Exile

by Denise Mina

  The pub was tastefully furnished with dark wood cladding half-way up the walls and chalky white distemper over the ceiling. Plastic transfer etching on the windows softened the light. The person behind the bar was either a butch woman or a small man with nice skin. Little bumps under the T-shirt gave her away. She watched Maureen’s feet as she walked up to the bar and waited for her to speak. ‘Can I have a lemonade with ice, please?’ The woman slapped her paper on the bar. She sauntered over to Maureen and poured her drink from a big plastic bottle with a 99p promise printed on the label. ‘Quid,’ she said, flapping her hand for the money.

  ‘Where’s the ice?’

  ‘No ice.’

  ‘You’re charging me a quid for a glass when the bottle cost less than a quid?’

  ‘’S what it costs,’ she said. ‘Same price everywhere.’ Maureen gave her a coin. ‘There ye are,’ she said. ‘Ye can restock your entire bar with that.’

  The woman screwed the lid back on the bottle and sidled back to her paper. Maureen drank quietly, wondering about the conversation with the secretary and what could possibly be so funny about Mr Headie’s new office.

  ‘You in the Salvation Army, then?’ The butch lady-man was calling over to her. ‘Why?’ said Maureen.

  The lady-man nodded to her drink. ‘Drinking lemonade in a pub.’

  ‘I don’t think the Sally Ann come into pubs, do they?’

  ‘They do if they’re looking for money.’ Maureen smiled at her glass and took another sip. ‘It’s nice in here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the woman frowned, ‘my friend just done it up. She’s got good taste.’

  ‘She has,’ nodded Maureen. ‘She really has.’

  ‘Course, you can’t choose your punters.’

  ‘Rough crowd, is it?’

  ‘Very rough. We were hoping for the lunch trade from the offices but they don’t make it up here.’

  ‘What’s the Coach and Horses like?’

  The woman waved her hand in front of her nose. ‘Wild men. Scots and Irish mostly, and you know what they’re like, duntcha?’ The woman sidled back over to her. ‘I know you Scots, tight as gnats’ arses, the lot of ya.’ She lifted the bottle of lemonade from below the bar and topped Maureen’s glass up.

  ‘What was that for?’ asked Maureen.

  ‘Don’t want you starting fights and frightening away my other customers,’ she said, suppressing a smile and shedding ten years.

  The light in the doorway was dammed into shadow. It was the little frog woman from the solicitor’s office. She walked over to the bar, took a seat five feet along from Maureen and ordered a mineral water. She paid for her drink and nodded to Maureen. ‘Eyes, eh?’ she said.

  Warily, Maureen nodded back. ‘Yeah, spooky.’ She thumbed backwards to the office. ‘Are you waiting for your boyfriend?’

  The frog woman bit her tongue between her front teeth and laughed, dropping her chin to her chest. ‘Yeah, kind of,’ she said. ‘Why are you asking about Mr Headie?’

  Maureen turned to face her. ‘I’m working for a lawyer’s firm in Scotland,’ she said, thinking fast. ‘They asked me to find out about something down here.’

  The woman stopped drinking and tipped her head back, looking down her nose at Maureen. ‘That’s crap,’ she said. ‘If you were working for a lawyer’s firm they’d know about Mr Headie, they’d know where his new office is, they’d’ve read about it in Law Society newsletters.’

  Maureen felt very tired and dirty. ‘Mmm,’ she said, and ran out of clever ideas. ‘Do you know where his office is?’

  The woman smiled wryly. ‘You don’t live here, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Maureen, ‘I’m just down this morning.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She drank again.

  ‘You know this area well, then, do you?’ The woman smiled at her and leaned over, holding on to the bar. She held out her hand. ‘Kilty Goldfarb,’ she said.

  Tickled, Maureen barked a laugh. ‘Fuck off,’ she said. ‘That’s not your name.’

  Kilty laughed too, delighted at Maureen’s reaction. ‘It is,’ she insisted. ‘My family were Polish and my granny made up the name Kilty in honour of her new homeland.’ Maureen stopped laughing and mumbled an apology.

  ‘You’re well cheeky,’ Kilty smiled. ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  ‘Maureen O’Donnell.’

  ‘That’s not exactly an exotic sobriquet, is it?’

  ‘It is if you’re from Swaziland,’ said Maureen. Kilty finished her drink. ‘Hungry?’

  ‘A wee bit.’

  Kilty gestured down the road. ‘I know an exotic wee place.’

  The gang of skinny teenage boys in various states of customized brown uniforms were swinging their schoolbags around their heads, kicking at each other and laughing. Williams turned to stare them down and Bunyan cringed. ‘Leave it,’ she said, to the stippled lift doors.

  ‘Leave what?’ said Williams loudly.

  ‘Leave it, don’t say anything. Look, here’s the lift.’ The metal doors slid open and they stepped in. ‘I was just watching,’ said Williams. He stood at the back of the lift and Bunyan pressed the button. ‘You’re not afraid of them, are you?’

  ‘Having a fight with a gang of teenage Glaswegian boys isn’t my idea of a light relief, sir.’ She turned and looked at him. ‘Are you sure he’ll be in?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Williams said. ‘He will be. He’s not expecting us until two. He’ll be in just now, though, getting the children off to school.’

  They made their way along the windswept veranda and knocked heavily on James Harris’s door. The oldest boy opened it. He was still wearing his pyjamas. He smiled up at Williams, a big happy smile, and said, ‘Hiya,’ through a rough morning throat. He coughed, clearing the phlegm away. The child sounded like a twenty-a-day smoker.

  ‘’Ello,’ whispered Bunyan, in her silly childish voice. ‘What are you doing still wearing ’jamas, then?’

  The boy turned and ran into the living room calling for his da. James Harris had already been out. A shopping-bag sat against the wall by the kitchen and he still had his jacket on. He was sitting in his armchair, dressing the babies for a day out. The wee boys had matching hats and plastic capes on, thin as paper and dark green, not children’s colours at all. Harris looked up and saw the police officers standing on the step. He rolled his eyes back and blinked slowly. Williams and Bunyan waited for him to speak. They waited a full minute.

  ‘I thought you were coming at two,’ he muttered, reaching out and pulling off the toddlers’ hats.

  ‘Why aren’t the boys at school?’ asked Bunyan.

  ‘John’s away already,’ said Harris quietly, flattening the little woolly hats on his knee. ‘Alan isn’t well.’

  ‘I’ve got a cough,’ said Alan, staring adoringly up at Williams.

  Williams ignored him. ‘We need to talk to you alone, Mr Harris. Can you get the kids to play upstairs for a while?’

  ‘They won’t stay up there,’ said Harris, staring at his feet.

  Williams cleared his throat. ‘Then we’ll talk to you here, in front of the children. It’s up to you.’

  Harris looked defeated. ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘take the weans up the stairs.’

  ‘Auch, naw, I’ll just stay here,’ said Alan. He looked up at Bunyan. ‘Ye can talk in front o’ me,’ he said eagerly, ‘and the babies don’t even understand words.’

  Harris sighed and rubbed his eyes, dragging the thin skin back and forth. ‘Take the weans up the stairs, son.’

  Kilty Goldfarb took her burger out of the polystyrene box and pulled off the paper.

  ‘Ah, McFood,’ she said. ‘Reminds me of bonny McScotland.’

  Maureen sipped her Coke and nibbled at a cluster of salty chips. ‘Have ye been away a long time?’

  ‘Few years.’ Kilty thought back. ‘Fiv
e years? Just after I graduated. Came down to do a social-work course and stayed.’ She took a bite out of her burger, stopped to scowl and felt in her mouth with her fingers. She pulled out a slice of green pickle, looked at it as if it was a hair and sat it on a napkin.

  ‘Why did you study social work if you were at the art school?’

  ‘Print-making just didn’t seem as important as this. I was going to save the world.’

  Maureen sat back. ‘D’ye ever think about going home?’

  Kilty sighed. ‘All the time. It’s hard to find a place for yourself down here, it’s hard to meet people you have anything in common with. But everyone I knew’s moved on, apart from my mum and dad. Don’t really have friends up there any more.’ She smiled. ‘There’s no patriot like an expatriate. What do you do, apart from the made-up job with the non-existent solicitors?’

  ‘I just left my job, actually. I was working at the Place of Safety Shelters.’

  ‘Right?’ Kilty nodded, recognizing the name. ‘Why did you leave?’

  Maureen tried to think of a way to disguise it but gave up. ‘I was shite at it and I was about to get rumbled.

  Plus I hated it. Never seeming to get anywhere and the administrative grind, all that bollocks.’

  ‘Not enough drama?’

  Maureen nodded and sipped her Coke.

  ‘Know what ye mean,’ said Kilty. ‘When I started I wanted to run into burning buildings and wrestle wild animals, not fill out forms to great effect. It’s a bit of a disappointment, really.’ She finished the last bite of her burger and brushed her hands clean. ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’

  Maureen got out her packet and put them on the table. Kilty took one, watching the tip as she held it in her mouth, and lit it with Vik’s lighter, sucking the smoke into her mouth, exhaling it and immediately sucking again. Maureen watched her. ‘You don’t smoke much, do you?’

  Kilty shook her tiny head. She stopped and looked at the cigarette;‘I so want to be a cynical smoker. I keep trying but I can’t get the hang of it.’

  Maureen reached out and took the cigarette off her. ‘Give that to me before you hurt yourself. Who were you waiting for in the lawyer’s?’

  ‘Client,’ said Kilty, sitting up straight and responsible.

  ‘Young guy. Spot of bother.’

  Maureen nodded. ‘See, as a social worker, would you know a lot about the benefits system?’ Kilty looked at her, wary and guarded. ‘Why?’

  ‘What I’m actually doing here is,’ said Maureen, wriggling forward in her seat, ‘I’m looking for someone.’ Kilty’s eyes urged her on.

  ‘She came to us in Glasgow,’ continued Maureen, ‘came to the shelter in a terrible way, and then she disappeared but she was seen down here.’

  ‘Are you trying to make sure she didn’t go back to the man who beat her up?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Maureen, relieved that her story was scanning out.

  ‘Well,’ said Kilty, ‘what are you doing in the lawyer’s office asking about changes in the partnership and Mr Headie, then?’

  Maureen had forgotten all that. ‘Oh, see, she got a letter from the firm on the wrong headed notepaper—’

  Kilty interrupted. ‘But if you’re looking for her, who’s the little Scottish man?’

  Maureen couldn’t think of another silly lie to cover up the other silly lies. ‘I thought art-school people were meant to be thick,’ she said.

  Kilty raised each of her eyebrows alternately, wiggling them.

  ‘I can’t tell you all her business,’ said Maureen, watching the eyebrows, hoping she’d do it again. ‘I’m not in a position to do that.’

  Kilty looked unreasonably annoyed. ‘I’d better get back,’ she said, standing up and gathering her fur and her handbag.

  ‘What are you up to tomorrow?’

  ‘Working,’ said Kilty.

  ‘On a Saturday?’

  ‘I work Saturdays.’

  ‘D’you want to meet for lunch?’ Maureen was talking quickly and sounded desperate. ‘I don’t know this area at all and she disappeared somewhere around here.’ Kilty was standing over her, looking suspicious. ‘I just thought you might know people,’ said Maureen. ‘Never mind.’

  Kilty pulled her coat on and stepped out of the leg-trap table. She lifted her bag strap and swung it over her head. ‘In here, tomorrow at twelve?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Maureen brightened. ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re sitting on a high-drama story.’ Kilty slipped past Maureen to the heavy glass door and used her weight to pull it open. ‘I’ll wheedle it out of you.’ She stepped out into the street.

  Maureen dug out Ann’s sister’s phone number and headed for a pay-phone. Pornographic photographs of vulnerable young women were papered over the inside of the box. The calling cards said the girls were schoolgirls, bad girls, dirty girls, barely legal, French and Swedish, call now.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Akitza?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Maureen said that she had come to London on behalf of Jimmy Harris’s family and she’d be looking around for the next few days, maybe a week. She wanted to come and see her in about ten minutes but she didn’t know the area and she didn’t know how to get to the house. The voice hesitated and gave her directions from the tube station. Ann’s sister didn’t seem very excited about seeing her. She hung up on Maureen without saying goodbye.

  29

  Gravel

  James Harris had been staring at his feet for twenty minutes. A prominent purple vein throbbed under his eye. Bunyan and Williams stood near him, asking questions and waiting for answers that never came. The only times Harris seemed alive were the four times Alan had come back downstairs, banging loudly on the living-room door before opening it and coming in. The first couple of times he claimed he had forgotten something and went back upstairs slowly, carrying a broken toy or a pen. Then he started coming down to get things for the babies, a drink of juice and a bit of bread. Harris sat up when the boy came in, waking up, sitting tall and looking angrily at his eldest son for coming back to save him. At the last visit Alan started crying in the kitchen and wouldn’t tell anybody why. He climbed on to his father’s knee and refused to get down. Williams took Bunyan into the hall. ‘Phone Carlisle on your mobile,’ he muttered. ‘Tell them we might need an interview room. And try and get hold of the emergency social work here, tell them about the kids.’

  Bunyan looked back into the living room. ‘Why won’t he talk?’

  ‘Jesus, I don’t know, but he’s obviously got something to say, hasn’t he?’ He stepped back into the room. ‘Mr Harris, we’re going to phone the social-work department so that someone can sit with the boys for a while, and we’d like to take you to Carlisle police station to conduct a formal interview.’

  Harris stood up, letting Alan slide down his legs. ‘No,’ he said weakly. ‘No. Don’t. Please don’t.’

  ‘We need you to talk to us and we can’t talk here with the boy coming in and out.’

  ‘I’ll talk,’ breathed Harris. ‘I’ll talk. Isa’ll sit with them. Try Isa.’ He bent over and picked up the cushion on the chair. Underneath, in the hollow that springs should have filled, was a shallow pool of correspondence and bits of paper. Harris lifted some pages and found an unfolded fag packet with a number written in pencil. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘She’ll come.’

  Bunyan slipped out into the hall and tried the number on her mobile but it rang out at the other end. She looked up. Williams and Harris were staring at her.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else?’ she said. ‘A neighbour or someone?’

  ‘Is she not in?’

  ‘There’s no answer.’

  Alan stood on the chair and lifted up his arms. ‘Mrs Lindsay’s a neighbour,’ he said simply. ‘She’s got babies anyway and I’ll give her a hand. She likes my drawing as well.’ He sm
iled up at Williams.

  ‘Right,’ said Williams hopefully. ‘What number house does she live at?’

  ‘Next door,’ said Alan, trying to get between his father and the big policeman. ‘I’ll go an’ chap her for ye.’

  ‘Maybe your daddy should do that.’

  They all looked at Harris. He walked over to the door with the energy and bounce of a sleepy octogenarian.

  ‘I’ll just come with you,’ said Williams, trying to sound light-hearted so as not to frighten the boy, taking hold of Harris’s arm as he came past.

  Bunyan could hear them on the veranda, walking along to a door and knocking, waiting for the answer. In the street below someone was shouting as an engine revved furiously. The next door opened to a gruff female voice. Alan smiled up at Bunyan, a cluster of sharp teeth set in a little pink face. ‘I’m not well.’

  ‘You’ve got a cough,’ said Bunyan.

  ‘How can a lady be a debt man?’

  ‘D’you think we’re debt men?’

  ‘Aye.’ He was grinning, trying to appeal to her.

  ‘Nooo,’ she said, and felt her voice changing. ‘We’re not debt men, we’re policemen.’

  Alan’s face fell and his eyes flickered to the front door. ‘What do ye want him for?’ he said quickly.

  ‘Just a chat.’

  The boy seemed panicked. His eyes darted around the room. If Alan was older Bunyan would have thought he was looking for a weapon.

  ‘You’re not gonnae . . .’ Alan caught his breath‘ ... ye won’t jail him, will ye?’

  ‘We’re just going to talk to him, here, in the house.’ The little boy frowned. ‘What’ll happen to the babies if ye jail him?’ he said, but Bunyan knew what he was asking. ‘You’ll all be fine,’ she said. ‘We’re just going to have a little chat, that’s all. We won’t be long.’

  Williams and Harris came back through the door. Harris’s eyes were redder than before: the purple pressure under his eyes was building. Alan ran forward and grabbed Harris around the thigh. ‘I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay with yees.’