by Anna Smith
‘Yeah,’ Rosie said. ‘Evidence in a Spanish investigation. We need to speak to the lawyers and get the lowdown on how much we can use in this country. But even if we don’t use the pictures, we can still tell the story, say it was from insiders who cannot be named but who witnessed everything. From what I see here, I can get a colour piece out of Bella’s final moments. Not suggesting anything untoward, just that these are the last pictures of her alive.’
‘Great! I fucking love it when this happens, Gilmour. Tell your man I’m very pleased with him. And get Tom Hanlon on the phone.’
Tom was the Post’s hotshot lawyer, whom Rosie regularly wrestled to the floor when she was fighting to get her more explosive stories into the paper.
‘But, Mick,’ Rosie said, ‘We have to work out the impact of using this story at this point. It’s a fantastic line and leaves the rest of the media in our wake, but I don’t want to blow it too early. There might be even better ones to come, maybe even more pictures. I have to talk to José later. He’s keeping his ear to the ground on the police investigation. If anyone can pick up a line, it’s him.’
McGuire nodded at the picture editor, signalling that he wanted to talk to Rosie alone. Bob left the room, saying he’d have a look at what he could do with the images.
Rosie’s mobile rang on McGuire’s desk and she picked it up. It was Mitch.
‘I have to take this, Mick.’ She walked away from McGuire’s desk towards the window and put the phone to her ear. ‘Mitch? You there? It’s Rosie.’
Silence.
Christ! Rosie thought. He’ll be spaced out somewhere. ‘Mitch. Are you there? Talk to me.’
‘Rosie. Aye. It’s me, Mitch.’
She was relieved to hear his voice, even if it was thick and slurring. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Aye, man. No’ bad. Listen, Rosie. Can you come and meet us?’
A little punch of excitement in her gut. He had said ‘us’. ‘You found Dan?’
‘Aye. I got him. He’s not very well and stuff. But he’s all right. I told him about you.’
‘Sure. Just tell me where and I’ll come right now. Do you want me to pick you up?’
Rosie didn’t want to hear the details of what Mitch had told Dan and how he’d managed to get him to agree to see her. She wanted to be off the phone and out to meet them.
‘Aye, well, maybe you could come and get us. It’s pishing rain and we’d need to walk to the town.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Down in the Barrowfield.’
Rosie grimaced. Barrowfield, a run-down clutch of council houses, was deepest heroin territory. It wasn’t the kind of place you just wandered into. Delivery men had stopped going there months ago, and GPs refused to do house calls, fearing for their safety. Rosie pushed away the memory of her last visit: she’d had to climb out of a bedroom window and make a run for it through the back gardens after some nutcase had held her prisoner, with a slavering Rottweiler watching her every move.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What’s the address?’
She could hear mumbling in the background. Mitch probably didn’t even know what bloody house he was in.
‘Number thirty-six. Text me when you’re nearly here.’
‘Okay. I’ll be there shortly. Is Dan with you?’
‘Aye. He’s standing right here. By the way, if anybody asks, you’re my cousin, right?’
‘Fine. See you in fifteen minutes. Wait for me.’
‘Aye, right. We’re waiting.’
The line went dead.
Rosie took a long breath and let it out slowly, then turned to McGuire, who was staring at her, intrigued. ‘Mick,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘Aw, fuck! I hate it when you say that, Gilmour. What’s happened?’
‘Probably the biggest story we’ve seen in a very long time – if it turns out to be true.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I went to see this guy the other day. He’d phoned in. A junkie. He said he had information about Bella, and wanted to meet.’
‘How much dosh did you have to part with?’
‘Nothing,’ Rosie lied. ‘Just listen. It gets better. I met this guy – his name’s Mitch – in a cafe off London Road. The usual suspect, junked-up, skinny as a rat, but he only goes and tells me that Bella Mason has a brother.’
McGuire leaped to his feet as though he’d been stung. ‘Yeah, right! A brother?’
‘So this guy says. The brother’s a junkie too. Homeless and living rough here. His name is Dan Mason.’
‘Christ almighty, Rosie! Who was that on the phone?’
‘That was Mitch. He hadn’t seen Dan for a few days, but I told him to go looking for him, and he has.’ Rosie headed for the door. ‘He’s with him now, so I’m going to pick them up.’
‘Pick them up? Where are they?’
‘Barrowfield.’
‘Fuck’s sake. You need someone with you.’
‘I’ll take Matt. We can’t go in mob-handed and frighten them off. I have to go, Mick.’ Rosie was almost out of the door.
‘Phone me as soon as you’re out of there. Do you hear me?’
‘Yeah, I hear you.’
By the time she answered she was well out of McGuire’s earshot and heading for the stairs.
*
Rosie gazed out of the window as Matt pulled off London Road and into the shambles that was Barrowfield housing scheme. In the shadow of the Celtic football stadium, it stood out like a rotting tooth. The streets were deserted, and in every one of the grim grey buildings, at least three of the flats were boarded up with steel. A couple of abandoned cars were propped up on bricks, the wheels having vanished long ago. As they drove into the street, Rosie sent a text to Mitch. He didn’t answer, so Matt pulled up at the next block from number thirty-six and waited.
Rosie spotted Mitch standing outside the house, with a smaller skinny figure. ‘That’s my man there.’
‘He certainly looks the part.’
Matt drove towards him and Mitch peered into the car. ‘Who’s this?’ he said, suspicious. The guy with him was shivering.
‘It’s okay, Mitch. He works with me. Don’t worry. Just get in and we’ll go for breakfast.’
They got into the car. Matt glanced at Rosie and pinched his nose. The lads smelt like they hadn’t changed their clothes in a week. Rosie turned to them as Matt reversed and headed out of the scheme.
‘This is Dan,’ Mitch said.
‘Dan.’ She stretched across to the back seat and held his cold clammy hand a second longer than she needed to. ‘I’m Rosie Gilmour. You all right?’
He looked no more than sixteen or seventeen, but there was nothing of carefree youth in his haunted expression. He nodded, his eyes downcast, and said nothing.
‘He’s a bit worried,’ Mitch said. He turned to Dan. ‘It’s all right, pal. You’ll be fine.’
‘Don’t worry, Dan.’ Rosie spoke softly. He looked up and she caught the striking green eyes, fringed with long lashes. Then she said brightly, ‘You guys look like you need a good breakfast.’
‘We had a wee joint.’ Mitch also seemed to want to lighten things.
‘I mean a real breakfast.’ Rosie smiled at Dan, hoping for a response. His eyes softened and his lips twitched a little. It was as good as it was going to get for now. Rosie directed Matt to the cafe. ‘They do the best Coca-Cola iced drinks in Glasgow.’ she flipped down the sun visor and looked at Mitch.
When they pulled up outside, Rosie told Matt it was best if she went in alone with the two lads. If there was a chance that Dan was going to talk, he might respond better if it was just her. Matt was happy to give the greasy spoon a miss, and said he’d hang handy in the hope of a picture.
‘He looks a bit like her,’ he whispered to Rosie, as the boys got out of the car. ‘Like Bella, but a half-starved version. I can definitely see a resemblance – the eyes.’
Rosie couldn’t help but agree, though she didn’t
want to think that far ahead. Find the truth, an old news editor once told her, not what you want the story to be. She’d never forgotten it as she’d chased down stories as a young reporter.
*
Inside the cafe, Rosie walked to the furthest booth, tucked into the corner, and slid in. Mitch and Dan sat opposite. It was mid-morning and the place was empty, apart from an old man: he looked as though he’d been turfed out of the hostel round the corner. Two men in working boots and jeans were at the counter. Dan shivered as he loosened his padded jacket and took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He handed one to Mitch, and Rosie waited while they lit up.
She was about to speak when suddenly Dan started to cough. She frowned and glanced at Mitch as Dan’s face went crimson, coughing so deep in his chest he was on the verge of passing out. ‘Christ! What’s wrong? Are you sick, Dan?’
He managed to get his breath back, eyes watering, beads of sweat appearing at his hairline where his fringe parted at the side. He nodded. ‘Had this cough for over a week now. Sweating and cold all the time.’ He sniffed and stubbed out the cigarette.
‘He coughs up blood,’ Mitch added.
Dan glared at him as though it were a betrayal, but Mitch shrugged. ‘I’m just sayin’, man. You need to see a doctor. You need to get something for that. Maybe you’ve got fucking pneumonia.’
‘Aye, with a bit of luck.’
Rosie let his words hang for a few beats, but she had to suppress the urge to reach across and touch his face, feel the heat of his forehead. In fact she wanted to do more than that. She couldn’t watch a kid suffering, whether it was in some far-flung refugee camp or some teenage junkie shivering in a Glasgow street, without wanting to take them home and make their lives better. As if she could. It was a ridiculous notion, and what McGuire called her ‘bleeding heart’ had landed her in trouble more times than she could count. But wading through other people’s misery most of her working life hadn’t left her immune to it. Here she was, staring at this kid, because although Mitch had told her he was twenty-one, he was still just a kid, too young to be so screwed up. Before Dan had uttered a word about himself, she could tell by looking at him, that he was broken.
‘Mitch is right, Dan,’ Rosie said quietly. ‘You need to see a doctor. Today.’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘I’ll sort that, don’t worry. After we leave here.’ She took a breath. ‘Right, let’s get something to eat.’
The young ponytailed waitress came shuffling across, chewing gum, and looked at the two junkies with mild disgust.
‘Iced drink for me,’ Mitch said.
‘Me too,’ Dan added.
‘Eat something as well, guys. Come on. Humour me.’ Rosie smiled at them. ‘Don’t make me sit here and eat a cheese toastie all by myself.’
‘Aye, well, get me a sausage roll then, and tea.’
‘Me too,’ Dan said.
He looked slightly more relaxed and slipped off his jacket. Rosie could see the hollow of his shoulders and his ribs through the long sleeved T-shirt. She watched him, trying to pick her words. She might as well get to the point.
‘Dan.’ She glanced at Mitch. ‘You know Mitch talked to me about you being Bella Mason’s brother.’
Dan nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s right. Bella’s – well, she was – my sister.’
He looked down at the table and clasped his hands together tightly, the knuckles white.
‘It’s never been mentioned before, Dan. In any of the interviews with Bella, she never mentioned you.’
‘I know. Nobody knows about it. Just me and her.’ His lips tightened. ‘Well, maybe a couple of people. But they’ll just deny it.’
‘Really? Why would they do that?’
The iced drinks arrived and the waitress put them on the table. Dan took a long drink, his Adam’s apple slipping up and down his skinny neck. He sniffed. ‘They just would. I don’t have my birth certificate. Lost it years ago. But nobody knows anything about Bella. All that shite in the magazines, stuff about her being discovered in some cafe as a thirteen-year-old, is crap. That’s not what happened. I know what happened. I was there.’
‘Where, Dan?’
‘In the home. The children’s home. Here in Glasgow.’ He suddenly stopped and bit his lip, his face reddening. ‘I fucking know everything, what they did to us. Perverts.’ He shook his head. ‘Not just me and Bella. Fucking loads of weans.’
Rosie’s heart sank. What she was hearing, if it was genuine, was massive. But she’d heard similar tales before, from Mags Gillick’s little girl and her friend. The Post had exposed the men behind it, but not all the perpetrators, not the ones at the top because they were never fully unmasked for what they were. One of the High Court judges who was implicated in a child-abuse ring simply stood down to avoid publicity and an agreement was reached with the Post not to publish his involvement. Even now, years later, it sickened Rosie. And now this.
‘Which home?’
‘Eastwood Park. It’s closed now.’ Dan sipped some more of his drink as the waitress came over with the rest of their order.
Rosie reached across and touched his hand. ‘I’ve written about that before, Dan. Not Eastwood Park, a different home. So I know these things went on. It was hard for people to believe, but it happened.’
‘Too right it did.’
There was a lot to do here, Rosie thought. A whole life story to tell. She’d been surprised that Dan had come straight to the point so quickly, and she could imagine McGuire saying that what she had here were two hopeless heroin addicts selling a story on the back of a model’s death. Prove it, he’d say. And it had better be solid proof – every line of it.
‘When did you last see Bella?’ Rosie asked, just to find out what Dan would say and to watch his face for any signs of a fairy story than to find out the answer, though nothing about him so far had made her think he was lying.
‘Two months ago. She came to see me for my birthday. Well, it was a couple of days after my actual birthday. She came up to Glasgow and was staying in the hotel.’
‘Which one?’
‘That one up Great Western Road. Devonshire Gardens or something. Dead posh. She had a suite and everything.’
Rosie nodded. This at least was checkable. ‘Okay, Dan. I want you to tell me about that visit. But before we get there, I think it’s best if we start at the beginning. How do you feel about that? The beginning of you and Bella. Where you were born. What happened to your parents. Can you talk to me about that?’
Dan pushed away the empty glass and lifted the mug of tea. He glanced at Mitch.
‘I think you should talk to her, man,’ Mitch said. ‘You need to. You’ll not be right till this all comes out in the open.’
Dan wrung his hands. ‘I don’t know. I’m nervous. Fucking messed up, you know, with the heroin and stuff. I’ve been smoking heroin for the past four years. My life’s a mess.’
Rosie listened patiently. He was rattling a little, and she knew she hadn’t long before the pair of them would need to top up with something. She had to get to the start of the story.
‘Dan, I’m sure Mitch told you that I’m working on this story about Bella. There’s something not right about how she died. It’s being dismissed as suicide, but why would a young, successful, beautiful girl want to kill herself? I don’t believe it, but I can’t do anything about it unless I can really look into Bella’s life. If something bad happened, as you’re hinting, I want to look at it and see if that’s the reason she could have taken her life. But I need to know the facts of her early life to build up a picture.’
‘Bella didn’t kill herself. No way! That’s not why she died.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I was with her in Glasgow that time, and she talked to me about going to the police. She said she’d already told Mervyn Bates. He was her mentor – well, actually her manager. They’d fallen out over it. She said she was going to the police about everything. The drugs, the
abuse. Everything. When she came to see me, that was what we talked about. No way did Bella want to die. She wanted to tell the police everything. Me and her. We were going to do it together. But they stopped us.’ Tears came to his eyes and he covered his face with his hands. Mitch put an arm around his shoulders.
Rosie watched, her tape recorder on. She needed to get him in some kind of order with this. He was making allegations, but not telling her any real details. ‘Dan,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘Let’s just take a moment here. Eat something and have some tea. Do you want to talk to me about the whole story? I can look into this harder than anyone. Nobody will stop me, I can promise you that. And nobody will get to you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ll sort it. I promise.’
‘I want to do something about it. For Bella.’
‘Then take your time and start at the beginning.’
He nodded and wiped away his tears.
Chapter Nine
Nothing had prepared Millie for this. Nothing could have. To be completely powerless to fight back, to scream at the injustice of it, to have any choices taken away from you. She felt like a prisoner, and she wasn’t even there yet. She carefully folded the stiff blue notepaper – thank God she still had her handbag with some stationery inside – put it into the envelope, which she sealed, and addressed it to Bridget, the Irish nurse. She didn’t care who knew now. She had nothing left to lose.
The door opened and Nurse Bridget came in, carrying a cup of tea. ‘Thought you might like a cuppa, Millie.’ She smiled warmly and put it on the bedside cupboard.
‘I’d kill for some gin,’ Millie wanted to say, but instead she thanked her. The painkillers took the edge off the craving, but if she could get her hands on a bottle of gin, she’d down the whole lot just to blot out today. The nurse fussed around the room, tidying everything away, opening the window a little.
Millie glanced out at the driving rain, and looked at her small suitcase in the corner, all packed and ready to go. They were taking her to a private clinic in the Sussex countryside, she had been told by the psychologist who had visited her yesterday. It was for the best, and she needn’t be afraid. In a few months’ time, if all went well and she responded to the therapy, she could go home. They aimed to give her the tools to cope with her condition, the shrink had told her.