Free Betrayed by Anna Smith Page B

car. Looks like he’s about forty-something, would you say?’
    ‘Yeah. It would be nice if he was a referee,’ Matt smiled. ‘It would prove to Celtic fans that the rumours are true.’
    Rosie replied, ‘Yeah. Make sure you snap his number plate anyway. I’ll get someone to run it through for me.’
    She wrote down the registration and took her mobile out of her pocket. She dialled Don’s number.
    ‘Hi, Don. What you up to? You’re not working tonight, are you?’
    ‘Hey, Rosie. No. Finished half an hour ago. What’s up?’
    ‘I was going to see if you could run a registration plate through for me. Any chance?’
    ‘Yeah. No bother. My mate’s still working. Give me thenumber. I’m in the pub having a pint. I’ll do it now, and get back to you.’
    A couple of hours later, Rosie watched as Matt wolfed a vindaloo, mopping the plate with a chunk of naan bread, and washing it down with lager.
    ‘I’m glad I’m not doing a stake-out in a van with you tomorrow, pal,’ Rosie said, sipping her lager.
    Matt grinned. ‘No. You definitely don’t want to be anywhere near me.’
    They’d had a productive two hours outside the pub, Matt snapping every man who came out of the side door at the end of the meeting. They had no way of knowing who any of them were, why they were there, or even if it was a UVF meeting. But it was a start, Rosie told him, and it was good to have them on file.
    They’d been intrigued as the man in the BMW emerged from the side door with Eddie McGregor, who handed him a black holdall. Matt reeled off some snaps as they shook hands and parted. Whoever they were, they seemed close, and that had to be worth a look in itself.
    Rosie’s mobile rang on the table and she picked it up.
    ‘Hi, Don.’
    ‘Listen, Rosie. That registration you gave me. You up to something sneaky?’
    ‘You know me, Don. I’m always trampling around somebody’s dirty secrets. Why? Is he interesting?’
    ‘Not sure. All it gives is the owner of the car. He’s from Ayrshire. Irvine, actually.’
    Don reeled off the details and Rosie wrote them down on the back of a napkin.
    ‘Well?’ Matt said when she came off the phone.
    ‘The guy in the BMW.’ Rosie folded the napkin and put it in her bag.
    ‘Please tell me he’s a referee.’
    ‘No idea. But I’ve got an address. Why don’t we nip down early doors tomorrow and see where he lives. Maybe snatch a picture of him coming out of his house. Just in case he’s a respectable businessman.’
    ‘Or a church minister.’
    ‘Yeah. In your dreams, Matt.’
    The house was a semidetached job in a fairly new estate outside Irvine. Clipped lawns, patio furniture and this year’s car in the tiny driveways of the little corner the residents had cleared for themselves, as they strived to be upwardly mobile. The place was dubbed Spam Valley by the hardup tenants in the nearby council housing scheme. They’d feel vindicated if the folk in the fancy new estate couldn’t afford to feed themselves, their hefty mortgages hanging round their necks. Rosie could see why bitter little jealousies reared their heads in what had once been a thriving new town, but now was lumbered with high unemployment and heroin creeping out of Glasgow like a cancer, spreading allthe way down to devastate scenic little towns that had been jewels in the Ayrshire coastline. Saltcoats, Ardrossan, Irvine, Ayr … All of them brought back memories of bus runs with her mother on long summer days, fish teas in the cafe and sleepy journeys home among drunken day-trippers singing on the top of the double decker.
    Rosie and Matt had found a good spot to park within shooting distance of Fraser Thomson’s house. It was the kind of place you’d be rumbled if you asked questions, so they wouldn’t hang around too long. It was interesting already, given that whoever he was, he didn’t fit the profile that Rosie had expected.
    ‘Are we going to follow him?’ Matt said, yawning.
    ‘Only if we can do it