The Hit

by Anna Smith

  Ariana nodded and spoke to the woman. She put her hands up, in protest.

  ‘She said it is not necessary. She doesn’t have much, but she is okay. She will be happy if the baby finds her mother. She asks one thing only. If the baby and the mother are reunited, she asks could I come and tell her if that happens. That’s all. She would just like to know.’

  ‘Tell her yes, you will, if it happens.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Back at the hotel, Rosie listened in disbelief as Ariana told her what she’d discovered after a lengthy search at the registry office in Bucharest. There was no record of a baby named Iasius Onescu born at the hospital to Madelina and Eadbert, and no record of a death registered in that name. So the document Madelina had been given by the hospital had been a fake. They hadn’t registered the baby’s birth or death. The baby simply disappeared. The adoption agency had taken crooked to a whole new level. Not only were they stealing newborn babies, they were able to issue fake death certificates, and somehow able to make sure the child was not even registered as having been born to its biological parents. Surely this had to involve not just one person at the hospital, but several? Rosie asked Ariana.

  ‘That is something we may not be able to find out. But in the hospital, there will be a key person who is responsible for registering the births on any day or week, and that information will be passed on to the registry department in the city. But it is looking as though while they register most of the babies, there must be one or two that go missing. They tell the mother the baby has died, then produce a death certificate. They cannot do this with several babies a week or even in a month, but it can be done with one or two babies every couple of months. Stillbirths happen a lot in this country, and no poor, uneducated mother is going to argue with a doctor or a nurse who is telling them their baby has died. But the person at the hospital who is registering the babies must be in on the scam. We’ll probably never be able to find out who that is.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ Nicu asked as they sat drinking coffee in the hotel bar.

  Everyone sat for a few moments, then Rosie put down her cup.

  ‘I have an idea. What we know at the moment, though we have no definite proof, is that a UK citizen is a director of a wine-importing company and also a director of this UK-based charity Hands Across Europe. We have established, or pretty much established, that this charity also operates a babies-for-sale racket. We have our meeting with them on tape and on film. So I think we go to the British embassy. We take the mother with us and her baby’s fake death certificate, and we tell them what is going on.’

  ‘But the woman who is affected isn’t British, so I’m not sure the embassy would be interested,’ Nicu said.

  ‘They’d have to at least initiate some kind of investigation. Especially if we have a story, either in the paper or ready to go, exposing a huge level of corruption. As the British embassy, with a possible Brit at the centre of criminal activity, they have to ask some questions in high places of their Romanians counterparts.’

  Nicu nodded. ‘But then if your British diplomats start asking questions, you might find everything closes up and perhaps the child at the centre of your investigation will go missing. We know where she is at the moment, but we have no proof that she is this woman’s child. And, as Ariana has already established, the child with the name on the fake document doesn’t exist at the registry office. And if she doesn’t exist there, they will simply close the doors. I know what they are like.’

  Rosie glanced at Adrian, who was listening, but saying nothing.

  ‘Then we must find a way to take the child with the woman to the British embassy,’ she said. ‘We can put her story and her case to them, and plead to them to ask questions because a Brit is at the heart of serious criminal activity.’

  ‘I agree with you, Rosie,’ Adrian said. ‘But I think we must find the husband who sold the baby and get him to admit what he did to the embassy and police.’

  ‘There’s not much chance of Eadbert coming along to that party, Adrian.’

  ‘We can try to persuade him,’ he said, deadpan.

  ‘But do you think the British embassy will even be that interested? Do you know anyone there?’ Nicu asked. He was beginning to look at Rosie and Adrian as though they were a little unhinged.

  Rosie thought of the Scots diplomat in the British embassy in Pakistan who’d pulled her out of a hole last year in Islamabad after she’d escaped with a teenage bride whose father was about to marry her off to an old man. He was a solid, senior contact, and she was sure he’d at least listen.

  ‘No, I don’t know anyone at the embassy here,’ Rosie said, ‘but I know a man who just might.’ She stood up. ‘Let me make a phone call.’

  ‘But how are we going to be able to take the baby from the orphanage to the British embassy?’ Nicu asked. ‘We cannot just steal her.’

  Rosie looked at Adrian, but didn’t answer. From the corner of her eye, she could see Matt put his head in his hands.

  *

  They had established, through Ariana’s contacts, that the baby Iasius was now called Ioana and was indeed in the orphanage the old woman had suggested she might have been taken to. It was the most practical choice and closest to where they’d lived, and by this time, with her name having been changed, there would be no chance of the real mother tracking her down. In fact, Ariana had told them, the baby that was in that orphanage now would have no papers or history of her real name or origin. Ariana had one contact in that orphanage – a girl who went to university with her – and she told Rosie she trusted her enough to confide in her about the baby. Rosie was sceptical, given that there were few people she could trust in this whole country, but Ariana had been on the ball up until now, so she told her to go ahead. Rosie had spent the last couple of hours in her hotel room, trying to work out the best way ahead. She’d phoned her contact in Pakistan, Gerry, who was glad to hear from her, and he listened to her story. He promised he would do what he could. One iron was already in the fire. Ariana had gone to Madelina to tell her that there was a possibility that they had traced her baby. And at some stage, though she did not know when, Adrian would find the husband and bring him to the British Embassy. Best not to dwell on how Adrian was planning to manage that. It was all getting a little wildly out of control for Rosie’s nerves, and she’d no idea how she’d be able to break any of this to McGuire. She felt tired, partly from the exhaustion of running around since she got here, and partly from the fact that she’d complicated things by being determined to help the woman whose baby had been stolen. She lay on the bed and was beginning to drift off when she heard a soft knock at the door. She got up and opened it, and Ariana stood there. Rosie beckoned her in.

  ‘Ariana,’ she said rubbing her eyes. ‘Sorry, I was almost asleep there. I’m tired today.’

  Ariana nodded, but didn’t look at all tired herself.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Rosie, but I have some news about the baby.’

  Rosie was suddenly alert as they sat down on the chairs by the window.

  ‘I called my friend on the phone. I trust her and I asked her some questions about this baby. First, did she know if a baby of that name was there, and what circumstances she was brought in.’

  ‘Good.’ Rosie was impressed. This girl was efficient.

  Ariana nodded enthusiastically, then went on. ‘She has told me, Yes, the baby with the name Ioana, she was brought in by the mother who adopted her, and she also give me her name. It is the same name as we were told. It is Iasius.’

  ‘Excellent. Great work, Ariana. You’ve done really well for us since we got here, but it’s fantastic to have found this out.’

  She was keen to go on.

  ‘But, Rosie. I’m afraid there is a problem with this child.’

  Rosie heart sank.

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘The health is not good. The baby has had some fits, convulsions, and they do not know what is wrong. But the doctors
examine her and still doing tests. But here and in an orphanage is difficult.’

  ‘How ill is the baby? Is she going to die?’

  ‘My friend doesn’t know, but she doesn’t think so. The baby might have a heart problem or even more complications. But she said, If this is the case, then this baby will never be adopted. Nobody wants a baby who is sick.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘And what did she say when you told her about the baby being stolen from the real mother?’

  ‘She is shocked about it, and very angry. My friend, like me, has heard about these things, but didn’t know of anyone it happened to. She knows that some charity buys and sells children from orphanages, and knows it will always happen because of the corruption in this country at so many levels. But stealing a newborn baby is wrong. She will help us.’

  Rosie thought for a moment. ‘If we gave her a camera, could she take some pictures of the baby? If she is alone with her at some time?’

  Ariana shrugged. ‘I will ask.’

  ‘I want to try to get the baby to the British embassy, but I think this will be impossible, unless we steal her and that would cause all sorts of trouble. It could get us in jail. So we’ll have to think of another way.’

  Ariana stood up and went towards the door.

  ‘I will call my friend and arrange to meet her with the camera.’

  ‘Good. If she’s able to take the picture today, we can take it with us to the embassy.’

  Ariana left. Rosie stood by the window, watching the traffic below and the children in the street running up to every car that pulled up to the outside of the hotel. A little baby with health problems stuck in an orphanage. She didn’t have much chance even if she was with her real mother. But in the orphanage she had none.

  Chapter Twenty

  When the taxi crossed the Jamaica Bridge and headed past the Glasgow Sheriff Court, Helen felt her heart sink a little further.

  ‘Still in the same house?’

  Her mother glared at her then looked out of the side window.

  ‘What did you expect? I didn’t get any superannuation in my job.’

  Helen half smiled despite the gloom. Janey could always deliver a one-liner with the kind of deadpan expression that would have given Lauren Bacall a run for her money in an old Humphrey Bogart black-and-white movie. In a momentary reverie the thought sent her back to watching the black-and-white telly in their living room three floors up in the Gorbals’ high flats. Helen had dreamed of being in those movies – the glam dresses, the sweeping hairstyles – the starlets all reminded her of her mother, how she used to watch her as a little girl, getting all dolled up as though she were a movie star. Helen used to dream she would be a film star one day in her little world of make-believe. Until night fell and she could hear her mother coming home from wherever she’d been, with some oily guy in tow, smelling of drink.

  *

  Her ma hadn’t even asked her any questions yet on how it had come to this. When they’d got into the car and Helen had told her she’d was in a right mess, Janey told her to button it. Save it, she’d said. Till we get to the house. Walls have ears, or have you learned nothing in the big wide glam world? It was going to be a long night. Darkness was already coming down like a cloak on the deserted streets, the grubby flats, some with windows boarded up, adding to her depression. The taxi dropped them off, and Helen got out with her bags, traipsing behind her mother after she was left to pay the driver. She knew where she was going. A couple of teenage boys stood in the close’s entrance, drinking cheap Buckfast wine, faces flushed. Inside, it smelled the same as always – a smell she could conjure up wherever she was in the world, whether she was in Monaco or Puerto Banus. She could call up that smell as a reminder to herself never to fuck up her life so much that she ended up back here. Yet here she was, tail between her legs, getting into the lift as it stuttered to the third floor, doors opening on to a hallway with a flickering light. Her mother unlocked the door and they went into her flat’s hall, neatly carpeted and smelling fresh and welcoming, the way it always did. Her mother had always been fastidious about cleanliness, as though she was trying to clean and polish some respectability into her scummy life. As she walked down the hallway Janey silently pushed open Helen’s old bedroom door. She gathered she was meant to put her stuff in there, so she did, walking in, switching on the light. As she entered, she could see it hadn’t been touched. Nothing had been moved: the perfume, the dressing table, her hairbrush, comb, and little things she’d had to make her room girly. The small jewellery box that she’d covered with seashells. The bed with its pink duvet and small table lamps on either side. It looked as though it was lovingly cleaned and polished every day, like the rest of the house. Helen instantly felt tears coming to her eyes, but she bit them back, looking at the bed, remembering the things that she’d had to do there. She’d learned to live with that a long time ago, and it didn’t shock or frighten her any more. It had taken her on a road to prostitution and it had helped her bag a rich man. And now she was rich. But the image she still saw was the little girl of thirteen the first time. She blinked away the picture and sat on the bed. She had to work something out. And soon. She didn’t want to stay here any more than her mother would want her to, so there had to be some plan to get the hell out.

  She went into the kitchen as she heard the kettle click off, and found her mother making tea. Helen sat down at the kitchen table, as she had done all her life – except her life had been so different in the past five years. She thought she had left all this behind, including Janey, who was taking two mugs out of the cupboard and milk from the fridge. She put milk in her own tea and left Helen’s black. That she remembered small things like that should have touched her, but the two of them had become so remote to each other long before her walk-out. In fact, as Helen had grown into her late teens and got out of the game and moved on, she’d begun to hate her mother. Yet, looking at her now, across the table, she thought there was a tiny tremor in her mother’s hand as she poured the tea, and she saw the concentration in her mother’s face as she sat down and pushed a mug of tea towards her.

  ‘I’ll phone for a Chinese in a wee while. Are you hungry?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘I will be.’ She wanted to say, Thanks, but the word caught in her throat. Thanks for what? For making her who she was? Stop with the blaming, she chided herself.

  ‘So tell me . . .’ Janey sipped her tea and lit a cigarette. She inhaled and coughed, her eyes watering. ‘Did you shoot Frankie?’

  Helen didn’t answer for a second as she recalled the image of Frankie’s shocked expression a second before he’d hit the floor.

  ‘Aye,’ she nodded, ‘it was him or me.’

  ‘Aye. That would have sounded quite convincing in the High Court,’ her mother said, sarcastic. ‘So if it was self-defence, why did you bugger off and leave him lying there?’

  Helen waited a moment, deciding how she should answer this. ‘I was leaving anyway. I had already packed. My case was at the door. Frankie was just being a bastard. He came to take all my money. He came to . . . to . . .’

  ‘To what?’ Her mother looked her in the eye.

  Helen decided to tell her. This might well be her next big mistake, but she couldn’t keep it in.

  ‘He was blackmailing me.’

  ‘Blackmailing you?’ She gave her a sly look. ‘Were you shagging him?’

  Helen nodded.

  Janey shook her head and let out a long sigh.

  ‘You’re a stupid bastard. But you always were. Frankie is the biggest robbing chancer in the Gorbals. Only got away with it because of the way he looked – some kind of roguish charm, they might call it. Fucking conman from the day he was born, like his da.’ She paused. ‘Do you know he’s got a girlfriend, and a wee daughter? A baby?’

  Helen dropped her eyes to the table. ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Probably wouldn’t have bloody mattered. Well he has, or had. A wee lassie up in Springburn. A junkie, or reformed junkie
– which is what they all say till they’re found face down in a close.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Because I know the girl’s ma. She’s from here. You know her. Donna Malone, the girl’s name is. Younger than you. So you might not remember her.’

  Helen tried to place the name, but her mind was a blur. Apart from anything else, she’d killed Frankie and left a little girl without a father – even a bastard of a father like Frankie Mallon.

  ‘I can’t say I know her.’

  ‘Well. Doesn’t matter now.’ She drew on her fag. ‘So why was he blackmailing you?’

  Helen said nothing.

  Then Janey looked like a penny had dropped.

  ‘Don’t tell me that this missing husband of yours I read about in the papers, this fancy accountant who hasn’t been seen for eight months . . . Don’t tell me Frankie had anything to do with this . . . had he?’

  Helen waited a long moment, then she nodded.

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Fuck me! Did Frankie bump him off? He’s got quite good at that, I heard. Doing people’s dirty work.’

  Helen nodded. ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, that’s what you thought?’ She looked a little confused, and then amused. ‘Fuck me! Don’t tell me you got Frankie to bump off your man. Aw, for fuck’s sake, Helen!’

  Helen didn’t answer.

  ‘Where did this happen? I read he was in Romania.’

  Helen nodded, then looked away.

  ‘Frankie bumped him off in Romania?’ Her mother’s voice went up an octave. ‘Who the Christ do you think you are – in one of these old movies we used to watch? You got a hitman to kill your bloody husband? Oh, Jesus protect us! Why? Greed. Of course. Greed. You could never get enough. I knew you’d be like that, given half a chance.’

  Helen felt her face flush. ‘Given half a chance? Given half a chance I might have been a different girl, a different woman.’

  Her remark stung her mother and her face fell. They sat in stony silence for a moment, and Janey drew deep on her cigarette, her face like flint.