Blood Salt Water

by Denise Mina

  She shut the door but didn’t look at him. Iain knew then that she half blamed him for the fire. He went after her, didn’t know what to say and held his hands out and hugged her. Annie wasn’t used to a lot of touching, neither was Iain. It was awkward. She hugged and patted his back, as if she was winding him, and she called him son. She wanted him to let her go, but he couldn’t. He had come here for comfort, to see her from before, but it wasn’t before and he didn’t want to see her face.

  He released her, averting his eyes, and saw Lea-Anne’s pink coat hanging on a banister. A photo of Lea-Anne smiling in her school uniform. Lee-Anne’s jazzy trainers. A One Direction school bag.

  What little light there was in the hall was suddenly sucked away. Eunice stood in the kitchen doorway. She nodded, turned and hirpled into the kitchen. Annie tugged at Iain’s sleeve, bringing him in with her.

  Small table, wood-pattern veneer, pushed up against the wall. A place mat in nuclear pink embroidered with flowers. Three chairs, one for each granny and a third with a One Direction cushion on it. The boy band were pictured hugging each other, smiling cheerfully up at whichever bottom was coming towards them. It was pushed out from the table, as if Lea-Anne had just gone to the toilet. They all three stepped carefully around it.

  Eunice was looking at Iain, cold, lips tight to her teeth. She turned away. ‘Tea.’

  Iain leaned against the wall. He felt gigantic, looking down on the shrunken old women and the vacuum left by the child.

  Eunice, Our Lady of the Bad Leg, spun and swooped, rolling her hip as she moved around the kitchen, bringing and taking and boiling. Her jowls were puffy, a map of thread veins over her cheeks. A small plate of biscuits was put on the table, three saucers, sugar, a carton of milk. Annie fingered the embroidery on the place mat in front of her. The sun outside went behind a cloud and the room darkened. Everything was on the worktops. Biscuits, milk, tea bags, sugar, boxes of crackers. Details crowded noisily in on Iain. No one looked at anyone else.

  Annie reached up to him, her hand was in his hand, fingertips to his fingertips.

  ‘Son,’ she said, ‘your hands is swole.’

  He looked down. The bottom half of her face was crying, chin crumpled, breathing jagged and irregular. The top half of her face was looking at his hands, his dirty hands, as if she could see what they had done, what had been on them.

  ‘Salt water,’ said Iain, because women knew.

  ‘You’re mockit,’ she said, releasing his fingers, letting him drift out.

  Dirty. He was. From four miles out he looked at the two old mourners, bodies sagging around crumbling bones.

  Eunice poured the hot water into three cups. She put three sugars into each and milk. Lea-Anne took three sugars. The women stirred their cups, taking turns with the spoon, stirring for Lea-Anne. They sipped their hollow communion. They didn’t offer Iain any. The third cup was left sitting in front of the empty chair.

  Iain turned to leave.

  ‘Polis was here,’ Eunice announced. ‘Was looking for ye, son.’

  Iain looked back. She wasn’t looking at him. They were both hunched over their cups, concentrating on the ritual. They blamed him for the fire.

  Annie spoke: ‘Best take the back lanes.’ She told her tea.

  He passed a mirror in the dim hallway. He didn’t recognise himself. The smoke had worked its way into every crevice of his face, tingeing his hair brown. They blamed him.

  Out on the street a bus grumbled by, a woman pushed a buggy, a man made a phone call. The smell of smoke didn’t cling up here in the high scheme but it clung to Iain. He was the smell now.

  One more. He took the pill bottle out and took another one, swallowing it dry again, glad it hurt.

  Their names came into his head. Lea-Anne. Murray. Murray and Lea-Anne. He saw their faces. Lea-Anne and Murray. Murray hiding by a burn when they were young, back in the days when Annie took a drink and the house was party central. Murray sitting on Iain’s bed–don’t smoke. Murray working sixteen-hour days in the kitchen at the hotel to raise the deposit to buy the Sailors’ at auction. The excitement when he got it. Gone. Murray and baby Lea-Anne sitting at a low table in a visiting room, Iain walking in and seeing them turn their faces to his. They were waiting for him.

  They blamed him. Andrew Cole had been arrested? For what? He didn’t do anything. Everything was jumbled and broken.

  He knew then that he could be free for the rest of his life, or he could be in a cell. It didn’t matter. If he didn’t do something, grab hold of something, he would be lost. Police.

  He walked purposefully for three blocks, rolling and smoking cigarettes on the way.

  With the sun in his eyes and a cigarette on his lip, he climbed up the four steps to the doors of the police station. He rattled the handle. It was locked. He rang the bell. Nothing.

  Then he saw a laminated note on the door, written in small letters. It told him to call this number and leave a message. He looked for the car with the mismatched couple, the cops on the lookout, but it wasn’t there. He thought of the mobile police unit but Mark would hear if he walked down there because someone, someone would be watching.

  Someone.

  The thought of a sinister, faceless presence made him think of Susan. That’s what she was. A dark nobody.

  He stood on the steps, looking down into the street. Nicotine coursed through the channels, speeding up his brain. The pills dampened his feelings. It was a good combination. Susan was something he couldn’t understand but he knew she was working him. He’d be stupid to do what she told him. The envelope. She wanted him to give it to the cops. So don’t. Do something else with it. Do whatever she didn’t want. Give it back.

  Glad the police station was shut–he could have done something really stupid there–he tripped down the stairs to the street.

  30

  The yellow-brick estate was new and pleasant. It had yet to wear and show its weaknesses. The houses were small but well proportioned, laid out in winding streets with wide pavements for the children to cycle on, safe from passing cars. The streets were midday quiet, empty driveways, children at school. A small dog watched them from a neighbour’s window.

  Though it was daytime, a blinding bright spotlight shone straight down on the step outside the Kirks’ front door. McGrain pressed the bell and an elaborate electronic jingle sounded inside. The door was opened by a uniformed Liaison officer who was pulling her coat on.

  ‘I need to go,’ she said quickly, sliding past them.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Morrow stepped into the hall.

  ‘No,’ said the officer. ‘Just, got another house–busy morning.’ She called back into the kitchen, ‘Girls! I’ll be in touch this afternoon if you don’t phone me before then.’

  She shut the door as the girls called their goodbyes in a ragged chorus.

  Morrow walked across the hall to the kitchen and found three scantily dressed girls in there, standing, drinking from pint-sized mugs of tea. Eighteen, sixteen and fourteen. The girls were fat and no wonder: the kitchen was a private chapel dedicated to sugar. Every spare surface was stacked with catering boxes of biscuits, chocolate bars, sweets. Two packets of crisps were open on the worktop next to the kettle, a suggested accompaniment to a cup of tea. Even the window sill behind the sink was lined with bottles of red fizzy juice.

  Morrow introduced herself and McGrain. The girls stood up and shook their hands in turn. Scarlet, the sensible oldest, was very dark and pretty. Marnie, the middle child, had her head shaved at the side, green eyes and a slightly manic giggle. Debbie had shocking pink hair and raw red stretch marks down the backs of her chunky arms. No one was angry, Morrow noted, and no one was crying.

  With the front door shut Morrow realised suddenly that the house was unbelievably warm, which explained why the girls were all wearing as little as possible.

  ‘I know!’ said Marnie. ‘Boiling! We don’t know how to work the central heating.’

  McGrain nodded at t
he boiler cabinet on the wall. ‘Is it a combi?’

  They didn’t know.

  ‘Let me have a look.’ He opened the cabinet door. ‘I’ve got one like this. See the dial there? Looks like a volume control?’

  The girls were standing up, watching him turn it down.

  ‘There.’ He shut the door. ‘That should be all right now.’

  ‘Thank almighty fuck for that,’ said Debbie. ‘We’ve been sweating bullets in here.’

  The girls all smiled at each other, because they’d solved a problem and because of the funny image.

  Scarlet saw that there wasn’t enough room in the kitchen and suggested moving into the living room so they could all sit down. Debbie and Marnie pressed them with offers of cups of tea? Coffee? Glass of ginger, then? Want a wee biscuit? Sure? Crisps? Are ye sure? They told McGrain to take his coat off anyway, and clucked and fussed them into the cluttered living room.

  Two outsized beige leather sofas faced each other, backs pressed tight to opposing walls. In the middle, a gigantic television dominated the room. Scattered around the base like votive offerings were flexes and wires and handsets and gaming consoles, some still in the boxes.

  The girls all sat on one sofa, squashed up tight on a two-seater, giggling. Morrow and McGrain took the facing settee.

  Morrow, observing protocol, told the girls she was sorry for their loss. The girls gave yelps of regret and shut their eyes, as if they’d just heard of something terrible happening a long way away.

  ‘God!’ said Marnie. ‘What a thing to happen! The poor woman.’

  Morrow wasn’t sure it had sunk in yet. She said she had some questions but she could give them a little time if they felt they needed it—

  ‘No,’ Scarlet said firmly. Her sisters nodded in agreement. ‘You know, it’s complicated with my mum. We’re not… well, just you fire away.’

  ‘You’re eighteen, Scarlet, are you?’

  ‘Yeah. Ask away.’

  ‘And you’re prepared to explain what’s going on to your sisters, that they don’t need to answer anything they don’t want to… ’

  Scarlet turned and looked at her sisters with theatrical suspicion. They grinned back to show they got the joke. Morrow thought maybe they should wait for a social worker. They weren’t taking it very seriously.

  ‘Where’s your dad? Does he live with you?’

  Marnie tutted. ‘Noonan’s a junkie fuck.’

  ‘Will I get put into care?’ Debbie fretted. ‘Because I am not staying with that psycho. I’m not.’

  ‘You’ll be appointed a social worker,’ said Morrow. ‘They’ll tell you more about what might happen.’

  ‘I can adopt you.’ Scarlet turned to Morrow. ‘Can’t I? I’m eighteen. ’Cause Noonan’s a junkie. He’s up at this door once a week looking for fucking money or anything he can sell, banging on the door like a zombie trying to get in. He nicked the plants out the front to sell. Sold them in a pub, can you imagine that? Twat. He’s looking in this window and he can see all this shit my mum bought.’ She pointed at the gaming consoles and the TV. ‘Junkie bait, all of it.’

  McGrain looked covetously at the pile. ‘You not gamers, girls?’

  ‘No,’ said Debbie. ‘She’s bought it and says “that’s for yous” but it wasn’t for us at all.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Marnie interrupted. ‘It’s for Noonan to see through the window.’

  ‘He left her,’ explained Scarlet calmly. ‘Went off with some skinny bird and then she’s buying all this stuff so’s he can see it and it’s driving him mental. We can’t leave the house empty. Anyway, come on: ask us your wee questions.’

  ‘When did you last see your mum?’

  Marnie answered, ‘Sunday night.’ It was four days ago and they hadn’t reported her missing.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘She went out. We were watching that Doctor Who documentary. Boring. It was about ten thirty. Remember it was boring?’

  The other girls nodded.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  They looked at each other and Marnie shrugged. ‘Two men came for her. She’s went off with them.’

  ‘Did you know the men?’

  ‘Never seen them.’ Scarlet looked regretful. ‘She just went with them.’

  ‘How do you know there were two men, then?’

  Scarlet said, ‘She’s come in and says “That’s me offski.” We were watching the Doctor Who thing.’

  It didn’t answer the question. Morrow looked at the other two. ‘Either of you see them?’

  Debbie shook her head but Marnie said, ‘I saw two guys outside the front door but there’s a porch light above the door. It got knocked by a football and now it’s like… ’ She flattened a hand over her head and cowered under it, making a high drone. ‘And they were outside it and I didn’t see their faces.’ She looked at her sisters. ‘They were just, kind of, I dunno, guys.’ The other two nodded.

  ‘What were they wearing?’

  ‘Hoodies, jeans and that.’

  ‘What colour were their hoodies?’

  ‘Dunno. But she went out and one of them turned away and I saw he had those, know those jeans from Markies, know the ones with the white wiggle on the arse pocket?’ Morrow nodded. ‘Except he would have bought them second-hand because he didn’t look like he shopped at Markies. He looked kind of prisony.’

  ‘How did he look “prisony”?’

  Scarlet shrugged. ‘Pale. Poor-looking. Blond hair and tall. Broad across the chest.’ She drew a hand from shoulder to shoulder. ‘Handsomey, but also, kind of prisony.’

  ‘What about the other one?’

  ‘Never seen him.’

  ‘Did your mum know them?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Did they threaten her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why did she go with them, then?’

  The girls looked at each other. Marnie muttered at Debbie, ‘You say… ’ They seemed to have discussed this already and Debbie had been appointed the storyteller. The other two sat back as she began:

  ‘See all this gaming stuff? Ready money. Mum’s been ripping off the company she worked for. Well—’

  ‘Not “ripping them off”,’ corrected Marnie.

  Scarlet slapped Marnie’s arm behind her sister’s head. ‘Let her tell it, Marnie.’

  ‘OK,’ Debbie conceded with a nod at her sister, ‘fiddling. Getting cash she shouldn’t have. So she had to spend it all on like… ’ she opened her hand to the tumble of electrical goods on the floor, ‘crap. Because she had to get rid. You can’t bank fuck all now—’

  ‘It’s not “crap”,’ Marnie told McGrain. ‘Ye can sell that stuff.’

  Scarlet told Debbie, ‘It has got resale value, right enough.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ lamented Debbie, ‘I’m trying to tell the story.’

  ‘Well, tell it right.’ Marnie grinned at Morrow.

  ‘Shut it!’ Debbie had a hand up to still her sisters. ‘Right?’

  ‘OK.’ Scarlet nodded, looking at Morrow. ‘SILENCE!’

  Marnie laughed. ‘Yeah! SILENCE!’

  Debbie was indignant. ‘But you said for me to say!’

  ‘SILENCE!’ reprised Scarlet.

  Morrow was an only child but she remembered the frantic atmosphere of crowds of girls at school, tumultuous emotional storms that were forgotten as soon as they passed.

  They were a nice family, kind to each other in their confusion and sadness. They weren’t just a pool of genetics and mutual misfortune. They were so likeable, the three of them. The fondness in the way they spoke and moved as a single entity, their prompting and corrections, gamely slapping each other, looking to her only to witness what they had between them.

  Debbie started again. ‘’K. She’s doing–I dunno, whatever. She’s getting money. She’s spending it on resellables. Storing them up. The house is heaving. Then some Spanish woman takes over and–boom–she gets the bump.’ She paused for dramatic eff
ect. ‘Not chuffed.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  Scarlet took over. ‘Kept just going into the office. I don’t think she believed it. Then, when she’s finished working her time, she got drunk for a few days. Up there, in her pit, smashing about.’

  They all glanced at the ceiling as if Hester was still up there, still angry.

  Marnie whispered, ‘Fucking furious.’

  ‘Bealing,’ nodded Debbie.

  Scarlet sat forward to be heard. ‘And then she appears in the kitchen one day, cooking food an’ that—’

  ‘Mince and potatoes,’ reported Debbie ominously.

  ‘Creepy as fuck,’ said Scarlet. ‘Well creepy.’

  ‘It was,’ Marnie agreed, ‘Like, really creepy. She’s like “HELLO DEAR!”’ She said it in a shrill falsetto and made the other girls jump and laugh. ‘And all that, like normal.’

  ‘Debbie’s like that… ’

  They watched as Debbie gave the police a pantomime rerun: mouthing ‘OH MY GOD’, waving her hands wildly by her head. They laughed and Morrow laughed along with them.

  ‘Anyway, anyway.’ Marnie batted a hand to calm the laughter down. ‘Hettie had a plan, she told us later. They weren’t going to “get rid of her that easy”, ’cause that’s how she talked, wunnit?’

  Scarlet gave her sister a rueful smile. ‘That’s right, clichés. Talked in clichés, thought in clichés.’

  ‘“Hunners o’ gear”,’ said Debbie, wiggling her shoulders, mimicking her mum. ‘“Hunky guys”, like that.’ Suddenly self-conscious about taking the piss out of her dead mum, she gave Morrow a guilty look and stopped. ‘Anyway. She was going to get even. She said they were at it. This new woman wouldn’t want an investigation into whatever they were doing now. She’s told the Spanish woman she’d get the cops in to investigate if she didn’t pay her off. That’s what the two guys were here for, taking her for the pay-off. She’s hung in the door and she’s like “That’s me offski for the big bag.”’

  ‘“Big bag of readies”,’ said Marnie. ‘That’s what she’s called the pay-off.’