by Denise Mina
‘I really fucking fancy him,’ said Kilty ardently.
‘I’d never have guessed,’ said Maureen.
28
Death Cert
Martha Street is a dead end. The steep hill leads to a pedestrianized area outside a students’ union building, with large concrete bins of flowers and benches for the students to sit on while they eat their lunch, take disco drugs and end the night with a kebab. The road ended at a dowdy building coated in jagged grey Artex. It was the Public Register Office and the wedding suite. Leslie parked the bike outside and they climbed the steps to the door. Inside, the walls were panelled in fake walnut, so yellow and solid that it looked like the car ceiling of a homeless smoker. Through a second door they came to a wooden desk, barring public entry into the office proper. A tired, distressed looking young man was waiting on a wooden chair just inside the door, his elbows on his knees, his head hanging limp between his hands.
There were three women in the office. Two elderly women sat across a desk from one another, eating supermarket sandwiches, taking the smallest mouthfuls and chewing them slowly. The third woman was sitting at a desk on her own. She was very overweight and wore a skirt and vest top, showing off arms as big as fleshy wings. When she saw Leslie and Maureen at the desk she glared accusingly at the two elderly women before standing up slowly and coming over to the desk. ‘Who’s first?’ she said loudly.
Maureen and Leslie looked at the man in the chair and, sensing something, he stood to wobbly attention. ‘I’m here to register a birth,’ he said, waving a yellow card and a bit of paper.
Maureen and Leslie took seats and waited for the man to finish his business. They looked around the room at the public information posters pinned to the far wall, listening to breathless cars negotiating the steep hill.
‘Are ye sure we can get it here?’ muttered Leslie.
‘Nut,’ said Maureen. ‘It was just a thought. We might need to go through to Edinburgh.’ ‘Will it have the cause of death on it?’
‘God, I dunno, I’m just guessing. I’ve never seen a death certificate.’ ‘Me neither.’
It took ages for the woman to do the registration. She kept glancing at her colleagues resentfully and telling Maureen and Leslie that she wouldn’t be long. Eventually, the man stood up straight, put something in his pocket and sloped out of the office. The portly woman looked behind her, stared at the others eating their sandwiches. They didn’t look back. When she finally turned to face Maureen and Leslie, she was puce and couldn’t bring herself to speak.
‘Um,’ said Maureen nervously,‘I wonder if you could help us. We’re trying to get a look at the death certificate of a woman who died a week ago in the Albert.’
The woman nodded repeatedly, as if she was mentally nutting them. ‘I need details,’ she said.
‘What sort of details?’ asked Maureen, looking behind the woman to see if her colleagues had noticed the state of her. The pair sat facing each other, one taking minute nibbles, the other dabbing her mouth elaborately with a paper napkin.
‘Date of death, name and age.’
‘I haven’t got her age but I know the name and place and a date, would that do?’
The woman made her write it all down before telling them to wait and storming off to the back office. As soon as she was out of the room one of the elderly women started to laugh and the other reached across the desk and slapped her hand playfully.
They were on the benches outside the students’ union, smoking cigarettes and calming down.
Maureen sighed. ‘Ella, ya wee shite,’ she said, hanging her head and taking another draw. She unfolded the certificate again and looked at it. ‘A fucking heart-attack. Protecting him to the last.’
29
Candies
The office area behind the bus station was a quiet, reserved grid of imposing Victorian office buildings. Even the high summer sun couldn’t penetrate the tall streets and most of the area was in shadow. At night poorly dressed women stood on the street corners under the gilt company clocks, waiting for men to come and choose them, before taking them up the delivery alleys, making money to score with. It was after office hours on a Friday night and Leslie had arranged to meet her pal Joan in a pub across the road from her office. Apart from needing an introduction, Maureen wanted to talk to the woman alone but Leslie and Kilty had insisted that they come with her. They gave her a lot of daft excuses– they had nothing else to do, it would be nice to spend time together– but she knew that they thought she was wrong about everything and unfit to be out on her own. The Attaché pub would have been busy during the week, full of office workers delaying the return home. Dirt encrusted at the edge of the wooden floor and sticky beer barrel tables testified to busy spells. It was deserted now because it was a sunny Friday evening and none of the regulars felt obliged to linger in the town.
Leslie’s pal was already twenty-five minutes late and they had finished their lovely long, strong drinks. Maureen wanted to order another round but knew Kilty and Leslie would try to stop her.
‘If,’ said Kilty, swirling the ice around the bottom of her glass with her straw,‘she works with street prostitutes, would she know anything about a brothel?’
‘Yeah,’ said Leslie. ‘She said that they often start off in those places or move up to them. They’re the same women.’ Kilty looked at her watch. ‘She’s getting very late, are you sure she’ll come?’
‘I hope so,’ said Leslie, watching the door. ‘Thing is, she’s the only one working there and she’s on perpetual nights.’ ‘She’ll be asleep on a bus or something,’ said Kilty. ‘Why is she the only one there?’
‘They’re really under-resourced,’ said Leslie. ‘No one wants to fund exit-from-prostitution schemes any more. Everyone wants to facilitate, call them sex workers, give them health checks and licensed premises to work out of.’ It didn’t sound like a bad idea to Maureen but she guessed it would be undiplomatic to say so.
‘That sounds like a good idea to me,’ said Kilty. ‘If you can’t get everyone out isn’t it better to look after them while they’re there?’
Leslie looked at Kilty as if she’d shat in her pocket. ‘Most of these women are heroin addicts,’ she said. ‘Do you think they dreamed of becoming prostitutes when they were wee? It’s a necessity because they’re trapped. Half of them are paying for their boyfriend’s habit as well.’
‘Yeah,’ said Kilty. ‘Well, what about the London Collective of Prostitutes? They’re working women who have a union and everything. They want to carry on working and get it legalized. Do you think they’re wrong?’
Leslie was getting annoyed but, feeling cocky because Kilty was there, Maureen decided to have her say. ‘There is an argument about autonomy,’ she said. ‘People do have the right to make choices.’
‘Really?’ snapped Leslie. ‘Is that the right to be exploited by people far more powerful than they are?’
‘Aw, come on,’ said Maureen. ‘Everyone’s being exploited by people far more powerful than they are.’ ‘I’m not,’ said Leslie.
Maureen leaned across the table. ‘Leslie,’ she said,‘how do you think we get those fags? The tobacco companies have to double their exports to allow for smuggling. Three years ago they were exporting enough to Montenegro to keep every man, woman and child on sixty a day. That’s how unexploited we are. We work for a massive international conspiracy that gets poor people to trade all their disposable income for tumours.’
Leslie sat back and pursed her lips. ‘I don’t think Joan’s going to make it,’ she said. ‘Let’s go home.’
They gathered their things from the seats and followed her out into the bright evening.
‘Shall we just go home, then?’ said Maureen.
‘Yeah,’ said Leslie. ‘There’s not much point in going up to the office. She’ll be busy now.’
Kilty tutted and shook her head
, then stepped away from the street to the wall, looking down the road to the junction. Three women were gathered around a street corner, smoking cigarettes, dressed in short skirts and dirty tops, ill-fitting bras visible under their clothes. ‘There’s women all over the place at this time of night. All we need are some tenners to give them.’
‘I dunno,’ said Maureen reluctantly. ‘They don’t look very friendly to me.’
Kilty turned round and looked down the road. ‘Come on.’
They stopped at a cash point and each took out some money before turning back to the women gathered on the corner. As they approached they could see them more clearly. The smallest was slim with her dark hair tied up in bunches. The woman of medium height was quite over weight but either didn’t know or was making a feature of it: her skirt was very short and her top tight, displaying rolling thighs and an undulating stomach. She had a hard face, badly pockmarked skin and a crooked nose that looked as if it had been broken. The tallest woman was skinny and swaying slightly, drooping forward from the shoulders, her hands hanging redundantly in front of her. They didn’t look happy and they didn’t look like sex workers. They looked like people so lowly and picked on that they had splintered off from the under class and formed a social stratum all of their own.
The women eyed them suspiciously as they approached, keeping their faces to the road, watching them from the corners of their eyes.
‘Hello,’ said Kilty,‘we’re not the police. I’m a social worker and these two sell fags in Paddy’s. Can we ask you about something?’
None of the women spoke. They shuffled, the smallest sliding away to the far side of the tallest.
Kilty tried again. ‘Can we ask ye questions about something?’ she said.
The smallest woman looked away. A car coming down the hill slowed as it approached them, the driver lowered the window on the passenger side electronically and looked out at them from the safe shadow. He saw how many of them there were and speeded up, passing fast and turning the corner.
‘We’ll give ye a tenner every fifteen minutes ye talk to us,’ said Kilty,‘in a public place, no touching.’
The tall, swaying woman turned at the mention of money and the chubby hard woman stepped towards them. ‘Pay up front?’ she said, and folded her arms. ‘In a public place?’
‘We can talk to ye here, if ye like.’
‘Naw,’ drawled the tall woman. ‘Get them away. Punters will nae stop.’
Kilty nodded and they backed away.
‘Can we speak to both of you as well when we get back?’ asked Maureen.
‘If we’re here,’ said the tall woman, and stared up the street again.
Kilty led the way and Maureen, Leslie and their new companion followed her. They could tell the woman was wary of them, wondering if they were going to jump her, steal her money maybe. She tottered gracelessly in her high heels, walking with a pronounced limp as though her right hip hurt. Maureen moved round to Leslie’s side so they weren’t flanking her and saw the woman glance at her gratefully.
‘My name’s Maureen.’
‘Candy.’
Maureen was about to comment that it was an unusual name but managed to stop before she made a complete arse of herself. ‘Nice and sunny, eh?’ said Maureen, trying to keep the ball rolling. ‘Must be shit standing out here when it’s cold.’
‘It’s shit all the time,’ said Candy, with deep conviction. They walked along in silence for a hundred yards until they came to the pub they had been drinking in earlier. Kilty dipped through the narrow door. Maureen and Leslie stepped back to let Candy through first. Candy stopped, crossed her arms and shook her head. ‘Won’t serve us in here.’
‘But you’re with us,’ said Leslie. ‘We’re gonnae buy drink.’
‘They won’t even let us buy fags or a half-bottle in there. They won’t even let us do a pee. I’m not going in.’ ‘That’s fucking outrageous,’ said Leslie.
But Candy wanted cash, not allies. ‘Are ye gonnae give me my tenner or what?’ She pretended to look at a watch even though she didn’t have one on. ‘That’s five minutes already.’
Maureen took a loose tenner out of her pocket and handed it over just as Kilty came back out of the pub looking bewildered.
‘Candy says she can’t go in there,’ said Maureen.
‘Why?’
Leslie explained to her as Candy led them round a corner behind a glass and marble office building with a walled car park behind it. She sat down on the low wall, rubbing at a bulging vein on the back of her shin. ‘Ye’ve got eight minutes left.’
Maureen settled next to her. ‘Well, I’ll get to the point then. Have you heard of the Park Circus Health Club?’ Candy nodded.
‘What do ye know about it?’
‘It’s a house up by the park. They’ve got a lot of rooms, maybe ten. They’ve got a dungeon for hitting them.’ She nearly smiled. ‘That’s it.’ ‘Who owns it?’
Candy looked at her bruised knees. ‘Dunno,’ she said. She didn’t sound convincing but Maureen could hardly blame her.
‘Do you know anyone who works there?’
‘Nut.’ Candy was looking around them, at Leslie’s thick hair and good skin, at Kilty’s silly trainers with the lights in the heels.
‘Anyone who’s ever worked there?’
‘Nut.’
‘Doesn’t everyone know everyone else?’
Candy looked at her, annoyed. She had suddenly seen herself in relation to the other women there and she couldn’t stand it. It was unbearable, the power differential between them. ‘We’re not in a union,’ she said, pulling back her lips and baring her gums, shaking her head in Maureen’s face. ‘We don’t have Christmas fucking parties.’
If it came to a fight Candy could probably take them all on and walk away without making her limp any worse. Maureen held up a hand in surrender. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Aye, ye fucking should be sorry.’ Candy stood up, shouting, and her voice bounced off the near walls in the lane. ‘Ye fucking should be.’
‘I didn’t mean to insult ye,’ said Maureen, standing up to meet her.
‘Fuck ye!’ shouted Candy. ‘Ya fucking cunts, the lot of ye!’
She turned to all of them, shouting unreasonably, calling them names and trying to frighten them. She reached out to push Kilty, the smallest, and Maureen and Leslie went for her instinctively, standing next to Kilty before the hand reached her.
‘Too far,’ breathed Leslie, holding up one finger. Candy backed down.
‘Come on, I’ll walk ye back.’ Maureen said it as if nothing had happened but they were both breathing heavily. Candy looked wildly from one to the other and tripped after Maureen making her way out of the alley and into the bright street. ‘Thanks for talking to us, Candy, that was good of ye.’
Candy said nothing but limped along angrily. Maureen slipped her another tenner and Candy tore it from her hand. Maureen liked it that she was angry, that she didn’t just accept her place. It was no place for anyone, so shunned she couldn’t even go into a pub for a piss.
A car slowed next to them, the man leaning across the passenger seat. He was handsome, with short brown hair and a fine jaw, small eyes and nice teeth. ‘Show us your cunt,’ he said.
‘Fuck off,’ said Maureen.
‘Forty,’ said Candy.
‘Not you,’ said the man,‘her,’ and he pointed at Maureen.
‘You can fuck right off, son,’ said Maureen venomously.
‘She’s not working,’ said Candy. ‘Thirty.’ The man looked at them and assessed the situation. He glanced down the road to the gangly woman standing on the street corner and slid back reluctantly into the driver’s seat. ‘Twenty-five,’ he said.
Candy broke away and got into the car, slamming the door shut behind her. Maureen watched the car pass and, through the back windo
w, saw Candy and the man ignoring each other, a canyon of space between them, already behaving like an unhappy couple. The car turned up a side-street and disappeared out of sight.
Back on the corner the smallest woman was missing. Her gangly pal was bleary-eyed and trying to make sense of a cigarette.
‘Are ye all right to walk?’ asked Maureen, and she followed her along the road. Suddenly, a fast car full of young men screeched past, crossing the grid, bravely defying the give-way sign. The windows were down and they hung out screaming ‘Cunt,’ and ‘Bitch,’ and ‘Slit,’ at the women, whooping and laughing uproariously as they passed. Maureen had a sense that in a few years’ time one of the boys in the car would be back here, harassing the women, raising a hammer to someone’s head in a dark alley. And no one in the car would connect the two incidents because it was just a bit of fun.
‘God,’ said Maureen,‘it’s fucking horrible here.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said the woman sagely.
‘I’m Maureen, by the way.’
‘I’m Candy,’ said Candy II, and Maureen smiled. Candy II was less fraught than Candy I, principally because she was so off her tits she could hardly remember where she was. She sat on the wall, blotchy legs drifting out in front of her, her head sagging into her chest, and Maureen thought they should get the questions over and done with. ‘Do you know the Park Circus Health Club?’
Candy II pressed her lips tightly together and held out her hand. Kilty put a tenner into it. Candy II clenched her fist and retracted her hand, closing her eyes and nodding.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Have you ever heard of Si McGee?’
‘Oh, aye, yeah.’ Maureen was afraid to believe her.
‘Where do you know him from?’
‘Gorbals. His ma lives in Benny Lynch Court. I was at primary school.’ She looked up and seemed startled, as though she wasn’t where she had supposed she was.
‘Have ye heard of him being in this business?’