‘I had him killed.’
‘What?’ Oonagh had heard, she just couldn’t quite believe it.
‘Chaz knows enough people,’ Sarah continued, as though this type of thing was commonplace. ‘You’d be surprised what some guys would do for the price of a pint, let alone the money we offered.’
‘Sarah, but…’
‘I didn’t kill him because he was blackmailing me. I killed him because he was an abusive fucking bastard.’
Slowly the pieces started to slot into place.
Sarah sat down. ‘Are you going to tell anyone? Because, d’you know something? I don’t fucking care any more.’
Oonagh’s mind was racing. She needed to know the full story; running to the cops wasn’t the first thing on her mind right now. ‘And Andrew Cruikshank?’
Sarah nodded. ‘It just seemed easier with him out of the way too. We dressed it up as a gangland execution. The connection to Harry would be obvious.’
‘So you didn’t kill Harry?’
‘No, I’ve told you.’ There was a tinge of impatience in her voice. ‘And I have no idea who did.’
‘You know the police have been looking at a gambling ring, match rigging, all sorts.’
Sarah nodded. ‘That’s what we’d planned.’
Oonagh had a million questions. ‘But, Sarah, apparently some guy’s claiming he knew who did it.’
‘Yes, and the cops’ll chase down a few gangs for God knows how long. They’ll be on the wrong track and then hopefully the case’ll go cold. You need to understand. These men were scum.’
‘But you can’t just take the law into your own hands, Sarah. It’s not right.’ As she said it Oonagh remembered the way she’d dealt with Ross. There had been other incidents peppered throughout her life, but she’d never actually killed anyone, so it wasn’t quite the same. Was it? ‘You can’t let an innocent man take the blame for this. No matter how much you’re paying him. Anyway, the police’ll find out and they’ll hang him out to dry when they discover it’s a pack of lies. He’ll be convicted of…’
Sarah raised an eyebrow. ‘D’you think? Anyway, these guys are career criminals, Oonagh. They’re in and out of jail all their lives. They know the system. They’ll easily take a two year stretch if the money’s right.’
Oonagh suddenly realised she lived in a very different world. She knew Glasgow had its reputation as a mean city, but had never known it to be this mean.
‘What’re you going to do with this information?’ Sarah was biting her bottom lip, and scratching a faint line on the arm of the cream leather chair.
‘I don’t know, Sarah – honestly I don’t.’ And she didn’t. Oonagh felt the soft leather of the cushion as she worried her thumb along the seam. She stood up quickly, suddenly aware of what might have gone on in this flat. What poor young guy Harry might have abused under the guise of subtle seduction. The sickness began to rise in her gut and she had to breathe deeply to keep the swell from her throat. Outside life went on as before. She stood by the picture window; the roofs of the post-war bungalows outlined against the grey sky. The rain had stopped. There were too many loose ends.
‘What I don’t get, Sarah, is why you gave me those accounts. You must have known they’d throw up something like this.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, I knew Harry wasn’t squeaky clean. I knew he liked young guys, was never interested in me. But d’you think for a minute, had I known he was running these brothels…?’ She stopped and checked herself. ‘I know what it’s like. To have no choice. I thought Harry was my knight in shining armour when he took me away from Breakmire. That was my chance to make something of my life.’
Oonagh could well believe it. For someone with the shitty childhood that Sarah had had, perhaps living with a creep like Harry Nugent might have seemed like a good deal at the time.
‘I know how that must sound. But the other two, they were just kids, Chaz was still at primary school. They’d been through enough shit. In and out of care might seem awful to someone like you, but for us it actually meant the chance of being washed and fed and taken care of.’ She hugged her arms tight around her waist. ‘I know what the girls at school said about me behind my back. Called me smelly. Wouldn’t speak to me.’ Oonagh reached out her hand but Sarah shook her head, didn’t want her sympathy. ‘And they were right. The house too. Always filthy. And cold. Never any food. One of the neighbours used to shove a slice of toast into my hand when I left the house in the morning. I don’t think she knew what else to do. It wasn’t Mum’s fault. She was just too fond of the booze. I blame that fucking G.P. Every time she went to him he’d just up her pills. She was a mess.’
‘Where was your dad?’
‘We were told he was on the rigs. He’d plan to visit when we were at the home. The staff would have us all washed and ready for him. He never showed up. The one time he did he was so spaced out they had to phone the police. Dad was never on the rigs. He was a junkie that didn’t give a shit about his weans. I know what you must think of me. Living with Harry Nugent. Marrying a man like that. But we were taken care of,’ she stabbed her index finger into the arm of the settee, ‘I made sure of that. He gave Chaz a chance in the ring, he never amounted to much, but Harry made sure he wanted for nothing. And Gill, you’ve seen her house. All I had to do was play the dutiful wife.’
‘That must have been awful for you.’
‘Honestly? It was a cake-walk compared to some of the shit I’ve had to deal with.’
Oonagh barely trusted herself to speak. ‘You gave up a lot to take care of your family.’
‘Fat lot of good it did me. Look at the mess I’m in now.’
‘I’m in no position to judge anyone Sarah, especially you. And I’m not going anywhere with this. This is between you and me.’
‘Thank you.’
Something still burned at the back of Oonagh’s mind. ‘But I need to ask, why did you hand it all over to me?’
‘After Petrie was dead, I didn’t really know what to do with the information. I was terrified. There were no names, but I knew there were a lot of big noises enjoying what Harry and Petrie had provided. I didn’t trust the police. And they might have thought I’d known about it all along.’
It suddenly clicked. Sarah had wanted Oonagh to find all this out. ‘Sarah, you’ve told me this much, please, just tell me the truth. D’you know who killed Harry?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I swear. But now that I know what I do about him, I’m glad he’s dead.’
This was getting too much for Oonagh to cope with; she had to think fast with this one. ‘The programme’ll be aired in the next week or so. The police may get their own forensic accountant to look more closely into Harry’s affairs. That means they’re going to ask you more questions.’
‘That’s fine. I’m ready. I swear I didn’t know any of this.’ She caught a look in Oonagh’s eye. ‘Me knowing that Harry liked nineteen year old rent boys is a different thing entirely.’
It was obvious Harry had deliberately not covered his tracks with his predilection for teenage boys. He’d wanted Sarah to find out, as though that had been his big dark secret. Not the fact he’d been abusing young boys and offering underage brothels to sick rich bastards with enough money to pay for whatever their depravity called for.
‘What the fuck is wrong with men?’
‘Not all—’
‘Oh, I know, Sarah, I meant some men – most men are lovely.’ Oonagh was ashamed of her sweeping statement. For the most part, the men in her life had been lovely. And those that hadn’t, she’d had no problem kicking them in the balls.
‘No, I mean, it wasn’t all men. There were women too.’
‘What?’
‘Not many. And they mainly just watched. But some would join in.’
Oonagh couldn’t take any more of this. She could feel her stomach heave. ‘Sarah, I need to level with you. When this programme goes out the shit will hit the fan. I’ll make sure of it. There’ll b
e such a public outcry there’ll be calls for the killers of those three bastards to be given a special commendation in the New Year’s honours list. But the police will still have to investigate, and you may find yourself in the frame as a suspect.’
The programme was almost done and dusted, but Oonagh knew she’d need one final interview. ‘Will you go on camera again?’
‘No.’
‘Please hear me out. You need to say out loud that you knew nothing about this. Otherwise it’ll be trial by media. You’ll be hung out to dry, Sarah.’ Oonagh hoped the advice she was giving was as good as it sounded. But she knew how these things worked. ‘The fact that you handed over the accounts to me shows that you wanted this out in the open. But this’ll be added insurance. Also…’ Oonagh hesitated; it went against every journalistic bone in her body to coerce an interviewee, but this had to be done ‘… I’ll coach you. You need to say you fear for your life. That there are people out there who want this kept under wraps. It’s the best way for you to stay alive.’ Oonagh knew from bitter experience how these things operated; a tragic accident, a grieving widow overdosing on sleeping pills, or a complicit wife ending it all to hide her guilty secret. ‘Meanwhile,’ she added, ‘is there anywhere you know you’ll be safe?’
49
The digits on the bottom right hand side of the screen counted down to zero then froze. Oonagh switched off the monitor. It was hard to know if the churning in her stomach was the familiar nerves of watching a new feature being shown in advance of its official airing, or the fact DI Alec Davies was sitting on the sofa next to her. She felt the tension in his body bleed through to her.
He rubbed the corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Why didn’t you come to me earlier?’
Oonagh eased herself up from the sofa and walked over to the chair by the window, perching herself on the arm. ‘You’d have tried to steer me clear, stop me from going any further. Slapped an injunction on me.’ Oonagh felt a swell of pride in the programme. It was good and she knew it. It made no reference to who might or might not have killed the three men, and it posed more questions than it answered. But it set up a platform that left Police Scotland no choice but to investigate some of the most high profile names in the country.
When Sarah Nugent was speaking about her time as a teenager at Breakmire, her face had been silhouetted out and Oonagh had got one of the production assistants to voice her words, but her sentiment and pain were real. When questioned by Oonagh, she said some of the men who used the brothel were well known names, even claimed one to have been from the Scottish Office. But her final piece to camera as Harry Nugent’s widow was in full view. Her statement about her dead husband. And once again the camera loved her. The new hairstyle and more subtle make-up made her all the more appealing. Oonagh had also used one of the best cameramen she knew to make sure the image was just right. His soft focus and getting Sarah to speak slightly off camera was a work of art.
‘I handed over these documents because I had reason to believe that my husband was involved in something that sickened me.’ Oonagh had ensured that it was clear Sarah Nugent had willingly brought this story into the open and stood to lose everything if her dead husband’s assets were frozen by the courts. ‘I didn’t go to the police as I was scared and feared for my life,’ she’d said. ‘And,’ she’d added, ‘I don’t want a penny that has come from other people’s misery. All I want is justice for those who’ve suffered.’
‘I take it you’ve had the lawyers give the OK on this?’ Alec let his shoulders drop as he slumped forward, resting his head in his hands.
Oonagh nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Well, thanks for letting me see it first. I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.’
He looked shattered. She got the impression it was more than this case that weighed heavy on him right now.
‘Alec…’ There was so much she wanted to say to him, but didn’t know where to start.
‘Will I need a warrant for any of this?’ He meant her research, her journalist’s notes into her own investigation on this.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s all yours. Just don’t let anyone down with this. These people deserve better.’
Alec smoothed his hands over his face; the dark circles under his eyes were back, and he’d lost weight. ‘I’m getting too old for this, Oonagh.’ He was far from old, not yet fifty, but she knew what he meant. He was tired and weary. ‘I’m sick of being on the side of the good guys when I can’t even help.’
‘Alec, you’re not responsible for every crime that’s gone undetected, for every bad thing that’s happened in this city.’
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘But it never ends. This…’ He pointed to the screen, which was now blank. ‘This level of abuse is probably happening in another city right as we speak. It’s endemic, yet who the hell is there to help?’
‘I’ll get you a drink.’
‘Booze.’ His voice followed her through to the kitchen. ‘Is that your answer to everything?’
‘Pretty much,’ she said, and handed him a glass. ‘Ice, no water. ʼS’at right?’
He smiled, seemed happy that she knew how he liked his whisky. He leaned back on the sofa. It had grown dark outside, and the sodium orange of the street lights split through the blind, leaving a slash of colour on the wall behind his head.
Oonagh sat on the seat opposite, hugging her knees to her chest. The programme was good; there was no doubt about that. Sophie had been given a permanent contract and by all accounts had been delighted with her bumper pay rise. She’d rushed in to tell Oonagh that morning. But there was no happy ending to this and she felt like shit.
‘How d’you cope with the misery, Alec? The shit you have to deal with every day?’ Oonagh was no stranger to a horror story, but at least for her there were breaks along the way. Long periods of respite when she’d fronted soft news programmes, human interest features, daytime chat shows. During those times the misery had lingered in the background. Just out of reach. But now it seemed to descend on her like a blanket.
‘It’s my job, Oonagh. I have to cope.’ He took a sip of his whisky; she saw his shoulders visibly relax as he swallowed. ‘When’s this going out?’ he said, referring to the programme.
‘Scheduled for next Monday. Plenty of time to get a decent press release put out.’ Oonagh was one step ahead of him. She knew that Alec would need to be ahead of the game with this one. Couldn’t look as though his department had been caught on the hop.
The implication in the programme was that senior public figures had used the services of the comfort women, and those senior figures included politicians, celebrities and members of the police force.
‘There’ll need to be an internal investigation, of course.’ Alec held the glass to his lips and tipped his head back.
Oonagh knew that the new Police Investigations and Review Commission had come under fire from officers who claimed it was too heavy handed. It had set out to show that it would not tolerate any misconduct and that dodgy cops knew their days were numbered, but had instead found itself at the other end of bullying allegations.
‘And they’ll take no prisoners, believe you me.’ He placed his empty glass on the table by the settee.
‘I take it you’ll still be investigating the abuse at the Boys’ Club?’
‘Oh, yes. Make no mistake. That bastard didn’t operate alone. There must have been senior figures on that board who had his back.’
Nugent, it appeared, had had enough dirt on enough people to pretty much do as he pleased for as long as he wanted. Oonagh wondered who he’d stretched his luck with just once too often to end up swinging from a rope with his tongue sliced off. ‘Have you spoken to Jack Nesbit?’
‘He was one of the first. He was being palmed off as a senile old man, but he gave us names. Enough to go on to question several fairly prominent figures. I can assure you, Oonagh, I’ll have their fucking balls for this.’
&nb
sp; Oonagh started slightly; she’d never heard Alec speak like this. There seemed to be a shift in him. A change somehow that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. He leaned back and closed his eyes, just for a moment.
‘Listen,’ he said, straightening up, looking at his watch, ‘I need to get going. It’s late. Let you get to your bed.’
It wasn’t yet eight o’clock, but Oonagh could see he was dog tired. She got up and sat next to him, leaning her back against the arm of the settee, her bare feet on the cushion between them, her toes just shy of his thighs. He reached over and gave her arm a gentle pat. ‘You’re lovely, Oonagh O’Neil, d’you know that?’
‘So they tell me.’ She grinned, but he didn’t laugh. She thought for a moment. ‘You don’t need to go home, Alec.’ She waited for a reaction, but his expression didn’t change. ‘You can crash here.’ She glanced at the settee, giving him a get-out clause in case she’d made the wrong call. He said nothing. Then she raised her eyebrows, tipping her head towards the ceiling. ‘Although I hear the master bedroom is far more comfortable.’ She let out a laugh; despite how she felt about him, she wanted to let him know there were no expectations.
‘You might hate yourself in the morning,’ he said, and for the first time that night she thought she saw a glimpse of a smile.
‘Oh, I’m sure sleeping in until lunchtime would sort that out.’
EPILOGUE
Was it possible to envy oneself? She slipped the photograph back into her purse. A relic now. A reminder of happier days, when they were all together as a family. That had been so long ago. She wished she were that person again. That once again she could become who she’d been.
Vivienne Gray took the stairs to the third floor, blinking against the sunlight beating through the full length windows. It belied the bitter cold outside and she felt its scorching heat settle on her head as she smoothed her hand across her hair. She stopped on the second landing and rested her forehead on the glass for a moment. The clattering noise from the corridors filtered through to the stairwell, but the sounds were muffled and for a few moments she felt safe and quiet. Outside students hurried to and from lectures, heavy backpacks slung casually across their shoulders, eyes glued to mobile phones. A slight pang of fear for the future pricked her thoughts. A future where students too doped up on social media would forget how to fight for what they believed in.
The Quiet Ones Page 26