To Tell the Truth

Book 0: Rosie Gilmour

by Anna Smith

Genres: Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

A three-year-old girl is snatched from a beach in Spain. Nobody heard a sound. Nobody saw a thing. Rosie Gilmour's much-needed holiday is cut short when the abduction story breaks and she's sent to cover it. Her instincts tell her something's wrong: such a crime must surely have its witnesses, and the girl's mother's story doesn't add up. With a child's life at stake, Rosie must dig deeper into the seedy depths of the area, making dangerous enemies. As she closes in on the truth, she realises the penalty for missing this particular deadline could be her own death. 'Perfectly paced and neatly plotted' Daily Mail

Release date: February 2, 2012

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 293

Sample

Costa del Sol, July 1998

In the blink of an eye she was gone. It was easy. The kid was just sitting there on the beach, picking up handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers. She was like a little fairy, smiling up at him with one eye closed against the harsh glare of the midday sun. She didn’t even make a sound when he scooped her up. It was only when he walked swiftly, carrying her to his car on the little sidestreet, that she shouted loud for her mummy, but he was too quick. He bundled her into the boot and sped out of the street. Minutes were all it took. As he cut onto the dual carriageway, he turned up the radio to drown out her muffled cries. He lit a cigarette and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Job done. That’s how it all began. As quick as that.

In the bedroom of the beachside villa, Jenny was coming so hard she nearly passed out. But somewhere in her euphoria she heard the cry. Call it a mother’s instinct, something primal that needs no explaining that your entire world has come tumbling down.

‘Christ! It’s Amy!’ She heaved Jamie off her and leapt out of the bed, throwing on a robe over her naked body. Heading to the door, she tripped over clothes and flip flops, discarded earlier in the heat of forbidden passion.

‘What the fu—?’ Jamie rolled over. Then he sat up, asking ‘What’s the matter?’

But Jenny was gone. All he could hear were her shouts: ‘Amy! Amy!’

‘Oh, fuck!’ He jumped up and pulled on his shorts and T-shirt. ‘Oh fuck, no!’ he muttered, hurrying into the kitchen, from where he saw through the open patio door Jenny running up and down the beach, calling.

‘Amy! Amy! Amy!’

She put her hand to her mouth and almost buckled to her knees as Jamie ran towards her. He held her.

‘Oh, Jamie! She’s gone. She’s gone, Jamie, Amy’s gone. She was sleeping. She must have got out. Where is she? Where is she, Jamie? What if she’s gone into the sea?’

‘Sssh, Jen. She’ll be here,’ Jamie said, attempting to comfort her. But his stomach dropped as his eyes darted across the stretch of deserted beach. Nothing. A windsurfer was just a speck on the horizon.

‘She can’t be far, she’ll have wandered off. You wait here and I’ll run round the back and see if she’s walked somewhere.’

He let go of Jenny and ran into the sidestreet, desolate and chilly in the shade. A shiver ran through him. He looked around at the empty street, silent but for the roar of speeding traffic above on the nearby dual carriageway. He shivered again and swallowed to stop himself being sick.

‘Jesus,’ he murmured.

Right there and then, Jamie knew his life, everyone’s lives, had changed forever. This was his best friend’s little girl, and he’d just been shagging his best friend’s wife. Shit! Maybe he would wake up in a second. He ran back to the house, dizzy with panic. Jenny’s face crumpled in sobs when she saw him return alone. They looked at each other.

‘Oh, Jamie!’ She collapsed in his arms, clinging to him. ‘What have we done? Jesus, what have we done! Call the police. We have to. Phone Martin. I need to get Martin … Oh, God, Martin!’

Jamie reached into his pocket for his mobile phone. He took a deep breath. Whatever he said, both of them said, in the next ten minutes would come back to haunt them if they didn’t get it right. Twelve years as a criminal lawyer defending liars had taught him that. He took Jenny by the shoulders and spoke calmly.

‘Jenny. Listen. We’ll find her. I promise.’ His mouth was tight. ‘Go and put some clothes on. I’ll call the police. I’ll phone Martin. He’ll be on his way back by now. We have to get our story right. We have to.’

He shook her shoulders gently. He hoped he was getting through to her. Guilt was for another day.

Two people witnessed this drama as it unfolded, but nobody could see them. They were high up on the balcony of a villa cut out of the craggy coastline, from where they could look down at the shimmering heat and the soothing surf washing onto the shore.

The older man groaned as he spilled himself into the mouth of the teenage boy, who looked up with smiling eyes as he swallowed.

He ruffled the young Moroccan’s thick wavy locks. ‘Taha. You are the sweetest boy,’ he said. Taha stood up, his naked brown body glistening in the sunlight. Then they heard the screaming.

‘What the hell’s that?’ The older man sat forward in his chair, pulling a white bathrobe over his nakedness.

‘A woman screaming, sir,’ the boy said, pointing down. ‘Look. Is from the place we saw the small girl on the beach.’

The man stood up and strained to look, careful not to get so close that anyone passing could spot him. Discretion was everything.

‘Hmmn. Certainly seems to be some kind of panic on.’ He was always a master of understatement.

Taha continued to watch as the older man went indoors and returned fully dressed, buckling the belt in his khaki linen trousers.

‘Maybe is the girl, sir.’ The boy turned around and looked him up and down. ‘You know? The man? Remember when we were on the balcony at first? He took her?’ The boy looked out to the beach. ‘Maybe she stolen.’

The older man’s eyes narrowed.

‘Time to go now, Taha.’ He ran his hand across the boy’s bony shoulder. ‘You have a vivid imagination, dear boy.’ He smiled, looked at his watch. ‘Come on, get dressed. Time I got back. I have a late lunch engagement.’ He handed the boy a one-hundred-euro note. ‘You know the drill, Taha. Let yourself out.’

‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’ The boy took the money and bowed, almost like a servant. ‘I see you again? Maybe next week, sir?’

The older man smiled like a benign headmaster to his favourite pupil, then turned and left.

Taha went back to the edge of the balcony and watched the couple standing on the beach. He could see the woman was crying. Then he heard a police siren. He went back into the villa, pulled on his shorts and vest and shoved the money in his pocket. He would be rich tonight, even after he had given his Russian pimp boss his cut.

As he was about to leave, he saw something on the floor. It looked like a credit card, but when he picked it up he saw it was some kind of pass, with a photograph of the man who had just paid him a hundred euros to rent him for two hours of sex. Taha tried to read the card. He couldn’t understand what Rt. Hon. meant, and the name was different, but he recognised the picture of the man he knew as ‘Thomas’.

He shrugged, stuffed the card into his pocket, then left.

Rosie stretched out on the lounger, relishing the late afternoon sunshine. It felt luxurious after the coldness of the pool. Fifty straight lengths she was up to. She congratulated herself. By the time she got back to Glasgow in ten days, she would be as fit as a butcher’s dog. Get yourself fit physically, she’d told herself as she’d packed for Spain, and the head will follow. But it hadn’t really, not yet.

The first week had been the worst, her mind still rushing around the deadlines that ruled her life even though there weren’t any here. She created them herself: a time to eat, a deadline to swim, to walk, to read, even to drink. Deadlines made it easier, that was for sure. No time to think of all the crap. Having this much time on her hands had frightened the hell out of Rosie during the first few days, but now she was at least getting there. Opening the boxes inside her head. Tidying them. Putting them away again.

The mobile on the table rang and she picked it up. She could see it was McGuire’s private number at the Post.

‘Gilmour! Howsit going?’

‘Try to picture the scene, McGuire.’ Rosie smiled, glad of the distraction. ‘From where I’m sunning myself on the roof terrace of my villa, I can see little fishing boats in the harbour, where hard-working fishermen with calloused hands have just sailed in with something for my dinner tonight. Need I go on? Still pissing down in Glasgow?’

‘And how,’ McGuire replied, ‘but stop gloating about the weather. Have you seen the news today?’

‘No, Mick. I have not seen the news today. You told me not to watch the news. Remember?’

‘Yeah, I know I did, Rosie.’ McGuire’s tone changed a little. ‘But listen sweetheart. There’s a big story going on down in the Costa del Sol, few miles from Marbella. Missing Scots kid. Little girl of three and a half has vanished from the beach.’

‘God almighty! Really?’ She knew what was coming next. ‘What’s happened?’

‘We know fuck all at the moment. The Spanish cops never tell anybody anything. It only happened yesterday and we didn’t get word about it until last night. Late. But this could run and run.’

Rosie wondered why he wasn’t sending one of his best news reporters down to Spain. She wasn’t a hack any more, after all. Since all the trouble six months ago when she nearly got killed in Glasgow, she’d taken the assistant editor’s job in charge of investigations. She didn’t have to get her hands dirty these days.

‘Why me, Mick? I’m off the road.’

Pause. She could imagine McGuire putting his feet up on the desk and pushing back on his chair.

‘Well, Rosie, missing kid? It’s too big to send anybody but you. I can’t afford to be on the sidelines, leaving some youngster to work with the pack of journos, churning out the same old shite. I want you to do it, Rosie … Can you get yourself down there? I’ll make it up to you … Another time …’

Rosie knew it wasn’t really a question. ‘Yeah. Sure you will.’ She stood up and walked across the terrace. ‘What’s the sketch? Do we know anything at all?’

‘Only that it’s three couples on holiday with their families. All friends. The kid vanished from the beach in broad daylight. The villa is in quite a secluded area. They’re not poor, these people. One of them owns some vineyard in France, and the kid’s dad’s a property dealer in Glasgow. Mother’s some kind of insurance broker.’

‘Where were they when the kid went missing?’

‘Don’t know yet, Rosie.’ McGuire sounded like he didn’t want to talk all day. ‘That’s why I want you down there pronto, sweetheart. Think the mum just turned her back for a minute and the kid was on the beach. One minute she was there, then she wasn’t.’

‘Jesus, that’s awful. Is there no intelligence on it? What’s the thinking?

Rosie was already running through the possibilities in her mind. She’d covered plenty of missing kids in her time. Some came home. Most didn’t.

‘Christ, who knows?’ McGuire said. ‘Plenty of sickos out there. Paedos, serial killers, gypsies stealing kids. All sorts of shit.’

‘Right. OK, Mick.’ Rosie was already walking towards her bedroom. ‘Get Marion to call me. She’ll have to get me a hotel in Marbella. And I’ll need money. Who you sending pic-wise?’

‘Matt,’ McGuire said. ‘He’s on a plane this afternoon. He’ll call you when he arrives. I’ll get Marion to phone you shortly.’

‘OK.’ Rosie felt that little punch of adrenalin that had been missing. ‘I’m on it.’

‘Great,’ McGuire said. ‘I’ll sleep tonight. Thanks, Rosie, talk tomorrow. Good luck.’ The phone clicked.

Rosie shook her head. Good luck? Jesus! At the end of the day, McGuire was hoping for good luck not so much for the kid as the story. Some things never change.

She dragged her suitcase from below the bed, opened the wardrobe, and looked at her watch. From where she was on the Costa de la Luz, it would take three hours minimum to drive to Marbella but she should be there for dinner. She felt really alive for the first time in six months.

On the motorway, Rosie kept to the outside lane for a while until she got used to the speed of the road. She hated driving on the right, and even on a motorway she freaked out a little when cars came thundering past her on the inside. Having a car for her month-long holiday in Spain was not something she would normally have done, but the villa, the whole trip, had been arranged by the Post, so she’d decided she might as well give it a go. She’d enjoyed the challenge of driving for the first few days because it had given her something to focus on. Something to get stressed about. And in truth, once she got the hang of it, she loved the freedom of being able to flit in and out of little villages dotted along the west coast that she would otherwise not have seen.

These last days had been the best Rosie had felt in a long time. After the beating in February by the hoodlums who wanted to stop her story, she had been ordered off work when she got out of hospital. But by the start of the third week, she was going stir crazy in her flat. She’d insisted on coming back to work to get stuck into her new job as assistant editor. It had felt really odd at first, not getting out on the streets for the big investigations, but Rosie had been enjoying the newness of it. She hadn’t realised until now that she’d actually missed being on the road so much, and she hadn’t even reached the scene yet! She smiled to herself, wondering when she would ever learn.

McGuire had told her to take a month at the company’s expense as a thank-you for the work she’d done in bringing down that bastard police chief Gavin Fox and exposing the sex scandal at the children’s home. And she’d decided that getting completely off the treadmill for a month would do her a world of good. The truth was that she’d been fighting off panic attacks in the aftermath of the beating, so the holiday had been partly under doctor’s orders. Game on.

In three weeks she’d blitzed all the tourist haunts around Jerez, including the obligatory sherry tour which had left her with an almighty hangover she was convinced might actually be terminal. Rosie had read so many paper-backs she was having trouble working out what was real life and what was fiction. With so little to do, it was only a matter of time before she fell into the wrong hands – literally. And so the clichés came rolling in faster than the Atlantic breakers on the beach at Rota – the little gem of a town where she was living in some splendour in a villa overlooking the ocean.

In one local restaurant she’d got a lot of attention from the owner, a handsome Spaniard with a story to tell and a twinkle in his eye. She felt a little embarrassed even now that she’d allowed him to charm his way right into her bed. The single brooding woman all alone, and the handsome Spanish man who was allegedly different from the usual Lothario. Jesus. Such a cliche. He’d be using his B-movie script on some other bird next month.

Brits were few and far between in Rota. But the US Naval base at the edge of the town ensured there was plenty of beef to look at on the beach for a woman with far too much energy. Her next distraction was in the solid shape of a US Marine Major with a crewcut, whom she’d met in a cafe one lazy afternoon. Rosie never could resist a man in uniform, and she knew what was on the cards even before they made a lunch date for the following day. After lunch, he’d taken her to a secluded beach nearby, where they played out the rest of the afternoon not unlike the classic scene in From Here to Eternity. The recollection still brought a smile.

These interludes had lifted the ennui and the loneliness which, even in the beautiful surroundings, had sometimes pulled Rosie down. And what the heck, the sex had been particularly good, and she’d resolved to take it up as a proper hobby when she got back home. At least while she was preoccupied with uncomplicated sex, she could put the misery of TJ out of her mind.

She flipped on the stereo and pushed in a CD. The sweeping soundtrack from the movie Out of Africa filled the car. Soothing. Perfect for the time of day, with the sun lower in the sky and twinkling on the sea. Sure beat the hell out of the East End of Glasgow on a wet Monday.

As always in her quieter moments, no matter how hard she tried to forget, Rosie’s thoughts drifted back to TJ. She couldn’t believe he had never once got in touch with her after he left for New York. She’d tormented herself with all sorts of thoughts of what happened that morning when she couldn’t keep her date with him because she was in hospital. In truth, she didn’t even know if she’d have kept it anyway. The night when the killer came to her house, she’d been planning to take the whole evening to make up her mind. In the end, she didn’t get a chance. And from then on she was tortured with ‘what if’ agony, that TJ may have been standing waiting for her at the airport. But his words that day when he’d told her he was going and had given her the airline ticket, still rang in her ears.

‘If you come, fine. If not, don’t call me. I hate goodbyes.’

Even though she’d waited by her phone for days after he left, she knew deep down he wouldn’t call. She’d tried to contact him, believing that once he knew what had happened to her, TJ would be so shocked and caring, he’d get in touch. Maybe he would even come back. But he never answered his phone. He had simply left her behind. That was the hardest thing to take. It was her own fault, she’d told herself, as she threw herself into the new job. She’d let her guard down, and that was her mistake. She’d opened up to TJ more than to anyone else in her whole life, and he walked away. Never again.

That was nearly six months ago, and still the tears welled up in her eyes when she thought of it. It wasn’t just the man/woman thing, the romance. It was the whole damn friendship. The baring of her soul, those deeply buried scars from her childhood that he’d brought to the surface. How could he do that then just disappear? She imagined TJ living in New York; wondered if there was another woman, and if he was sharing the same laughs and arguments with her that they used to have. Christ, this was driving her nuts. She was glad when her mobile rang.

‘Hey, Rosie.’

She recognised Marion, the editor’s secretary.

‘Marion. How you doing?’

‘Well, it’s pissin’ down in July, and I forgot to take my washing in before I went to work this morning. It’s Friday afternoon and my date for the night just called off. You could say, life is not smiling on me.’

Rosie chuckled. ‘Ah, that’s men for you, Marion. Play hard to get next time he calls.’ She promised herself she would do that if TJ ever phoned. But she knew she wouldn’t.

‘I’m too old to play hard to get,’ Marion said. ‘Somebody asks me out, I’m standing with my hat and coat on in case they change their mind! Anyway, enough of my nonsense. Listen, Rosie. I booked you at the Puente Romano in Marbella. Unfortunately, it’s a five-star hotel, but I’m sure you’ll cope. And I’m about to wire some dosh into your account. Same number as last time alright?’

‘Yeah,’ Rosie said. ‘That’s brilliant. How much money?’

‘Five hundred quid. The editor says don’t spend it all at once. It’ll do for starters. Matt’s got his own money.’

‘Don’t worry, Marion. I’ll try to lay off the lobster and champagne. And I’ll bring you back a Spanish donkey.’

‘Yeah. Do that, Rosie. And make sure it’s a two-legged one.’

Besmir had been watching them for days, the whole crowd of them. Eating, drinking, laughing. The men always seemed to be making jokes with each other and guffawing, and the women would shake their heads and smile the way older people did when children were being silly. He didn’t like any of them. They were puffed up like peacocks, full of their own importance.

One time, in a cafe at lunchtime, when he was at a table too far and too insignificant for them to notice him, he saw one of the men give the young waiter a dressing down. He couldn’t understand what the boy was being berated for, but the others sniggered when he walked away, his head bowed, close to tears. Besmir wanted to go up and grab the waiter and tell him to go back to the table and punch the shit out of the guy. That’s what he would have done. Fighting was all Besmir knew. In Albania, you either fought or you were a victim and you got trampled on. The more he watched them, the more he disliked them, and that was good. Because soon they would have a lot more to worry them than whether a waiter served them well.

He had planned to take the girl in the night, when the family were sleeping in their villa on the beach. They were so stupid they slept with the patio door unlocked. He had even been in there while they were fast asleep and he’d looked at the little girl in her bed. She was beautiful. In the end, they’d made it easy for him. She was just out there, on the beach by herself when he walked past for the second time, doing a recce. From a distance earlier, he’d seen the husband of the woman going out wearing shorts and running shoes. He’d run in the opposite direction from where Besmir was, but he’d slipped into the shadows in the sidestreet just in case.

It was only a few minutes later that he saw the other man come by and talk to the woman on the patio. The little girl was nowhere to be seen. Besmir watched as the man and woman disappeared into the house together. He was surprised when he saw the kid come tottering out by herself and sit on the sand. His heart missed a beat. He would do it now. If he was quick, it could be done and over in a minute. He could have her delivered in two hours and get his money. He waited a few minutes in case the mother came out. And when she didn’t, he moved.

Now the crying had stopped, and Besmir hoped the girl had fallen asleep. He hated it when children cried like that. It reminded him of the incessant crying in the orphanage, day and night, children constantly crying. The pictures in his head were sometimes blurred these days. He’d made them that way, but he could remember the crying more clearly than anything. He remembered his own crying and saw himself looking through the bars of the cot, the other miserable children rocking back and forth and wailing. But there was no point. Nobody came. Besmir had no recollection of when he stopped crying, but one day he just did. And he had never cried again. Not once.

He pulled the car off the road and up a quiet, twisting lane. He got out, lit a cigarette and checked to make sure there was nobody around. He went to the boot and clicked it open. She lay curled up and asleep, clutching an oily rag among the tools and debris. Her face was deathly pale and her dark brown curls looked even darker against her white skin. For a second he thought she may have suffocated, and he reached out to touch her arm to feel if there was a pulse. But as he did, she stirred. He closed the boot in case the light would wake her up and start her crying again. He got back into the car and drove on. He called Elira from his mobile to tell her he would be in Algeciras in an hour.

The traffic began to back up as he got closer to Algeciras, and Besmir had to slow down until the line of cars was nearly bumper to bumper. He wondered what had caused the hold-up and rolled his window down to stick his head out. Shit. The cops seemed to be stopping people. He looked at his watch. He had been on the road for nearly two hours. The cops would have been alerted by now and would be looking for the missing kid. But maybe they wouldn’t be this far down yet. The traffic slowed even more. It could be a roadblock. He began to sweat. He didn’t have any papers if he got stopped. Leka had promised him a fake passport and identity card if he did just one more job. Leka always pushed the end game further and further away. He said he would give him three thousand euros for the job. With that kind of money Besmir could be free to go anywhere he wanted. Or he could stay, and become a bigger part of the organisation.

They were everywhere now, the Albanians. From Italy to Spain to London. They were huge and powerful, providing people to order for gangmasters and whorehouses all over Europe. Some people were sold privately as individuals to whoever paid the highest price. There were no restrictions on age or gender. The only rule was that you never crossed the Albanians or the Russians. Ever. Anyone who made that mistake never lived to see the sunset. Especially if they crossed Leka.

Besmir inched closer to the roadblock, and he could see the cop put his hand up to stop the car four in front of him. His heart began to pound. The car was stifling, so the boot would be boiling. All he needed now was for the kid to wake up and start screaming. The fat cop waddled along the line of cars, his pistol in his holster. Besmir made sure he didn’t make eye contact when the cop stopped at his car. Besmir looked up with the bored expression of someone caught in a traffic jam. The cop turned around and walked back down the line. He waved the cars on. Besmir gripped the steering wheel hard to stop his hands shaking.

The port of Algeciras was heaving with activity in the late afternoon, a mix of tourist ferries and freight boats going to and from Morocco. Besmir weaved his car in and out of the traffic, past the docks and up through the tight warren of back streets. The air was heavy with smells from the exotic mix of restaurants and street stalls. Fried garlic and Moroccan spices mingled with the searing heat and traffic fumes. Cars honked above the din and drivers cut each other up, swerving to avoid pedestrians shouting abuse.

Besmir wanted to get to the house quickly as the girl must surely be awake by now with this noise. He turned into a one-way cobbled street and raced up, knowing he could cut across the alley half way. It was cooler now as he drove towards the block, where he could see Elira standing on the balcony looking down at him. She lifted her chin a little to acknowledge him, then she disappeared inside. He pulled his car to the side of the road and ran upstairs.

‘We must get her out quickly,’ Besmir said as Elira opened the door to him. ‘We can’t wait till it’s dark, or leave her there any longer.’

Elira d. . .