by Anna Smith
Now, as she stood freezing outside at the funeral, she shook hands with Bill Mackie, who put his arms around her and hugged her. She stood limply and looked into his eyes, red-rimmed from crying. Foxy came forward and hugged her, then looked into her face.
‘Your dad was so proud of you, Alison,’ he said. ‘You were everything to him.’
Alison stared blankly back at him and eased herself out of his grasp. He moved away, patting her shoulder. She watched as he went down the steps, shaking hands with people on his way to his waiting car.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In the cafe, Gemma and Trina blew bubbles with their straws in the dregs of their iced fizzy drinks and giggled at the gurgling noise. They had wolfed down burgers and chips, and cola drinks with a dollop of ice cream, and were now lounging back in the booth.
‘I’m stuffed,’ Trina said. ‘That’s the best dinner for ages.’
‘See?’ Gemma looked proud. ‘I said she was brilliant. I’ve been here with Rosie and my mum . . .’ Her voice trailed off and she looked sad.
Rosie had been surprised how easy it was to get the two of them out of the home for a couple of hours. She went on a Saturday afternoon hoping that, like on the Sunday of her first visit, there would be less security. The same fat woman was at the reception and when Rosie told her this time she was Gemma’s aunt, she didn’t ask any questions. Now, sipping her coffee, Rosie wanted to probe the girls gently to see if there had been any more visits to the house in the country. She’d be in deep shit if anyone found out what she was doing, and she hadn’t told McGuire when she was going. He’d said he didn’t want to know.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to worry about how to pose her questions, because Trina started to talk.
‘We were away on a run last night,’ she said, matterof-factly. ‘Gemma was there too, and Paddy says she might get to go every week.’
Rosie tried to look only vaguely interested.
‘Who’s Paddy?’
‘The janny, I told you before,’ Trina said. ‘It’s Paddy who decides who gets to go and he takes us there in the van and brings us back. Sometimes he gets us chips on the way home. But he didn’t last night.’
Rosie looked from one to the other. Gemma seemed happy that she was now a part of something Trina was doing.
‘So where did you go?’
‘The big house again,’ Trina said flatly.
‘It’s brilliant,’ Gemma said. ‘It’s got trees everywhere and hundreds of windows. And a fire in the big room.’
Rosie nodded. ‘Sounds great. So where is it?’
Gemma and Trina looked at each other. Trina looked like she was trying to remember.
‘Don’t know really.’ She screwed up her eyes. ‘It’s near some place called pebbles or something. The road was dark, but I saw that name because it’s like a stone. Is that a real place? Pebbles?’
‘Peebles,’ Rosie said, feeling her heart skip. ‘Peebles. Was that it? It’s a wee place right out in the country. Did you go along dark country roads?’
‘Aye,’ Gemma said. ‘I was a bit scared, ’cos one of the boys, Brian McCann, started telling creepy stories on the way back.’
Rosie needed more. She looked around the cafe and leaned towards the girls.
‘So what did you do in the big house?’
Trina looked at her, as though she was surprised she didn’t know.
‘Games. We play games with the big people.’
Gemma giggled. ‘It was funny. Some of it. But I didn’t like when they took our pictures.’
‘Pictures?’
Trina gave Gemma a disapproving look, and Gemma raised her eyebrows in surprise.
‘It’s okay, Trina,’ she said. ‘Rosie’s my pal.’
‘Awright . . . Well, the man took pictures of us,’ Trina said. ‘We were in our vests and pants. He just took pictures of us jumping around in front of the fire, and then he said we had to take everything off. But I wouldn’t take mine off. Rhona Hutchison did though. I think that’s why Paddy didn’t get us chips on the way home.’
‘And were there many men there?’ Rosie asked.
‘Six,’ Trina said. ‘No, maybe five . . . Dunno. But they all gave us money. I’ve still got mine. Look.’ She pulled out three pound coins from her pocket. Gemma also produced three. They held them in their small hands.
Rosie felt sick and a cold sweat broke out on her back.
‘So, tell me about the games.’
‘The man sat Rhona on his knee,’ Trina said. ‘With no pants on. He was laughing and bobbing her up and down but Rhona wasn’t laughing and then she said to stop.’
‘And did he?’
‘Aye.’ Trina screwed up her face. ‘But I didn’t like him much. He had big hairy hands and a pink fat face. His face was all red.’
‘And do you know whose house you were in?’ Rosie knew they would soon lose interest in this conversation.
Gemma and Trina looked at each other, then shook their heads.
‘Hmm, nope,’ Trina said. Then after a few seconds she said, ‘Oh, yes, Paddy says it was the judge’s house. He says we could get put in jail dead easy if we didn’t do what the men said. It was judge somebody or other. Can’t remember. Lord somebody. Lord Snooty.’ She sat back and tickled Gemma. They both giggled.
‘What if you saw a photograph of him? Would you recognise him?’ Rosie could only imagine how the newspaper’s lawyers would react to a photograph being identified by two kids in care.
‘Aye,’ Trina said. ‘Aye.’
‘Maybe,’ Gemma said. ‘Paddy says if we behave we’ll get to go again. He says we’re the best ones.’
Enough questions.
‘Remember now,’ Rosie said, looking at both of them. ‘Remember you’ve not to tell Paddy or anyone that we were talking about this. He wouldn’t be very happy.’
‘I know,’ Trina snorted. ‘He’s a fat bastard.’
Gemma burst out laughing.
‘He is!’ Trina giggled..
‘You shouldn’t be swearing like that.’ But Rosie was barely able to control her own laughter.
Rosie drove them back to the home, telling them again not to mention to anyone they had been talking about the big house. She would come and visit them in the middle of the week, and by then they might know if they were going on a visit on the Friday.
‘Why? Do you want to come, Rosie?’ Trina said. ‘There isn’t any women, it’s all men. But maybe they would let you come.’
‘No,’ Rosie said quickly. ‘No. Definitely. I don’t want to come. I just wondered, that’s all.’
Both girls gave her a hug as they got out of the car, and Gemma said, ‘Remember, Rosie, you said we could come and stay with you one night? You said it.’
‘Of course. Soon. I promise.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Alison was suffocating with the anger raging inside her. She had come back to Edinburgh the day after the funeral because she couldn’t stand being around her mother, knowing what she now knew. Listening to her mother glorify her father to anyone who would listen made her sick. The truth was Myra had made his life a misery. She had watched her mother pick away at him down the years, and she hated her for it. And anyway, Alison had always felt Myra resented her. It was plain that her dad had more time for his daughter than his wife. When she was growing up, her mum would send her to her grandmother’s on a Saturday night so that she and her dad could be alone, but Jack had always protested. It was often the only night he got to tuck Alison into bed because of the odd hours he worked. And Alison didn’t like being sent away overnight when she would have preferred to sit on the sofa, leaning beside her dad as they watched a film together. Then mass on Sunday, hand in hand with her dad, while her mother cooked lunch.
When Alison left the house after the funeral, she had embraced her mother before getting into the taxi for the train station. But there was a coldness between them. Alison knew her parents’ marriage had been a sham, their whole lives a
lie. In the letter Jack said he’d only stayed with Myra while Alison was growing up; that once her studies were finished he’d planned to leave.
But events had overtaken Jack, and his daughter didn’t recognise the man he painted in the letters. It was disgusting. He spoke about the women that used to come onto Uncle Gavin’s boat, although he did not specifically say he had sex with them. But when he tried to blame Myra by saying she’d never shown him any proper love, Alison knew that he must have used the prostitutes. It was cowardly crap. She was angry and confused. She hated the way her mother had treated her dad, but nothing could justify the double life he had been living.
And it wasn’t just that, but the widescale corruption he’d been pursuing along with Foxy and Bill. He seemed to think that by offloading his sins in a suicide note, Alison would somehow exonerate him. He was wrong. She would not. But she was determined to do the one thing he’d asked of her – to make sure that Foxy could not go on like this. He was out of control and it had to stop. That was why he was taking his own life. The coward’s way out, he’d called it. It didn’t matter if his name was ruined, he just wanted it all to stop. One girl had died and another girl had been murdered, and he didn’t know where it would all end. Put a stop to it, he pleaded. And she vowed to herself that she would.
Now Alison sat in front of the gas fire with the letter again in her hand. She had read it so many times that she knew it almost by heart. For two days she had sat in the Edinburgh flat, sleeping in snatches on the sofa and eating hardly a thing. She wished she had someone to talk to; all she could think about was how to stop Foxy. How to make him pay for what had happened to her father. She wanted to blame him and Bill because she needed to believe that her father was not a bad man. Finally, on the third morning, as she sat with the duvet wrapped around her, she made up her mind. She would go and confront Foxy in his office. She could ruin him if she really wanted to. She had evidence.
In his office, Foxy skimmed through the day’s newspapers, scanning for anything on the death of Jack Prentice. There had been the usual speculation for the first couple of days in that rag of a paper, the Post. They commented that Jack had lost the plot in recent months, and they had the nerve to say that he died as police were under pressure with two prostitutes dead in the past week. What the fuck did that mean? Either they were just fishing and chancing their arm, or they knew something.
Foxy had got Bill to give the Post’s crime reporter, Reynolds, a ring and ask him what he was playing at. He was supposed to be on their side. Reynolds told them he’d written the story fairly straight, but he hinted that the editor had some kind of bee in his bonnet about it. Foxy remembered it was the same situation when the hooker Tracy was washed up. That bitch Rosie Gilmour had written some speculative story that the prostitute was connected to people in high places. What was that supposed to mean? It meant nothing to anyone except Jack, Bill, and himself but it niggled away at him. She had to be watched, that Gilmour . . .
He’d made a call to the Big Man to keep tabs on the journalist, but he stressed that, this time, he didn’t want a finger laid on her. Just watch her. So far, all they had come back with was that she was pissed with some guy at a salsa bar and went back to his flat for the night. Big deal. But she had also been seen up at Woodbank, and later in a cafe with two kids. Foxy couldn’t understand why Gilmour was interested in the wee kids – unless she was trying to dig up some more stuff on that Tracy bitch. He wished he’d never set eyes on the whore.
He would ask Reynolds to do a bit of digging, just in case. See what Rosie Gilmour was up to.
So far, though, everything was reasonably calm. Foxy was genuinely gutted about Jack, yet part of him was glad because, with him out of the way, there was no chance of anyone’s bottle crashing. Bill wasn’t the type. He could tell a lie that would get you hanged, and he wouldn’t buckle under pressure.
They’d both got plastered the night of the funeral, and ended up laughing and crying about the old days. It was fine now, though. It would all die down.
He answered the buzz on his phone. It was his secretary.
‘There’s a girl here to see you,’ she said. ‘It’s Alison Prentice. She doesn’t have an appointment.’
Foxy was puzzled, but he supposed Alison needed to be close to her dad’s best pals. He could understand that. He would make time for her. He immediately put on his most fatherly tone.
‘It’s okay, Patsy,’ Foxy said jovially. ‘I’ve always got time for Alison. Show her in please.’
The door opened, and Patsy ushered Alison in. The girl’s face was pasty and she looked tired. Foxy got up from behind his desk and strode across to greet her with a hug.
‘Alison, darling. How are you, sweetheart?’ He noticed she didn’t hug him back.
‘Jesus, pet. You look terrible. Not sleeping? Don’t worry, that’ll come. I know it’s tough for you. Tough on all of us.’
Alison said nothing, but sat on the sofa next to his desk. Foxy came and sat on a chair opposite her, pulling it in little closer. He buzzed Patsy and asked her to send in some tea and biscuits. The kid just needed a bit of sympathy.
‘So, Alison. How’s your mum?’
‘Bearing up.’ Alison’s voice was a monotone.
‘Time,’ Foxy said. ‘It’ll take time.’
He was relieved when Patsy came through the door with the tray. He poured the tea and handed Alison a cup.
They sat in silence. She looked like she was about to explode. He didn’t know how he would cope with her if she burst into floods of tears.
‘I miss him too,’ Foxy said. ‘Jack was a great man. You know, we were mates right from police college. God, we had some laughs down the years, but he was a solid mate. Great man, Alison. I know you must be suffering.’
‘I didn’t know him at all.’ Alison’s words hung in the air.
He put down the cup and looked at her. What was she on about?
‘I didn’t know him at all,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t know any of you. Not you, not Uncle Bill. I didn’t know any of you.’
She fixed him with a stare.
‘What do you mean, darling? Course you knew us. We were like family.’
Another silence. She took a deep breath.
‘I know everything now, Uncle Gavin.’
Her eyes were cold. Maybe she was on drugs . . . ?
‘In fact it makes me sick even to call you uncle. I know what you are. What Dad was. What Uncle Bill is. I know it all.’
Foxy felt his face go white. She must be on something. ‘What?’ He shifted in his seat. ‘What are you talking about?’
Her voice was calm.
‘I know everything.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I know about the boat, and the drugs. And the girl you, Dad and Bill threw over the side of your boat. I know about the prostitute who got her throat cut. Yes, I know about the years of corruption with you, Dad and Bill. The backhanders from Jake Cox. I know the whole disgusting lot.’
Foxy felt as though someone had just shot him in the chest. He opened his mouth to protest, but Alison kept talking.
‘Dad sent me a letter.’ She was triumphant, her eyes blazing. ‘Eight pages, and a picture. I still can’t believe it.’ Her voice quivered and tears came to her eyes.
‘Alison . . .’ He got up and went towards her.
‘Don’t touch me!’ She stood up and put her hands up. ‘Don’t ever touch me. You’re an evil man. An evil, corrupt man and you ruined my father. He’s dead because of people like you. You destroyed him.’
‘Alison.’ Foxy could feel the sweat breaking out. He motioned for her to simmer down. ‘Please, pet. You don’t know what you are saying.’
‘Yes I do.’ Her voice was shrill. Her lip trembled. ‘And you had better listen to me. You’d better get your resignation sorted out and get out of this job in the next few days, or I’m going to tell the world about you and your stinking, evil set-up.’
Foxy’s knees were shaking. Christ almighty!
<
br /> ‘Enough, Alison,’ he said, regaining control, his voice firm. He had to be careful. She obviously did have some serious information about them, and she must have got it from somewhere . . . That daft bastard Jack and his Catholic guilt, right to the end. He couldn’t even bump himself off without dropping everyone else in it. Fuck him. Keep calm.
‘Alison. Listen, pet. I’m going to open the door now and let you go home before you say anything else that will get you into trouble. What you are saying just isn’t true, Alison. And if your dad said these things then it was all part of his illness. You must understand that. Alison . . .’ He just about managed to stop his voice from croaking.
‘We’ll see,’ she said. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Come on now, Alison.’ Foxy folded his arms across his chest and looked defiant. This little bitch could make serious trouble. ‘Now don’t be silly. Who’s going to believe a suicide note from a man who was clearly off his head? Look – just get the letter to me and we’ll forget about everything. You need a wee bit of help, pet. You need some sleep. Maybe you should talk to somebody.’
Alison walked to the door. She turned towards him, her face flushed.
‘If I don’t read that you and Bill have resigned in the next three days, then I’m going to the papers.’ Her voice was deadpan.
He tried to force a smile, but it was more of a grimace.
‘They’ll laugh you off the park.’
‘We’ll see.’ She stared at him. ‘We’ll see.’ She opened the door and walked out.
Foxy went back to his desk and phoned Bill Mackie. ‘Get up here,’ he said. ‘Smartish.’
Then he rang the Big Man’s mobile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Rosie stretched her legs out in the front seat of Matt Harper’s car and sighed. ‘Christ I hate stake-outs.’ She turned to Matt, whose eyes were focused straight ahead on the grey minibus in the yard of the children’s home.
‘The problem with you reporters,’ Matt said without looking at her, ‘you’ve just no patience. You want to swing in like the SAS when it all kicks off, grab the glory and then disappear to the pub. We snappers, on the other hand, are like the panther. Poised in the long grass. Patient. Deadly.’ His eyes narrowed.