by Jan Needle
She was at home now, sitting in her kitchen waiting for the electric kettle to boil. She had a mug in front of her, instant coffee standing in it, more spilled on the table. She had dropped and smashed a bottle of milk that she had bought around the corner on Hyndland Road. She was drunk.
Rosanna had started her telephone enquiries that morning from the office, but had abandoned the newsroom after twenty minutes out of sheer embarrassment. She had gone to a small interviewing room and used the telephone there. Her questions could only be direct ones, because she could think of no way round that. She had tried Holyrood first, then the jail, then the Buckie Sheriff’s office. Sometimes on hold, sometimes transferred, sometimes forgotten or fobbed off, she had finally got through to the Prison Department in England, via Queen Anne’s Gate.
‘This is the East Kilbride News Service,’ she had lied, for the sixth or seventh time. ‘I’m enquiring about the PA report released last night. About the prisoner who died at Buckie Jail. I wonder is there anyone who could give me further details?’
If you asked the same question long enough, Rosanna was beginning to understand, it would eventually filter through to somebody who might know something about it. This time she was transferred to three junior functionaries in a row. They knew nothing personally, but the crisis was still vividly in everybody’s minds, and it came as a surprise to two of them to hear there’d been a death.
Thus it came about that a senior clerical officer, passing through an open-plan office, heard a junior call across the room to a fellow on the other side, ‘Got a woman here who says that someone died at Buckie. Is that right?’
And thirty seconds later, although she did not know it, Rosanna Nixon had Christian Fortyne himself at the other end of the telephone. The accent, to her, was merely upper class and English. She did not recognise the voice from the press conference.
‘Can I help?’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if you’ve had trouble getting through. What is the problem?’
‘This is the East Kilbride News Service,’ said Rosanna. ‘It’s about the man who died at Buckie Prison. I wonder if there’s any more information yet?’
Alarm bells were ringing gently in Fortyne’s head. He remembered the small woman at the press conference very well. Could this be she?
‘I’m afraid the press release said all we have to say at present. What else would you like to know?’
‘Well. The PA piece said natural causes. Has that actually been confirmed?’
‘The medical experts have not reported fully yet, but there’s certainly no reason for any doubt.’
‘But weren’t there…weren’t there some suspicious circumstances?’
There was something much too eager in her voice, something Fortyne did not like at all. He pressed the mute button on his handset, and motioned a secretary to him. He pointed to the phone.
‘Get a special trace on this for me. Top priority.’ He released the button. ‘No, not at all. Except that the circumstances at the jail were hardly normal in themselves, were they? Had you forgotten there was a riot going on?’
‘So when will it be, then? When will the fatal accident enquiry be held?’
Fortyne glanced at the secretary. She was talking rapidly into the phone. At Queen Anne’s Gate, naturally, there was a system.
‘We call them inquests in this part of the country, and I’m afraid I didn’t say that there would be one definitely,’ he said patiently. ‘It might be that the death was perfectly straightforward. But in any event I know nothing fresh as yet. The press will be informed, obviously. At present we have not even been able to contact the poor man’s next of kin. Many prisoners, you know, lose contact with their families, sometimes for many years.’ He laughed urbanely. ‘In case your next question was when and if we could release a name.’
Rosanna licked her lips. Now or never.
‘I know his name,’ she said. ‘Will you confirm it for me? It’s James Malcolm McGregor.’
Christian Fortyne’s eyebrows lifted imperceptibly. But his voice betrayed nothing. He did not miss a beat.
‘I’m afraid the name means nothing to me,’ he said. ‘That’s not my department. But I do know we could neither confirm nor deny it, anyway. Until the next of kin have been traced and informed we would not wish it to appear, naturally. The distress would be enormous.’
The secretary approached him with a piece of paper in her hand. On it was written the name of Rosanna’s paper and the company that owned it, with an address. Fortyne nodded his thanks.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘What agency do you represent? Did you say—’
Rosanna Nixon put the phone down. Fortyne smiled.
‘Too late, you bitch,’ he said.
*
On the cut. Sarah.
She had a home to go to, a proper home, a glorious, expensive little flat in Chelsea, because she liked to be near water. Michael was nothing if not a generous lover, he had told her once that he would buy her anything and everything to make up for the fact he could not leave his wife and children – yet. But for Sarah Williams, today and for as long as she could imagine, this boat was where she had to be.
She had stayed in bed today. She had gone back after she had heard the verdict, and she had not been able to get up. She had been stunned, poleaxed with horror, then with rage. She had had a text, no more, and its bleakness had amazed her. She had turned her radio on again, glued herself to it, moved from channel to channel to try and glean some sense, to convince herself it actually was real.
But it could not be. Six years. Her lover was away for six years, or four or three, or whatever length of time he had to serve. No fewer than three, whatever happened. Unless he could appeal. He would appeal. And the system, more and more vociferous about rich men’s crimes, and bonuses, and the rage and fury they induced – the system would tell him it served him right, and throw away the key.
Sarah kept ringing him. Trying his mobile, sending texts, risking his anger by ringing forbidden numbers. But all to no avail. Recorded messages, unusual tones, electronic, eerie silences. Nothing. In the six hours after the moment the judge had sent him down, the one text message. It entered her blood like ice. It seemed to pierce her heart. Sarah stayed in the double bed on Cynthia’s Beam, enfolded in a mass of duvets, thinking and crying, until the fire in the stove had died completely and the cold penetrated even through the goosedown quilting.
Then she got up, and made a cup of tea, and cleared the stove out and relit it, and opened all the dampers until it was glowing red, and radiating a fierce, raw, urgent heat. And Sarah cursed herself, cursed her self-pity and her cowardice, and thought of the last delightful times they’d shared, the times they’d share again. She mocked herself for selfishness, swore at herself for imagining that she was the unlucky one, excoriated herself as a spineless little cop-out.
Bowscar. Bowscar Jail, where was it? Staffordshire? She went on the net and tracked it down and studied it. Then the canals. The nearest one to it. How far away from her, how long to get to? She made another cup of tea, put more coal on the fire, anthracite, until the cabin throbbed with lovely heat. She got the Nicholson canal guides off the bookshelf, and traced the route. An old-time jail, not one of your new, private, high-tech modern ones. Bowscar was old, and inevitably there was a canal not far away. Not a cut she’d cruised on yet, but all the better for it. There was a cut.
Hah! she thought. You might be bored in Bowscar, Michael, but it won’t be boring getting there. It might not be an open prison, but you tell me money can do anything. I tell you, Michael – so can love.
*
Glasgow. Rosanna, Campbell, Rafferty.
Although it was well before midday when she’d put the phone down on Christian Fortyne – not even certain it was him – Rosanna had begun to tour the bars of Glasgow like a dedicated lush. She was looking for a man called Rafferty, a former crime reporter who was now a full-time drunk.
Five bars but no drinks later, she ran him to earth
in the Arlington at ten to one, on his feet and half seas over, shouting at the top of his voice as every drinker does in Glasgow. He was sliding down fifths of Grouse chased with halves of Belhaven, and he did not recognise her despite the fact he’d torn her blouse off in a club one night and had his glasses smashed into his face.
‘Adrian! ‘she shouted. ‘It’s me! I’ve come to buy you that drink!’
Rafferty blinked at her through smeared lenses. He was a tall man, who had once been smart as well as legendary.
He wore a crumpled double-breasted suit, a stained white shirt, and a bow-tie.
‘And who might you be, lassie?’ His voice, once sonorous, was cracked. ‘Never mind. I’ll take a Grouse with you. And a half-pint of the heavy.’
Rosanna had to drink with him, or she would have got no information. Maybe he had nothing to give. She sipped a half of lager and listened to his ramblings for a while, then she dropped the name. It was a very long shot. Jimmy McGregor was probably of no significance at all, as convicts went. But Rafferty paused. He drained his spirits glass and pushed the pair of them across at her.
‘Wee Jimmy,’ he said. ‘That’s Angus’s kid brother. You know Angus, hen. The Animal. Wee Jimmy’s not just any old McGregor, know what I mean? And is he dead? Hell’s teeth.’
By 2:15 Rosanna had dragged Adrian Rafferty out of the Arlington, and taken him on a taxi tour of bars as diverse as the Copper Kettle and the Saracen’s Head. She knew all there was to know about wee Jimmy’s brother, except what jail he was in. They had spoken to well-heeled drugs men who wore their criminality as insultingly as their dark glasses and white jackets, they had stirred the bleary memories of wee gobshites whose faces still bore scars from the great razor days. By five o’clock she was woozy, and Rafferty was much as she had found him four hours before, neither drunk nor sober. He was refusing staunchly to join her for a bite to eat.
‘I’ll gae down the Three Tuns for a wee drop more of whisky, if you insist on spoiling a pleasant afternoon,’ he said. ‘There’s a man might be in there will have the answer in a jiffy, and we’ll meet up later when you’ve spoilt your figure stuffin’ chips. You’ll have tae trust me, hen. And lend me twenty pounds.’
She had already spent more than thirty, and had no hope at all of claiming on expenses. But she paid up, and went back to the office for a sandwich and report to Maurice Campbell. The drink had made her quite euphoric. Whatever Maurice thought, whatever he said to her, she was beginning to feel she might bring off a coup. She might present him, yet, with what they used to call a scoop. Ah, the good old days!
That was when she walked into the firestorm. Campbell was red with fury, shouting and waving his arms. He practically dragged her into his inner office when she began to bellow back, and he quickly quietened her with the intensity of his anger. He told her that Holyrood had been on, accusing her of professional misconduct, underhand behaviour, and bringing her newspaper into disrepute. They had accused him of being prepared to intrude on private grief, to spread malicious falsehoods, and to ignore directives expressly issued for humanitarian reasons.
For a few moments Rosanna was almost penitent, until she began to wonder how in hell they’d tracked her down. She’d rung the Home Office in London, Queen Anne’s Gate. And the bastards had traced her call, they found out she’d been ringing from this office.
‘That’s outrageous! That’s criminal, so it is! Maurice, we’re a separate fucking country! They’re acting like the English Stasi! They’re running a police state! You should stand up for me, not give in like a fucking jellyfish!’
Not completely sober words, which pissed him off more than she could believe. The row flared up like a petrol fire, they spilled into the news-room, and Rosanna got the sack. She had stormed out to the Three Tuns, without even the sandwich, to spit her rage at Rafferty. Who was not there, of course.
When she tracked him down two hours later, the wheels came off completely. The drunkard’s mood had changed, and he hinted at a mystery about the Animal, which was more than his life was worth to go into. He muttered something about England, he demanded eighty pounds, and he turned ugly when she refused. He mocked her as a professional virgin and a whore, and tried to grab her breasts. She got home at last, drunk and furious.
When the phone awoke her, she was slumped at the kitchen table, her coffee still unmade. The kettle, if she had ever turned it on, had turned itself off again at least an hour ago. It was Maurice Campbell.
‘Rosanna? Listen, hen, how you feeling?’
She felt terrible. Her head was poisonous and her throat was worse.
‘Terrible. You sacked me, didn’t you?’
‘I did. However, we could come to some arrangement. I’m a sucker for a pretty face.’
Rosanna made a noise. A sort of croak.
‘What a shame I havenae got one. What are you offering?’
‘Oh, everything as normal. No change, nothing. So long as you keep off the diving boy line, right? I’m bored to fucking death o’ him.’
She didn’t even need to think.
’Maurice,’ she said. ‘You’re probably right. I’m probably mad. But I saw what I saw and I heard what I heard. They traced that call today. They warned me off.’
‘Ach to hell! The freaks we call a fucking assembly probably rang round till they found you out. They probably—’
She interrupted him.
‘Maurice, I didn’t phone the assembly, I phoned the men in London. The big boys. I phoned the Home Office.’
Maurice sighed.
‘Ah well, hen. I didnae really expect you to say yes. So what’s the next step?’
‘London,’ said Rosanna. ‘I’m going down there. I’m damned if I’ll give up yet awhile. Wet behind the ears or not!’
She didn’t tell him about the Animal. Coming from Rafferty it was probably garbage anyway. She felt ill. She wanted bed.
Maurice sighed once more.
‘Tell you what I’ll do, Rosanna. I’ll put you down for holiday, right? Take a fortnight. Three weeks. See how it goes.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t burst into tears on me or anything, eh hen? I know I’m wonderful.’
‘Aye,’ she said. She did not know what to say. ‘Aye, thanks. I’m sorry about the shouting at you.’
‘See,’ he said. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ll not know anyone in London, I suppose?’
‘Of course I do, God’s sake! I’m not planning to doss down in the gutter, if that’s what you were thinking!’
‘I meant in the trade. Someone who could put you right. You know, contacts.’
She shook her head, as if he could see her.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Honest. I’ll make out.’
‘Well, listen. There’s a guy down there you ought to talk to. Serious. A guy called Forbes. He’s not Scottish, but he’s the next best thing. He married a lass from Govan. More important, he’s an expert on the spook trade. You know what I mean?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘He’s into corruption, and the secret boys, and bent police and so on. He’s not a very popular turn in some high places. Go and see him.’
‘But why should he want to speak to me? He doesn’t know me.’
‘I’m telling you, that’s all. He’s written books on the subject. He’s the king of the conspiracy theorists. He’ll try to screw you, by the way. He’s a bit mad, some people reckon.’
‘Oh thank you.’
‘Nah, nah, I didn’t mean it that way, hen. Listen, he can be bitter, all right? He may tell you to piss off. But he’s shite hot at his job, it’s worth a try. Just go and see him.’
Half-bemused, Rosanna wrote down the details. Later, in her bed, she tried the London number. Andrew Forbes. But there was no reply.
*
Purfleet. Forbes and Jackson.
The rain in Purfleet was extraordinary. Throughout the first part of the day it had been moderate, then, as darkness had fallen, it had increased. By 6pm there had be
en traffic jams on the roads from London, and by eight some were completely blocked. It had eased off, from cloudburst to steady downpour, and the traffic moved once more. Andrew Forbes, sheltering under a harbour crane, was damp but satisfied. He was about to watch the arrest of Charlie Lister.
The ferry from Zeebrugge had nosed into the dock some minutes previously, and he was on his own again. Although he’d provided the information for the arrest, it was down to HM Revenue and Customs, down to Peter Jackson. Andrew’s reward, he hoped, would come on Friday. Alice Grogan would be free from fear.
As the foot-passengers began streaming from the terminal in a dense crowd, Forbes realised he would be lucky to see anything at all, let alone a spectacular. The arrest would be made quietly, and only when Jackson and Co were sure that Lister had no unknown friends with him. They still did not know exactly what the set-up was – nobody did – but Alice’s info, via Forbes, had convinced them that they had to act. Lister was like the Scarlet Pimpernel. Lister was about to disappear.
Forbes noted with interest that a prowl car was nosing towards the terminal, across the stream of cars and lorries disembarking from the ship, and in the lorry park another one was visible, white and fluorescent red. Interesting because this was not a police operation, they had, indeed, been officially warned off. Interesting? Or worrying…
Suddenly, through the driving rain, Forbes saw the beginning of activity. A group of plainclothes Customs officers appeared from behind the van he had been told to watch, while another group strode purposefully along the fence outside the lorry pound. Simultaneously, the moving prowl car turned on its twin-tone blarer and blue flashers, and there was a squeal of tyres as it accelerated.
As Andrew ran from beneath the crane to get a better view, the headlights of the parked police car blazed on, and it sliced out through the stream of traffic to join the first one at the terminal. The group of men along the fence were running hard, heads up, shouting, as policemen tumbled onto the pavement and joined the ruck. The passengers, some loaded down with luggage, scattered in alarm.