Dead Won't Sleep (25 page)

‘What I think or don’t think doesn’t matter, Paddy,’ Rosie said. ‘I try to understand. But to be honest, it’s hard. I can’t say I accept or condone what you do, because I don’t. But I’m not in your shoes.’ Deep down, though, she didn’t want to be breathing the same air as the kind of pond life that was prepared to hand over kids to perverts.

‘I’m not a bad man, Rosie. I was just an ordinary guy like the rest of them, working away. It was the drugs. Everything round here is drugs. You always think it won’t come to your doorstep, but it does. And when it does, it tears your family apart. You do things that you hate yourself for. You lose who you are, who you once were, just trying to survive it.’

Rosie nodded, but she didn’t feel like helping him
justify what he had been doing. She just wanted to get the job done and get him out of her life. She knew that, realistically, she couldn’t help people like Quigley. It was all a means to an end. You walked in and out of people’s lives. You did the job, zipped it up, then you went home and tried to live your life. But for too long now the script hadn’t been working that way for Rosie. It was getting harder and harder for her to distinguish between what was her job and what was her life. In fact, sometimes the job was better than her life. At least it was somewhere for her to go. Maybe she needed a break. She didn’t want to hear any more about Paddy’s pathetic life. Just tell the story, she said to herself, and move on to next business.

‘Don’t worry, Paddy. Let’s just get this done. You know, the people who you hate for doing this, they’ll get their day, Paddy. Believe me. They’ll get their day.’

‘And me?’ he asked. ‘What about me?’

‘We’ll sort you out when the time is right.’ She looked straight at him. ‘You’ll be fine, you have my word on that. Now, call me tonight if there’s anything to report, and don’t worry. I’ll come and see you if there’s anything on the tape, and after that you’re out of the frame. Okay?’

‘I trust you, Rosie,’ Quigley said, grabbing her hand. ‘I trust you.’

She pulled her hand away and looked beyond him as he got out of the car.

As he made his way down the road towards the children’s home, she drove off with his words ringing in her ears.

It was the first time Rosie had ever heard TJ open up about his life.

They’d eaten at a restaurant close to St George’s Cross. Rosie had asked TJ to come and check her flat with her, since she hadn’t been there for nearly a week. Paranoia had set in after what Alison had told her about the breakin at her place in Edinburgh, and after her conversation with Reynolds, Rosie was worried that she was being watched. When they met up at the restaurant, she gave TJ the lowdown on the investigation over the last few days. He shook his head when she told him they had Quigley wired up to tape his boss. Almost a bottle of wine down, Rosie was feeling more relaxed than she had been for weeks. She wasn’t prepared to listen to TJ’s predictions that none of the stories would see the light of day.

‘Come on.’ Rosie took one of his cigarettes. ‘Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about Havana, TJ. You’re always a bit mysterious about that. Come on.’

TJ lit her cigarette, saying, ‘It’s a long story. You don’t want to hear all that.’ He looked beyond her out into the street.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Rosie said.

To her surprise, he took a sip or two of his wine, lit himself a cigarette and began talking. He said he had never meant to fall in love. For most of his life he had managed to navigate his way around relationships with women all over the world, pursuing his own agenda of having fun with no ties. As a musician that was easy. Why settle into one relationship when he could have a different woman every night in a different town? More often than not, he did.

‘When I went to Havana, everything changed.’ TJ ran his fingers through his hair.

‘You fell in love?’ Rosie said. ‘You met someone?’

‘You sure you want me to tell you?’ Their eyes met.

‘If you’re okay with it, TJ.’

He had gone to Havana, to Cuba, with his best friend, who he’d been living with in New York for the past couple of years. His friend played trumpet, and with TJ’s sax, they had no trouble getting work in the bars in Havana. The city was awesome, with tourists from all over the world, and the beautiful Havana girls.

‘We were just a couple of crazy musicians living the wildest life you could imagine. It was brilliant. We loved our music, the Cubans loved us. It was so good to be a part of something that was like stepping back fifty years.
Everything was different in Havana. It gets inside you.’ He sighed.

‘Then it all changed the night a beautiful creature called Martina walked into this smoky little bar where we were playing. His dark eyes were fixed on Rosie. ‘Love at first sight, Rosie. It’s for eejits, right? A fairy story – or so I thought. But that’s what happened. I fell like a ton of bricks.’

Martina was fifteen years younger than he and initially had shown no interest in him. But TJ pursued her, and within weeks she was sharing his apartment in the heart of the city. He guessed that part of it may have been to get away from the ramshackle home she shared with her mother and two brothers, but he didn’t care. He could have looked at her all day and she was devoted to him. When he awoke in the mornings, she was watching him, like a puppy. She said she liked to look at him sleeping, wait for him to wake up to share her day. Nothing had ever felt like that before.

Rosie split the last of the wine between each of their glasses.

‘Then I lost her,’ TJ said. ‘One ordinary day. In the blink of an eye.’ He was silent.

Rosie waited. She thought he was going to cry. ‘What happened, TJ?’ She stretched her hand across and touched his fingers.

‘Stupid accident,’ he said. ‘Nothing exotic. It happened right outside my house. She got hit by a car on her way
back from the market after buying some food. As soon as I heard the bang and the screams, I just knew. I ran downstairs and into the street, and she was just lying there. Her face was white, her eyes open, and there wasn’t even a lot of blood. The driver was screaming and weeping that it wasn’t his fault, that she stepped out in front of him. But Martina was still alive . . .’

Rosie brushed the back of her hand on his cheek.

‘I knelt down and held her in my arms until the ambulance came. It took ages. I could see blood trickling from her ear . . . She was whispering my name. She slipped away in my arms.’ He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I’ve never told anyone that before. It happened four years ago.’

They sat in silence, not looking at each other. Eventually, Rosie spoke.

‘What happened after that?’

TJ sipped his wine and lit another cigarette. He passed it to Rosie, and sighed. ‘What could I do? I had nothing. Nowhere to go. It was the first time in my life that I really wanted something to stay the same, and it didn’t.’

‘Did you stay in Havana?’ Rosie took a draw from the cigarette and handed it back to him.

He nodded. ‘Yes. I stayed, because I didn’t want to leave. It was as though by leaving I would have left too much behind. It was the strangest feeling. So I stayed for a while, nearly a year, but I knew it couldn’t go on.
Then I just got up one day, packed my bags, and went to the travel shop and booked a flight to New York. I knew if I went back there, I could get something of my old self back. But you know, Rosie? I never did. So whoever I am now, that’s not who I used to be. I play that sax outside O’Brien’s every night, and it’s like if I keep playing then the pain will go away. Sometimes it works.’

‘Well,’ Rosie said. ‘Whoever you are now, I like you.’ She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. ‘And now? I mean, how are you now? Is it any easier, TJ?’

She wanted to ask him if he could love like that again, but she was afraid. Her feelings for him had grown strong in these past few weeks. In her arrogance, she had never even considered that he may have loved someone else. Now she sensed that, whatever she was to him, she could never mean as much as Martina had.

He looked into her eyes. ‘I don’t know, Rosie. Yes, of course it’s easier, and I suppose it’s something that will get better in time. My life has moved on, but part of me is still with her. A wee bit of me died that day too, so that’s why it’s hard for me to have relationships.’

She wanted to ask if it had been a mistake for them to go to bed, but supposing his answer was yes?

TJ seemed to be reading her mind.

‘Rosie.’ He took her hand in his. ‘Please don’t think that with you it didn’t mean anything. Of course it did – of course it does. I do have a lot of feelings for
you. Strong feelings. But part of me will always be somewhere else. I felt it was only fair to tell you that, because . . . because I do think I love you, Rosie. Do you understand that?’

Fear and relief flooded through Rosie. Fear because, if you love, you have to make changes to your life. You lose control.

‘TJ,’ she said. ‘I know. Well, I kind of know what you mean. Don’t worry. I do have a lot of feelings for you too. I think I’ve loved you longer than I’ve even admitted to myself.’ She sighed. ‘But if I’m honest, the thought scares me because I’m no good at relationships. You may have noticed.’ She smiled.

‘I noticed,’ he said, and smiled back. ‘Trouble with you, Rosie, is that you move around so fast. Sometime, you have to think about waiting for your soul to catch up with you. Maybe then you’ll see things different.’

Rosie looked at him. Nobody had ever read her so well.

‘Yeah. Maybe you’re right. But I just don’t know what will happen to us, TJ. I do love you, as my friend and as my lover, and I want to be with you – I think. I just don’t know if it’s right. I’m scared, TJ. It’s easier for me if I just keep working, and sticking to relationships that never go anywhere. That way, nobody gets to hurt me.’

TJ sat back and drank his wine, then said, ‘Rosie, nobody gets to go through life without falling in love and getting hurt. That’s what it’s all about. You do it, and you grow from it. You have to understand that.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

They sat in silence until the waiter came over and put the bill on the table. They hadn’t noticed that all the other diners had left and the waiters were shuffling around at the bar waiting for them to finish.

‘Okay,’ TJ said, lifting the bill. ‘Enough soul-searching. Let me buy you dinner.’

‘Fine.’ Rosie finished her wine. ‘I’ll cook breakfast.’

He smiled, and put his arm around her as they walked out the door and into the cold night air.

As soon as Rosie switched on the light in the living room she knew. Someone had been in the flat. She stood looking around the room for telltale signs.

‘What’s the matter?’ TJ came towards her and ruffled her hair.

‘Someone’s been in here, TJ. I just know it.’

‘But the place looks fine.’ He glanced around. ‘As far as I can remember being here, though I was pissed at the time.’ He leaned over and kissed her neck, slipping his arms around her waist.

‘Sssh, TJ.’ Rosie eased herself away. ‘Honest. Something’s up.’ She walked over to the computer and pushed the button. It was switched off. She never switched it off. Even when she left last week to stay at the rented flat. She opened one of the drawers in her desk and could see that it had been rifled.

‘Look, TJ. My CDs. They’re all scattered. Look.’ She
pointed to the drawer where the CDs were kept. She opened another drawer and papers she had kept for years, nothing important, just private scribblings, had also been moved.

‘Look. That stuff’s been in there for about two years. I hardly ever go into that drawer but I know where everything is. It’s been tampered with, TJ.’

‘Are you sure?’

She was absolutely sure. Someone had been looking for the material Alison had given her – as if she would be daft enough to keep in her desk drawer. ‘At least whoever it is doesn’t seem to know that I’ve not been living here. My other place is safe. At least I hope so.’

‘What do you want to do?’ TJ said. ‘It’s not as if we can call the cops.’

‘I know. I don’t think there’s much we can do, but it gives me the creeps knowing that someone’s been here, rifling through my things.’ She looked at TJ and went into her bedroom. Nothing looked as though it had been disturbed. She opened her wardrobe. A box at the bottom where she kept old papers had its lid off and the contents jumbled up.

‘Look,’ she called to TJ. ‘They’ve been in here too. Bastards!’

He came into the bedroom and put his arms around her.

‘Listen, Rosie, do you think we should stay here? Maybe we should just get the hell out. Go back to my place.’

Rosie nodded agreement, but as they went back into the living room, there was a loud knock at the door. They looked at each other. Rosie’s stomach turned over. ‘Shit!’ she said.

TJ put his fingers to his lips. ‘Sssh.’

The door was knocked again, louder, as though a fist was slamming against it. Rosie walked towards the door and looked through the spy hole. She saw officers in uniform, standing behind two plain-clothes men.

‘Cops,’ she turned and mouthed to TJ.

‘Who’s there?’ she called out. ‘Who is it?’

‘Police. Open up, please.’

‘Jesus! What do they want?’ she whispered to TJ.

‘Open up, please, Miss Gilmour?’

Rosie took off the chain and opened the door. A man in a black raincoat stuck his foot in the door. He showed her his warrant card with the name Detective Inspector McIver.

‘Rosemary Gilmour,’ he said. ‘We have a search warrant for your home. We have received information that you are in possession of a quantity of drugs.’

His plain-clothes colleague stepped inside.

She was being set up. She hadn’t been through every drawer in the house, but she could guarantee that when they did, they would find the cocaine that had been planted by whoever had broken into her house. She stood aside to let them in. The two uniformed officers came in after them. One was a WPC with a face like flint. She
gave Rosie a sour look. All four walked past her down the hall.