The Quiet Ones

by Theresa Talbot

  ‘Oonagh, d’you just get up in the morning and plan to totally piss people off?’

  ‘I knew you’d see sense. Listen, don’t tell Sophie that I’m chipping in some of the money.’ She was halfway out of the door, then popped her head back into the room. ‘You’ll need to invent some expenses grant.’

  She didn’t wait for an answer. She had more things to worry about and only had a matter of days to knock this programme into shape. Alan might have agreed to get it on air, but she reckoned he’d make her jump through a few hoops first.

  48

  Oonagh slipped the car into first gear and followed the private cab as it left Houston and then joined the M8 near Paisley, heading east. Her initial thoughts were that it was heading for the airport, but it passed junction twenty-eight and continued on to the south side of Glasgow, veering off at just past Plantation. Factories and industrial units, some long deserted, flanked both sides of the motorway. This stretch of land south of the river had once belonged to a wealthy banker who’d owned sugar and cotton plantations in the West Indies; he’d decided to rename the entire area Plantation to advertise his success. Some believed it had seen better days; Oonagh struggled to regard Glasgow’s link to the slave trade as such. Enormous canvas backdrops covered some of the tired buildings informing every driver that there was indeed office space to rent inside.

  Rain smeared the windscreen and cast a grey light over the city. Oonagh kept a safe distance from the cab she was following; it was unlikely her car would be recognised, but, just to be on the safe side, she allowed two more vehicles to nudge in front as the Uber driver took a right turn at the roundabout and then doubled back onto the motorway, taking the slip road onto the southbound M77. She had no doubt now where it was going.

  Ash had called her earlier that morning. At first she thought she’d forgotten to pay him, but his voice had an unfamiliar sense of urgency. They’d agreed to meet again at the same tea house as before; he’d arrived before her and jumped up as soon as she entered.

  ‘What’s the emergency?’ she’d asked.

  He’d been wearing the same green cords as last time and was tugging at the sleeves of his red anorak, wriggling his shoulders free from it as she’d leaned over to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

  ‘I didn’t realise at first…’ He’d been even more animated than usual; bouncing his right heel off the floor, which had been really annoying. ‘You know when you asked me to look over these accounts, I’d never heard of Harry Nugent.’

  Oonagh had nodded; she could well believe it. Over the years she’d come to realise that Ash could recite the back catalogues and lyrics of every Japanese jazz album ever produced, or so it seemed, but he’d never heard of the Spice Girls, EastEnders or Frank Sinatra. It had come as no surprise that the name Harry Nugent would have sparked the same vacant expression and lack of interest.

  ‘But you have now?’ Oonagh had replied. ‘And that’s important because?’

  Ash had looked round, apparently to ensure no one was listening, but apart from a woman inhaling the scent of her tea before each sip and a frazzled looking hipster desperately trying to ignore her small child tugging at her sleeve, there had been no one close by to care. ‘He’s been killed,’ Ash had said in an exaggerated hushed tone. ‘D’you know that?’

  ‘Yes, Ash.’ Oonagh had struggled to suppress a smile. ‘Yes, Ash, I do.’

  A guy sitting at the back of the room had got up to leave. He’d looked out of place in the tea house and weaved his way through the tables, deliberately slowing down as he passed. ‘You’ll be going home soon.’ The comment had been directed at Ash.

  ‘You our Uber driver, then?’ Ash had looked him straight in the eye, not missing a beat. It was only then that Oonagh had seen his Make Britain Great Again badge. He’d shaken his head in apparent disgust, then stormed out of the door.

  If the comment had bothered Ash, he hadn’t let on. But he’d still worn that worried expression that puckered the skin on his forehead. Oonagh had leaned across and patted his thigh. ‘Anyway,’ he’d added, getting back on track, ‘I thought I’d have another look.’ He’d sat back and drummed his fingers on his thigh. ‘And was somewhat surprised by something.’

  ‘Oh?’

  From what looked like nowhere he’d produced a mini laptop. Oonagh had been impressed; it was a decent piece of kit, tiny screen, portable enough to slip inside his jacket, and looked good too. She could only wonder in amazement as to what else Ash had tucked away in the inside pocket of his anorak. He stood up and rounded the coffee table, plonking himself down beside Oonagh so they could both see the screen at the same time.

  ‘Look.’ He’d spread his hand across the front of the screen. Clearly Oonagh had been meant to see something startling.

  ‘You may have to explain this to me, Ash.’

  *

  The rain was coming down heavier now, and, despite the grey clouds overhead, it picked out the vivid green of the grass verge as she left the thick of the city behind and headed south. The motorway stretched out ahead with just a smattering of vehicles and Oonagh felt more comfortable now, allowing a greater distance between her and the cab. She followed it to Newton Mearns and prepared to pull over as it slowed down at the end of the road. Sarah Nugent paid the driver and walked the few hundred yards to the art-deco flat before pressing her fob on the side of the wall to open the gate. She had no cases with her, just a small black handbag, which fell to the ground as she jumped when Oonagh approached her.

  ‘Sarah?’ She spun round and Oonagh was shocked to see Sarah’s sister. She’d gone through the same transformation as Sarah had: new haircut, same style of clothes.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Oh, I thought…’ Oonagh braced herself. ‘Where’s Sarah?’

  ‘Sorry, do I know you?’

  This was getting tedious. ‘Listen, love, don’t get cute with me. Yes, you know me, I’m the one you told to fuck off when I went to see your sister a few weeks ago. Remember now?’

  The other woman raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  ‘So where’s Sarah?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ She stuffed the fob back into her bag and made to walk away when the gate clicked into life and a voice from the intercom told them both to come in.

  Oonagh took the lead and walked up the path, making her way to the double doors at the entrance to the block of flats. Like before they opened automatically and she didn’t bother waiting for the lift, rather took the stairs, taking care to pace herself. She stopped at the first landing and fished her inhaler from the zipped pocket of her bag. The last thing she wanted was to arrive at the top panting and out of breath. The ping of the lift on the landing above told her that Gill had already arrived. Muffled voices spilled down the stairwell, and she wondered how warm her welcome would be this time.

  There was no luggage or clichéd stack of suitcases sitting in the hall that Oonagh had expected as she entered the flat. But then maybe Sarah Nugent didn’t know she’d need to be making a run for it any time soon.

  ‘Come in, why don’t you?’ Oonagh detected more than a hint of sarcasm in Sarah’s voice, given that she was already well past the threshold.

  ‘Gill…’ this time she was addressing her sister ‘… I need a few moments here.’ She held her car keys out and Gill snatched them from her, making a huge play of looking pissed off as she slammed the door on her way out.

  ‘You two planning a double act on Britain’s Got Talent?’ Oonagh nodded towards the door.

  Sarah smoothed down her hair self-consciously, shaking her head slightly. ‘Gill’s always copied me. Even as teenagers she’d want the same style I had.’

  ‘So you’re not planning any wee identity swaps or using her as a decoy?’

  Sarah looked genuinely confused. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You look extraordinarily alike, and she left your house this morning pretty much disguised as you.’

  Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘Disguised?’ She let out a
very slight laugh. ‘She’s my sister, we’ve always looked alike and she’s staying with me for a few days.’ She paused as she made her way through to the living room, then turned and looked at Oonagh. ‘Sorry, what is this?’

  Oonagh realised she’d made the wrong call. Her mind had been racing after meeting Ash and when she’d mistaken Gill for Sarah her mind had gone into overdrive. She’d put two and two together and come up with five; certain that Sarah had been planning to make a run for it and use Gill as some sort of decoy. Not for the first time, she felt like a total tit.

  ‘Sorry, my mistake.’ She held her hands up in a stop sign. ‘I thought…’ Oonagh didn’t bother finishing. Her thoughts on this weren’t something she felt like sharing at this time.

  ‘Why’re you here, Oonagh?’

  ‘Can I sit down?’

  Sarah nodded towards the white leather settee. Despite the fabulous looking design, this sofa was not built for comfort and Oonagh perched on the edge of the square edged cushions.

  She looked at Sarah and a mix of emotions washed over her. Here was a woman who’d been either used or abused her whole life, yet, despite that, Oonagh knew that she’d also facilitated covering up her husband’s reign of abuse over others and that was something she was finding hard to stomach. She wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this.

  ‘Why d’you do it, Sarah?’

  ‘Do what?’ Sarah sucked hard on her vape, blowing the sickly sweet scented smoke back across her left shoulder. It left a pall of grey mist resting in the air.

  ‘Kill your husband?’ Oonagh pondered the question for a moment. ‘Actually, can I rephrase that? Why did you wait so long?’

  ‘Seriously? You think I killed Harry? For God’s sake, why the hell would I do that? The police have interviewed me – I’m not a suspect, never was. But you barge in here with your half-arsed theories.’

  ‘Sarah, I’m glad Harry is dead,’ Oonagh admitted, ‘and I actually don’t know how to feel about this.’ It was true. Oonagh liked to think of herself as the champion of the underdog, someone who liked to see justice prevail. She was no vigilante, but could shed no tears over the deaths of Harry Nugent or his cohorts. ‘I’ve no intention of going to the police with this,’ she said, and meant it. ‘I don’t want you or anyone else to suffer any more than you already have done. But, please. Cut me some slack here. Help me tie up some loose ends.’

  ‘Seriously? I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘But you stand to get the lot.’

  ‘And that’s news because?’

  ‘No, Sarah, I don’t mean the nice house in Houston and Harry’s legitimate business interests.’

  Oonagh’s meeting with Ash this morning had left her reeling. He’d delved deeper into the business accounts. The spider’s web of properties and sham businesses that were used as a front for the brothels couldn’t immediately be linked to Harry Nugent, but he was the main shareholder of each of the smaller businesses that made up the larger portfolio. The junior shareholder was Graham Petrie. Although his share was a fraction of what Nugent was worth, Petrie had been creaming off a tidy wee sum each quarter that would have made a very welcome supplement to his pension. There was a beneficiary clause tucked away. In the event of Harry’s death, then the portfolio would automatically transfer to his widow. There was a sub-clause, however, that in the event of no living beneficiaries, then Graham Petrie stood to get the lot. Oonagh had guessed Petrie had drawn up most of the papers, and had added this clause as some added insurance.

  ‘I’m not altogether shocked that you had Harry killed, Sarah. I just can’t work out why you waited all this time.’

  ‘I don’t care if you believe me or not. I didn’t kill Harry.’

  ‘Was Harry on borrowed time? Was that it?’ Oonagh knew there had been murmurings about Harry’s abuse. It had only been a matter of time, in this current climate, before it all came out. Sarah would have known that, had he been investigated and found guilty, she’d have been left with nothing. His assets from the brothels would have been frozen and most likely everything else until the police could be sure they weren’t from illegal activities. Sarah would have been left high and dry. ‘Did you get someone to help you?’

  It was already documented that Sarah had been away from home that evening. She had a boiler-plate alibi. According to the toxicology report, Harry had been drugged, so it wouldn’t have needed any brute force to wrap that noose round his neck. The police knew he’d climbed the stairs; whoever had been there forcing him to hang himself must have known he wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back. Oonagh wondered if Sarah’s sister, Gill, had done it, or, more likely, her bruiser of a brother, Chaz. But it seemed obvious who gave the command to attack. Sarah.

  ‘I’ll never get that image out of my head.’ Sarah rubbed her eyes. ‘Him swinging from the balcony.’ She looked at Oonagh. ‘You’re right, I didn’t love Harry. But I had a decent enough life with him, and, you may find this hard to believe, but he was good to me.’

  Oonagh pondered that one for a moment. People were rarely as cut and dried as that; good or bad. It was easier back in the day. When she’d sit on her dad’s knee watching an old western on the telly of a rainy Sunday afternoon. The good guys always wore white hats, the baddies wore inky-black from head to toe, as they charged into town astride their horses. But this wasn’t the movies, this was real life and things were more complicated than that. Sometimes evil men could do nice things, or just not be evil for long enough to make someone like them. Perhaps that was what Harry Nugent had been like.

  ‘Sarah, the laptop. D’you honestly expect me to believe a man as careful as Harry Nugent would leave a laptop lying around with those images of child abuse on it?’

  The colour was draining from Sarah’s face. The slash of red lipstick now a harsh line across her pale complexion.

  ‘Sarah, did you plant those images on Harry’s laptop?’

  ‘You going to tell the police?’

  Shit. Oonagh slumped back and braced herself against the firm leather of the settee. The sudden stab of fear in her chest told her this wasn’t one of her better moves: spilling her half-baked theories out to someone she believed had given the order to have her husband executed.

  ‘No, Sarah, I won’t go to the police. But, let’s face it, if the images have been planted recently, it won’t take them long to find out.’ Oonagh had no idea if she was convincing. No idea whether she even knew herself if she was telling the truth. Her head began to swim as her heart raced. The faint murmur of traffic in the distance gave her a sense of comfort. They weren’t so far from civilisation that her screams wouldn’t be heard. Surely there would be residents in the adjoining flats too. Also, the fact Sarah had chased her sister away suggested she wasn’t going to get violent.

  ‘I didn’t plant those images, Oonagh,’ she said, pausing for just a moment, ‘but I know who did.’

  Suddenly Oonagh was scared of what she was about to hear. Tingles of fear tightened across her forehead.

  ‘Graham Petrie.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Well, that came from left field and took Oonagh completely by surprise. ‘What the fuck? I mean, why the hell would he do that?’

  ‘He contacted me after Harry was… after Harry died. This might sound strange but I’d actually forgotten about him. I hadn’t thought about him in years. But as soon as I saw him it came flooding back.’

  By all accounts Sarah had been one of Petrie’s favourites. He’d groomed her with the help of Hazel Andrews, then sold her on to his most discerning clients.

  ‘I’d no idea about Harry’s other…’ she held out her hands, searching for the right words ‘… businesses. I certainly had no idea of his involvement with Petrie. You’ve seen the accounts. This was money on a scale I’d never even imagined before.’

  Oonagh was getting lost with all this. ‘So why did Petrie come and see you?’

  ‘At first he claimed he wanted to help. Told me that Harry had other business i
nterests that weren’t public knowledge and he could help free up the capital.’

  From what Sarah told her, Graham Petrie had got greedy. With Harry out of the way, he’d thought he could get a bigger slice of the action. Offered to help Sarah, banking on her dumb blonde routine being the real thing. Apparently, he’d offered to help her for a whopping 60 per cent of the business.

  ‘As soon as he started his spiel, everything began to slot into place. I suddenly realised the comfort women had never gone away. They might have closed down Breakmire, but the place was rotten and the stuff that went on in there continued. Only this time the stakes were higher. Everything had been scaled up and streamlined and…’ The words choked in Sarah’s throat. ‘I wanted nothing to do with this. It sickened me. The very thought.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police? Tell them what this pig was doing?’

  ‘The following day the police seized Harry’s laptop, and I knew Petrie had planted it and tipped them off. Harry was a total fucking creep. But he was careful. And I’m not excusing him, but what they found, that sort of stuff didn’t interest Harry.’

  ‘Why would Petrie do that?’

  ‘To let me know that he could. To warn me off telling the police. Make me keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘So why didn’t you say that to the police?’ Oonagh already knew the answer.

  ‘Listen, Oonagh, they’d never have believed me. And, let’s face it, Petrie might have had his own wee stash of dirt planted on me too, for insurance. Anyway, the type of people Petrie had dirt on? He had a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of his life.’ She began to sob. ‘It was a living nightmare.’

  Oonagh suddenly felt an enormous amount of sympathy for Sarah Nugent. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Sarah. I can see why you felt so trapped.’ She waited a moment, but was eager now for Sarah to continue. ‘So what happened? What did you do?’