Dead Won't Sleep (8 page)

He said he could nearly hear the collective screams of panic when the managing editor and the rest of the hierarchy got to know about this – in the unlikely event they could ever run the story.

Rosie’s spirits sank. She thought of Mags, and that innocent snapshot of Tracy before the heroin had swallowed her up. She had hoped for better than this. The sound of Tracy’s voice on the tape still rang in her ears. She reached into her pocket and brought it out.

‘Look, Mick,’ she said, rewinding the tape. ‘Listen to this. Tracy made a call to the girl Mags from the boat. Something happened at some stage of the night, and Tracy phoned Mags in a bit of a state. Mags didn’t get the call because she was, well, the usual junkie stuff, out of her box. But the kid left a message. Mags let me hear it today and I taped it. Listen. It’s her voice.’

She put the volume up as loud as it would go, sat it on McGuire’s desk, and played the message. His eyes narrowed as he listened.

‘Play it again.’

She played it again, and then a third time.

‘You got the mobile?’

Rosie looked at him and sighed. ‘No, Mick. If I had the mobile, you would have been listening to it on the mobile. Mags wouldn’t part with the phone today. Said she needed it for something, and she’ll give it to me tomorrow. But I taped this from the mobile.’

McGuire nodded. They were both well aware of the difficulties.

He folded his arms. ‘It’s great to have the voice on tape, Rosie, but unless we get the mobile and get some techno guys into it, we can’t prove anything. Lawyers will know we can’t prove that the voice on the tape is the kid’s, plus, we can’t prove where it came from. If we had the mobile, well, maybe we could. Need the mobile.’

‘I’ll get it tomorrow, Mick,’ she promised, trying to hide her disappointment, and hearing Tracy’s voice played over and over in her mind.

‘This is going to be a nightmare to get in the paper. A nightmare,’ McGuire said.

‘I know.’

‘But I’ll tell you one thing, Gilmour.’ McGuire looked straight at her. ‘We’ll have a good fucking try.’ He banged his fist on the desk. ‘What’s your next move?’ He had that twinkle in his eye. Rosie had seen it before. He was in.

She told him they were still doing tests on the body, but there were no signs of injuries or struggle.

‘I talked to my man in Forensics,’ she said, ‘and he told me the post mortem didn’t tell them that much.
About six months in the water, so there was a lot of decomposition. Obviously there’d be no bodily fluids and no DNA of other parties. Her brain was gone, and there wasn’t much fatty tissue left on the body at all. Probably wasn’t much in the first place. With no brain, they wouldn’t even be able to run tests for drug addiction. Not that it mattered anyway. My man said it would be impossible to prove conclusively the cause of death.’

‘Which would suit the cops perfectly.’

‘Exactly,’ Rosie said. ‘You can guarantee they’ll be saying it was most likely suicide – kid depressed from the earlier abuse and stuff. It gives them an out. People stop looking after someone says suicide.’

‘But we know different,’ McGuire smiled.

‘That we do, sir.’

She suggested that, initially they run the story, having a go at the social work department since this kid was in their care . . . just see what it flushed out. You never know, perhaps someone would ring in with decent information. Stranger things have happened. On the day after that was published, they could run a follow-up story hinting that Tracy may have been with some very important people.

‘That way, we don’t implicate anyone.’ Rosie clenched and unclenched her fist. ‘All we do is get their arses twitching. They’ll know that we know more, and they’ll be panicking, wondering what is going to spill out next.’

McGuire agreed. He said they shouldn’t tell anyone else at the moment, not even Lamont.

‘I know he’s not exactly your best mate,’ he said, with a smirk.

‘He’s an arsehole,’ Rosie said, deadpan.

‘He’s organised. Methodical,’ McGuire offered.

‘So was Adolf Eichmann,’ Rosie said.

McGuire half smiled. ‘Anyway, you don’t have to deal with him, so forget about him. You only answer to me.’ He sat back in his chair, hands behind his head again. He looked slightly puzzled.

‘So tell me this, Rosie.’ He looked at her. ‘Because this is a problem for me.’

She held her breath, wondering what he was going to say.

‘What I can’t get is, why would high-ranking detectives be using cheap hookers like this?’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘I just . . . I just can’t see why. Do you get my drift, Rosie? These guys have been around the block. They’re well paid. If they want a quick shag, there have to be other ways. There are bars where they could pick up a woman for a bit of uncomplicated rumpy.’

Rosie shook her head. ‘They’re all married, Mick. It’s not that easy. They’ll have lives, families. And the thing is, they’re all ex-vice squad, so they grew up messing around with the prostitutes. It’s one of the perks of the job, if you want to put it that way.’

‘Christ.’ McGuire shook his head. ‘Perks? With some syphilated shagbox?’

‘That’s not the point, Mick. With these guys it’s all
about using the power they’ve got. Basically, they do it because, well, because they can. They probably always have done. One of my good contacts told me that Fox and his mates were getting paid off by the sauna bosses. One massage parlour in particular. I know a crook who says Prentice used to pick up the wedge of cash every week in a brown envelope. Plus, they got girls to use.’ She could see McGuire was engrossed. She continued.

‘I believe that. These guys might have risen up the ranks in the police, but the bottom line is they haven’t evolved as human beings. You know what I mean? They’re still the same redneck bruisers they always were when they were young coppers, kicking the shit out of delinquents and then getting a blow-job on the way home to the wife.’ Rosie looked at McGuire, who had a wry smile.

‘I do like it when you talk dirty, Gilmour.’

Rosie smiled. ‘C’mon. You know what I mean, Mick. Cops. The police force. It attracts good guys, the oldfashioned Elliot Ness heroes from the movies who want to make the world safe and all that shit, but the very nature of the job means it also attracts bullies. And crooks. That’s always been the way. Bent coppers go back to the beginning of time, it’s part of the culture. The kind of mentality that uses people for sex is part of any institution where there is power. From the clergy to politicians. The list goes on.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ McGuire said. ‘We’re on our soapbox now, right? Okay, Rosie, I get the picture. But you realise they
will obviously deny it on a stack of Bibles, so I’m not going anywhere near this unless we can really nail it down.’ His face was stern. ‘Watch my lips, Gilmour. Nail it down.’

‘I will. You know I will.’

McGuire asked about Mags and about her heroin habit. Rosie told him about the girl’s background, and about the child. He seemed sympathetic.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Fine. Let’s get on with it. Just be careful with that girl. And don’t be doing anything daft like giving her money for heroin.’

Rosie was on her feet now, trying not to look at him. But she knew that McGuire was probably aware she had already done that. She smiled as she turned and walked out of the room. As she passed Marion, she winked. ‘He’s a pussycat,’ she whispered.

Back at her desk, Rosie sat down and started typing. Over the top of her screen she could see Lamont watching, and allowed herself a wry smile. She went into the toilet where Annie Dawson, one of their bright young reporters was at the wash basin, slapping cold water onto her flushed face. She had clearly been crying.

‘What’s the matter, Annie? What’s wrong, kid?’

She sniffed. ‘Oh, Rosie. I just got the most awful bollocking from Lamont, in front of everybody. I just don’t know if I can do this job any more. I just can’t do anything right.’

Rosie put her arms around her, patted her back. ‘Oh, come on, Annie, don’t be silly. You know you’ve been doing really well. The subs say your copy’s great. You’re going to be a big star in the future. You’ll see.’

Annie tried to compose herself. ‘But every time Lamont gets the chance he puts the boot in. This time it was because I didn’t get a picture from the family of the kid who drowned in the swimming pool. But nobody got one. None of the papers.’

Rosie bit her lip. She had once been where Annie was now – trying to punch above her weight, years ago, when a newsroom floor was a bear-pit of bullies and machismo, and few female reporters ever shone. It had changed a lot in recent years, but arseholes like Lamont still lived in the dark ages.

‘Listen, Annie,’ she said. ‘Forget that bastard. He’s going nowhere fast. He’s getting found out quite quickly. The only thing he can do is shout at people. Someone like you, with raw talent, will see a tosser like him off the premises in a few years. Don’t let him get to you. You can’t let him win. Now, come on. Fix your face, then get back out there and get on with your work. You’re better than him. Okay?’

Annie blew her nose. ‘Thanks, Rosie. Thanks. I really appreciate it.’

Rosie jerked her head in the direction of the door.

In the cafe next door to O’Brien’s, Rosie could see through the steamed-up windows that TJ was sitting alone in a booth. The steady drizzle must have forced him inside off the street. She was glad, because after the kind of day she’d had it would be good to offload some of it on her old friend.

TJ hadn’t seen her come in. He sat with his sax alongside him on the fake leather seat, sipping from a glass of milky coffee, lost in his own world, behind a cloud of smoke. He looked up when she came towards him, and his face broke into a smile.

‘Rosie.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Sit down. Take the weight off your intrepid feet.’

She slipped off her raincoat and slid into the seat opposite him. A waitress appeared at her side and she ordered a coffee, the same as TJ’s. He ordered another for himself.

‘So.’ His dark eyes studied Rosie’s face. ‘How are things in the big wide world, darlin’?’

‘You tell me,’ she said. ‘You see it all from where you stand and play your sax every day.’

‘Ah! But all I get is a glimpse, I don’t get right in about it like you. I don’t get to make it all happen. And I don’t get to turn all the bad bastards over from time to time.’ He grinned. ‘I just play the background music.’

Rosie sat back. If she let him talk, she knew he would be off on one of his monologues of life that he always delivered so well. She could listen to him all day, loved his accent, Glasgow, with a slight transatlantic drawl from years of world travel. It was a very peculiar kind of friendship. One that had grown intense but, unusually for Rosie, hadn’t ended up in bed. Maybe that would have ruined it, and she was afraid to take the chance.

The way she had led her life, brief encounters were much more manageable. After about nine months, she usually got bored with a relationship and moved on. She’d always had a penchant for foreign men, something to do with the short-termism of it. You came, you saw, you conquered – you got a flight back home. And nobody got to hurt you. At least that was the theory. But along the way, now and again, someone crashed through all the barriers and the control was lost. Her most recent had been a perfect storm. If fate hadn’t been so cruel, it wouldn’t have thrown two raging forces like them together. It ended in tears – hers – and nearly two years on, he was still under her skin. But Rosie was accomplished at managing that kind of stuff, and she
had vowed never to go down that road again. Control was more important. That way she could focus completely on her job, because if a female reporter didn’t do that in the harsh environment of a daily newspaper, you would be delivering flowers while the guys got in with the big story. Falling in love was for another time. Maybe never.

TJ was different. He was her friend, and as long as they stayed that way, there was no reason to walk away. But there was some serious chemistry between them, no question. She knew TJ knew that too, but he seemed as reluctant as she to take it any further. Being with him took away the loneliness for Rosie. The relationship was a kind of shelter for both of them.

Sometimes, when they ended up drinking a bottle of wine over dinner in some bistro, Rosie barely had to speak. TJ just told her story after story. He had been everywhere, done it all. The drink. The drugs. The women. And, through time, she had shared many – but not all – of her own stories with him.

‘So howsit goin’?’ he asked.

‘It’s been a crazy day, TJ.’ Rosie sipped her coffee, enjoying the warmth. ‘Fasten your seatbelt and I’ll tell you.’

She began, and he lit up another cigarette, drawing deeply on it. Occasionally he offered a puff to Rosie, even though she’d given up smoking two years before. She only smoked when she was half drunk. She told him
the full story – about the kids and the judges – just the way Mags had told her. She knew she could trust him. When she’d finished, TJ leaned forward and lightly touched her arm.

‘You’re going to have to watch yourself, Rosie.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘These bastards stop at nothing. If you think Foxy and Co are going to stand by and let this happen then you’d be very naive. They’ll never allow a story like that to come out.’ He sat back. ‘Of course, you’ll write it. Do a brilliant job, as usual. It’ll go all the way to your management. But it
will
get stopped. I’ll guarantee you that.’

Rosie knew he was talking sense. If it came to the crunch, the managing director and everyone would be brought in to try and quash the story.

‘Nobody in the establishment will want a story like that to come out,’ TJ went on. ‘It’s too destabilising. The very faith in the people who make all the rules is at stake here. You’ve no chance, darlin’. Sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.’

She looked at TJ. Right at that moment, she felt like bursting into tears. It had been a highly emotional couple of days and she was dog-tired now that the adrenalin was waning and she was beginning to relax. Stop being a stupid woman, she told herself. She was conscious that TJ was studying her with that knowing look he sometimes had.