by Anna Smith
He nodded confidently. ‘Sure. Obviously I can’t say who gave me it, but it came from people involved in the orphanages and who are in the know. I can vouch for them, they’re trustworthy people. They came across it, and, well, let’s just say they shouldn’t have.’ He grimaced. ‘And they shouldn’t have copied it and given it to me. But things are going on there that need to be looked at. And by the look of this, Alan Lewis’s name is all over it.’
Rosie scanned the document again.
‘I remember the charity used to go over with aid packages and clothes. Some guy called Robert Morgan is the big boss, but I don’t know anything about him. Convoys of trucks. Loads of other charities did the same,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Christy replied. ‘I even know the charity myself, and they did good work. But there were things going on over there that probably people here had no idea about.’
‘You mean actually selling orphans?’
He nodded his head slowly. ‘And not just orphans, Rosie.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve heard of instances where a mother’s child was taken from her at birth in the hospital. She’d be told it had died, and didn’t even see it in some cases. The babies were taken and sold.’
‘Jesus wept! Sold to who?’
‘Wealthy couples. Americans, Russians. The baby would be taken from the mother, and the other organisations then took over. I don’t know much about that. But my friend – a Romanian girl I went out with for a few months – told me about it. She was working for one of the aid agencies out there and she told me this had happened. She told me she even knew one of the mothers whose baby was taken. The mother was told it was dead, but she never actually saw it.’
‘That’s unbelievable! Absolutely awful! Do you think the people who run the charity know about it?’ Rosie sighed. ‘How the hell do I get to grips with this? I really want to get this story, Christy. More than anything.’
He puffed out a sigh. ‘I do too, Rosie. Maybe I can help a bit. I can ask my ex-girlfriend if she can help. We’re still friends, just not really together. I think we both knew it wouldn’t last, but I really like her, and we get on well. So she might see what she can do, make a few discreet enquiries. But if you were really going to look at it, I think you’d have to go there. I don’t know if any of the bosses know about it, but if they don’t you’d want to ask why.’
‘That won’t be a problem.’ Rosie knew she could convince McGuire, and she was already thinking of her Bosnian friend Adrian as back-up, and Matt, the Post’s photographer, to work with her.
‘Okay. You can let me know if you do plan to go, and I can try to arrange things.’
Rosie looked at him. Having someone on the ground over there would be a huge bonus rather than going in blind to some ex-girlfriend whom she didn’t know if she could trust completely.
‘Do you think your ex-girlfriend will help us? It would probably be better if you were there, but I don’t think my editor would wear that, and I wouldn’t want to put you in any danger.’
He took a long drink of his pint. ‘I understand. I don’t think I’d be ready for getting involved in the kind of dust-ups you do anyway, Rosie. But I’ll help you every way I can, and I think my ex-girlfriend will too. I think she would like you. She’s got the same kind of beliefs you have, if you know what I mean.’
Rosie took it as a compliment, but said nothing. She finished her wine and stood up.
‘Okay, Christy. If you can talk to your friend on the phone tonight, see how it goes, I’d be looking to get over there as soon as possible – in the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Really? As fast as that?’
‘Yep. That’s how I do business. I don’t hang around.’
He stood up, gave her a hug, and they walked out of the bar together.
Chapter Seven
McGuire was looking at Rosie, his eyes narrowed in concentration, as she reeled off the details of her meeting with Donna, and also with Christy. BABIES FOR SALE was all he could see. Rosie could read his mind. The story was growing, but they both knew they were miles away from having anything they could put in the newspaper.
‘You know, Gilmour, this Romanian babies for sale puts everything else in the shade. A story like that could go worldwide. Groundbreaking. Given what we know, that Romania has been overrun by gangsters since that bastard Ceauşescu was executed, I don’t suppose we should be surprised that the fuckers are making money out of orphans. But all those images of children when the Romanian orphanages scandal first broke years ago, they still tear people apart.’
‘I know. I saw them, Mick. They still tear me apart,’ Rosie said, glad he was as hooked as she was. ‘And I agree. We need to get into this. And now that we know Alan Lewis and this charity may be linked to the whole thing, it’s a belter.’
McGuire bit the inside of his jaw. ‘I’d love to get both of the stories and link it all up, but if I’m putting resources into this, then I want to get to the heart of the baby trade.’ He put his hand up as though to silence Rosie. ‘And before you ask, you don’t even have to talk me into letting you go there.’
‘Well that’s a first.’
‘I want this story. I want to put flesh on it. Get me a mum whose baby was stolen – that kind of stuff. I know it won’t be easy, but I want us all over this – boots and saddles. Just get me a costing. How do you want to play it?’
Rosie had thought this through in bed most of last night, before she’d dropped into a fevered sleep full of wailing Romanian orphans being dragged from their stinking cots by thugs, and abandoned on freezing hillsides. And when she woke this morning, TJ, her friend and on/off lover, who’d stayed over after dinner, had told her she was ranting in her sleep – again.
She knew McGuire would love the story, but she hadn’t expected him to be so eager to throw everything at it. She wanted the story even more than him but, if she was honest with herself, now that it was on, part of her didn’t know if she was quite ready to be propelled into the midst of another danger zone. It was only a few months since she’d escaped the psycho serial killer who’d left her to drown in a pit of rats and rotting body parts, and she had been trying to deal with the consequent trauma. She’d even had a couple of curries with the friendly psychologist she’d interviewed while investigating the killer, and he was gently counselling her. But even the four-week break she’d had in the south of Spain, sunning herself, hadn’t been as relaxing as she needed. The truth was, she hadn’t really relaxed deeply since it happened. Her worry in the immediate aftermath of the anxiety attacks was that the fear was going to be permanent. But the psychologist assured her it wouldn’t be, that she would learn to deal with the panic attacks and trivialise them when they happened. And she did, but there was always the dread that she could fall off the edge lurking in the background. Fortunately, most of the time, her anxieties came out in her nightmares, so she could keep a lid on them. But she found that these days she looked over her shoulder more, examined her mail deliveries with more care before she opened them, took time to lock doors of her flat four and five times over. She knew she was getting better, and it would pass, but throwing herself into the zone again so soon would be challenging. Not that she was going to admit any of this to McGuire.
‘I was thinking to involve big Adrian. Just for a bit of extra muscle. God knows, we’ve been grateful for him on enough of our trips. He’s not a million miles away from the area, and I think he’d be good to have with us. I’d want to take Matt, since we’ve always had such great holidays together in the arseholes of the empire – as he keeps saying,’ she joked.
‘This is my main worry, Rosie. Sending you over there into something we have very little knowledge of, and nobody really on the ground.’
‘We have Christy Larkin’s girlfriend. So, she’ll be there and speaks the language as well as great English. She knows the orphanages and the geography. But we’ll need plenty of cash with us, Mick. Money talks all over Romania, and I remember last time I was there
the corruption was everywhere: from the border cops to the people who worked in the orphanages. Everything can be bought. That’s why we probably shouldn’t be surprised they’re selling orphans. They’ve got plenty of them to sell.’
McGuire stood up. ‘Right. Okay. Get me a costing, and let me get my head around it. See when you want to go and get Marion to organise it.’ He picked up his papers from the desk. ‘I’m going into conference now. What kind of story can we write on the bird Donna’s claims? I know they’re a bit outlandish without proof, but we need something, not attributable to her, about background on Helen Lewis.’
‘She might sue us if we say she was a teenage hooker who went on to have her husband bumped off.’
McGuire smiled. ‘Aye. You might want to tone that down. But work out something to write. I want to drip-feed this story. And by the time the cops track Helen Lewis down, a story in the Post will be the least of her worries. Get some words over to me and I’ll get the lawyers to have a look.’
*
As she got into her car, Rosie’s mobile rang and she put the phone to her ear as she pushed the key into the ignition.
‘Christy. Howsit going?’
‘Good, Rosie. I wanted to let you know that I talked to my ex today, and she’s keen to help if she can. She’s a bit wary, but she’ll meet you if you go over.’
‘Brilliant. I’ll call you in the morning to let you know. We’ll be going over in the next day or so, so it would be great to meet her in Bucharest.’
‘No worries. I’ll sort it.’
He hung up and Rosie smiled a little at his enthusiasm. She might even make a reporter out of him yet.
Chapter Eight
Helen woke up with the same niggling unease that had kept her from sleeping. It wasn’t a guilty conscience, or any of that crap. She’d long since convinced herself that she deserved everything she had, everything she took. No. She didn’t feel guilty at all. Not about shooting the scheming, blackmailing bastard Frankie Mallon, who would have left her with nothing. And not about organising her husband’s murder. He was only ever a means to an end, a convenient meal ticket until she could have plenty of money to stand on her own two feet. Though the fact that Alan had come back from the dead was driving her crazy, as much with curiosity as with the cold dread that he could find a way to claw back all the money she’d moved out of his accounts. It was six months since his disappearance. For him to survive with the head injury, he must have got out of the water fairly quickly, got to the shore, and found some kind of help. So he’d been around for months, yet hadn’t made any attempt to look at his bank accounts – as far as she knew. She wrestled with the thought. He couldn’t have. If he had, he’d have noticed they were all closed, officially by his own signature, forged by her own hand. So what had he been doing for these past months, and why wait until now to get in touch? He was an accountant, for Christ’s sake. He must have known straight away that she’d taken his money. She was baffled, and anxious. She looked at her watch. It was time to go. She checked her image in the mirror, the blonde wig and her dark glasses, full of Parisian chic. She zipped up the suitcase, then she eased her way out of the bedroom, wheeling her case along the corridor towards the lift. When the lift doors opened, she suspiciously eyed the two well-dressed men already in it. They looked flatly at her, and for a second she almost didn’t get in. Get a grip, she told herself, and struggled in with her cases. The lobby was bustling with guests checking out and arriving, and she swiftly perused the area, in case the man from last night was lurking. He wasn’t. She cursed herself for beginning to feel like the fugitive she was. Calm down, she told herself. Nobody is hunting for you. Nobody has a clue who you are or where you are going. Outside, the taxis were busy, but one with a light on was sitting just at the edge of the lanes of traffic. She waved to it, and was relieved when it started towards her. She really wanted out of here. The driver got out of his car, took her bags and placed them in the boot. Then he opened the door for her and she got in the back. She breathed a sigh of relief.
‘L’aéroport Charles de Gaulle, s’il vous plaît,’ Helen said in her best French.
He didn’t reply as he put the car in gear and drove off. She sat back, thankful, and gazed out of the window. Then she heard the voice. For a moment, she thought it was in her head.
‘Hello, Helen . . . or Linda . . . or whoever you are this day.’
It was like a gun going off in her head, and she turned quickly to see a man in the front passenger seat turned and facing her, an icy smirk on his sallow face. It was him. The man from last night, the man from the Eurostar. How the Christ had he got in here? How could she have missed him when she got into the back seat? Panic coursed through her, and her head swam.
‘What the fuck!’ She glanced from the man to the back of the driver’s head. ‘What the fuck’s going on?’
She caught the driver’s deadpan expression in the rear-view mirror as he kept driving.
‘What is this? Who the fuck are you?’
Automatically, her hand went to the door handle and she pulled it. She would throw herself out before they hit the motorway. Fuck! It was locked. She threw herself across the back and tried the other one. Locked.
‘Stop!’ she commanded. ‘Stop! Let me out of here.’
She tried to roll down the window, but it too was locked. She was trapped. The man in the passenger seat kept his gaze on her.
‘What are you doing? Who are you? You’re kidnapping me? Stop the car now!’
‘Why don’t you call the police?’ the man said, toying with her in a voiced laced with Eastern European tones. ‘I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.’ He turned away and faced the front.
She could hear her heartbeat. She slumped back, choking with fear. She wanted to ask where they were taking her, but she was too scared. In her gut, she knew that wherever they were taking her, she wasn’t coming back. The game was up.
*
Helen came to in the pitch black, with the chill of a cold metal floor on her back. She blinked, but could see nothing. She moved her body a little and there was no pain, so she hadn’t been beaten. Her hands and feet weren’t tied, and she could move freely. Whatever she was in was being transported. It was noisy and bumpy. She put her hand behind her back and felt cold ridged steel. She was in some kind of container. What the fuck! Where were they taking her? Even if she could see the walls, there was no point in crying out or banging on them. There was nobody to hear. Whoever had taken her was in the truck cab in front. She sat up, and her head throbbed. She had a blurred recollection of being dragged out of the taxi in a darkened multistorey car park by some fat bloke in a leather jacket. She could hear voices, Slavic or Eastern European. Then a hand from behind had covered her mouth, and she felt a needle in her neck. That was the last thing she remembered. She hadn’t a clue how long she’d been out. Sick with fear, she crawled around on her hands and knees until she touched the wall of the container. She pulled herself into a sitting position with her back against the wall, and tried to take deep breaths to relax and think straight. She brushed her fingertip against the pinprick in her neck, which was a little tender, and wondered how long she’d been travelling. If she’d been out for a while she could be anywhere in the middle of Europe. There were no English voices among the men who had snatched her, so she had to assume she was being taken somewhere in Eastern Europe. But she couldn’t understand why. For sure, Alan had been involved with some Eastern Europeans in this Romanian wine-importing business, where he was moving a lot of money. She remembered seeing the names of several companies in the secret ledger he kept, which she had hidden in her flat, but she had no idea what they were. When she’d quizzed Alan about them as she was helping him with his administration he’d told her they were some small companies he’d put some capital into because he wanted to be in on the ground floor in a part of Europe that was growing fast now that the Communist regime was dead and buried. One of the companies was also connected to a UK charit
y whose accounts he did. Hands Across Europe or something, she thought they were called. She remembered the names of the charity bosses from the UK and Romania, both of whom she had met when they were over in Bucharest dealing with charity business. Helen had moved the money from all the small companies apart from the charity into another private account in the name of a company she had set up in Jersey and the Cayman Islands, and she was the only signatory. She had a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach that she’d been rumbled, and now these companies wanted their money back.
The truck seemed to be slowing down and she could sense from the movement and trying to keep her balance that it seemed to be turning a corner. Then a few moments later, it came to a halt, and there was the shuddering and hissing of brakes. She sat, holding her breath. There was no sound outside at first, then she heard muffled voices and what seemed like a couple of car doors being closed. Locks and heavy metal bolts were being hit with something, then one of the doors was dragged open. Helen could feel her whole body trembling, her eyes wide, ready to adjust to the changing light. But there wasn’t much difference. She felt the icy blast from outside, but it was still dark. Somewhere in the distance there was a light, maybe the motorway or whatever road they’d just left. A foreign voice barked instructions and she heard someone scrambling on to the container. A torch was shone in her face and she blinked, her eyes smarting in the harsh light. She was pulled roughly to her feet, and as she opened her mouth to say something she was dragged to the door. Outside she could see another man on the ground, and as the man behind her pushed her down the step from the container, he caught her. She looked around, anxious to see where she was. Then, from the darkness, a tall figure in a black coat stepped forward, but he wasn’t close enough for her to see.
‘Well, well, Helen. You haven’t half fucked things up.’
She knew the voice immediately. Ricky Thomson. Ricky fucking Thomson. One of the hardest men in Glasgow. She’d seen him with Alan at a couple of dinners and had kept out of his way because he knew her history better than anyone. Alan had done some work for him in the past – laundering his money, no doubt – and just this second she remembered where else she had seen his name. Fuck! When she’d seen the name Richard Thomson, she hadn’t twigged. It was on the list of directors in one of the companies Alan had set up in Romania, and where most of the money had been stashed. Jesus Christ!