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‘So, you both had bracelets with the twin heart design?’ Shona asked, focusing on the details of the case.
Isla shook her head. ‘It was mine, I lent it to her. She’d come down from Glasgow for a few weeks. I was living sometimes in Gretna, sometimes in Carlisle at Buckie’s place. We had a wee project on the go,’ said Isla evasively.
‘The Sweet Life?’ Shona hazarded.
‘Aye.’
‘So, what happened to Siobhan? When did you last see her?’
‘She went out one night and never came back. I thought she’d just skipped back to Glasgow, but then I found out Buckie was fixing her up with punters. I’d told him not to, but she needed the cash.’ Isla turned away, narrowing her eyes as she looked out over the water. A man was chasing his dog on the beach, the shouts drifting across the scrubby foreshore as he tried to persuade it back.
‘Do you think someone mistook her for you?’ Shona asked. It would be an easy mistake to make, she thought ruefully.
‘I didn’t at the time, but now with Sami and Buckie gone…’
‘Siobhan, Sami and Jamie Buckland all had injuries to their hands sustained before they were killed. In Sami and Jamie’s case, days or weeks. Does that mean anything to you?’
Isla took a long pull on her cigarette and nodded. ‘Buckie suggested we sold prescription pills through Facebook. He had a supplier; it was a side-business for Buckie but Sami and I just wanted enough cash to get out. Start over somewhere new. Shiv didn’t know any of this. I couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut. When I had enough money, I would’ve told her. Then we could’ve both got out.’
‘How did you and Sami meet?’ Shona was aware she was straying from the main narrative, but she was hungry for detail. Isla might refuse to repeat her story to anyone else. She couldn’t arrest her, she couldn’t stop Isla and Marie running off to hide elsewhere. Shona needed to harvest every detail, sketch the web of connections as quickly as she could.
Isla threw away the stub of her cigarette and pulled her scarf closer. ‘Sami was doing some courier work for a contact of Buckie’s. We just hit it off. He was dead clever, but he’d had some bad times back home in Syria, done his head in. The traffickers had sold his debt on to this crazy gang of dealers. He’d had enough.’
‘Did Sami ever tell you about trafficking children?’
Isla shifted uncomfortably. ‘He’d get upset and say stuff, but I think it was in his head. He’d get mixed up with things that had happened in Syria, you know, like flashbacks, but it was like he was actually re-living them. Kids being taken and killed. People getting blown up. He wasn’t sleeping. Buckie gave him some pills to help him but it just made things worse. Suicidal, like.’ She stared at the ground, pushing the extinguished cigarette butt with the toe of her trainer.
‘How did they injure their hands?’ Shona pulled Isla’s attention away from thoughts of dead children and back to her earlier line of questioning.
‘Buckie’s main drugs suppliers found out we were selling pills on the side. They weren’t happy,’ she said with ironic understatement. ‘We were all too scared to go back to the Carmine warehouse and get the rest of the gear. Thought they might be waiting for us. We’d undercut them, stolen their market. Why would you pay ten pounds for heroin if you can get pills for two or three pounds a time through the post, in the comfort of your own home? No risk. Buckie said he’d bring them in on the business, like a merger. He had big ideas, I helped him draw up a business plan. That looked like it might work, but then some new faces took over at the top, a new crew who didn’t want the competition. Plus, someone, probably Sami or that creepy pal of his, Wazir, was syphoning off cash. Sami was so desperate to pay off the people who brought him here. Desperate and scared.’
‘So, the baby milk?’
‘Thought we could use it to generate some quick cash and get out. But Buckie’s supplier heard about this too and wanted a cut. We couldn’t shift the stuff quick enough.’
‘And the injuries to their hands?’
‘There was one guy. Buckie used to call him El Chapo, or the Big E, like he was a celebrity. Dressed smart. Face like a skull. Said he’d take a hammer to anyone with their hand in the till. I think he killed Siobhan because he thought she was me.’
Shona’s heart was beating fast. So, she’d been right, punishment beatings. Siobhan’s injuries were close to the time of death; perhaps they were a bid to extract information. But Siobhan wasn’t Isla, there was nothing she could tell her captors. Shona thought of the man in the video that Dan had found. The man punching Jamie Buckland in the street outside his home. Expensive suit, face like a skull. ‘What’s his name?’
Isla gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘You’re wasting your time. You willnae get this guy. He’s got protection. He used to say he was like the devil himself. He could get rid of folk and no one could touch him. I believed him.’
‘Isla, four people are dead.’ Shona saw her do the maths. Good with numbers, her mother had said. Shona supplied the missing figure. ‘Wazir apparently committed suicide in custody yesterday morning.’
‘And you think someone got to him, don’t you? Fuck. I told you, this guy’s protected.’ Isla shook her head. ‘Used to boast he had cops in his pocket, judges, the lot. You know what? I should just stay dead. Don’t tell anyone it wasn’t me in the water. I don’t want to stop being Shiv and go back to being Isla.’
‘Is that what you really want?’ Shona folded her arms, letting the question hang in the air.
‘Being Isla wasn’t really working for me. Safer being Shiv.’
‘We can protect you. Give you a new life. Ryan will have questions as he grows up. He knows you’re Isla. Will you tell him you’re not his mother? Will you make him keep that secret?’
>
Isla bit her lip and leaned back, her shoulders resting against the side of the caravan. ‘No really fair to the wee man, is it?’ She let out a long breath. ‘When me and Shiv were kids, we delivered drugs around the estate on our bikes. Got me away from my dad, he was never into that scene. Thieving, gambling and girls was his thing. Running with a gang got me some protection.’ She took out another cigarette, offered the packet to Shona, who declined. ‘One time me and Siobhan were delivering to a squat and this big crackhead, nasty looking fucker, didnae want to pay. He just laughed at us, pulled out a knife and took what we had. Locked us in a flat overnight, we were shit scared he’d come back. We were about fourteen. I was so angry I nearly went for the guy, knife or no knife. Shiv pulled me back. That’s when I knew that what I needed more than drugs was respect.’
Isla paused and clicked her lighter. ‘So, I picked up with the scariest, most violent bastards I could find. That’s how I met Ryan’s dad, Fergie. Duncan Ferguson as he was, before he cleaned himself up and changed his name to Duncan Saltire. Back then, he ran with this skinhead gang who controlled the drugs market in Dumfries. I used to bag the stuff, count the cash, balance the books.’ She saw Shona’s expression. ‘Aye, funny isn’t it, him being so anti now.’ She laughed, taking a pull on her cigarette. ‘You know he’s never paid me a penny towards Ryan? I asked him again a few months back, but he wasnae having it. What a dick. He used to batter me of course, but even wi’ that it was better than being at home, or out there on my own.’
