So how’s it going, sweetcheeks?’ She came out from behind her desk and embraced Rosie. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Great, Jean. I was in hiding. Those bad UVF men put a contract on me, so McGuire sent me away. I was somewhere in Europe, holed up in the hills.’ Rosie tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger as she headed for the staircase to the editorial floor. ‘That’s all you need to know.’ At the foot of the stairs, she turned. ‘Have I missed any gossip?’

  ‘Nope. Not a sausage, darlin’. Good to have you home.’ Jean blew a kiss as Rosie took the stairs to the third floor.

  The editorial floor stretched the length of the building and was full of reporters, even though it was lunchtime. Some sat with their feet up, reading newspapers, while others had phones at their ears, taking notes or working at their screens, half-eaten sandwiches and bottles of mineral water at their desks. Nobody went out for lunch any more. Lunch used to be a God-given right for journalists, and often a rite of passage for new starters, who would b
e taken out by a seasoned hack and brought back mid-afternoon three sheets to the wind, just to see if they could survive. A few years ago the place would have been like the Marie Celeste at this time of the day, as the reporters and feature writers would have been in city restaurants entertaining contacts, as their expenses would reflect, or they’d be in the nearest bar along with a few sub-editors, having a few drinks before the serious work of putting out a newspaper began in the afternoon. It was like one long party, and it wasn’t a rarity that a fight broke out on the editorial floor by teatime between two older journalists who’d been drinking on an empty head. Now it was all mineral water and staff chained to desks amid the quiet hum of computers and the television news perpetually playing in the background on three televisions mounted around the news desk. Rosie saw the young reporter Declan look up and quickly get out of her chair.

  ‘Hey, you! What’s the score, son? Did you think I was dead as well?’ Rosie quipped.

  Declan’s face reddened.

  ‘Someone was at my desk working when I came in this morning, Rosie, so I just used yours. I didn’t know you were coming back up today. You all right?’

  ‘Sure, Dec.’ She smiled. ‘I’m good. What’s happening?’ She sat down, took her notebook out of her bag and placed it on the desk. ‘I see you were up at the Mahoney house and got no joy. I wouldn’t have thought the Post would be top of their reading list for breakfast reading in that house.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Declan sat back, flicked through his notebook. ‘I saw from your story that the guy who was with Mahoney – Hawkins, Gerard Hawkins – was on his way back from London. I hit his house last night as well, but no answer. So it’s a bit of a dead end at the moment.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘It’s early doors yet. We’ve got to keep plugging away.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve also been up to my arse for days now with Rab Jackson getting torched in his villa on the Costa del Sol. Did you hear about it?’

  ‘It happened when I was travelling back to the UK, but I saw your piece yesterday. Couldn’t happen to a nicer man.’

  ‘Aye. The cops aren’t exactly busting their arses trying to find the murderer, either. Not in Spain, and not here.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Jackson’s just one more scummy bastard off the face of the earth. Cops will be delighted. I mean, even though he was retired, he’d already made his money on the back of other people’s misery, and was still raking it in. He should have been dead born.’

  Rab Jackson’s reign of terror in Glasgow was mostly before Rosie’s time, but his reputation had followed him well into his retirement. There were probably more bodies buried beneath the concrete columns of the sixties-built Kingston Bridge over the River Clyde than anybody would ever know – and Jackson was the vicious bastard behind it.

  ‘They were supposed to be making a movie of his life.’

  ‘Yeah, so I heard. Well, at least now it’s got a happy ending.’

  Rosie’s desk phone rang.

  ‘Hey, Rosie. You’ve to come through. Mick’s waiting for you.’

  ‘I’m there in two ticks.’ She picked up her notebook and pen, but turned to Declan. ‘Listen, Dec. We need to start digging on Mahoney’s background. Get into everything in his old life, his studies and lecturing posts at Glasgow Uni. See if we can track down any of his old colleagues – I’m especially interested in the countries he visited. He headed the Eastern European Studies department, so he must have got around. See exactly what area that covers. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure.’ Declan said. ‘I’m on it already.’

  ‘Good stuff.’

  She headed across the floor towards the editor’s office.

  Before going in, she stopped at Marion’s desk. ‘I owe you a curry, Marion,’ she said, giving her a thumbs-up. ‘Cheers for organizing all my flights and stuff. You’re worth your weight in gold.’

  ‘Tell that to the boss man, then.’ Marion jerked her head in the direction of McGuire’s office.

  ‘I will.’ Rosie walked into the office, where the editor was sitting, his eyes fixed on his computer screen.

  ‘You’re back, Gilmour. Great to see you,’ he said, without looking away from the screen. Then he got up, removed his reading glasses and came out from behind his desk.

  ‘Let’s have a hug. So the UVF bastards didn’t find you? How you doing?’ He put his arms around her and gave her a little squeeze.

  ‘I’m great, Mick,’ Rosie returned his hug. ‘We live to fight another day.’

  ‘How’s your arm?’

  ‘Still a bit painful sometimes, and I’ve more skin grafts to get organized this month. It’s okay, though.’

  Rosie tried not to think of the blowtorch burning her arm. She knew she was lucky to be alive, but she didn’t want to dwell on what had happened. She crossed the room and planked herself on McGuire’s leather sofa, as he sat on the armchair opposite her.

  ‘So,’ he began, crossing his legs, examining the immaculate crease in his trousers then looking at Rosie. ‘What’s the score on this Mahoney? I want us all over it. Nobody’s got anything different so far . . . And, by the way, that was a good shout about the Scots bird doing a runner. I’m intrigued by that, so keep digging. But who would shoot a retired uni lecturer? That’s what I really want to know. And why?’

  McGuire was easier when he was fired up. It gave Rosie more leeway to do things her own way.

  ‘Wait till you hear this, Mick.’ She flicked over the pages of her notebook . ‘There’s more to Mahoney than we think.’

  McGuire’s dark eyebrows knitted as he scanned her face for hints while she paused for effect.

  ‘I think he might be a spook,’ she said.

  ‘Fuck me! Based on what?’

  ‘Based on a tip-off I got last night from a good contact of mine who’s always spot on.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You see the flat he had in London – where he stayed from time to time?’

  McGuire nodded, shifted in his seat.

  ‘Go on? Get to the point, Gilmour.’

  ‘Well, it’s registered in another name. So I got my man to check it out, and it’s him. Using a false name.’

  ‘Who? Mahoney? You’re kidding!’

  ‘Nope. And not just a false name. A false passport.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yep. My contact has friends in all sorts of places . . . Don’t ask. But he traced the name of the flat owner all the way to the passport office, through his contact there. The owner has a passport with Mahoney’s picture but a different name. So Mahoney has two passports – and that’s two that we know about. For all we know, there could be another couple with his photograph and a different name. My pal thinks he’s spy. Or maybe was a spy at one time.’

  McGuire rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Is this wishful thinking from your mate, or is there any evidence?’

  ‘You don’t get evidence where spies are concerned. That’s the whole point. The clue is in the word . . . “spy”.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ McGuire let her get away with the sarcasm. ‘But there must be something.’

  ‘Nothing solid, but if my friend says the word “spook”, that means he’s been given a nod. He’s not going to draw me pictures. But if he wasn’t a spy and was a fraudster, then he would say that.’

  ‘So if he was a spy, it must have been years ago. Why wait till now to bump him off?’

  ‘Who knows? Old scores being settled? We need somebody to take us inside his past life. We need to be looking back a long way – long before he retired. Long before the Berlin Wall came down. See if he was an old red under the bed – touch of the Philby/Burgess and all that.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ McGuire nodded. ‘We’ll get Declan to dig.’

  ‘I’ve already told him.’

  McGuire glanced at her.

  ‘Don’t mind me. I’m only the editor.’

  Rosie gave him a cheeky look.

  ‘I knew you’d
want it done.’ She waved her hand dismissively and informed him that Declan was going back through the university staff records, trying to find all the lecturers at the time, as well as the students in his department.

  ‘But we need to get to Gerard Hawkins,’ Rosie said. ‘He was with him at the time. Dec was there last night and got no answer. Same with the family, as you know.’

  McGuire stood up and went back round to his desk. The meeting was over. Rosie got to her feet.

  ‘Right. You take another run at the family and at Hawkins.’ He ran a hand through his thick black hair, and looked at her. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll be the only ones on this spy theory?’

  ‘My guy only speaks to me, Mick. But I can’t vouch for anyone else. It depends on how keen any of the other papers are to pursue the story. I also need to look at this girl who did a runner from the café. The cops can’t find her.’

  ‘She must be a villain if they can’t find her! Maybe we’ll get lucky.’

  ‘We’ll have to get lucky.’ Rosie opened the door and left.