They fly in the afternoon. As the plane takes off from Inverness, bright sunshine momentarily floods one side of the aircraft. Rose settles into her seat, thinking guiltily about that long drive back the others are making. But really, she’s mostly relieved. So very kind of Adam to ask on her behalf.
She’s distracted from this pleasant thought by an image of Gregory’s little unhappy face in that hospital bed, turned away, with tears flooding his cheeks.
He’d looked at her as though she’d betrayed him. That was no doubt how he felt.
Rose has a very strong feeling that the Fullers are not planning to move away from Wyndham Terrace at all, despite what Gwen had blurted out during the press conference. She wonders if Gregory has been told yet about the supposed Victorian girl, or whatever the hell she was meant to be. He was going to see through that about as swiftly as Rose had.
The worst part is that Rose knows how it feels, to be a kid with no power, trapped in a household that makes you miserable.
Trapped with ghosts.
Much as she wants to go home and properly change her clothes, she decides she’ll speak with the team first. There has to be something further they can do with this case.
At least the Fullers haven’t ended up being on this flight. Gregory had got so upset the nurse had seen a small spike in his temperature, which meant he wouldn’t be released until probably the following day.
Rose is sitting next to Brian Mortimer on the plane and worries she will be required to make small talk for the duration of the flight.
The seatbelt light pings off and flight attendants appear with a trolley at the front of the plane. A few minutes later she’s contemplating whether to find her earbuds and try to nap when Mortimer puts down his iPad and turns to her, expectantly.
‘So,’ he says quietly, ‘now I’ve got you on your own and the case is over, I was meaning to ask something. Is it true what I heard about UCIT?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says, with a slightly nervous smile. ‘It depends on what you heard.’
They’re interrupted by the flight attendant offering drinks. Mortimer surprises Rose by asking for a gin and tonic. She looks at him.
‘Figure we’ve earned it after the seventy-two hours we’ve had, don’t you?’ he says. Rose smiles and orders the same.
She waits until the drinks are poured and the flight attendant has moved to the next row before speaking again.
‘So what’ve you heard then?’ she says. ‘Although if it’s freaky or disturbing there’s a good chance it’s going to turn out to be true.’
Mortimer laughs. He seems quite different now that Gregory has been found and she can imagine he might be fun when not embroiled in a high-stakes case like this one.
‘I know all about what you do over there,’ he says. ‘I used to be good friends with Sheila Moony’s ex and we stayed in touch for a while after he died.’
‘Oh?’ says Rose, thinking of that photo in Moony’s house. ‘I don’t really know anything about the circumstances around that. Do you mind if I ask you what happened to him?’
His brows knot and he takes a sip of his drink. ‘It was a really bad business,’ he says. ‘They were such a happy pair. It was him who introduced her to the motorbikes and they used to go off all over the place on those things.’ He sighs. ‘Yeah, a really bad business all round.’
He seems to have become momentarily lost in his thoughts but Rose quashes the feeling of impatience inside and waits. Mortimer takes another sip of his drink and then turns to look at her.
‘Have you heard of a man called Michael Cassavetes?’
‘Don’t think so,’ says Rose.
‘Bit before your time. What are you, twenty-five?’
‘Thirty actually.’ One day, she is forever being told, this will be a compliment.
‘Ah,’ says Mortimer. ‘Well, in the Nineties there was a massive criminal network operating that was carrying out one of the biggest money-laundering enterprises the city – well, the country – had ever seen. A crook called Michael Cassavetes was the kingpin of the whole thing, a Greek national who came over here in his twenties. He started small and then gradually built this network of businesses to funnel funds from prostitution and drug money.’
‘Go on,’ says Rose, enjoying the drink slipping down her throat, even though it is lukewarm.
‘So, he had a number of lieutenants,’ says Mortimer, ‘including a man called Bigham. God, Terrence John Bigham.’ He lets out a grim laugh. ‘He was a proper charmer, him. He tended to do the dirty work, dealing with the businesses directly.’
Bigham. Money laundering.
Something seems to twang inside her brain like a note played off key.
‘What kind of businesses?’ says Rose. She takes a big sip of her drink. Her heartbeat bumps up.
‘All sorts,’ says Mortimer, ‘everything from massage parlours to scrapyards, to things people were running from their own front rooms. Having multiple very small businesses worked well for him. There was all sorts. There was even talk about one of them being some sort of crystal-ball gazer or something in that vein.’ He laughs. ‘Anything where it might be easy to pay cash and stay under the radar.’
Rose is silent; temporarily robbed of speech. Luckily, Mortimer is lost in his story and hasn’t noticed.
‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘the big part of the Cassavetes story is that he ended up turning evidence and becoming the biggest supergrass the Met has ever known. He turned thirty-four people in, including, get this, his own wife and his brother-in-law.’
‘Wow,’ Rose manages.
‘He claimed that there was someone really high up in the Met who was in on it all but they were never identified. He blamed a bunch of coppers actually, including Charlie Moony, who’d been working undercover to try and get Bigham for some time. Nothing was ever found to back this up and no one who knew Moony would ever have believed it. But Charlie took it very badly. Went into a depression and started drinking … then …’ he pauses ‘… came off his bike one night in Kent and hit a tree. Killed instantly.’
‘God,’ says Rose, ‘that’s awful.’ But her tired mind is racing so much she can’t think how else to respond to this. Terrence Bigham? Could it be the ‘Mr Big’ who Adele used to see all the time? And could the ‘crystal-ball gazer’ have been Adele? Her hands are sweating and she feels a sudden wave of nausea as her past rushes at her like a speeding truck.
Moony had already told her that she was the policewoman Rose remembers seeing as a child one night after some sort of altercation at home. The policewoman, in fact, who Rose had kept in her mind all those years as the symbol of a potential new life. But how much does Moony know about Rose’s upbringing? And how much did it impact having taken her on?
It’s all too confusing and she rubs her tired eyes, wanting very much to stop having to make conversation now. But there’s something she still hasn’t heard.
‘Hey,’ she says. ‘You still haven’t told me what you meant before? About rumours?’
Mortimer looks awkward now and his eyes skitter away from her gaze.
‘Ah it’s probably not my place,’ he says. ‘But I’d presume in such a small team that you’d already know.’
‘Know what?’
‘About them pulling the plug. Closing down UCIT.’