A Cold Killing (Rosie Gilmour) (5 page)

She automatically glanced around the empty café before getting up and going across to the table. Beneath the
Post
was a copy of the
Sun
, and another headline jumped out at her: ‘R
UNAWAY
S
COT
M
AY
H
OLD
K
EY TO
C
AFÉ
E
XECUTION
.’

‘Fuck me!’ Ruby said quietly, scooping up both newspapers and going back to her table.

Her eyes quickly scanned the front page of the
Post
.

‘Christ almighty!’ Ruby muttered. ‘Fucking little bitch of a waitress.’

She quickly scanned the
Sun
’s front-page story: ‘Police have not ruled out that a mystery Scot who fled the scene of a horrific execution could be involved.’

Ruby stubbed out her cigarette. ‘In the name of Christ! Do they just make this stuff up?’

She folded the newspapers under her arm and left the café to wait outside for her taxi.

‘Jesus! Look what the wind blew in.’ Jean, the big, busty receptionist at the
Post
glanced up and grinned as Rosie came through the revolving doors. ‘We heard you were dead.’ She put down the phone mid-dial.

‘Yeah? I hope you sent flowers.’

‘We had a whip-round in the canteen. But in the end we thought you’d appreciate it more if we just got pished with the money. So we did.’

‘Class,’ Rosie chuckled. ‘That gives me a warm glow.’

‘So how’s it going, sweetcheeks?’ She came out from behind her desk and embraced Rosie. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Great, Jean. I was in hiding. Those bad UVF men put a contract on me, so McGuire sent me away. I was somewhere in Europe, holed up in the hills.’ Rosie tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger as she headed for the staircase to the editorial floor. ‘That’s all you need to know.’ At the foot of the stairs, she turned. ‘Have I missed any gossip?’

‘Nope. Not a sausage, darlin’. Good to have you home.’ Jean blew a kiss as Rosie took the stairs to the third floor.

The editorial floor stretched the length of the building and was full of reporters, even though it was lunchtime. Some sat with their feet up, reading newspapers, while others had phones at their ears, taking notes or working at their screens, half-eaten sandwiches and bottles of mineral water at their desks. Nobody went out for lunch any more. Lunch used to be a God-given right for journalists, and often a rite of passage for new starters, who would be taken out by a seasoned hack and brought back mid-afternoon three sheets to the wind, just to see if they could survive. A few years ago the place would have been like the Marie Celeste at this time of the day, as the reporters and feature writers would have been in city restaurants entertaining contacts, as their expenses would reflect, or they’d be in the nearest bar along with a few sub-editors, having a few drinks before the serious work of putting out a newspaper began in the afternoon. It was like one long party, and it wasn’t a rarity that a fight broke out on the editorial floor by teatime between two older journalists who’d been drinking on an empty head. Now it was all mineral water and staff chained to desks amid the quiet hum of computers and the television news perpetually playing in the background on three televisions mounted around the news desk. Rosie saw the young reporter Declan look up and quickly get out of her chair.

‘Hey, you! What’s the score, son? Did you think I was dead as well?’ Rosie quipped.

Declan’s face reddened.

‘Someone was at my desk working when I came in this morning, Rosie, so I just used yours. I didn’t know you were coming back up today. You all right?’

‘Sure, Dec.’ She smiled. ‘I’m good. What’s happening?’ She sat down, took her notebook out of her bag and placed it on the desk. ‘I see you were up at the Mahoney house and got no joy. I wouldn’t have thought the
Post
would be top of their reading list for breakfast reading in that house.’

‘Not exactly.’ Declan sat back, flicked through his notebook. ‘I saw from your story that the guy who was with Mahoney – Hawkins, Gerard Hawkins – was on his way back from London. I hit his house last night as well, but no answer. So it’s a bit of a dead end at the moment.’

Rosie nodded. ‘It’s early doors yet. We’ve got to keep plugging away.’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve also been up to my arse for days now with Rab Jackson getting torched in his villa on the Costa del Sol. Did you hear about it?’

‘It happened when I was travelling back to the UK, but I saw your piece yesterday. Couldn’t happen to a nicer man.’

‘Aye. The cops aren’t exactly busting their arses trying to find the murderer, either. Not in Spain, and not here.’

‘I’m not surprised. Jackson’s just one more scummy bastard off the face of the earth. Cops will be delighted. I mean, even though he was retired, he’d already made his money on the back of other people’s misery, and was still raking it in. He should have been dead born.’

Rab Jackson’s reign of terror in Glasgow was mostly before Rosie’s time, but his reputation had followed him well into his retirement. There were probably more bodies buried beneath the concrete columns of the sixties-built Kingston Bridge over the River Clyde than anybody would ever know – and Jackson was the vicious bastard behind it.

‘They were supposed to be making a movie of his life.’

‘Yeah, so I heard. Well, at least now it’s got a happy ending.’

Rosie’s desk phone rang.

‘Hey, Rosie. You’ve to come through. Mick’s waiting for you.’

‘I’m there in two ticks.’ She picked up her notebook and pen, but turned to Declan. ‘Listen, Dec. We need to start digging on Mahoney’s background. Get into everything in his old life, his studies and lecturing posts at Glasgow Uni. See if we can track down any of his old colleagues – I’m especially interested in the countries he visited. He headed the Eastern European Studies department, so he must have got around. See exactly what area that covers. Can you do that?’

‘Sure.’ Declan said. ‘I’m on it already.’

‘Good stuff.’

She headed across the floor towards the editor’s office.

Before going in, she stopped at Marion’s desk. ‘I owe you a curry, Marion,’ she said, giving her a thumbs-up. ‘Cheers for organizing all my flights and stuff. You’re worth your weight in gold.’

‘Tell that to the boss man, then.’ Marion jerked her head in the direction of McGuire’s office.

‘I will.’ Rosie walked into the office, where the editor was sitting, his eyes fixed on his computer screen.

‘You’re back, Gilmour. Great to see you,’ he said, without looking away from the screen. Then he got up, removed his reading glasses and came out from behind his desk.

‘Let’s have a hug. So the UVF bastards didn’t find you? How you doing?’ He put his arms around her and gave her a little squeeze.

‘I’m great, Mick,’ Rosie returned his hug. ‘We live to fight another day.’

‘How’s your arm?’

‘Still a bit painful sometimes, and I’ve more skin grafts to get organized this month. It’s okay, though.’

Rosie tried not to think of the blowtorch burning her arm. She knew she was lucky to be alive, but she didn’t want to dwell on what had happened. She crossed the room and planked herself on McGuire’s leather sofa, as he sat on the armchair opposite her.

‘So,’ he began, crossing his legs, examining the immaculate crease in his trousers then looking at Rosie. ‘What’s the score on this Mahoney? I want us all over it. Nobody’s got anything different so far . . . And, by the way, that was a good shout about the Scots bird doing a runner. I’m intrigued by that, so keep digging. But who would shoot a retired uni lecturer? That’s what I really want to know. And why?’

McGuire was easier when he was fired up. It gave Rosie more leeway to do things her own way.

‘Wait till you hear this, Mick.’ She flicked over the pages of her notebook . ‘There’s more to Mahoney than we think.’

McGuire’s dark eyebrows knitted as he scanned her face for hints while she paused for effect.

‘I think he might be a spook,’ she said.

‘Fuck me! Based on what?’

‘Based on a tip-off I got last night from a good contact of mine who’s always spot on.’

‘And?’

‘You see the flat he had in London – where he stayed from time to time?’

McGuire nodded, shifted in his seat.

‘Go on? Get to the point, Gilmour.’

‘Well, it’s registered in another name. So I got my man to check it out, and it’s him. Using a false name.’

‘Who? Mahoney? You’re kidding!’

‘Nope. And not just a false name. A false passport.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yep. My contact has friends in all sorts of places . . . Don’t ask. But he traced the name of the flat owner all the way to the passport office, through his contact there. The owner has a passport with Mahoney’s picture but a different name. So Mahoney has two passports – and that’s two that we know about. For all we know, there could be another couple with his photograph and a different name. My pal thinks he’s spy. Or maybe was a spy at one time.’

McGuire rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

‘Is this wishful thinking from your mate, or is there any evidence?’

‘You don’t get evidence where spies are concerned. That’s the whole point. The clue is in the word . . . “spy”.’

‘Yeah, right.’ McGuire let her get away with the sarcasm. ‘But there must be something.’

‘Nothing solid, but if my friend says the word “spook”, that means he’s been given a nod. He’s not going to draw me pictures. But if he wasn’t a spy and was a fraudster, then he would say that.’

‘So if he was a spy, it must have been years ago. Why wait till now to bump him off?’

‘Who knows? Old scores being settled? We need somebody to take us inside his past life. We need to be looking back a long way – long before he retired. Long before the Berlin Wall came down. See if he was an old red under the bed – touch of the Philby/Burgess and all that.’

‘Absolutely.’ McGuire nodded. ‘We’ll get Declan to dig.’

‘I’ve already told him.’

McGuire glanced at her.

‘Don’t mind me. I’m only the editor.’

Rosie gave him a cheeky look.

‘I knew you’d want it done.’ She waved her hand dismissively and informed him that Declan was going back through the university staff records, trying to find all the lecturers at the time, as well as the students in his department.

‘But we need to get to Gerard Hawkins,’ Rosie said. ‘He was with him at the time. Dec was there last night and got no answer. Same with the family, as you know.’

McGuire stood up and went back round to his desk. The meeting was over. Rosie got to her feet.

‘Right. You take another run at the family and at Hawkins.’ He ran a hand through his thick black hair, and looked at her. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll be the only ones on this spy theory?’

‘My guy only speaks to me, Mick. But I can’t vouch for anyone else. It depends on how keen any of the other papers are to pursue the story. I also need to look at this girl who did a runner from the café. The cops can’t find her.’

‘She must be a villain if they can’t find her! Maybe we’ll get lucky.’

‘We’ll have to get lucky.’ Rosie opened the door and left.

Ruby had staked out the house, deep in rural Ayrshire, a few times on previous visits back home, so she knew that Malky Cameron’s movements were like clockwork. His routine never changed. Every afternoon he headed out of his driveway towards his local golf club. If it was raining, he and his friends didn’t play golf but had lunch in the clubhouse and then spent most of the afternoon in the bar. He’d get into his car around seven and would be over the limit for driving, but would take it slowly along the four miles of deserted farm road to his house. He’d drive his gold Daimler straight into the old timber garage, come out, lock the double doors behind him and go through his front door.

Ruby remembered Rab Jackson slagging him off to some old ex-pat cronies one time about how Malky, considering he used to be one of the most feared, sadistic bastards in Glasgow, now took pride in the simplest structures to his day. He’d quit the firm when the time was right for him and come over all respectable, Rab had said, hobnobbing with doctors and lawyers at the local golf club. He lived on his own in a plush, white turreted house set so far back off the road and up a private drive that you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there. Rab said that’s how Malky wanted it. He loved the seclusion and seldom had visitors. But every Friday afternoon he drove to all the way to Glasgow and went into one of the saunas, where he enjoyed the services of a hooker for a couple of hours. Ruby had watched him do this over two weeks the previous year when, on a visit home to see Judy, she had driven down towards Elvanfoot and staked out his house. So tonight she knew exactly where to park to lie in wait. She looked at her watch. It was nearly eight, and she’d been here, hiding in this spot not fifty yards away in the undergrowth by the fish pond at the bottom of his garden, for nearly an hour. She had no problem waiting. She’d been waiting twenty-five years for this moment. It didn’t take much for her to summon the image that drove her on. It was never far away.

*

Ruby hadn’t seen Malky up close since that night in her home when he and Rab Jackson had raped and beaten her mother until she was lying soaked in blood, her skull crushed. She’d witnessed it all from below her bed, where Judy told her to hide, and she’d lain there eyes wide in terror, too stunned to move. Even when they had dragged Judy from her bed and slapped the screaming twelve-year-old all the way into the living room, Ruby lay, shivering, her hand stuffed in her mouth to muffle her terrified whimpering. She had been only eight years old. She could hear the screams. Judy’s screams. And it brought her from her hiding place to crawl along the floor to where she could peer through the keyhole. Malky was stripping Judy naked and bending her over. Rab was laughing. They both had a wild-eyed, crazy look on their flushed faces, like they were drunk or on drugs, and were shouting at Ruby’s mother that she was a ‘fucking grass’ and this is what they do to grasses. Rab grabbed her mother’s hair and forced her to watch Malky. He wasn’t spanking Judy – he was doing the sex thing she’d heard older girls talk about in the playground. She heard her sister let out a piercing scream, like she’d been scalded. Then nothing. But for a split second before she passed out, Judy looked towards the keyhole and Ruby instinctively knew she was pleading with her to stay where she was. She stood with her back to the door, her heart pounding in her chest, choking with fear. And then, suddenly, the smell of smoke. She waited, petrified, as it curled through the bottom of the door and up her legs until the room was filled with grey and black choking smoke. When she heard the front door slam, she opened the bedroom door and a huge belch of smoke and flames forced her back. She covered her eyes and pushed her way through, but at first could see nobody. Then she saw the figure of Judy, crawling towards her. Ruby got on her knees and inched closer to her. Then through the fug she saw her mother’s leg, and dragged herself to her. She’d never seen a dead body, but she knew from the look in her mother’s face, even through the blood and battered flesh, that the eyes staring wildly were dead. She wasn’t breathing and her mouth was open in a silent scream. Ruby struggled to her feet, grabbed hold of Judy’s hands and dragged her towards the door and down the stone steps, pulling her until they were out of the building. Seconds later, all the other neighbours came rushing out of the tenement and onto the street, staring up at the blazing building as flames licked through the open windows and lit up the night sky. Judy regained consciousness and gripped Ruby’s hand tight as she knelt down beside her.

‘Ruby . . . Ruby. Don’t say a word,’ she’d whispered. ‘You must never, ever say what happened tonight . . . or they’ll come for us.’

Weeping, bewildered, Ruby held her sister’s hand until the ambulance came and took them both away. That was the last time she had seen her for eighteen long years. Ruby had passed out in the ambulance and, when she woke up, Judy was gone and she was in some kind of children’s home or dormitory, with other children in iron beds next to her. But no Judy. In the months that followed, she wailed every night in the darkness, shouting Judy’s name, until the dormitory door was flung open and someone came in and slapped her bare legs until she stopped. And, finally, they’d told her Judy was dead. That she’d gone into some kind of shock, couldn’t speak and then lapsed into a coma and died. That was it. Nothing else.

Tonight was about retribution. Justice. Rab Jackson had his last week, and now it was the turn of Malky. Ruby strained her ears and, in the stillness, she could hear by the low murmur of the engine that he was close by. In a couple of minutes the car appeared over the brow of the hill, coming up his sweeping driveway. Ruby crept out from behind the building as she saw him drive straight through the open garage doors. As soon as he was inside, she moved like lightning, quickly closing the doors and clicking the padlock shut. Then she put the iron bar over the handles to make doubly sure. From her rucksack, she took the two beer bottles into which she had placed petrol-soaked rags. She lit them, then picked up a heavy stone, smashed the garage window and dropped them inside, one after the other, onto the floor, which she had sprinkled with petrol earlier. She heard the whoosh of the fire, and it stopped her in her tracks – she’d heard it in her nightmares all her life. She knew Malky would have smelled the petrol the moment he got out of his car and would have assumed he had some kind of leak in the petrol tank. It wouldn’t have dawned on him that his number was up until it was too late. That was the beauty of it. She knew it was risky, but she had to stay just a few seconds longer in case he tried to smash another window in desperation. He did, and she watched as he banged it with his fist, smoke swirling behind it and in front of her. But she was just able to see his face. And then, there was the split second where he looked straight at her, and somewhere in the depths of his evil, twisted, murdering mind, perhaps he recalled her face from some distant place in his past. At least, she hoped so. He looked confused, eyes wide as though appealing to her, then suddenly his expression changed. He must have seen Ruby smile as she watched him choking, pleading. She shook her head, hoping that her face was the last thing the bastard would ever see. Then, as the blaze ripped through the garage, Ruby got into her car and pushed her foot to the floor, knowing that any second now, once the tank in the Daimler caught, the whole place would explode. Bits of Malky would be strewn all over his neat, fake, red cobblestone yard. As she drove over the brow of the hill she glimpsed the moment in her rear-view mirror and she savoured it, just as she had when she drove off after torching Rab Jackson in his villa.

The alarm bells would be well and truly ringing now. She had to be ultra careful. She drove onto the M8 and headed for Glasgow, coming off at the exit for the West End, where, unknown to Jackson, Malky or any of the other arseholes who thought they ran the show, Ruby had a tidy little tenement flat where she could be completely anonymous. Job done.