The Hit

Book 0: Rosie Gilmour

by Anna Smith

Genres: Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

A money-laundering accountant disappears in Romania. The accountant's widow claims she knows nothing about it. Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour is convinced Helen was the one who ordered the hit on her husband - and she's going to prove it. But when she discovers that Helen's husband worked for a ring of gangsters, her focus shifts. Now she has two sets of criminals to bring to justice and she'd better pray they don't catch up with her first.

Release date: October 5, 2017

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 280

Sample

Glasgow, February 2001

There was always the chance of betrayal. Any fool could have seen that. But Helen had been so blinded. Now, the waiting was almost over.

Like a burglar, she stepped softly around her bedroom, closing the doors of the wardrobes she’d emptied earlier. The contents were now in the Louis Vuitton suitcase in her bedroom. She locked the bedroom door, cursing her trembling fingers as she turned the key, and listened for his footsteps in the tiled entrance outside her luxury flat. Nothing. As she walked past the hallway mirror, she glimpsed her reflection, but didn’t linger on the empty eyes staring back at her. There was no point in asking herself how it had come to this. She was as guilty of murder as the hitman she’d hired, who was now about to knock on her door with his latest blackmail demand. More money. No amount would ever be enough for him, and Helen should have known that the first time she paid him off. But she’d taken naivety to a whole new level by also becoming his lover. It didn’t get much more stupid than that. She’d been devastated at his betrayal, but more angry with herself for believing they could actually make a life together. Now he wanted everything – all the money she’d squirrelled away for both of them, and more. He wanted everything. What a fool she’d been.

She jumped at the knock on the door. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and smudged her mascara a little to make it look as though she’d been crying, in the forlorn hope he might show her a scrap of sympathy. Then she went across to the door, and opened it. Frankie Mallon stood there, and looked her up and down, his dark eyes resting for a second on the top of her breasts poking out of her tight black zipped top. Then he walked past her into the hall and stood, legs apart, as she turned to face him.

‘You got everything?’

Helen met his gaze fleetingly, and went towards the kitchen.

‘In here. It’s in a bag for you. It’s everything I have.’

‘Don’t give me your shit, Helen. You know there’s plenty more where that came from.’

‘There isn’t. Everything else is tied up in these complicated accounts of Alan’s. I told you that. You knew that.’

‘Then uncomplicate it. You have all the passwords. You told me that – remember? You’ve been shifting his fucking money around for years, hiding it away. So don’t give me any of your crap.’ He grabbed her by the arm, squeezing it tight. ‘I’m telling you now. There had better be plenty in this bag, or when I walk out of here, I make a call to the cops in the next ten minutes. Tell them what you did.’

‘You mean what you did,’ she spat.

‘They’ll never know that. I’m not that stupid. I’m just going to drop you right in the shite. See how you bear up when the cops start probing for details, asking you about Alan’s disappearance. You . . . the heartbroken fucking wife.’

‘Christ, Frankie! Stop with your empty fucking threats. I was interviewed by the police at the time. I wasn’t even in the same country as Alan was when he went missing. I’m whiter than white.’

‘Aye. That’ll be right.’

Helen lifted a fat bag from the worktop and thrust it towards him.

‘Take this and get the fuck out of my life.’

Frankie glanced at her, then opened the zip in the bag. He pulled out a wedge of money, fifty-pound notes, and rummaged around the bundles. Helen knew there was five thousand pounds in there. She’d counted it herself again after the bank handed it over to her.

‘Fuck this! This is no good!’ He slung the bag onto the worktop.

‘Take it and go. Don’t make any more trouble for yourself.’

Before she could move, he grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the cupboard.

‘Trouble? You bitch! You don’t know what trouble is.’

He pulled her hair back, and she heard his breath quicken. And even now, even though he was here to take her money, threatening to ruin her, she couldn’t resist him. He pushed himself against her, and kissed her so hard she could feel her teeth crushing against her lips.

‘This is what you want, isn’t it?’

He was hard already, and Helen felt weak and angry with herself for how much she wanted him. He pulled her skirt up and tugged her pants as he pushed his hand inside.

‘Stop!’

‘Doesn’t feel like you want me to stop.’ He was undoing his jeans and pushing himself against her. Then he suddenly froze, and took a step back, his lips curling into a sarcastic smile. ‘Oh, you want it, all right. But tell you what. I’m giving you two more days to get all the money together – and I might even give you a shag for old times’ sake when I come back.’ He took the bag from the worktop and turned.

As he walked out of the kitchen, Helen knew it was now or never. She fumbled in the drawer, and as he was about to open the front door, she pulled out a small revolver she’d found among Alan’s things. She took three steps towards him, worried she might miss, and fired a shot into his back. Then two more. He half-turned as he keeled over, his eyes wide in disbelief. Helen stood for a moment, rooted, as blood spread across his shirt and formed a pool on the floor. Still holding the gun, she went into the kitchen and filled a glass of water, her hand trembling, as she watched the blood spread across the light grey carpet. She had to get out of here. Right now. She hurried to the bedroom and dragged her suitcase out towards the front door. She stuffed the money bag inside it. Suddenly, she heard the lock turn as though a key had gone into it. She watched, barely breathing. The door opened slowly. She stepped back towards the kitchen, steadied herself on the worktop. It was a ghost. It must be. But it wasn’t. Beneath the beard, the long straggly grey hair and the hollow cheeks, it was Alan. Back from the dead.

‘A . . .’ Helen couldn’t get the word out. ‘Al . . .?’

Alan looked down at Frankie’s body, realising his feet were in the pool of blood seeping around him. He took a step back, still scanning the body. Then he looked at Helen.

‘You killed him? You sent him to kill me, and now you’ve killed him?’

‘H-he attacked me. He wanted all my money.’

Alan puffed and almost smiled. ‘Your money? Your money? You don’t have a fucking penny to your name, Helen. You never had. All you have is what you stole from me. I gave you everything you have, and you stole from me.’ His voice quivered a little as he glanced at Frankie. ‘And you sent this piece of shit you were shagging to kill me?’

Helen could see the hurt in his eyes, and somewhere inside there was a pang of guilt, of sympathy for the scrawny, broken figure standing before her. But she blinked it away.

‘No. It wasn’t like that. We . . . we fell . . .’

Alan threw his head back. ‘Aw, don’t tell me you fell for this chancer. Christ almighty! Spare me the details. You sent him to kill me, Helen!’ He paused, swallowed. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘I . . . I didn’t. I didn’t know what happened to you. I was looking for you. Everywhere. Police . . . everyone was searching for you.’

‘Aye. But only you and Frankie knew the truth.’

‘I didn’t know. I . . . I only found out when he told me what he did,’ she lied.

‘Liar!’ His voice strained as he tried to shout. ‘You thought I was dead and you were taking everything I have.’ He ran his hand over his face. ‘But you know what? I survived. Frankie thought I was dead, but I wasn’t.’

‘What happened?’

‘Don’t give me your crap. You know what happened. You just can’t believe I’m standing here. And I’ll tell you what. I’m not going away.’

Helen felt her fingers tighten around the gun.

‘What the fuck are you doing, Helen?’ He took a step towards her. ‘Put down the gun.’

‘Don’t come any closer,’ Helen blurted. ‘I’ll shoot you. Don’t come any closer. If you move, I’ll kill you, Alan.’

‘You already did, or so you thought. Put down the gun. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You can’t get away with this.’

She said nothing, still pointing the gun. She began to walk towards the door, giving Frankie’s body a wide berth.

‘Don’t come near me, Alan. Stay where you are. You’ll never see me again. Ever.’

She opened the door. She didn’t look back. If she had, she’d have seen the tears in her husband’s eyes.

It was only when the stench of the dead body eventually polluted the other flats that one of the residents called the police. A rotting corpse wouldn’t normally bring Rosie Gilmour to the West End of Glasgow to investigate. Even the fact that it was the corpse of Frankie Mallon – a two-bob conman who would knife you just for fun – would barely get a few paragraphs in the Post. But it was the place where he had bled to death from gunshot wounds that interested her. What the hell was a lowlife thug like Mallon doing in the flat of Helen Lewis? she pondered, as she stood across the road watching the white-boiler-suited officers of Strathclyde Police forensic team go in and out of the three-storey sandstone building. Rosie had been up here before, six months ago, as she’d tried to get a handle on the disappearance of wealthy accountant Alan Lewis. He’d gone missing somewhere in Romania where he apparently owned a holiday home, and had some kind of business interest in the country’s growing wine export industry. His disappearance had a whiff of mystery about it, but Rosie could find nothing to go on, and her editor, Mick McGuire, didn’t want her to go traipsing all over Romania unless Lewis turned up dead somewhere. At the time, she’d come up to the luxury flats in Park Circus, hoping to speak to his wife Helen, but she was never home, and repeated attempts to contact her had been met with the curt reply that she was too upset and worried over her husband’s disappearance to talk to the press. She said she had nothing to say. Rosie was always suspicious when people in the middle of a drama had nothing to say, and her gut instinct told her Helen was hiding something. But you can’t keep badgering someone for information if you don’t have anything to go on. The wife had given no interviews, or made any appeal for information on the whereabouts of her husband. She’d been silent. Too silent for Rosie’s liking. And now this; pond life Frankie Mallon lying stiff in her flat, with no sign or sight of her in the past few days. Nobody saw her leave, and the last time a neighbour did see her at the flat was over a month ago, and she’d only stayed a couple of nights. Helen Lewis was a bit of a mystery herself. On paper, the forty-year-old wife of the wealthy accountant enjoyed the good life – cruises with her husband, dining in the best restaurants, exotic holidays in far-flung lands. But it hadn’t always been like this. She’d come from nothing, from the notorious Gorbals council housing scheme in Glasgow, but she’d quietly buried her past a very long time ago while she pursued the life of a rich wife. Fur coat and no knickers was how one of Rosie’s cop pals described her.

Her mobile rang, and McGuire’s name came up.

‘Anything fresh?’

Rosie chortled. ‘Are you kidding me? Mallon’s been lying dead for days. There’s absolutely nothing fresh. I can smell him from here.’

‘You know what I mean. How much do we know about Mallon?’

‘A couple of cop contacts tell me he’s been a con artist all his life. He’d sell his granny, and probably has twice over. That kind of guy. He gets a bit of a using from time to time by the big boys, but they know they can’t trust him as far as they can throw him. I’m told he has, or had, a violent streak in him.’

‘So was he shagging Helen Lewis? Maybe she liked a bit of rough.’

‘Who knows? But she is rough anyway. All the jewellery and the fast cars, it’s all a front. She’s a wee hairy from the Gorbals.’

‘How did she land a guy like Lewis?’

‘Don’t know. But if you remember her pictures when Alan went missing, she’s a looker – even now. They’ve been married around ten years, so she was probably even better-looking in her thirties.’ Rosie gazed across at a stretcher with a black body bag on it being brought down the steps and placed into the waiting vehicle. ‘Anyway, it’s anyone’s guess why he was in her flat. But that’s him being taken to the morgue now.’

‘Do you think she’s shot him?’

‘I don’t know, Mick. I just don’t know enough about her. But tell you what, Frankie Mallon turning up dead in her flat changes things. What the Christ was he doing there? I’m going to have a run at trying to find out what’s going on.’

‘We need to find Helen Lewis.’

‘Oh, good thinking. That hadn’t occurred to me,’ she said, sarcastic.

‘Don’t give us your patter, Gilmour. I’ll see you when you get back. I’m doing page one, four and five on this. I’ve got Declan ploughing through the cuts on Alan Lewis’s disappearance, so we can revisit that. We’ll see where we go with it.’ He hung up.

Rosie stood for a few moments watching as a well-dressed older woman came out of the building with what looked like a couple of plain-clothes policemen, one of them carrying a clipboard. They stood on the pavement chatting before the woman turned and walked down the hill towards Woodlands Road. Rosie waited until the policemen went into their cars and drove off, then she went in the direction she could see the woman going in. She followed the woman as she stopped at the bottom of the road, then went into the Grassroots Café. Rosie walked past the window and saw her sitting in the corner, taking her coat off, and talking to one of the waitresses. It might be easier approaching her later at her flat, rather than in the café, risking a public knock-back. But she decided that the woman looked quite civilised, and if she was going to say no, then she didn’t seem the type to make a scene. Rosie went in and sat at a table close to where the woman sat sipping a café latte. She made brief eye contact when she sat down. Rosie ordered a decaff latte from the waitress, and when she sat down, she took a sip, and turned around to the woman. Rosie’s flat in St George’s Mansions was right at the end of this building, and she wondered if the woman might have seen her before in the street. This side of the West End was either young professionals or older residents who’d lived there for years, and while it was a friendly, much-sought-after area, it still wasn’t the kind of place where people told each other their life stories. To Rosie’s surprise, it was the woman who spoke first.

‘I saw you up in Park Circus, did I not? I thought I saw you from my window. Do you live around here? Terrible business that . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Rosie turned to face her. ‘Yes. I live nearby,’ she said. ‘Guy found shot in one of the flats. Not what you’d normally see around this neck of the woods.’

‘Exactly.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘But that’s the problem these days. It used to be a good class of people who lived in these flats and this area, but now it’s all that new money. People can buy anything, and the area’s not as pleasant as it was.’ Her accent was posh Glasgow West End.

‘Did you know your neighbour – in the flats where the body was found?’ Rosie ventured, thinking that if she was getting away with it so far she’d keep it simple, not admitting that she was a reporter.

The woman rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

‘Her?’ She sniffed. ‘Nobody really knew her. Or him, for that matter. Not the dead man. I mean her husband. That bloke who went missing – the accountant. They’ve only been here about five years. They lived down below me, but I wouldn’t say I knew them. Mind you, some of the fights . . .’

‘What, fights between the woman and her husband?’

‘Yes. Before he went missing. I reckon he just did a runner to get out of her way. She’s a bit of a lowlife. Bit rough. She’s got a mouth on her like a sewer.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And that bloody bloke she’d been knocking around with.’

‘Who?’

‘The guy they found in the flat. The one who got shot? Frankie, his name was, I think.’

‘You’ve met him?’ Rosie hoped she wasn’t wide-eyed.

‘Just on the stairs. He’s only been on the scene for the last year. He was never in the house when the husband was there, as far as I know. But I used to see him picking her up outside, in a car, when her man was at work. She was obviously at it with him.’

Rosie tried to keep her face straight. Who needed a newspaper, when you could get a running commentary like this? God bless nosy neighbours.

‘Really? That’s interesting. It’s Lewis, isn’t it? Helen Lewis.’

‘Yes. That’s it.’

‘They say he’s been lying there for a few days – the dead guy.’

‘I know. It was me who phoned. The last day or so, the stink in the place. It would have turned your stomach. I phoned the police this morning. Of course the last thing I expected was someone lying dead with a gunshot wound. It’s like a bloody film.’ She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

‘I suppose the police were asking you to make statements and stuff.’

‘Yes. But what can I say? I just told them everything I knew over the last few months. She was hardly ever there. I think they might have a house in Spain or somewhere. Or maybe up north. But she’d be there one day and not the next. She doesn’t even work, to my knowledge, so I don’t know where she goes.’ She paused. ‘But the last week or so, I heard her and him – the dead guy – shouting and bawling at each other. And one time I looked out of the window and saw them in the street – he grabbed her and she seemed to be trying to get away from him.’

Rosie nodded, enjoying how much the woman was relishing the drama. She’d barely asked a question, and now she had enough for an exclusive splash. No doubt the woman would have told the police everything she’d relayed to her, but the cops wouldn’t be putting this kind of stuff out to the press. So unless any other reporters were fortunate enough to get this woman on the doorstep, she’d have it all her own way. But Rosie’s forever guilty conscience was beginning to niggle, and if she was going to blast this background information all over the front page tomorrow, she might at least come clean. She wouldn’t be attributing her comments to anyone in particular, but the woman might recognise some of her words, and you never knew when you might need someone again. Best to be honest. At least she hoped so. Rosie took a breath.

‘Look,’ she glanced over her shoulder at the half-empty café, ‘I would have said to you earlier, but I didn’t get the chance. I’m actually a journalist.’ She paused for a reaction.

‘A journalist?’ The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘But I assumed you lived here.’

‘I do. But I’m also a reporter. From the Post. My name is Rosie Gilmour.’ Rosie stretched out her hand.

‘Oh,’ the woman said, taking her hand, but looking a little sheepish. ‘And here’s me running off at the mouth. I . . . I shouldn’t have said so much. Look, I hope you’re not going to quote me.’

‘Of course not,’ Rosie said. ‘I don’t even know your name. The street and the building is big enough for me to attribute your comments to anyone. But I do think something stinks up there – and I don’t just mean the dead body.’ She leaned in conspiratorially, sussing that the woman would like this. She did.

‘Yes. You and me both.’ She nodded. ‘But really. Don’t be quoting me in the papers. I mean, I’m just trying to mind my own business. It’s not my fault if I hear all that shouting and arguments. This place used to be so quiet. It’s people like them who are ruining it for the decent folk.’

‘Don’t worry. I totally understand.’

As the woman stood up, Rosie drained her cup, left two pounds on the table and got up.

‘Do you think we could have another chat some time? I’m going to be working on this story. And, actually, I already was investigating Alan Lewis’s disappearance, but got nowhere. I’d like to get a bit more background, on both him and his wife.’

The woman shrugged, looked a little uncertain. ‘Well. I don’t know that much. Only what I see and hear. And that Alan bloke. He was away a lot too. I think he kept some dodgy company. I saw people picking him up in a car a few times. Foreign-looking people.’

‘Really?’

The woman pulled on her coat. ‘I have to go just now. I have a dental appointment down the road. So do you have a card or anything?’

‘Yes.’ Rosie fished out her card and handed it to her. ‘If you’re free, give me a call. Or, can I have your phone number? I don’t even know your name.’

‘Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘Elizabeth Baxter. I’m retired now. I was a dance teacher. I’m out quite a bit during the day.’ She reeled off her number.

‘Do you mind if I give you a call later today, and maybe we could have a coffee tomorrow? Or I could come to your flat?’

She frowned. ‘No. Don’t come to the flat. There might be police about. I mean, I’ve nothing to hide, and I’ve told them everything I know, but I don’t want to be seen talking to a reporter.’

‘No problem,’ Rosie said.

They walked out of the café together, the woman tucking her red cashmere scarf into her coat.

‘Thanks for your help, Elizabeth. I really appreciate you being so frank. I’ll call you later.’

‘I should keep my mouth shut sometimes.’ She smiled. ‘My husband used to say that to me, God rest him.’

She walked away, and Rosie watched as she disappeared around the corner and crossed the road towards the city centre.

Helen Lewis was still reeling from seeing Alan walking into her flat, so much so that she could barely string a coherent thought together. She was holed up in a hotel next to Waterloo Station. She must have been on automatic pilot all the way down on the train from Glasgow, because right now she could barely remember anything about the journey south, as though she’d done the whole thing in shock. In fact, shock didn’t even cover it. No wonder. It’s not every day your dead husband walks back into your flat, seconds after you’ve just pumped several bullets into the guy you’d hired to kill him. Jesus wept! How the fuck could that have happened? She cracked the seal on the third miniature of Jack Daniel’s from the hotel minibar and poured in some Coke and ice.

She lay back on the bed, glancing at the blonde wig beside her, and felt her face smile a little.

The whole wig as a disguise idea had come to her as she’d planned her getaway. And even if it did feel a bit ridiculous, it had to be done – for the moment anyway. It actually looked quite good on her, like the real thing, and enhanced her high cheekbones and full lips. She might make it a more permanent fixture. She swirled the ice in the glass and swallowed another mouthful, puffing on her cigarette and letting out a trail of smoke.

She’d planned this to the letter. Of course, all the plans were those she’d actually made a month ago, while she was still besotted with that arsehole Frankie Mallon. But they had to be binned once she realised, first, that he was giving her the heave-ho, and second, that he intended to hump her out of every crooked penny her husband had ever earned. What a bastard.

Frankie and her went back a long way, and were cut from the same cloth, even though they hadn’t known each other back then. She was older than him, but she remembered him as a figure in the Gorbals where they grew up. He was a known kleptomaniac, who could tell a lie that would get you hanged. Shoplifting at twelve, and then a fraudster by the time he was fourteen, always managing to stay one step ahead of Borstal. Frankie brought a whole new meaning to the word ‘chancer’, and gangsters often used him as a front man in mortgage frauds because he was the kind of smiling, drop-dead gorgeous charmer who could walk into a building society, armed only with a fake ID and wage slips, and waltz back out with a hundred-grand mortgage in his back pocket.

But by the time Helen met Frankie again, she’d long since left the world of the Gorbals and its stinking poverty behind her. She’d bagged an accountant. Crooked or not, didn’t matter a shite to her. Alan Lewis was loaded. And she liked loaded. She’d been conscious of her stunning beauty from an early age, and it had been her saving grace. It gave her power she wouldn’t have had, coming from the kind of background she did, where she had no right to have the expectations she had. Once she met Alan Lewis, she knew she wouldn’t have to do much to have him following her around like a lapdog, and in months he had proposed to her. This was the good life, travelling, best restaurants, meeting his posh public-schoolboy mates and their horrendously boring, naff wives. She didn’t fit in, but she could do a great Oscar-winning performance if she needed to. She’d been royally pissed off when he bought a lavish villa in the countryside in Romania, instead of Marbella where Helen felt truly at home among the designer shops and teeming wealth of Puerto Banus. But Alan had assured her the property – set in the spectacular hills of Moldavia – was a huge investment, dirt cheap, because he’d got in on the ground floor after the country’s dictator was ousted. Romania was the future, he’d declared, and soon everyone would want property and business there. And he threw even more money at investing into a wine-importing business. But Helen was bored rigid with the place after a few months of visits. She was in the middle of bloody nowhere. Alan was out doing business most of the time. Some of the guys he mixed with looked like they would tear your head off, so Helen always made herself scarce when they were around; she knew thugs when she saw them, and these guys were thugs. But money was pouring in from the wine business, and Alan was organising the accounts of his associates. Yeah, sure you are, she thought privately. Laundering their money, more like. He was even involved in doing the accounts of some UK charity who brought cloth. . .