by Anna Smith
The lawyers had had Rosie’s copy since yesterday, and Hanlon had already been on the phone asking her specific questions. She was pleased that he seemed positive. It was looking good, he said, but the lawyers were being typically cautious, asking if there was more backup that would nail Fox and his cohorts to the wall. They were told that everything they had was there. It was now their call and, ultimately, McGuire’s.
Over dinner the previous evening, Rosie thought she had detected a reticence in TJ. He had seemed quieter, preoccupied. She’d wondered if he was about to tell her it was all over, but by the time they finished dinner he was back to normal. When they went to bed they made love for longer than ever before, and fell asleep exhausted in each other’s arms.
‘Morning, darling.’ Rosie came into the lounge where TJ was sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee. She was wearing his blue bathrobe and rubbing her hair with a towel.
‘You look good enough to eat.’ He stroked her leg and she ruffled his hair as she walked past him to the kitchen.
‘Any time.’ She fetched a mug of coffee and sat beside him.
They drank in silence. Something wasn’t right. Rosie glanced at TJ. He looked pensive. She got up and went into the bedroom to get dressed.
‘I’d best be going soon,’ she said, as she came back in, fully dressed. ‘I’ve got to meet McGuire at ten. Could be a long day.’
TJ looked up at her and nodded his head.
‘Sit down, Rosie. I want to talk to you.’
So she had been right last night. Something was wrong. She sat down. She felt her mouth go dry and took a sip of her coffee.
‘Rosie.’ TJ sat forward and turned his body so he was facing her. He ran his hand through his hair. Rosie looked at the grey flecks, like silver in the sunshine. She loved them.
‘Rosie.’ He looked nervous. She’d never seen him like that. ‘Listen. There’s no easy way to say this, sweetheart, but I’m going away.’
Her stomach fell. He was leaving her? She hadn’t even seen it coming.
‘Away?’ It was all she could say.
He took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I want to go away from here, Rosie. This whole place. I don’t mean you. Of course not. The problem is, I want to be with you. I really do. But not like this.’
Rosie was confused. She swallowed hard. She didn’t know what to say.
‘These past few weeks . . .’ TJ said. ‘No, not just these weeks, I mean months, for a long time – even before we got involved like this – I’ve had real feelings for you. Feelings I didn’t think I would ever have again. And then, when we’re together, like last night, I feel that I really want that, to be with you. But not here. I just don’t think you’ve got any room for me here.’ He kept looking at her.
She didn’t want to lose him. She had better say something quick.
‘Course I’ve got room for you, TJ,’ she said, but her eyes flicked a glance at her watch. She saw him noticing and cursed herself.
‘See what I mean?’ TJ threw his hands in the air. ‘You’re looking at your watch. You’re already somewhere else.’
‘Sorry.’ Rosie was sheepish. ‘I’m not, TJ, I’m listening. It’s just a reflex action with me.’ She smiled, trying to make light of it. ‘Come on . . . Of course I’ve got room for you, I love being with you – I want to be with you.’ She touched his hand. ‘More than you know.’
‘But Rosie,’ he said, ‘how can you ever get away from all this stuff? This job? It’s eating you up. I don’t think you can ever be anything to anyone unless you pull back from that.’
Rosie sighed. She had to make him understand.
‘Look, TJ.’ Her voice was pleading. ‘I can’t just give up work. I can’t. What am I going to live on? And anyhow, I like it, it drives me.’
She knew he was right. For too long the job had devoured her life and she had allowed herself to be devoured. There had been no need for anyone else. But now it was different.
‘Yes,’ TJ replied. ‘I know it’s important, but what about your life? What about doing some other kind of journalism? A freelance, or a travel writer. Anything. You could work anywhere in the world. You could write books. Just get away from this shit that’s pulling you down. You have to develop as a human being. You’re not just a journalist, that’s just your job. It’s not who you are.’
She resisted the urge to look at her watch again. She knew it must be getting close to ten, but she daren’t mention it.
‘Please, TJ, don’t go into all that soul stuff again. Believe me, I know you’re right. The other night when you told me about the way I run away from myself, I felt so close to you because nobody had ever seen me so clearly before. You were right, but I just don’t know if I’m ready to wait for my soul to catch up. How am I going to know, TJ? Tell me that. You’re sure of things, sure of yourself. I’m not. How am I going to know when I’m ready to stop all this?’
TJ took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.
‘You’re not going to know, Rosie. You’re not going to be sure. That’s the whole point. You have to be prepared to take a chance. Are you prepared to take it?’ He let go of her face, but kept his eyes on her.
Rosie said nothing. She didn’t know if she could take a chance, but there and then she wanted it more than anything.
‘You’ll be late for work,’ he said. ‘You’d better go, Rosie.’
She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. He kissed her briefly, then turned away.
‘Don’t be like that,’ she said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Come on, TJ. Let me get this stuff out of the way first. Give me some time. Please . . . ?’
He nodded, but said, ‘I’m going away, Rosie. Maybe Cuba, maybe New York. I want you to come with me. Think about it.’
Rosie stood up. Jesus. Right now, the idea seemed impossible.
‘I’ll call you tonight,’ she said, turning back to him at the door.
‘Sure,’ TJ said, not looking at her.
She closed the door quietly behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Big Man was not happy. He had been ranting for half an hour and his face was flushed. Foxy had called Jake Cox on his private mobile and told him they had to talk. Jake said he was too busy to see him, but Foxy insisted that it wouldn’t wait and Jake had to postpone his poker game for nearly two hours.
Now Foxy sat on the red leather sofa in Jake’s tacky office on the top floor of the nightclub he owned. He hated having to lower himself by coming here, but Jake had said there was no option. Foxy knew the Big Man loved to feel he had power over you. Useless bastard! He stayed sitting behind his desk so that he was talking at Foxy as though the cop was one of his minions who had messed up a drug deal. Foxy watched Jake’s mind turning over all the possibilities of what might happen.
‘This is not good, Foxy,’ Jake said, toying with the cigar in his fingers. ‘I mean, if this shit gets in the papers, hell will break loose. Cops investigating cops . . . We’ve seen that before, but this one won’t be brushed away. They’ll bring some fucker up from the Met or something.’
‘I know, Jake.’ He squirmed in his seat. Bastard was talking down to him.
‘You see the thing is,’ Jake said, ‘I don’t want to fall out with you, Foxy. You’re my mate. Solid. But to tell you the truth, I blame you for letting this go so far.’
Foxy was startled. He sat forward. ‘What? Christ, Jake, how can it be my fault?’
Jake blew smoke across his desk. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have given me so much grief for getting that wee whore done over, then I wouldn’t have told my boys to lighten up when they were dealing with that fucker Prentice’s nutcase daughter.’
Foxy sighed. He had worried that Jake might pull something like this, but before he could reply, Jake carried on.
‘I mean, my boys actually saw that lassie with the reporter. They actually saw her in the car after they were in the cafe, and they saw her handing over something to the reporter.
What’s her name? That Gilmour bird. They should have fucking gone in there straight away and beat the shit out of the two of them. At least we would have the fucking material in front of us, instead of it sitting in the fucking office of the editor of the fucking Post. But no. My boys hung back. Then when they caught up with the bitch, she had some big fucking Lurch guy protecting her. Stabbed one of my boys, you know.’ He snorted. ‘He’ll fucking suffer for that – when we find him.’
Foxy tried to reason with him. ‘I know, Jake. That was bad, but we don’t know that Alison didn’t take a copy of the stuff. She might have had a copy somewhere else, so moving in and doing people over doesn’t mean we wouldn’t still be in the shit.’
Jake opened his drawer. He took out a small plastic bag with cocaine in it and emptied some of it carefully onto his desk. Foxy watched as he chopped two lines with his credit card. He snorted one line then sat back, sniffing and wiping his nose.
‘Foxy,’ he said. ‘We’re not in the shit, pal. You’re in the shit.’
Foxy suddenly felt weak. He was glad he was sitting down.
‘No, Jake.’ He was flustered. ‘What I mean is, that the letter Jack wrote talks about stuff we’ve done down the years. It mentions your name all through – money changing hands – it’s quite damning stuff.’
‘Fuck it.’ Jake snorted the other line of coke, then grinned. ‘It’s not as if people think I’m the parish priest. What the hell do I care if they say I’m a gangster? They’ve been saying it all my life. I don’t give a shite.’
Foxy insisted. ‘Yes, but if an investigation starts they’ll be all over you like a rash. Tax. VAT. Everything.’
Jake shook his head. ‘I know. But they’ll have to fucking find me first. And all my money. Hey, Foxy. You don’t think I’ve been daft enough to keep it in the post office, do you?’ He chuckled. ‘I’m one of the untouchables, pal. Un-fucking-touchable.’
Foxy sighed. He was getting nowhere. Coked up like this, there was no reasoning with Jake, he was just a psycho from the streets, only interested in protecting himself. Foxy had never been naive enough to think it would ever be any other way, if push came to shove, but he had never imagined either that everything in his life would fall apart the way it was at the moment. He could never have imagined that Jack Prentice would have a crisis of conscience and stick them all in before he topped himself. How do you make plans for that kind of crap? He had hoped Jake would be a bit more helpful. He should have known better.
‘So,’ Jake said, looking at his watch. ‘What do you want me to do, Foxy? I can rough the reporter up if you want. Christ, I can shoot her if you want. Fuck, I might even shoot her anyway, but it doesn’t look like it will stop anything. So what do you want?’
He didn’t know himself what he wanted. He had talked to Bill Mackie about what they would do if the story came out. They had even talked about disappearing . . .
‘So?’ Jake looked at his watch again. ‘Do you want me to get you a one way ticket to Bolivia?’ He smiled. ‘You could do a Lord Lucan, no sweat. But I’ll tell you this, Foxy. A guy like you won’t be able to hide anywhere for too long, so I think you can forget that.’ He stood up.
Foxy got to his feet, too. His legs felt shaky. He straightened up.
‘I don’t know, Jake. I don’t know what to do. That’s why I came to see you. We’re old friends. I thought you could help.’
Jake gave him a long look, and Foxy could see the smugness in his eyes. He stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray, and said, ‘I can get you out of the country, you and Bill, but I can’t make this go away. I’m well pissed off, Foxy. If I’d handled it my way, I’m sure this would never have got this far. There might have been a couple more stiffs, but not this much heat.’
Foxy said nothing as they walked towards the door.
‘Look, we’ll talk in the next couple of days,’ Jake said. ‘But when the shit hits the fan, Foxy, I won’t be here. That much I can promise you. Keep me informed, we’ll see what we can sort out.’ He opened the door and gave Foxy a friendly pat on the shoulder as he ushered him out.
Humiliated, and by a fucking wide boy who can hardly write his name! Gavin Fox felt very small as he walked along the corridor and took the backstairs lift to the exit, where Bill Mackie was waiting in his car in the sidestreet.
Jake watched from the window as Foxy came out of the building and onto the street. He shook his head. ‘What a tit,’ he said aloud. He knew that Foxy had no idea that two men were in a parked car fifty yards up the street, and one of them was taking pictures of him leaving the back door of the club.
If he had seen them, Foxy would have recognised DI Bob Fletcher of Internal Affairs, who had, in his inside jacket pocket, Mags Gillick’s mobile phone, completely intact, with the message from Tracy Eadie – the one she left the last night she was seen alive. He was also in possession of a brown envelope with a photograph that would incriminate Fox, Prentice and Mackie. It had been Jake’s parting gift to Fletcher – at a hastily arranged meeting yesterday – in return for the copper looking the other way while he got out of the country.
Jake saw Foxy get into the car, saw it drive off. Then he punched in a number on his mobile.
‘Rab?’ he said. ‘Get me on a flight to Spain tonight.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Everything was ready to roll. McGuire was strutting around the office, his sleeves rolled up. Nights like this were what you lived for, he told Rosie. It was already seven in the evening, and the plan was to run the Gavin Fox exposé in all of the editions of the newspaper.
The phone call to Rosie from DI Bob Fletcher, a trusted friend, had been a bolt from the blue in the morning.
‘Rosie,’ he’d said. ‘Listen. You should know that I have, in my hot little hand, the mobile phone of one Mags Gillick, deceased. There’s a message from Tracy Eadie. We believe it’s her final phone call. You know if I’m telling you this, then it’s a hundred per cent true.’
‘Christ almighty, Bob,’ was all she could say.
‘Don’t ask any questions, Rosie. And this phone call never happened. In the next twenty-four hours we will be all over this. Fox is finished. You have your scoop.’
‘Thanks, Bob,’ Rosie said.
‘And Rosie: in about twenty minutes someone will arrive at the front door of your office and hand you an envelope. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the photograph inside.’
‘Thanks, Bob.’ The line clicked off.
Her friendship with Bob Fletcher went back to the days when he was a uniformed desk sergeant and she was a young reporter. Their connection had lasted as he rose through the ranks. She knew there had been bad blood between Fletcher and Fox ever since the murder inquiry against one of Cox’s boys, Dick Hamilton, had collapsed. Crucial evidence had gone missing from the police station where Fletcher had been working as a detective on the case, and Fox had been a DI. He had always suspected it was Foxy who’d made it disappear, but he knew it could never be proved.
When the envelope arrived Rosie tore it open, then rushed straight into McGuire’s office. She told him that Fletcher had confirmed the message left by Tracy Eadie on Mags’s mobile phone.
‘Oh, fuck, Rosie! Holy shit! This is boots and saddles time. We were hanging them out to dry anyway with the confession and the one picture we had, but you know what the lawyers are like. Now we can just throw everything at this. Everything.’ He buzzed Marion to get the lawyers in.
‘It’s down to you, Rosie. I know you can’t tell me where you got the picture or the information, but if you have any doubt about your source, then tell me now.’
‘No doubts, Mick. None. You have to trust me on that.’ Rosie’s stomach tweaked. The impact of getting this wrong didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Then let’s do it.’
McGuire rubbed his hands as he looked down at the copies of all photographs he now had, scattered on the rough sketch page layout on his desk. The photograph Alison had given them was good because it placed Jake
Cox on Fox’s boat. But the picture Fletcher had sent Rosie showed Fox, Prentice and Mackie with hookers.
‘Game on,’ McGuire said.
Later, in McGuire’s office, Tommy Hanlon sat sipping coffee as Rosie checked over the page proofs for the first day’s exposure of the investigation. They looked fantastic. She could feel adrenaline pumping as she looked at the picture of Fox, with a big grin on his face, taking up most of the front page. The headline screamed ‘TOP COPS’ COKE AND TEEN HOOKER SHAME: World Exclusive by Rosie Gilmour’. The story was based on the Jack Prentice confession that Tracy Eadie died on Fox’s boat, and it told how they had dumped her body in the water. Another headline blazed ‘THE HEAD OF CID AND THE GODFATHER’. Above was a picture of Foxy on his boat with his arm around Jake Cox. The inside story tracked Gavin Fox’s career and gave a full account of a lifetime of corruption in the police. Another inside page gave details of the taped conversation of Mags Gillick talking to Rosie, of her claims that she had been with the three policemen on Fox’s boat several times, and how it was she who organised for Tracy Eadie to go there the night she died. There was even a transcript of the frantic final mobile message Rosie had taped from Mags’s phone that day they had met in the cafe.
McGuire was preparing to go on radio to talk about their exposé – revelations that would strike at the very heart of the establishment. On one of the inside pages was the facsimile text of Jack Prentice’s suicide letter, and there was a rogue’s gallery of colour pictures of Fox, Mackie and Prentice with prostitutes. The caption cheekily asked, ‘Are you these girls? Contact us at the Post.’
‘You’re outrageous, McGuire.’ Rosie laughed.