Dead Won't Sleep (18 page)

‘Okay, go for it. But if you’ve got any doubt at all as you get closer then come back. Don’t do anything that will bugger it up.’ She turned away and looked out of the window. ‘Shit, I don’t believe I’m doing this. I must be as mad as you.’

‘Don’t worry, Rosie.’ Matt flashed a smile. ‘Trust me. I’m a snapper.’

Rosie watched as he started to walk down the road with his camera tucked into a small rucksack on his back.

She sat back and waited.

It took about ten minutes for Matt to get down the road and find a suitable place to enter the grounds without being noticed. No one was around, but there was always the chance a dog might come tearing out of nowhere. He sneaked up to the back of the house where a light was on, and peered through the window. The tall thin
guy who’d answered the door was sitting alone in an armchair by an unlit fire in the huge kitchen, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette. Matt ducked back down and crept alongside some bushes, popping his head up now and again to steal glances into each room. All were empty and dark. Soon he was close to the front of the house, and outside a window where he could hear voices. He stuck his head up and looked into the room. He ducked down quickly with his back to the wall. He could hear his heart beat. He’d seen three or four children, dressed only in their underpants, with their arms folded across their pale skinny chests as if they were embarrassed. Men sat on the large sofas around a blazing fire, smiling and drinking. From the corner of his eye, he saw a camera flash go off inside the room. He twisted round, and lifted his own camera then pressed it against the window. Now he could see quite clearly. A silver-haired man was taking pictures of the children sitting on top of each other, and horsing around in front of the fire. The children weren’t smiling or laughing. They just looked bewildered. Matt zoomed in on their faces. One of the little girls had tears in her eyes. His camera roamed across the room, taking pictures of every face. One of the men took a little girl on his knee and caressed her thighs. Then he took her by the hand and left the room.

Matt kept taking pictures. He had plenty, but he kept going. After a few more minutes the silver-haired man
who had been photographing the kids went out of the door, leaving it open. Matt could see Paddy sitting on a long-backed chair in the hall, and took a quick snap of him. The silver-haired man made a gesture to Paddy, who got up, went into the room and seemed to tell the children to get dressed. When he returned to the hall, the man handed him a wad of notes. Then he went back into the room and gave some coins to each of the children.

After he’d taken his last picture, Matt crouched down and made his way out of the bushes and into the back gardens. He climbed the fence, and reached the road, where he sprinted up the hill towards the car.

When he reached Rosie he was puffing and panting, his face red. She jumped out of the car.

‘Holy shit, Rosie.’ He was bent over, hands on knees, getting his breath back. ‘Holy shit.’

‘Was there stuff happening?’ Rosie asked, anxiously.

‘And how.’ Matt shook his head. ‘Rosie – we’ve got enough pictures here to bury whoever these fuckers are.’

He told Rosie how the kids were cavorting half naked in front of the fire, and that one of the men took a little girl away.

‘Bastards. Did you get all that on film?

‘Oh yeah. Everything.’

‘What about the kids? How did they look? Were they scared? Crying or anything?’

Matt turned and looked back at the house. ‘Don’t know . . . Not crying, just kind of confused looking. Fucking awful.’ He got into the car and they drove back down the twisting road.

Gavin Fox had never felt so rattled as since this whole bastard of an episode had begun that morning on his boat. Even then, as Bill and Jack had slung the dead girl’s body over the side, he’d never considered that all this would come unstuck. But now that weird-bitch daughter of Jack’s was threatening to blow it all sky high. She always was a snooty little bugger, her head constantly in books, always the one to disagree or to ask questions if they were having dinner at Jack’s. Little smartass wasn’t going to bring
him
down . . . His buzzer went, and Patsy announced that Bill had arrived. Foxy said to show him in.

‘How’s it going, boss?’ Bill was chipper. ‘You sounded a bit edgy. What’s up?’

‘What’s up?’ Foxy got up from behind his desk. He blew hard and shook his head. ‘Tell you what’s fucking up, Bill. Sit down.’

Bill sat on a chair and Foxy stood over him.

‘Fucking Alison Prentice has been in here.’ He rubbed his hand across his chin. He noticed he was trembling and hoped Bill hadn’t seen it.

‘Jack only left a fucking suicide note,’ he said. ‘No, Bill. Correct that. Not just a suicide note. A fucking signed confession sticking all three of us in. Complete with a photo, according to her. The ratbag bastard. He’s given Alison enough material to put us away for ten years.’ He threw out his arms. ‘I mean when the fuck did Jack take pictures? That must have been ages ago. I can’t even remember.’

Bill’s face had turned chalk white. He stood up and walked around the room without speaking. Then, ‘Oh fuck, Foxy,’ was all he could say. ‘Oh fuck.’

They stood in silence, Bill watching Foxy taking long, deep breaths.

‘Well,’ Bill’s voice had a quiver to it. ‘Either we chuck it – resign, as fuckng Alison demands – or we stay here and tough it out. And I’m not fucking resigning. We have to get to her somehow. Get that stuff back. She’s not clever enough to have done anything with it.’

Foxy nodded agreement. He bit his lip.

‘That’s what I wanted to hear, Bill. It’s already done. I talked to the Big Man, told him he has to be careful. I don’t want another stiff on my hands. And I told him to keep watching that Gilmour woman. Just in case.’

‘Good,’ Bill said. ‘Good. Reynolds says she’s been very shifty this past week. Holed up somewhere in the West
End, not in her own flat. He followed her.’ He gave that address as well as Rosie’s home address to Foxy, who wrote it down.

Alison had walked around the city for two hours after she left Fox’s office, until she felt calm enough to go home. She didn’t want to go back to Edinburgh and be on her own, but she had to be sure she wouldn’t crack in front of her mother. It wasn’t that she really cared if her mother felt betrayed by her dad, but she didn’t trust her. She knew that, rather than risk a scandal that would ruin her husband’s reputation, her mother would do everything she could to keep a lid on the situation, but she herself was determined to see it through.

She left the following afternoon. On the train to Edinburgh, she sat drinking a cup of sweet tea and looking out of the window at the countryside whizzing past. For the first time since her father died, she didn’t feel like crying. There was no choking sadness in her every time she was alone. Suddenly she felt strong. She knew she could carry this through. Uncle Gavin had been a lot more upset than he pretended. He had tried to fob her off and treat her like the kid she once was, but she knew that underneath the bluster he was terrified. His lip had even trembled at one point. She’d never seen him upset before, and she knew that the show he’d put on at her dad’s funeral was just that – a show.

Alison tried to work out how she should handle this.
She knew Uncle Gavin would not resign. He thought himself too powerful to buckle under the threats of someone like her, but she had to give him a couple of days to see if he did. If nothing happened she would go to the papers, but she didn’t know any reporters. Her father had always said they were scum, constantly looking at ways to undermine the police and not to be taken seriously. But since moving to Edinburgh and studying at university, Alison had developed her own views. Her friends were intelligent and they questioned everything. Growing up as an only child, she had felt isolated at home. Her parents were very strict Catholics. Even though her dad doted on her she knew his word was law, and would never answer him back or question his judgement. How wrong she had been about him! All those years of deceit. Now it was driving her forward.

She got off the train and started to walk towards her home a few streets away from Haymarket Station, but stopped in her favourite cafe and drank a cappuccino. Sitting at the window, she watched people making their way home from work and wondered what burdens they carried. Everyone had something – but she doubted many of them would have what she had right now. She finished her coffee and headed up the side streets to her flat in the West End. Through habit, she took the keys to her flat out of her handbag and put them into her jacket pocket. The streets were empty
and it was beginning to get dark. Alison quickened her step. Then she heard footsteps behind her, quickening to her pace and was afraid to look around. She told herself she was panicking for no reason, and slowed down. Suddenly she felt a hard push against her back and she was grabbed from behind, swung around, and had her head pushed against the side of a building. She was dizzy, confused, trying to work out what was happening.

‘Gimme your bag, bitch.’ She smelled drink off the guy’s breath and could taste tobacco on his hand as he covered her mouth.

‘Wait,’ Alison said. ‘Don’t hurt me. I have money. Here. In the purse. There’s thirty pounds. Take it. Please don’t hurt me.’ She started crying.

‘Shut it, bitch.’ The guy, who wore dark glasses, ripped the bag from her shoulder and pushed her head against the wall again, so hard she heard it clunk against the brick. He punched her stomach and ran off, leaving Alison doubled up and sinking to her knees as she gasped for breath. She touched the back of her head, and felt a bump but it didn’t seem to be bleeding. She got slowly back to her feet and looked around. No one was about. Cars had driven past and must have seen what had happened. Why did nobody stop to help her? Sobbing, she staggered along the road and up the hill towards her flat. When she tried to open the main door of the tenement building, her hands were trembling
so hard she took three attempts to get the key in the lock.

When she reached her first-floor flat, she saw the lock had been forced and the door was already open. Terrified, Alison stepped inside, but she could see at once the place had been ransacked. She glanced into her bedroom: all the drawers were pulled out and the contents scattered on the floor. She dared not go into the living room in case they were still there. She stood in the hall, sobbing, before slumping down the wall to the floor. After a while, she got up and stepped cautiously into the living room. There, too, every drawer was emptied, everything turned upside down. The sofa cushions were thrown everywhere and all the ornaments had been brushed off the mantelpiece and onto the floor. A picture of her with her father, taken last year, lay smashed on the wooden floor.

Alison staggered to a chair and sat down, weeping. It could only have been Uncle Gavin. He must have sent someone to look for her dad’s confession and the picture. Now she knew for sure the kind of people they were. They would stop at nothing to maintain the sham they’d built up over the years. She rushed into her bedroom where she had hidden the letter under the floorboards below her bed. She pulled the bed out quickly and grappled with the loose floorboard, pushing her hand into the gap. Relief flooded through her when she felt the envelope. She took it out and held onto it. She had to
do something now. She considered phoning the police and reporting a break-in, but decided against it. Word would filter back to Glasgow. She wondered if she should go to the police in Edinburgh with the confession, but she couldn’t trust them either. She looked around the room at the books and newspapers thrown everywhere. Uncle Gavin and Uncle Bill had so much to lose. But her father had already lost everything.

Her eyes finally rested on a copy of the
Post
she had bought a couple of weeks ago on the way home from university. She saw the name Rosie Gilmour on the front page. She picked up the telephone from the floor and put the receiver back on the hook. Then she lifted it off again, dialled directory enquiries, and asked for the number of the
Post
in Glasgow.

Rosie was beginning to feel seriously frightened for the first time in this whole investigation. Lying in bed, she couldn’t help listening for every noise. Footsteps in the stairwell, cars pulling up outside. Jesus. She was getting paranoid. She tried to sleep, but her mind kept going over and over the phone call from Alison Prentice. She could never have predicted that, not in a million years. Alison had called her that evening as she was about to leave the office. She said she had a very important story to tell about her father and police corruption. Gavin Fox was the main player, she’d said, and it had all happened on his boat. And she had evidence – a written confession from her dad and a photograph. When she said that, Rosie knew it couldn’t be a crank call. She agreed to meet her in Edinburgh, but after Alison told her of being attacked in the street, Rosie decided it would be wise to take some help. Before she went to bed, she called her friend Adrian, the Bosnian refugee.

The following morning, she drove to the top of Hope Street and pulled over when she saw Adrian standing on the corner. His expression didn’t change when he caught sight of her. No smile or wave. He just came over to the car and got into the passenger seat, stretching out his hand and clasping hers.

‘Hallo, Rosie.’ His voice was deep and rich. ‘My friend.’ Finally a smile cracked his granite face. ‘How are you? I have not see you in some months.’

Rosie smiled. ‘I’m good, Adrian, I’m good.’ She looked at his pale face, black shadows under his dark eyes. He always looked as though he never slept. ‘For me it’s been busy. A lot of work. What about you?’ She handed him a coffee she had bought from the takeaway.

‘Thanks.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sometimes some hotel work, sometimes in the biscuit factory.’ He shook his head. ‘I hate the biscuit factory. They are treating us like slaves. But I like the hotel, the tips are good.’