by Smith, Anna
Olenca looked at Adrian. Betrayal was written in her eyes, which were now filling with tears.
‘Why you do this? Why you do this to me? Who are you? I am frighten now.’ She shook her head.
‘I know you are afraid, Olenca,’ Adrian said, ‘But my friend here, she speaks the truth. You are in danger. Because the night in that place you saw what the man did to your friend. You saw him kill her.’
Olenca bit her lip and her face crumpled.
‘Please. I must go. I’m frighten.’
She moved her feet as if to rise and Adrian reached over and held her arm gently, whispering, ‘Olenca, please. Sit down. Rosie can help you. You must hear what she has to say. You are not safe here. Trust me. I know you are afraid and you are far from home. I am the same one time some years ago in this city. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Believe me. I promise. You must hear what Rosie has to say.’
Olenca looked from one to the other again, her eyes a mixture of fear, hurt and desperation. They sat in silence for a long moment then she sniffed and nodded, swallowing hard. Rosie moved a little closer to her.
‘Olenca, I am a journalist with the Post, as Adrian has explained. The two of us have been friends for years. Close friends. He knows you can trust me.’ She paused as the girl nervously wrung her hands. ‘I’m working on an investigation. The men you know and sometimes deal with here in the city . . . Tony Devlin . . . They are bad people. Drug dealers. Gangsters. Murderers.’
‘I know.’ Olenca voice was almost inaudible. ‘I know what they are.’ She lifted her coffee cup with trembling hands.
‘I’m investigating them, and the other people who are involved with them. One of the men is Tam Dunn. He is the guy who beat your friend to death that night. The other lady, the one who was there, is also now working with me. She’s told me what happened – that you were taken away by Tony’s men that night. They gave you money.’
Olenca immediately dissolved in tears, her face in her hands.
‘You think I take money and forget my friend is murdered? No. I never do that,’ she sobbed, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hand.
‘No, no, I’m not saying that. Not at all. I’m saying that they gave you money and told you they would look after you. But, the truth is, Olenca, they are planning to kill you. I don’t know what happened that night after you were taken away with one of Tony’s bodyguards, but they were supposed to get rid of you.’
She nodded vigorously.
‘I know.’
‘So what happened?’
Olenca sniffed and swallowed.
‘David – the bouncer – he took me in his car. I ask him please to let me go, that I would never in my life tell what I saw. He took me to the river and he was going to throw me in. I beg him again, and say please I will do anything for him to save me, to not kill me. I tell him, please just let me go and I will never tell anyone.’
Rosie looked at Adrian.
‘And he just let you go like that?’
Silence.
‘I . . . I gave him sex that night.’ She looked at the table, embarrassed, shaking her head. ‘I gave him sex to save my life and my friend is lying dead. What kind of woman does that? You think I don’t know what that makes me?’ She broke down again.
‘Olenca, nobody is blaming you for anything.’ Rosie squeezed her arm. ‘You were frightened and in shock because of what you saw happen to Lujca. You did what anyone would do to survive. Please don’t think anyone is going to blame or judge you. But you cannot live like this, frightened all the time. Have you see this man again? This David?’
‘Yes. Sometimes. He calls me and comes to my flat for sex. He doesn’t pay. Not like the escort agency.’ She glanced at Rosie. ‘You know Lujca and me work at the agency, and sometimes the sauna?’
‘Yes. I knew that.’
‘Dave comes to me for sex. He says it is our secret and that he can choose any day whether I live or die. He says I have no choice.’ She burst into tears again. ‘I just want go home to my family. This is not good country for me any more. Every day I’m scared. Dave said to me that he can get good money for me, if he sells me. And he told me I may be going to London because some friend of his offers him good money for me. But I not want to be sold like slave – that happen to many other women from my country. I had normal job. Now this. I am frightened every morning I wake up it is my last day.’ She bent forward, hugging her knees, her head dropping to her chest.
They sat listening to her sobbing for a few moments.
‘You have to go to the police, Olenca. They will protect you,’ Rosie said.
‘No. Police not protect women like me. I am prostitute.’
‘Yes. They will protect you. They’ll get you back home. But your witness account of what happened that night will get these men a very long time in jail, and they won’t hurt or damage any more girls like you. But you must go to the police now, because you don’t have much time if what you are telling us about this David character is the truth.’
‘It is the truth. I not lie.’
‘Then you don’t have much time.’ Rosie lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I can tell you now that Tony is in custody already with the police. So is Tam Dunn.’
Lucja looked up, surprised. She stopped crying.
‘You are telling me the truth?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. I can bring someone in here in the next five minutes who can prove that.’
‘How you know this?
‘Because I was there when it happened. They did something bad to the other girl who was there that night. They kidnapped her sister, who is ill, and they tried to kill us all. Me, too.’ Rosie pointed to her bruised face. ‘Where do you think I got this? It only happened an hour ago, and that’s why we had to get to you quickly. Because now that they have been arrested, anything could happen.’
Olenca lifted the cup but her hands trembled so much she put it back down again. She turned to Adrian.
‘I am so frightened. I am only twenty-two. I want to have a job, a husband, a family. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to go into court where everyone can see me. I want to go home.’
‘It might not come to court, Olenca,’ Rosie said. ‘From what I hear happened that night at the restaurant, there will be so much blood and forensic evidence there that Dunn may even plead guilty once his back is to the wall. But that is for later. Right now, you have to make a decision. I’m pleading with you to trust me. Because I want these people in jail as much as you do. People like them destroy the lives of innocent people like your friend and you, people who only wanted a better life. It’s not fair what they do. It’s too late for Lujca, but you can help yourself, and you can help others like you, by going to the police. Trust me. You have to.’
Rosie could feel the catch in her throat, looking at this young girl, her life ruined no matter what happened now. Even if she could get back home, she’d be forever haunted by what she saw in the room that night, and the guilt that she had survived while her friend was battered to death. They sat for a long time in tense silence. Then, eventually, Olenca looked up at Rosie, her eyes full of tears.
‘Okay. I will tell what I saw.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Listen to this, Mick.’ Rosie produced the tape recorder from her pocket as she walked into McGuire’s office the following morning. If she could get him to listen to Olenca’s account of Tam Dunn’s brutal murder of her friend, it would distract him from the bollocking she was expecting.
McGuire looked up from his screen, his eyes widening when he saw Rosie’s bruised face. He took off his reading glasses and tossed them onto his desk.
‘I knew you’d have a sore face. Christ almighty, Rosie! I fucking knew.’
‘It’s okay. I’m fine.’ She planked the tape on his desk and switched it on. ‘This is much more important. Just take a minute to listen to the tape, then I’ll explain everything.’
Rosie turned up the volume before he had a chance to say anyt
hing else, and sat on the sofa opposite his desk. McGuire screwed up his face as Olenca’s voice came on, straining to make out what she was saying through her heavy Polish accent.
‘You’ll get used to it, if you listen closely. Honest,’ Rosie insisted.
They both listened. Olenca’s voice broke with emotion as her graphic account of what happened in the restaurant that night filled the room. Rosie hadn’t made a big issue of convincing Olenca that she needed to tape the conversation, and she knew she was playing on the girl’s lack of knowledge of how these things worked. But to get her on tape with this kind of narrative was as explosive as it gets. It was even more valuable as Rosie had it before Olenca was handed over to the police. Olenca named the escort agency she worked for, and how many times in the past she’d been to Tony Devlin’s restaurant and entertained his friends in the private room.
McGuire’s face was impassive as Olenca described the sex scene with Dunn, how at first her friend and her were both kissing and fondling him, and then how he wanted to have sex with Lujca. He’d taken a lot of cocaine and alcohol, she said, and he wasn’t able to get a proper erection. Lujca had laughed at him. It was only one time she laughed, Olenca said, but Dunn exploded. He began slapping her, and then punched her hard on the face two or three times and she fell on the floor. Then he started kicking her. Olenca was in tears as she described how there was a lot of blood, and that she saw one of Lujca’s teeth come out and fall on the floor. She stepped in and pleaded with him to stop, that Lujca was sorry, that they were both very sorry. But he turned on Olenca and kicked her in the stomach and told her not to move. At one point Lujca had tried to crawl away, but Dunn had grabbed her by the hair and started kicking her head as if it was a football. Olenca said she was on her knees in the corner, sobbing, terrified, believing she was next. She could see that Lujca was by now unconscious, and every time he kicked her head, it just flopped, as if she was a rag doll. Then the door opened, and a woman who had been having dinner with them came in. She was screaming at Dunn, but he wouldn’t listen and was shouting back at her. And then Tony came in, and he was very angry. He and Dunn were shouting at each other. There was blood all over the carpet and some on the desk and the walls. Dunn said it was all Tony’s fault. Then two men came in and Tony told them to deal with it. One of them took Lujca away. For a few seconds there was only the sound of Olenca crying on the tape. Then she seemed to compose herself and went on to describe what she’d also told Rosie about the bouncer, David, and his plans to sell her to a friend in London.
McGuire shook his head slowly when the tape clicked to the end and didn’t speak for a moment.
‘Jesus Christ! Poor kid.’ He picked up the tape and let out a long breath, puffing his cheeks. ‘But that is dynamite, Gilmour. Good job. Unbelievable stuff. And the detail – Christ! I take it you’ve got a picture of her?’
‘Yeah. And she gave us one of Lujca – before you ask.’
‘Well done. I want these bastards strung up. Big time.’
Rosie didn’t answer. A sudden wave of depression swept over her.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ McGuire said. ‘You did well.’
Rosie sighed.
‘Yeah. But I feel for the girl, that’s all. She’s just a kid. Twenty-two.’
‘Yes. I know what you mean. But save your emotions for the piece you’re going to write when that bastard Dunn gets jailed. There’s no way he’ll go to trial with this. What do your cop pals think?’
‘My detective friend called a little while ago. He said they’ve already told Tony Devlin that he’s looking at life in jail, that he’s as guilty as Dunn because it was he who disposed of the body. He’s down at Stewart Street cop shop right now, sticking Dunn right in. Telling them everything to try to save his own skin. So much for honour among thieves.’
‘Scumbags, one and all. Well, they’ll be in jail soon. But we need to think about how we can write a story. Has anybody been charged yet?’
‘Not yet. But if Don’s saying that Tony’s grassing up Dunn, then there’ll be charges very soon. They’ve got Forensics people all over the restaurant and the private room.’
‘Okay. I think we should write a form of words that we can run past the lawyer. No other papers will know anything about this – or the girl that’s been kidnapped. So we’re bang in front. I think we have to just blast as much as we can get away with before the lawyers and the Crown Office come on and tell us we can’t write anything.’
‘I agree. I’ll go and make a start.’ Rosie got up.
McGuire looked at her.
‘And you haven’t told me what happened. How the hell did you end up going in there?’ Rosie shrugged.
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘So was it Dunn who gave you the sore face?’
‘Yeah. He’s a right bastard, Mick. Real psycho.’
‘When did the cavalry arrive?’
‘Just as he was about to kill us.’
‘Who shot him?’
‘Believe it or not, it was Judy.’
‘Judy? I thought she was completely in another world.’
‘So did everyone. But something must have flipped, because we were all sitting there terrified as Dunn was going mental. Then I looked out of the corner of my eye and suddenly I saw her pick up the gun he’d put on the table. She started screaming. Then firing randomly. Any one of us could have caught a bullet. But she got lucky. Shot Dunn. Then shot him twice more.’
‘Give that girl a fucking coconut.’
Rosie laughed as she went on to describe how Boswell-Smith and the captain had burst in wearing balaclavas.
‘Then I stepped out to get a better connection on my mobile to call the cops. And all of a sudden one of the big gorillas – I’d forgotten about him – got a hold of me outside and it all went pear-shaped.
‘What happened then?’
‘Adrian. That’s what happened.’
‘Did he kill anyone?’ McGuire rolled his eyes.
‘No. Not yet.’ Rosie said, knowing by the look on Adrian’s face as Olenca had spoken last night that he had some retribution of his own in mind.
‘So what about this Ruby character?’
‘Haven’t spoken to her since last night. She’s planning to do a runner. Any time in the next few days.’
‘And what about Boswell-Smith and James Bond. Where are they?’
‘I’d say they got very pissed last night. I’ve to see them today. Lunchtime.’
‘To hand over the dossier.’
Rosie sighed.
‘Afraid so. I know we made an agreement. But it doesn’t feel right. We’re suppressing a story that we know is true, and there are people at the top of the heap who know what happened to Mahoney, and to Hawkins. I feel sorry for Hawkins especially. He wasn’t even a spy. He was just a nice old guy. It’s not fair. And now we can’t even bloody write about it.’
‘I know, Gilmour. But we both know that Judy’s life was at stake. Things are more important than this shit that we get out of bed for every day.’ He lifted the dummy of tomorrow’s paper and dropped it back on the desk.
‘Yeah. It doesn’t make it right, though.’ Rosie picked up the tape from his desk and went towards the door.
*
Rosie pulled on her jacket and headed out of the office after taking a call from Ruby asking to meet her at her flat.
‘I don’t know who looks worse.’ Ruby touched the bruise on her cheek as she stepped back in the hall to let Rosie over the doorstep.
They stood, looking at each other.
‘I know,’ Rosie said, shaking her head. ‘Jesus! I’m too old for all this.’
She automatically glanced down the hallway, wondering if Judy was in the living room, surprised at how excited she was at the prospect of seeing her.
‘How is she?’ she whispered.
A smile spread across Ruby’s face, and she bit back a tear.
‘Amazing. I still can’t believe it. Sh
e’s asleep now. She didn’t sleep much last night, kept waking up and crying a lot. Actually, I’m a bit scared now that she’s asleep that she’ll wake up and whatever happened inside her head yesterday will be gone and she’ll be back to the silence again.’
‘No. Don’t think that way,’ Rosie said, as they walked towards the kitchen. ‘It’s incredible, though, what happened, isn’t it?’
Ruby shook her head, smiling.
‘Coffee? It’s too early to drink – though I could do with one.’
‘Me, too,’ Rosie said. ‘But coffee would be great.’
A while later, they clinked coffee mugs and stood in the kitchen.
‘So has she said anything else at all?’ Rosie asked.
‘Not much. I think we’ve got a long way to go. I’ve been talking to her and telling her things, and I’m getting some responses now, more than ever before. She’s said a few words. Says she’s scared, mostly. But happy. She nodded and smiled when I asked, “Are you happy, Judy?”, and when I asked her did she want to come away with me so we can be together, she gave a big smile. I never saw that before.’ Ruby’s eyes filled up. ‘I can’t believe it, Rosie. I’ve got my sister back.’
‘So what are your plans?’
‘I want to leave tomorrow and get the ferry to France. I’ll go to my house in the village and then get to a doctor and the specialists I’ve already consulted with, and see where we go from here. As I’ve said, they filled her full of so many pills down the years without really addressing the situation that I’m not sure how much of her I will get back. But it’s a start. I’m looking forward to going away. I’m not even going back to the home to get Judy’s things. All that’s in the past now. I’ll fax them tomorrow and say she’s staying with me.’
‘You’re going to drive all the way to Dover then to the middle of France yourself?’
‘No choice. It’s a long trip and Ruby needs a bit of help and care.’
‘It’s a lot to take on.’
‘I know. But I’ve no option. I’ve got nobody.’