Kill Me Twice: Rosie Gilmour 7 (12 page)

Chapter Twelve

‘Have
you found that little junkie fucker yet?’ Larry Sutton’s Cockney voice barked down the phone. He was a great believer in putting the frighteners on with the opening line. No pissing around with small talk or howsit-going-mate. Just get to the fucking point – smartish.

‘Not yet, boss. Sorry. No joy. Not a fucking sniff.’

Larry could hear the jitters in Big Ricky’s voice, and that made him even angrier. Six foot two and built like Goliath, but didn’t have the balls to fight his corner. He’d have respected him more if Ricky’d given him a sharp answer back, even though he’d still have got his face wasted for his cheek when Larry saw him.

‘Well, you’re fucking lucky you’re up in fucking Glasgow and not down here standing in front of me, else I might rip that fucking bleached-blond barnet right off of your fucking head. What the fuck have you been doing up there? How hard can it be to find a fucking heroin addict in
Glasgow? The place is crawling with them, innit? If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be so fucking rich.’

He stopped his rant to hear just how shit Ricky’s excuse was. Larry liked the sound of his own East End twang, and he loved to ram it home to the Jocks that they were nothing but a bunch of lowlife sheep-shaggers.

‘He’s nowhere to be seen, Larry. Me and Pete have been putting down markers all over the shop. But nothing’s happening.’

‘But you’re a fucking Glasgow ned, Ricky. I thought you knew every lowlife cunt up there.’

‘Well, to be fair, boss, I’ve been down in the Smoke for a while. Okay, I know the lads we work with at the top of the supply chain up here, but nobody deals with the junkies first-hand. They’re usually lying in their own shit in some fucking smack den.’

‘But he’s been living in Glasgow for months, I’ve been told.’

‘I know, I know. And I’m everywhere looking for him. One guy in a house in Ruchazie said he saw somebody called Dan in a hostel in the East End a few months ago. I’ve got a few feelers out, thrown some money around, but nothing’s come back to me yet.’

‘Well, somebody’d better get back to you soon, because if I have to send some other fucker up there to do your job, you’ll be in the shit, my son. Are you fucking hearing me?’

‘Yeah,
boss. I hear you. Me and Pete are chasing down every fucking shithole we can find, but this little bastard seems to have disappeared. Maybe he’s dead. He might have overdosed or something, happens all the time. You never see it in the papers or anything. They just shovel them into a body-bag and get rid of it.’

‘Yeah, well, I really don’t need to hear the story of a life in the day of some junked-up prick. I want Dan Mason, and I want him pronto. So don’t call me back until you’ve got something good to tell me.’ He paused. ‘I’m giving you two more days. Now fuck off.’

Larry hung up and tossed the handset across the table, then sat back in his leather office chair, swinging his feet onto his desk. ‘Fucking lowlife bastard,’ he muttered. It had been over a week now since he’d disposed of that coked-up nut-job Bella Mason. Well,
his
hands were completely clean, and they would remain that way if the heat ever came to his door. But it had been his hit, all right, and he was quite proud of the way his boys had sorted it, even if the bird’s untimely death did continue to grab the headlines in the shitty papers. The suicide of a young model at one of the biggest events in the fashion world hadn’t been his suggestion, but he had to hand it to that creepy bastard Mervyn Bates for having the nous to inject a bit of theatre into the contract. Taking a swan dive off the hotel roof in Madrid was pretty inspired, even if it had involved a bit of legwork and forward planning to pull it off. Big Ricky and
that gorilla mate of his Pete had done well. In and out like a couple of ghosts they were, down the fire escape and out of the way, while stunned people were trying to work out if they were imagining the corpse splattered on the ground in front of them. By the time the ambulances and cops arrived, Ricky and Pete were already out of Madrid and on the motorway north for France.

The newspapers, predictably, had all sorts of conspiracy theories. Did she fall or was she pushed, the usual crap. But the vultures on the tabloids were satisfied that Bella had done herself in, thanks to sly old Merv drip-feeding his sources that Bella had had a huge coke problem for the last couple of years, which he’d been trying to keep a lid on while getting her to clean up her act. Give it another couple of weeks and she’d be history, if she wasn’t already. But there
was
a catch. Merv had told him over lunch last week that the job wasn’t over. Bella had a secret brother, a heroin addict, somewhere in Glasgow. He had to be found and disposed of, too, because he knew too much. Fucking hell! Knew too much of what? Larry had asked. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Merv told him. ‘Just get rid of him. You never know how much he knows about Bella, the coke
and
who was the supplier not just to her but to all the models.’ Maybe Bella had told the brother everything. It was a loose end, Merv had said, and it needed sorting.

Merv had handed over the attaché case containing the remains of the seventy grand they’d agreed to get rid of
Bella. It was a decent pay-off, much more than an ordinary hit, but then again this little production was no ordinary hit. Find the boy, Larry was told, and there’s another twenty big ones coming your way. It wasn’t that Larry needed the money, though in this game you could never have enough. But he had to agree with Merv. He didn’t like loose ends. Larry was the coke supplier for Merv and his girls, had been for years, and some little slack-mouthed junkie could end up making trouble.

*

Rosie was grateful that Dan was more composed now, even if it
was
down to the heroin he’d just smoked. If McGuire knew what she was up to, it would put him right off the edge. But it was nine at night, and she didn’t want to disturb him at the backbench when he’d be putting the paper to bed.

After Dan’s meltdown in the cafe, Rosie knew, more than ever, that she had to hold onto him – whatever it took. She had to get everything out of him. It was pissing down outside, and she couldn’t risk leaving him on his own in that state. She’d got Dan to phone Mitch to meet them, and when she’d picked Mitch up she had to drive the pair of them to a tenement nearby to get a couple of tenner bags of heroin. Not only that, but she had to give them the money for it. She’d never admit this to McGuire, but she knew he wouldn’t question her too closely. Deep down he really didn’t want to know. She’d then taken them to a
cheap hotel owned by a Pakistani guy, who wouldn’t ask questions as long as he was getting paid an extra wedge. She’d used the place before, and to call it a hotel was stretching the truth, but at least Dan wouldn’t be sleeping rough. In one of her usual rush-of-blood-to-the-head moments, she considered taking them to her flat for the night, but that was wrong on so many levels. Tomorrow she’d speak to the editor about renting a flat for a couple of weeks till this was all over.

Rosie boiled the kettle in the small, damp room, and switched on the electric fire to take the chill out of the place. It was clean enough, but with damp, furry patches high up in the corners and a threadbare tartan fitted carpet that might once have looked plush. Dan sat by the fire, warming his hands. Rosie ripped up the pizza she’d collected on the way there and handed each lad a slice, even though food was not high on their agenda. She needed to get more out of Dan tonight, because he could go to pieces any day now. She didn’t have much time. She sipped her tea and pulled her chair closer to the fire.

‘So Dan, can you tell me more about these two guys in the picture? Who are they and how did you meet them? I can see they scare you. Do they work for someone?’ She took her tape recorder out of her pocket. ‘Listen. I’m going to tape what you’re saying here, because in due course when we use your interview, I want to get it right. Are you okay with that?’

Dan
nodded. ‘But if you’re going to put something in the paper right away, I need to get the fuck out of Glasgow and far away. I’m telling you, those guys will be looking for me.’

Rosie nodded patiently. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort that. Who are they?’

‘Okay. I’ll tell you.’ Dan tore off a corner of pizza and stuffed it into his mouth.

Rosie waited. Mitch sat on the floor, his back resting against the sofa, staring blankly at the fake flames dancing on the electric fire.

‘The big guy with the bleached hair, he’s Ricky, and the other one is Pete. They’re coke dealers who live in London. But they’re from Glasgow. They work for some East End geezer down in London – a big-shot. His name is Larry something.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t remember, but it’ll come back to me. Larry is an evil bastard, loaded with money, a big coke dealer. I mean big-time. He supplies most of the coke up here. Heroin too. Nearly everything from Spain and places like that comes to him first.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Rosie was surprised at how well informed Dan seemed to be. He was a nobody, a skinny heroin addict who at twenty-one was probably in the twilight of his life because junkies like him, ravaged by drugs and disease, rarely saw their thirtieth birthday.

‘Bella told me,’ Dan said. ‘That Larry prick was at a
function one time in London, and I was there with Bella. Well, I wasn’t with her, because nobody knew I was her brother. But I was at it too. It was a couple of years ago. I wasn’t as into heroin as I am now, just using it now and again. Anyway, for this party thing, Bella had got me spruced up.’ A half-smile played on his lips at the recollection, and he glanced at Mitch. ‘New jeans and stuff, and a dead expensive shirt. I looked all right that night.’

‘So this Larry guy was there?’

‘Aye. Like I said, he’s a big coke dealer. Bella was doing coke then, but not as much as she did recently. She admitted it to me when we were back staying in her hotel room that night – we were both wasted drunk. We talked about the old days, the home and stuff, and we were both greetin’.’ Dan gazed at the fire. ‘She said that Larry . . . Oh, I remember his name now – Larry Sutton. Aye. She said that Larry was the coke supplier for all the models who used. And they all did, to keep themselves skinny. Everyone was a cokehead in the fashion business. Larry supplied them all through that prick Mervyn. Big Mervyn Bates, her manager I told you about. He organized the coke for Bella and other girls. He’s the real bastard. He’s the one who took Bella away from me.’

Rosie watched as his mouth tightened and the muscle in his jaw twitched.

‘What
do you mean, Dan, he took Bella away?’

‘From the home. From the children’s home. Bella was thirteen, but she looked older. She was beautiful. Tall and thin, with these great green eyes. Everybody fancied her.’ He smiled. ‘And she fancied herself too. She said she was going to be a model. Any time someone asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, Bella said she was going to be famous – a famous model.’ He shook his head. ‘And she was. She was famous all right.’

‘So how did Mervyn Bates get involved?’

‘He’s an agent or something. I’m not sure. He’s like the guy who pushes the models to the right agencies, and he gets a cut of the money. He became Bella’s manager.’

‘What, when she was thirteen?’

‘No. Well, I don’t know. But it was him who arranged for Bella to be moved out of the home and live with foster parents. He said she was a special kid and could go far in the world, but that she needed to get out of the home. I was there when he said that. I remember it.’ He paused. ‘I don’t even know how he came to be around the home anyway. Maybe somebody got in touch with him and told him there was this beautiful young girl there. Who knows? I think they were all in on the pervert thing that was going on. Bastards.’

‘You were there when he said Bella had to get out of the home?’

Dan
nodded sadly. ‘Yeah. Then it seemed to happen quite quickly. It was only about two months later that Bella was taken away.’

‘But what about you? Could they not take her brother?’

‘They only wanted one child. I don’t know who the fuck they were. They took her down to England. It was Mervyn who set it up, but I’ll bet they were all part of the whole fucking paedo thing that had been going on.’

‘Did you ever meet the people?’

‘No. Bella didn’t even want to go. She was crying every day and causing fights, and saying she wasn’t going without me. But they just took her one night when we were all sleeping. When I went into the canteen in the morning, she wasn’t there. I took a flaky and started shouting and smashing things. They dragged me away.’ He sniffed back tears. ‘I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to my sister. She was all I fucking had in the world. Everything that was done was about the paedos getting what they wanted. Bastards!’ Dan buried his head in his hands.

Mitch patted his shoulder. ‘Come on, mate. You’re all right. You’ll be all right.’

‘I won’t, Mitch,’ he sobbed. ‘I’ll never be all right. Not after all that stuff. Fuck! I was only eight years old when the first greasy bastard got his hands on me. And I know Bella was only ten the first time they took us on the bus to that flat.’

Rosie
waited until he stopped crying. ‘Dan, do you want to talk about that just now? It’s up to you. We can stop if you want. Take a break and do it in the morning.’

He wiped his nose on his sleeve, composed himself.

‘Aye. I want to talk. You said we were getting the police, didn’t you? I want to go to the cops with this and tell them everything, like I did before. When I was fifteen and still in Glasgow, I got arrested for shoplifting and then got done again for smashing a window and stealing jewellery. I told the cops then about the abuse, but I don’t think they believed me. I tried to get some of the other people I knew from the home, but they’d all gone their own ways and it was hopeless. I did meet one guy, Tony, a year later, and he also went to the cops. I know that for sure. He made a complaint.’

‘What was his second name?’

‘Tony Calvetti.’

‘Have you seen him since?’

‘No. Don’t know what happened to him. I only bumped into him by chance in one of the hostels here about eighteen months ago. That was when he told me he’d reported it to the cops. It was when he’d been arrested for assault. I haven’t seen him since.’