by Anna Smith
‘Okay, I understand. But can we try to get in touch with the reporter or wait for later? Maybe she will come.’
‘No. I want to go this morning. We have to.’
*
Rosie had come to McGuire’s office straight from the West End, where she’d been trying to dig up some background on the missing music teacher. Neighbours knew nothing about him, but were shocked that his name had been linked with Thomas Boag. She’d left the street, where he’d lived in an end-of-terrace tenement flat for the past thirty years, and headed to Finnieston where she met with her rent-boy contact. He’d given her more than enough information for a splash tomorrow. He said he’d been with the teacher on two occasions, and remembered him as a gentle, quiet man who took him to his flat and cooked him supper. He felt the teacher was just lonely. The problem Rosie had now was how much they could use in the newspaper, given that Boag was technically innocent til proven guilty, and the teacher was going to be a witness in a future criminal trial, if he was found alive.
*
‘Well, the police have released a statement saying that he’s missing, so surely to Christ we can push the envelope a bit further?’ McGuire said.
‘I hope so, because it’s good stuff from the rent boy. We won’t be able to use a lot of it – it’s only his word. We’ll need to talk to Hanlon.’
As she said it, Rosie’s mobile rang and she picked it up. It was Adrian.
‘Rosie. Can you talk?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is Tadi with you?’
‘No. I’m in the office.’
‘He’s gone.’
‘What? How? How can he be gone? Have you been to the flat?’
‘No. But my friend went out for an hour this morning and when they got back he was gone. It must have been recent, because he said that the cooker was still warm. But there is no sign of them in the flat.’
‘Oh, Christ almighty!’ Rosie put a hand across her forehead. ‘I should have had somebody with them all the time.’
‘But my friend was there. He just didn’t think it was a problem to leave them for a couple of hours because they were asleep when he left.’
Rosie thought for a moment. ‘I have to go, Adrian. I’m with the editor. I’ll call you in a while.’
McGuire looked at her. ‘What’s up?’
‘The Kosovan – Tadi. He’s disappeared.’
‘Ah fuck! How?’
‘He was in a flat with a Bosnian couple – everything was fine when I left yesterday. I was going up to see him shortly. But something must have happened.’
There was a knock at the door of the editor’s office, and Declan put his head around.
‘Sorry to butt in, folks, but, Rosie, this is important. Have you seen the news?’
‘What news?’
‘Cops have issued a statement saying they’re anxious to speak to a farmhand who has gone missing. A Kosovan man. They’ve issued a description. I’m thinking it’s your man.’
Rosie slumped back.
‘Oh, Christ! You’re kidding, Dec. How the hell did that happen? How can they suddenly be looking for Tadi? They don’t know anything. I need to talk to my cop pal.’
‘Okay,’ Declan said. ‘I’ll get on to one of my mates too. See what the score is.’
‘Fucking hell, Gilmour. What is this Kosovan playing at? He’s done a runner? I have to tell you, there are alarm bells ringing here. I mean, think about it. He’s suddenly gone missing, just as you were going to talk him into going to the police to tell his story. A story that involves bodies being dug up and a robbery of an old couple. Are you sure this guy is as innocent as he says he is?’
‘Come on, Mick.’
‘I’m serious. And if it looks suspicious to me, it will look a lot worse to the cops. They’ve got nobody to finger on this, and there’s suddenly a missing foreigner who was working in the area.’
‘To me that seems all too convenient. There’s something rotten at work here, I’m telling you.’ Rosie stood up. ‘I need to get my detective friend. See what’s going on. But I don’t like the sound of it.’
‘Neither do I. But I’m seeing it from both sides here – unlike you.’
Rosie looked at him for a long moment. ‘I’m not naive, Mick. I know what you’re thinking – that I know very little about this guy apart from what he’s told me. But my instinct tells me this is an innocent man, bullied and beaten beyond belief. I totally believe him. Someone is manipulating this, I’m sure.’
‘Well, you’d better go and find out some facts, then. I mean, where the fuck has this guy gone to? And why go so quickly? Why not call you?’
‘He doesn’t have a phone, and there’s no phone in the flat. That’s why I was going up now. It’s my fault. I should have left a mobile or got Adrian over there earlier.’ She paused. ‘Maybe he saw the news or found out that the cops were looking for him and he just freaked out.’
McGuire shrugged.
‘Listen. I trust your judgement. I think the guy is innocent too, but I want to know more. What makes an innocent man run?’
‘The prospect of getting nailed for something he didn’t do. That’s what makes innocent people run.’
‘Well. Go and find him, Gilmour – and quick.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rosie drove towards London Road, cursing herself for the questions she hadn’t asked Tadi. When he’d told her that he’d stayed at the home of a priest in the East End of Glasgow, she should have asked the name there and then. It was the basics of reporting – make sure you get everything possible in the first visit, because often you only get one shot. So many times in her career this had proved to be good advice. You wrung all the information out before you let them out of your sight. But she’d been so caught up in Tadi’s disturbing story that she’d allowed the minutiae of it to somehow get lost in her list of questions. Stupid. If she knew what Catholic church it was she’d have gone straight there – whether she got through the door or not was another story.
She did have one option. She had to go back to the old priest from her childhood, Father Dunnachie. She’d returned there a couple of years ago after a very long absence, and the old priest had helped her find her mother’s grave on a damp winter’s day. She’d been given a pauper’s burial, but there had been a single handmade cross stuck in the earth to mark the spot. It was only months later, when Rosie’s father – who had more or less abandoned her and her mother – suddenly came back into her life, that she realised that it was him who had planted the cross there all those years ago. Going back to see the priest at the church where she used to sit at mass with her mother, where she made her first Holy Communion, took her back down a dark road.
Even now, just driving towards the area, knowing she was going to the old priest to ask for help, all the thoughts came flooding back. The lonely nights and the sadness of her mother pining for the man she loved but who spent a lifetime on the merchant ships, travelling the world, almost always absent from their lives. Then the phone ringing that morning when she’d stood in the hallway, confronted by her mother’s body hanging from the staircase. She would never escape that image, no matter how much she pushed it away. It had haunted her dreams all her life, and here she was again, pulling up her car at the old church driveway, knowing this would be sure to feature in her next nightmare.
It was just gone ten thirty, and a handful of congregation were leaving morning mass – the usual collection of pensioners and devout Catholics, who had ridden the storm of sexual abuse scandals that had driven so many of the flock away, in bitterness and anger at the betrayal. Rosie had walked away long before that. But sometimes she would come back to the comfort and familiarity of this chapel and sit in silence, remembering.
She went around to the chapel house and rang the bell, knowing the priest would be able to come in through the sacristy door to his house without going outside. No answer. She rang again and waited. She stood listening to the birdsong in the high sycamore trees,
and recalled climbing up there as a little girl for a dare, after her friends coaxed her. The thought made her smile. She turned around when she heard the door open, and Father Dunnachie stood, his blue eyes smiling in the face that had always shown her nothing but kindness.
‘Ah, Rosie Gilmour! Look at you! Right here on my doorstep – like an apparition,’ he joked in his gentle Irish brogue.
‘Hello, Father.’ Rosie smiled, suppressing the urge to throw her arms around him.
She could read his face, and she knew he too was remembering the old days. He touched her arm.
‘Come on in, Rosie. You look tired.’ He looked up at the sunshine. ‘In fact, don’t come in. Let’s have a walk in the garden. Take some sun while we can. You’ll have a cup of tea?’
‘I wouldn’t say no, Father. Black, please, no sugar. As long as it’s no bother.’
‘Not at all. Never a bother for me if you turn up on my doorstep. You’re always welcome here. Hold on a moment.’
He turned and went in to the hall, and she could hear him talking to his housekeeper, asking her to bring some tea out to the garden. He came back out of the door and took her arm.
‘Come on, Rosie. I’ll show you my horticultural skills that keep me sane in this mad, mad world we live in.’
They walked along the path and through a waist-high hedgerow towards a lawn that looked as though you could play bowls on it. Pink and purple flowers hung on the rhododendrons.
‘It’s beautiful. So colourful and peaceful, especially lovely on a day like this.’
‘You should always take time to smell the flowers, Rosie.’
‘I wish.’ Rosie smiled.
‘I know you never do, though. As I’ve said to you before, you must take time for yourself. I follow your work and you don’t half rattle some cages. I worry about you.’ He paused. ‘And today, I can see worry in your eyes.’ He took her hand in his. ‘So tell me. What brings you here? Are you getting married?’ His eyes were full of mischief.
‘Er . . . no, Father. Afraid not. I don’t think I’d be very good at that.’
‘You never know til you try.’
‘Well, put it this way, it’s not high up on my list of priorities.’
He sighed. ‘Who knows? You might be right about that. So. What’s going on with you?’
Rosie picked at her fingernails.
‘I’m trying to find someone, Father. A family I’m helping. A Kosovan man.’
Rosie watched the priest’s face for any sign that he knew anything. She saw a flicker in his eyes. He said nothing.
She continued. ‘A Kosovan man, who I met a few days ago, told me that a priest down here took him and his wife and child in when he had failed to present himself at the Refugee Council.’
The priest still said nothing.
‘You know about him?’
‘Why are you looking for him? Because he’s illegal? Sure the country’s full of illegals, working all over the shop.’
‘So you do know who I’m talking about?’ Rosie gave him a wry smile.
‘I do, yes.’
‘Well, the thing is, now he’s in serious trouble. He’s already told me his story of what happened to him. I believe him. But now the police are looking for him in connection with those dead bodies dug up in the field at Lennoxtown. I know he’s got nothing to do with it. Have you seen the news this morning?’
‘No, I haven’t. But tell me.’
‘This man, Tadi. He’s in serious trouble. The police want to talk to him. After he left the priest’s house, he was being held a prisoner with a family out in Lennoxtown. A traveller family, settled travellers, but gangsters. They abused and beat him, and . . .’ She stopped. ‘Look, I could tell you a whole lot more, but I don’t have a lot of time here, Father. Tadi doesn’t have a lot of time. I had put him up in a friend’s house but he’s done a runner. The only thing he told me at the beginning was about some old priest down in the East End.’ She looked at him. ‘I don’t suppose it was you?’
He smiled, as he sipped his tea.
‘No, it wasn’t, but I know who it is. I know who you’re talking about.’
‘Great. Can you get me to him? I think maybe he’s gone back to the priest. Do you know if he has?’
‘No I don’t. I can find out very quickly, but what are you going to do with him?’
‘He needs to talk to the police, before they find him. Because if they find him, then it might be too late. He could get banged up while they investigate. He has to talk to them.’
‘You mean turn himself in?’
‘Kind of. But I don’t believe he’s guilty of anything. But running . . . Well, you know how it looks.’
He nodded, clasped his hands over his paunch.
‘What do you think will happen if he talks to the police?’
‘I honestly can’t say. But it’s a whole lot better than them bursting down doors if they track him to an address. They’ve already put out a description of a man they want to interview, and it doesn’t look good if he keeps on running.’
‘I see.’ He sighed slowly. ‘It’s very tricky indeed, if he is where I think he is.’
‘Can you find out? Please, Father?’
He said nothing for a long moment, then stood up.
‘You drink your tea while I go in and make a phone call.’
*
Rosie drove Father Dunnachie the short distance to St Kilda’s church. They pulled into the driveway and got out of the car.
‘I’m really grateful you’re helping me like this, Father.’
The priest looked at her and touched her arm.
‘I understand, Rosie. I know you well, and I think you want to do the right thing by this family. I think you are right, that they need to not hide themselves away here, as it looks suspicious. But it may be difficult to convince them. It was a hard enough job convincing Flaherty to let you near them. So you’ll have to be at your most charming to get over this doorstep.’
Rosie smiled, feeling a little punch of adrenalin. She couldn’t afford to lose this. She braced herself as Father Dunnachie pushed the doorbell. After a few seconds the door opened and a short, grey-haired woman appeared, wiping her hands on her apron.
‘Hello, Father,’ she beamed. ‘Father Flaherty is expecting you. Come in.’ She smiled at Rosie who smiled her hello back.
The polished hall smelled like all the parish houses she’d ever been in. Pristine, shining and solid. There was an aroma of something baking in the kitchen. It smelled like apples and it filled the house with a warm, welcoming atmosphere.
‘I’m baking apple crumble for dessert today, Father, if you’re staying for lunch.’
‘Oh, I’d love to, Mary, but I’ve a mountain of things to do.’
‘I’ll make you a wee bowl to take away then,’ she said.
They passed the kitchen, and Father Dunnachie knocked on the door at the end of the hallway. It opened, and a big burly figure appeared, a ruddy complexion topped off by a shock of black and silver wavy hair. He looked like he’d just walked off a mountain, after a bracing hike.
‘Hello, Pat. Howsit going? Come in.’ He glanced at Rosie, but it wasn’t the friendliest of smiles.
‘And this will be Her Majesty’s press, no doubt,’ he said.
‘Not quite.’ Rosie stood her ground in the face of his sarcasm. She’d seen the way priests manipulated people with their power all her life, and she was never deferential just because of a dog collar. She stretched out her hand.
‘Rosie Gilmour, Father. How you doing?’
‘I’m well enough, Rosie. Looking after these lovely people.’
He opened the door and they stepped in. Rosie immediately saw Tadi, standing by the window, looking nervous. Ava looked at her and then away, the same sheepish expression in her eyes from before. The little boy was scribbling with some crayons and paper on the floor, unaware of the drama engulfing his family.
‘Tadi. Ava.’ Rosie crossed the room towards them. ‘Ho
w are you? Look. I know you are frightened, and that’s why you ran away. But we must talk.’
Tadi nodded and swallowed. She could see the Adam’s apple move in his thin neck, his face etched with worry. Rosie turned to the priests who were standing watching. She needed to be alone with Tadi. This was not a decision to be made by a committee, and she had the feeling the big priest was less than onside.
‘Do you mind if I have some time alone with Tadi and Ava? I need to let them know some things.’
The priest seemed surprised and glanced at Tadi, then at Father Dunnachie who went towards the door.
‘Are you okay with that, Tadi?’ Father Flaherty asked.
‘Yes,’ Tadi said softly.
The big priest looked a little crestfallen, but he opened the door, letting Father Dunnachie out first. Then he looked over his shoulder.
‘I’m next door if you need me.’
Rosie didn’t look in his direction. She waited a moment until the door had closed, then she spoke to Tadi.
‘Tadi, Ava, can you sit for a moment. Please?’ She motioned them to the sofa, and sat opposite on an armchair by the fireplace.
Rosie let the silence hang for a few moments, waiting to see if Tadi would speak. He did.
‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I was so frightened. I saw the news. The police are looking for me. I . . . I just ran away. I’m sorry. You have been kind.’
‘Please, Tadi,’ Rosie spread her hands. ‘Don’t apologise to me. It’s not necessary. I know what you must be feeling and how frightened you are. I totally understand you running away. I should have stayed with you.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘But, you must know that you cannot live like this for ever. You cannot keep running. It’s not right.’
Tadi looked at the floor, then his eyes rested on Jetmir.
‘Nothing is right, Rosie. It will never be right because of what I did. How can I protect my child, my wife? I can do nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘I just don’t know what to do . . .’ His voice trailed off.
There was no other way to say this, Rosie thought, so just say it.