To Tell the Truth (33 page)

‘Look, Jenny, Martin,’ Rosie said. ‘I have to ask you some things that you may not be comfortable with, but I need to put them to you, because my job here is to tell all of this story, not just the good bits. I hope you will understand that.’ Rosie was confident, controlled. This was her show now.

Jenny looked suddenly pale.

No point in beating about the bush. Rosie moved straight in, addressing her question to Jenny.

‘Jenny. It has been suggested that your version of what happened on the morning Amy was snatched is not actually the whole story.’ Rosie saw Jenny swallow. ‘I understand the Guarda Civil talked to you about the windsurfer’s eye-witness account of the person he claims he saw in the yellow shorts?’

Martin looked at the floor. Jenny’s lip twitched. The air was thick with tension. Rosie pressed on.

‘Jenny. There’s no easy way to ask you this. Was there someone in the house with you that morning, after Martin went out for his jog?’

Silence. Martin kept looking at the floor. Jenny did too, then she looked up and straight at Rosie, her eyes pleading.

‘Rosie. Is this really necessary?’

‘Yes, Jenny, it is. I’m sorry. I’m trying to report the factual account of events as they unfolded that morning.’

‘But why? What if there
was
someone else in the house?
Why does anyone need to know that. Do you really think people need to hear some kind of tittle-tattle?’

‘Not tittle-tattle, Jenny. The whole country and beyond took the story of Amy’s kidnapping to their hearts. The sympathy was overwhelming. Everyone in the country wanted Amy back. This isn’t about tittle-tattle. I think people want the truth. I think they deserve it.’

Silence. Then suddenly Martin spoke.

‘Jenny, just tell her. Just tell her who was in the house. Get it over with and let’s get on with our lives.’ He took hold of Jenny’s hand.

She swallowed. She shook her head.

‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you every single area of my life, Rosie.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s just not anyone’s business. But I will say this to you, and nothing more: I made a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life, and if I roast in hell for it, then it will be nothing to what I’ve been through these past few weeks. I nearly lost my daughter because of that mistake. My family.’ She squeezed Martin’s hand. ‘I will pay for that mistake for the rest of my life. Do you think I’m going to forget what I did?’

‘Jenny. Were you with Jamie O’Hara in the house that morning?’

‘Yes. I was.’

What the hell, Rosie thought. Just ask.

‘Were you and Jamie … were you together that morning?’ The implication of Rosie’s question was clear.

Silence. Jenny broke. Her eyes full of tears, she looked at Rosie. She didn’t speak. She just nodded.

‘You were?’

Jenny nodded. Amy looked up briefly at her mother then went back to her toys.

Silence. Rosie cleared her throat.

‘Can I ask both of you a question?’

Martin looked up.

‘How have you dealt with this? I mean. Are you able to put this behind you? Are you still together? Do you think you will be able to survive this?’

‘Rosie.’ Martin spoke softly. His pale grey eyes looked sad. ‘We are together. We have our daughter back. That is all that matters. We have a lot to get through, and we can do this.’ He put his hands up. ‘Can we just put this line of questioning away now, Rosie? We are not on trial here. We are two human beings, capable of making mistakes, we’re not monsters. The monsters are the people who kidnapped our daughter. Get this in perspective. Now please – can we move on?’

Rosie lifted her coffee cup, grateful that her hand wasn’t trembling. She looked at them and nodded.

‘I have one more question, Martin. Just one more thing. We have been told that Amy’s kidnapping was connected to your late father. That he was linked to the death of a prostitute in Moscow last year and that Amy was kidnapped as some kind of revenge, with one of the Russian Mafia bosses behind it? Can you talk to me about that?’

Martin shook his head, his eyes closed for a second.

‘No. I absolutely won’t talk about that. Not on the record, and I hope you will understand that. You have enough meat on your story as it is, Rosie. I won’t talk about my
father or any talk of revenge. You know why? Because what if this isn’t over yet? Off the record, yes, everything you have said there is correct. But if you publish a story like that, you may be placing our lives in danger. Is there no line you won’t cross, Rosie?’

‘I’ll speak to my editor,’ Rosie said. ‘I understand what you’re saying. I will talk to him, Martin. I promise you that.’

‘Please don’t publish that, Rosie.’ Martin stood up.

The interview was over. There were no hugs this time as they walked to the door. Just handshakes and awkwardness. Sometimes the truth was hard to take – for all of them.

‘Christ. That was tough,’ Rosie said to Matt as they got into the car.

With the press of a key on her laptop, Rosie could lose the Jamie O’Hara line or keep it in. Cut or keep. It was up to her. What good would it actually do to drag the dirty detail out, she asked herself as she read and re-read the interview? Did it make any difference? No, she decided, it didn’t. But what was the point of telling a story if you can’t tell all of the story? It wouldn’t have been the first time Rosie had kept certain facts from McGuire or the newsdesk when she was investigating or writing a story. She operated by her own rules, not those of the bosses who had never knocked on a door in their lives. Part of her wanted to give the Lennons a break, give Jenny a break. She could tell McGuire they wouldn’t even discuss the O’Hara connection. No comment. He would
believe her. But a bigger part of her wanted to tell the truth. No other bastard had told the truth since the beginning of this sorry tale. Not Jenny. Not O’Hara. Not Carter-Smith. Not Martin. It was supposed to be about truth. Once you buried the truth, you had nothing left.

She read the story one more time and pressed the send key like an assassin squeezing the trigger.

Her mobile rang and she went inside from the balcony and picked it up off the bed.

‘Rosie.’ It was Adrian.

‘You made it.’

‘I made it.’

‘Are you alright? They arrested Leka.’

‘He is out, Rosie. This afternoon. Daletsky has some very top lawyers and he makes things happen.’

‘Shit, that’s unbelievable. Jesus, Adrian, you have to be careful.’

Silence. Then: ‘Listen Rosie. I know where my sister is. I have information. I am going to get her tonight. Will you help me?’

Rosie and Matt were booked on a plane to Glasgow at six-fifteen in the morning. She’d have to be at the airport by four at the latest. But that wasn’t the issue. Whatever Adrian was planning, it wasn’t going to involve picking up his sister after a shift waiting tables in a tapas bar. He would be rescuing her from some whorehouse. She feared the body count was about to go up. But thinking twice wasn’t in Rosie’s DNA.

‘I’ll help, Adrian. Just tell me what you want me to do.’

‘Only to be outside with the car. Ready to drive us away when I get her. That is all I need.’

‘Fine. I’ll be there with Matt. Maybe Javier.’ Rosie’s stomach knotted.

‘Thanks. I pick you up at ten.’

‘I’ll be ready.’

‘And Rosie,’ Adrian said. ‘Thanks.’ The line went dead.

Rosie went to the bedside phone and dialled Matt’s room number.

‘Matt. Can you come round here. There’s a slight change to our dinner plans.’

She phoned Javier. She told him he didn’t have to be part of this. He was the guy who had to live here.

‘I’m in,’ he said immediately. ‘Of course I’m coming. You want to go somewhere in a hurry in Spain? I wouldn’t leave it to a fucking Brit to drive the car.’

He hung up.

CHAPTER 42

‘I’ve got this feeling of dread in my guts about this,’ Matt said from the back seat.

‘It’s a bit late in the day to start shitting your pants, Matt,’ Javier half joked, glancing in his rear view mirror.

Adrian had been gone less than fifteen minutes. He hadn’t spoken much on the journey from the Puente Romano to the bar/whorehouse in the outskirts of Fuengirola. He was unnervingly quiet, even for him. Rosie guessed he was more nervous than they were. He had more to lose. If something went wrong inside the whorehouse, both he and his sister could end up dead. He’d admitted that much to them when they’d discussed the plan in Rosie’s room before they left the hotel. But once they were in the car, he hardly said a word while Javier negotiated the backstreets and alleys to the bar.

As he got out of the car, Adrian had told them to wait where they were – ‘no matter what happens’. It was the ‘no matter what happens’ bit that worried everyone.

‘He’s a scary fucker, that Adrian, isn’t he?’ Matt said.

‘He’s very different,’ Rosie said. ‘His story is a million miles away from ours. I think when you’ve been where he’s been, through all that shit in Bosnia, seen the things he saw, you can’t expect to engage with other people in the same way the rest of us do. He has a different set of rules.’

‘He sure has. I like the way he does business – especially how he dealt with that Vinny bastard. I just hope tonight isn’t the night his luck runs out.’ Javier drew the smoke from his cigarette deep into his lungs and stared out of the window.

Rosie and Matt had already packed up and checked out of their hotel. The safest place for them to be when this was over would be the busy airport with its police presence – in case it all went tits-up and they were followed.

Once they got Adrian and his sister away from the brothel, the plan was to drop them at a meeting place where his Bosnian friend was waiting with a car. For some reason Adrian didn’t explain, his friend could not come into the area they were going to in case he would be recognised.

As Fiorina didn’t have a passport, Adrian was going to attempt to drive all the way to Bosnia. It was easier to travel in Europe since the frontiers had been removed, but there were still external checks. He said he would deal with whatever he came up against, but the immediate danger would be over once he was far enough away from the Costa del Sol.

After they’d made the drop, Rosie and Matt would go straight to the airport and sit it out until it was time for
their early morning flight. As travel itineraries go, it wasn’t ideal.

The bar, a seedy looking place, was up a side street in the part of Fuengirola you didn’t go to unless you were searching for this particular den. The fact that it happened to be part owned by Big Jake Cox from Glasgow cranked up the fear factor for Rosie and Matt, when Adrian broke the news to them. In addition to providing rooms with paper sheets and birds you could rent by the hour, there was also a card school in a backroom of the bar every Thursday where a hand-picked few played for big stakes. Tonight Leka would be taking part in a poker game with Jake Cox and one other hoodlum.

Adrian’s Bosnian friend had found out yesterday that Fiorina was living in the apartment above the whorehouse with other girls. His friend said she looked just as spaced out as them.

‘It’s so quiet here,’ Rosie said, scanning the darkened empty street. ‘Scarily quiet.’

‘That’s good though. It means we’ll be able to get away fast. Christ, Rosie. I can’t wait to get back to Glasgow.’

‘Yeah. Me too.’ Rosie thought again of her father alone in the flat. ‘I’ve been away for ages now. That first month up in Jerez seems like years ago.’

‘Sssh … Did you hear that?’ Javier interrupted.

‘Yeah, like a car backfiring,’ Matt said.

‘No, it’s gunfire. Inside the place. Something’s kicked off.’ He switched on the engine. ‘We better get ready.’

‘Shit, there it is again.’ Rosie glanced at Javier.

‘If something doesn’t happen soon, someone will call
the cops and they’ll be all over the place.’ Javier watched the building.

‘Look! The side door!’ Rosie saw it burst open and a figure emerged from the shadows. ‘It’s Adrian! He’s got a girl with him.’

‘Fuck!’ Matt said. ‘Someone’s after him.’

The squat guy chasing Adrian grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him round. Another shot, then another, and the guy fell. Adrian tried to run, holding up the girl, whose legs couldn’t keep up with him.

‘Open the door,’ Javier said.

Adrian was almost carrying the waif-like girl now as he got to the car. He bundled her inside and then dived in himself.

‘Quick, let’s go. They are coming.’

The car screeched away wheels spinning. Out of her side window Rosie could see two guys running.

‘They just got into a jeep, I saw them.’ Javier sped up one-way streets towards the edge of town.

‘You okay, Adrian?’

He was breathing hard. The girl was crying, her head buried in his chest.

‘Mama,’ she sobbed. ‘Mama.’

Adrian spoke to her in his language and patted the back of her head. He turned to look out of the rear window.

‘I don’t see anybody behind us. Maybe we lost them already. They are mostly English in there, the henchmen in the bar, so maybe they don’t know the roads so well.’

‘What happened?’ Rosie was almost scared to ask.

‘It was bad. Jake Cox was there in the back room. And
Leka, and one other man, English. I don’t know who he is. Was. I knew my sister would be in that room with them because they had her working there for the night. My friend told me this. They use the girls for themselves after the poker game. That is why I had to go tonight.’

Rosie turned around to look at him. If his sister had been held by these scumbags for nearly three months, then tonight wasn’t her first stint in the whorehouse, that’s for sure. By the look on Adrian’s face, he knew that too.

‘We heard the gunfire,’ Rosie said.

Adrian nodded.

‘Did you shoot all three of them?’

Adrian looked back at her. He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Rosie wondered if he’d killed Jake Cox. That would be a result in itself. But whoever he killed had help, because now she could see in her wing mirror the jeep was gaining ground.

‘Christ, they’re behind us now.’