Betrayed (11 page)

They sat down and ordered coffee from the waiter. Rosie glanced around – plenty of Rangers fans had already arrived, sitting at tables cluttered with drinks and bottles. The ancient, pretty town of Eindhoven wouldn’t know what hit them. Rosie figured she and Matt were about half an hour ahead of the bus, having shadowed it from the ferry terminal in Ostend, in Belgium, then overtaken it on the final part of the journey towards Eindhoven. She wanted to check into the hotel and touch base with Adrian before the bears arrived.

‘So, Adrian,’ Rosie said, keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t be recognised as Scottish, ‘hopefully, this job will be less messy than the last couple.’

Adrian shrugged. ‘For me is no problem. Whatever happens happens.’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie smiled as Matt rolled his eyes to the sky. ‘Well, this is mainly just a watching brief. What we’re trying to do here is track these particular guys. We think they’re here to do a coke deal, as I explained to you. So they’ll probably have a stash of cash – we’ve already seen them carrying a holdall that they haven’t let out of their sight since they left Glasgow. So we just want to follow them, see where they go and if possible take pictures.’

Adrian nodded.

‘And they are making contact with some person here?’

‘Well, we don’t exactly know yet. We think they might drive to Utrecht to meet the contact and pick up the drugs. If they’re going to do that, then I’d imagine it will be fairly soon – like tomorrow morning. The game is tomorrow night, so they’ll want to do their business and get back. They’re here two nights in all. We just have to watch them from the moment they arrive until they leave.’ She paused. ‘It’s very much flying by the seat of our pants, but we’ll just hope for the best.’

‘Okay,’ Adrian said.

They sat for a while as Rosie filled Adrian in about Eddie McGregor and his background. As she recounted the story of the rape and what they had so far, Matt interrupted.

‘Look, Rosie. We’re in business. Here they come.’

They could hear the racket on the bus as it pulled up
in the street outside the hotel. The fact that the fans had been drinking for almost eight hours solid didn’t appear to dampen their enthusiasm. They filed out of the bus, rummaging for bags as soon as the driver opened the huge luggage compartment. A few of them went immediately to the bar next door, dumping their bags on the floor beside them.

Rosie watched as Eddie McGregor came down the steps.

‘Okay, Adrian. There he is.’

Adrian turned his chair slightly for a better view.

‘The man with the thin face, carrying the black bag?’

‘That’s him,’ Matt said. ‘And the two guys behind him. Coming off now. That’s Dunlop and Gillespie. The three of them have been together for the whole journey. There’s always at least one of them with McGregor.’

Adrian stood up.

‘I go into the hotel with the fans. See what rooms they are staying.’

Rosie didn’t question him. She watched as he disappeared inside the automatic glass doors of the hotel, surrounded by a sea of royal blue football jerseys.

In the morning, it took three stiff cups of coffee to lift the grogginess and get Rosie ready for the trip to Utrecht. She’d hardly slept a wink for the noise in the hotel from the partying Rangers crowd. She was knackered, but glad to be away from last night’s mayhem at Eindhoven. Dutch police
had milled around the city centre bars and terrace cafes, trying to keep the atmosphere genial. But Rosie predicted it would descend into at least one punch-up before the end of the evening. When it did, the cops waded in as fans began fighting and throwing glasses, according to what she’d overheard from the talk in the hotel at breakfast. A few had already been arrested and would see the rest of their trip out in police cells.

Now, after the drive to Utrecht and with ice-cold beers in front of them, the three of them looked like any other tourists enjoying an afternoon in one of the colourful little bars fringing the canal in the old city.

‘It’s easy to feel as if you’re on holiday here,’ Matt said, gazing around him.

‘I know.’ Rosie looked out as a boat glided through the water and disappeared beneath an ancient bridge arched across the canal. ‘It’s like being in a watercolour painting. So peaceful. I could sit here all day and just stare into space.’

Two bars along, McGregor, Dunlop and Gillespie sat sipping beers. They had to be here for a reason. Rosie watched as McGregor took a call on his mobile, while Matt got up and went for a walk along the canal, which was bustling with the lunchtime crowd. He found himself a vantage point on the balcony of a bar where he could snatch pictures unnoticed.

‘Someone is arriving now, Rosie,’ Adrian said, his expression flat. ‘He is carrying a bag. Black. Similar to the one they have.’

‘What does he look like?’ she asked.

‘Like them, I think. The hair is very short. I don’t think he is Dutch. I think he maybe is British or Scottish. Maybe he is around forty years … They are shaking hands … He is sitting down.’

‘I’m going to the loo for a better look.’ After a minute she stood up, put on her dark glasses and made her way across the bar.

She was close enough to get a good view of the three of them sitting at a table drinking beers. The man who had just joined them was well dressed in a white linen shirt and faded blue jeans. He looked wealthy and deeply suntanned, so if he was Scottish, he definitely didn’t live there. They’d been having a decent summer back home but that was definitely not a Scottish tan. Perhaps he had travelled from Spain or Amsterdam and made his way down to Utrecht for the meet.

‘I got some good shots there,’ Matt said as he came back to the table and sat down. ‘I got them exchanging the bags, and both of them looking like they’re examining inside. It will mean something if it all works out.’

Rosie looked beyond him at the four men who seemed to be preparing to leave as the suntanned man paid the bill.

‘It’s not enough though, Matt. We need more.’ Rosie felt a little deflated. ‘I know we’ve got them together, and witnessed the handover of the bags. But number one – we don’t know what’s in them. I’m sure it’s money and coke. But we can’t use that unless we can prove it.’ She sighed. ‘And secondly, the guy with the tan. We don’t know who he is.’

Adrian leaned across the table.

‘Why don’t I follow him? I just get in the car and go when he goes. If he drives to Amsterdam and takes a plane, I go with him.’ He shrugged. ‘What have we got to lose?’

Rosie looked at Matt, a little annoyed with herself.

‘We should have thought about that before we left, and brought two cars,’ she said. ‘What do you think, Matt?’

‘I’m with Adrian,’ Matt said. ‘To be honest, short of stealing that bag from McGregor and his two henchmen, we’re never going to find out what’s in it. I think we’ve done all we can do here. And it’s only the start. We’ve still got the other match in Seville. They’re bound to be doing this again in Spain. At least now we know roughly how they operate.’

Rosie nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’ She looked at Adrian. ‘Let’s do it. What about your bags back in the hotel room though?’

‘I have no bags. Everything is in the boot of the hired car. I flew here, and always I travel light – in case I have to move fast, I have everything I need.’

Rosie looked across at McGregor’s table.

‘Okay. They’re getting up, Adrian. You’d better move.’

Adrian stood up. ‘I’ll call you, Rosie. From wherever I end up.’

‘Be careful,’ she said, as he turned to leave.

‘Of course.’ He glanced over his shoulder as he walked away.

‘I wonder what time the trains go from Utrecht to Eindhoven.’ Matt chuckled. ‘We could hire bikes. Or we could just stay here and get pissed.’

‘Come on,’ Rosie said, standing up. ‘Let’s try their public transport.’

Jimmy sat in the hotel bar having a quiet beer with his father while they waited for the arrival of the coach to take fans to the stadium for the match.

‘Where were you all day, Jimmy?’ his father asked. ‘I was looking for you.’

‘I was with Eddie and Mitch, Da. We had to go up to Utrecht.’

‘What for?’

‘Eddie had a bit of business to attend to. He was meeting somebody.’

Jimmy avoided his father’s glare. He knew he would be well aware that if McGregor had business it would involve drugs. And he knew how much his father hated the fact that almost every section of the UVF was knee-deep in the coke market.

‘I take it he was picking up drugs?’ he said, disgusted.

‘I don’t ask. I just do what I’m told,’ Jimmy lied.

His father shook his head and sighed.

‘Everything’s changed so much. It’s all fucking drugs now, no matter what you do. Time was when the UVF would have sorted out any of the lads involved in drugs. In my day, we worked to keep the drugs out of the working-class areas. I’ve kneecapped a few of the dealers myself over the years. But now? Anything fucking goes.’

Jimmy didn’t know what to say. As far as he knew, Belfast was aware of the coke deals and turned a blind eye as long as they got their cut. But he didn’t want to get into an argument.

‘It’s the way things are now, Da. It’s all money.’ He saw his father glower at him. ‘Before you ask, I don’t do coke. Never have. But it’s big business out there. Everyone’s doing it.’

‘Doesn’t make it fucking right. Doesn’t mean we have to sink to their level. The UVF was never like that before. That’s not who we are – cheap bastard drug dealers. We’re supposed to be fighting for something that’s right. Defending the Union. I’ve made my feelings well known to the brigadier in Belfast. It’s not where we should be.’

Jimmy said nothing.

‘And that bastard McGregor. He’s a chancer. Don’t know how he got where he is.’ He shook his head. ‘I always knew he was a scumbag, long before you told me about him raping that wee lassie.’

Jimmy’s stomach knotted.

‘Da. You can’t say anything about that. Just forget I told you.’

His father stood up.

‘Fuck it. Come on. Let’s go and watch the Rangers.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Donna slid open the patio doors and stepped outside with her coffee. She spread out the day’s
Post
in front of her, and flicked through the pages to see if there was any more on the car pulled out of the quarry. When it had come on the breakfast news on television as Eddie was getting organised to leave for Holland, she’d watched him closely for some kind of reaction. There was none – but that didn’t prove anything. It wouldn’t have surprised her if he’d bumped them off and just got on with his day. She’d seen him disappear several times over the years on what he said was business, and she knew that meant UVF business. She didn’t dare ask. But she knew how he worked, how he dealt with people who crossed him. Over time she’d picked up little snippets about some guy or other having the crap beaten out of him by Eddie and his cronies. He had respect, he continually told her, and she should be proud of him.

She adjusted the chair and pushed herself back, turning
so she could feel the sun on her face, and relaxed, relishing the fact that Eddie was gone for a couple of days. If only she had the guts to get up one morning and disappear, just keep on running. She’d fantasised about it enough, but she knew he would find her. He’d already made that clear to her when he beat her up for threatening to leave, soon after their kids went off to lead their own lives.

To the outside world, she had an enviable life, but in reality she was trapped. Eddie was a successful builder and plumber and their lifestyle had all the trappings of wealth. They holidayed on luxury cruises, lived it up in lavish hotels in Spain, and their two-storey house in the south side of Glasgow wouldn’t have been out of place in a magazine shoot. She drove a smart 4 x 4 and spent a couple of days a week getting preened at the hairdressers. But she was utterly miserable. Being bored shitless was only half the problem. Her hatred of her husband grew every morning she faced him over the breakfast table. She knew he had other women. She could smell them on him some nights when he came through the door, but she kept silent. Donna had despised him for so long she couldn’t even remember what it had been that first attracted her to him. He’d been brash and tough, but there had been a certain charm about his swagger when they were young. That had disappeared a long time ago. Over the years he became a bully, a boorish waster, who would pull her onto his knee on a night out, telling anyone who would listen how she was his possession, that he owned every single bit of her.

Donna had somehow managed to convince him to let her take a part-time job to get her out of the house once the kids flew the nest. And that’s when her life got out of control, when she met Andy, one of the head bakers. He was like a breath of fresh air, younger and so different, a gentle soul of a man. They’d become friends and sometimes would sit outside with lunch while she laughed at his easy humour and placid view of the world. The first time he kissed her took her totally by surprise. She’d been dropping him home because his car had broken down and as she stopped outside his flat he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. That was how it started. Now her life revolved around stolen moments when Eddie was at work, or she made some excuse to be out of the house so she could meet Andy. They were behaving like star-crossed teenagers. They had sex in his car, in a field, and one time on the banks of a loch during their lunch hour. Her body ached just thinking about it. He had coaxed her to leave Eddie, and she promised she would, while deep down knowing she couldn’t. She just didn’t have the heart to tell him.

The card in the drawer flashed into her mind. She had to face facts. Not even that could free her. What if she took it to the cops? Where would that leave her? In the witness box, sending her man to jail. And not just any man – a UVF man. She might as well take a gun and shoot herself. She closed the drawer and looked up at the kitchen clock.

The doorbell rang and Donna checked herself in the hall
mirror, fluffed up her blond-streaked hair, and opened the door.

‘I brought my tools.’ Andy held up a canvas bag in front of him, a broad smile on his face. ‘Make it look right.’