Betrayed (13 page)

‘Liz, do you have any idea who this character is in the picture here with McGregor, Jimmy and Mitch Gillespie?’

Liz looked at it and her eyes widened.

‘Oh yeah! You bet I do.’ She folded her arms, looking pleased with herself.

‘Really?’

‘Aye. Do you not know him?’

‘No,’ Rosie said, hoping she’d done the right thing asking her. ‘Who is he?’

Liz took the print in her hand.

‘His name’s Jackson.’ She looked from the picture to Rosie. ‘His first name’s Alex, but everyone calls him Flinty. Something to do with him setting fire to people. He’s from Belfast but he’s one of the biggest coke dealers on the Costa del Sol. A real bastard. Don’t know if he’s actually UVF. I heard he was at one time, but they got rid of him. He must have done something bad if
they
got rid of him. Well, not quite rid, but they got him out of the country. He runs a pub down near Fuengirola. Scottish pub. But it’s a Rangers pub, full of Scots or Northern Irish. Anyone who’s a Rangers fan. Tourists go there too … not Celtic tourists though,
obviously.’ She glanced at Rosie as though she could see she was impressing her. ‘But coke’s his business. No doubt about that.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Sure, I was there. I told you me and Wendy were in Spain for a while. We got mixed up with the coke scene.’

‘Dealing?’

‘No, no. Just using. You get to know who all the players are.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘But never mind all that. What I’m saying is I know who this guy is. And if big Eddie’s with him then that’s who’s supplying him.’ She frowned. ‘But I’m surprised to see him in Utrecht though. I’d have thought he’d have sent someone else. Or maybe he was there for the match?’

‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘He left after the meeting. Got a flight to Malaga.’

‘Well, maybe he didn’t trust anyone else. Depends on how much coke it was, I suppose – how much money was involved.’ She shrugged. ‘Yeah. Actually maybe the supply was coming from Holland. Amsterdam. As far as I can remember, Flinty mostly dealt with the Moroccans, but maybe sometimes the line comes from Amsterdam. He could have had to go there for some other reason. Maybe he was doing another big meeting as well, tying it all in. Paying off some dosh he owed. You can’t really keep track of these guys.’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie agreed. ‘That might explain it. What else do you know about him?’

‘Only that he lives in a big villa somewhere down past Estepona. Near a port … Let me think … San Pedro or something like that. No … Puerto de la Duquesa. That’s where a lot of the villains live. People think the big gangsters live around Fuengirola but that’s crap. The real money and gangsters are further down the coast.’

‘And he’s been getting away with it for years? Nobody ever catch him?’

Liz shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe he’s a grass as well?’ She half smiled. ‘Though I wouldn’t say that to his face.’

The waiter came over but they waved him away.

‘Do you think I could get anywhere near this Flinty guy? So we could blow the whole thing open?’

Liz shrugged again. ‘Maybe. I don’t know enough about how he operates to tell you that, if I’m honest. But I know he’s got plenty of heavies around him. Goes with the territory. There are a lot of Eastern Europeans and Russian gangsters muscling in on the drugs scene down on the Costa now, so people have to protect their turf.’

Rosie nodded. ‘And my next question is this: if you’re in Spain, what’s the chances of you and Wendy helping us?’

Liz rubbed a finger across her bottom lip.

‘I had a feeling you were going to ask me that.’ She puffed. ‘Dangerous, Rosie. Very dangerous.’

‘But in the end, we might get Eddie McGregor nailed.’ Rosie hated it when she’d to do a sales job on people. But it
had to be done. ‘That’s what you want isn’t it? At the end of the day?’

Liz nodded. ‘Definitely. And Wendy would want that too. But I don’t know. I’ll need to talk to her about the whole shooting match when I get there.’ She raised her eyebrows and looked at Rosie. ‘I don’t want to do anything too daft though. What have you got in mind?’

‘I don’t know yet. I just want to know on principle if we have you and Wendy on the same side as us.’

‘Of course we’re on the same side. We all want that bastard to get his balls chopped off. But we don’t want to get killed in the process.’

‘Me neither. Listen. I’ll have people helping me. I’ll have a plan, but some of it will have to be improvised. I’ll need someone a little close to things helping me with an inside track.’ Rosie looked at her. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’ll see.’ Liz sounded noncommittal. ‘I can’t be sure of anything until I have a good long talk with Wendy. But if it’s possible at all, then I want to help you. I’m glad you’re doing this. Honest.’ She got up to leave. ‘I need to go now and get organised. I’ll have a Spanish mobile by tomorrow so I’ll phone you.’

‘Thanks. I hope you’ll help.’

Rosie watched as she went out of the door, then sat down again and ordered another coffee. She didn’t feel like going home to her empty flat just yet.

*

Jimmy didn’t go into the Tavern for a last pint when the bus dropped them off outside. The troops were in good spirits as Rangers had drawn one all with Eindhoven, and as far as they were concerned that was nearly as good as a win away from home. Roll on the Seville match, was the general roar as fans left Holland. But the bus journey home had been long, and Jimmy could see that his father looked done in.

Deep down he was also glad he’d said he would walk home with his da. He’d had enough of Eddie and Mitch, having been joined at the hip with them for the last three days. He spotted Eddie going towards a waiting black Merc when he got off the bus, and presumed he’d be dropping the gear off.

During the journey back from Utrecht and over dinner after the Rangers match, Eddie had told them a little more of how he always dealt with the guy they’d met. His name was Alex Jackson, but his nickname was Flinty – after setting fire to a guy years ago when he was over in Belfast on a UVF job. He was also known to be handy with a blowtorch, especially on anyone who had difficulty answering questions under interrogation. Flinty was the son of a notorious Belfast UVF man who had been linked with the Shankill Butchers back in the seventies; a bloodthirsty bunch who murdered and mutilated more than thirty Catholics, and whose savagery shocked even the most hardened Loyalists. Police never had enough to charge Flinty’s father along with the others who were eventually convicted. The Shankill
Butchers period was one of the darkest times in UVF history. Flinty had lived on and off in Glasgow as his mother was Scottish, but he was used by the UVF for punishment beatings. The man he’d set on fire in Belfast was front page news for days, and the Belfast command summoned him over. It wasn’t the fire that was the problem – just that Flinty had set fire to the wrong guy. They couldn’t have him working for them again, so they gave him a way to make himself scarce but still be useful. He’d been in Spain since, on the Costa, dealing coke. The UVF knew about it but left him to it, as long as they got a kickback and could launder their money through his bar. But it had been made clear to him that he was on his own. If he got caught, they’d do nothing to help him.

Jimmy had thought he was a cold-looking bastard all right, and he didn’t show much respect to himself or Mitch. He’d barely spoken to them and directed any conversation towards Eddie. He obviously thought of them as some kind of gofers, which Jimmy had to admit they probably were. But he’d made his mind up fairly quickly that he didn’t like him, and Mitch had told him later when Eddie wasn’t there that he didn’t like him either.

Sleep wouldn’t come for Jimmy as he lay in bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He pushed thoughts of Wendy from his mind. He couldn’t go on tormenting himself with this. If only she’d get in touch to say it was over, he’d be fine. But all the time was the niggle
that Eddie had done something to her. In Eindhoven he’d gone to a bar with Eddie and Mitch late into the night and they ended up in a whorehouse. Eddie thought it would be a good idea for him to get his mind off Wendy. Mitch paid for a girl and went upstairs to one of the rooms like a rat up a drainpipe, and Eddie was taken into a room at the back. Jimmy had sat at the bar as a beautiful girl sidled up to him. He bought her a drink, but when she offered herself, he simply told her not tonight. When Eddie and Mitch emerged they ribbed him big time about it. Mitch said he was turning into a poof and it was time he got himself sorted.

‘I don’t pay for sex,’ he said quietly. ‘Never have and never will.’

Eddie glared at him sarcastically.

‘We all pay for it, son. One way or another. Trust me on that one.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Every time Rosie’s mobile rang, she cursed that it wasn’t Liz. Five days had passed since she went to Spain, and nothing. Not a word. She didn’t even know if she was in Spain at all – she only had Liz’s word that she was going. She could be anywhere.

Rosie sat at her desk and listened to Declan Flannagan opposite her, furiously taking notes as he spoke on the phone. It sounded like another drugs call. There had been several over the last couple of days since a sudden spate of cocaine deaths. This morning’s
Post
had a picture of the latest victim, a twenty-four-year-old salesman who died following a massive heart attack at a nightclub in the city. Off the record, the hospital insider had told Declan that in simple terms the guy’s heart had exploded. The cocaine he’d used was either too pure or had been cut with something toxic, or both. It had caused a rapid arrhythmic heartbeat – common with cocaine users – to go completely off the
scale. Declan had spoken to his parents, who had no idea their son even had a coke habit. Poor bastards. They’d been proud of how well he’d been doing in his job and had been celebrating his promotion to area manager with a champagne party. He was the third person to die in four days, and a police statement warned that there might be a bad batch of cocaine circulating.

Don had later given Rosie an inside track on the initial tests on the victims. They indicated that the levels of cocaine in the bloodstream were actually quite small, but it had been cut with something lethal which they were still investigating. Whatever it was, he’d said, it would fell a horse at fifty paces. Worse still, now that regular coke users would become wary of the supply, the bad batch would probably end up in the crack cocaine market at the lower end – opening up all sorts of horror scenarios.

Rosie’s desk phone rang and Marion told her that the editor was waiting for her.

‘So much for the high-flying salesman.’ McGuire looked up from his screen as Rosie walked into his office. ‘Flew a bit too high. Stupid bastard.’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie said.

She shared his lack of sympathy for anyone who used coke, and hoped the younger journalists in the office, whom she’d seen using at parties, would waken up to the dangers. But she wouldn’t hold her breath.

‘That was a good interview Declan did with the parents,’ she added, sitting down. ‘You’ve got to feel for them. So proud one week, then burying their boy the next. Hellish.’

‘Yeah,’ McGuire said. ‘Good piece. He’s a good lad, that Declan. I might make him the crime reporter in due course, now that we’ve got rid of Reynolds. You rate him, don’t you, Gilmour?’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘He’s got a lot of talent. He’s young, keen and making good contacts with cops and villains, without pandering to any of them. I like the boy’s style. He’s honest.’

‘Well. Hope he stays that way, though. It can be very seductive for a youngster, hobnobbing with cops and robbers.’

‘It was never very seductive for me, I have to tell you,’ Rosie said flatly.

McGuire smiled then got up from his desk and sat opposite her on an armchair.

‘So what’s happening? Tell me something exciting. Has that mad bird Liz got in touch yet?’

‘No,’ Rosie sighed. ‘Not yet.’ She bit the inside of her jaw, doubt beginning to niggle. ‘Can’t understand it. Maybe the Wendy girl isn’t keen and they’ve just shut down completely. But my gut feeling is that she’ll phone. She might be taking a few days to get her bearings back over in Spain.’ She crossed her fingers and held them up. ‘Let’s hope.’

She changed the subject. ‘But tell you what, Mick, this dodgy coke that’s causing the problems – it’s only happened since Eddie McGregor came back from Holland with his holdall full of something. Maybe it’s the stuff he brought back.’

‘Yeah, but it could have been Dutch cheese in that holdall, for all we know. Or tulips from Amsterdam.’ He gave her a mocking look. ‘We haven’t a clue what was in the bloody bag.’

‘Aw, come on. You knew before we went that this was more of a watching brief. How were we going to find out what was in the bag? No way could we have done that. Look, we’re not in court. But consider the circumstantials here. McGregor, a known coke dealer, goes to Utrecht to meet this Flinty character – a known coke dealer and they exchange bags. I’d be very surprised if he’s home on the Rangers bus with a holdall full of tulips.’

‘I’m winding you up, Gilmour.’

‘I know you are. But seriously, the fact that these people are falling like flies tells me one thing – or it makes me suspect one thing. It’s McGregor’s coke that’s killing them.’

‘You might be right. But we’re probably never going to know.’

Rosie’s mobile rang, a number she didn’t recognise flashing on the screen.

‘I’d better answer this.’

‘Rosie?’

‘Liz! How you doing? I’ve been waiting for your call.’ She gave McGuire a thumbs-up.

‘I’ve been really busy. Just getting settled in and sorting some things out. I’m staying with Wendy. She’s all right, but she’s been in a bit of a mess over everything. She’s getting better though.’

‘Liz.’ Rosie glanced at Mick. ‘How about if I take a quick run over to see you and Wendy? I’d really like to meet the two of you and talk. What do you think?’ She would have preferred to have this conversation out of McGuire’s earshot, then he wouldn’t have known who made the suggestion to go to Spain.