Exile

by Denise Mina

  ‘Jimmy,’ said Williams, ‘what we need to know now is what happened to Ann between her leaving you and arriving at the shelter.’

  ‘I never hit her,’ said Harris.

  Williams sighed. He had been standing for over an hour and his feet were throbbing.

  ‘Jimmy,’ he said softly, ‘we can’t keep just going over the same bits. Can we leave aside whether or not you hit her for a minute– just a minute? We’ll come back to that—’ Harris interrupted him. ‘But I never.’

  ‘That is as may be,’ said Williams, ‘but what we are concerned about just now is finding out what happened to Ann when she left you. It seems that she was up and down on the bus to London. Now, her sister saw her each time but she wasn’t staying with her. Can you think of anyone else she knew down there?’ Harris looked blank. ‘Any friends or workmates? Relatives maybe?’

  ‘She owed a lot of money,’ said Harris.

  ‘So you’ve said.’

  ‘I never hit her.’

  Williams sighed again. ‘So you’ve said.’ He tapped Bunyan on the arm and motioned for her to give Harris a fag.

  She opened the packet and leaned across, flicking open the packet. ‘Want one, Jimmy?’ she said.

  Jimmy Harris’s eager eyes caressed the packet of Silk Cut. His tongue slid past the sharp teeth and licked at the corner of his thin lips. ‘Yes, please,’ he said, without having the wit to reach out and take one.

  Williams didn’t like him at all. There was something sly about him, something small and base. Williams liked to place interviewees in the classroom, imagine where they would come in the natural order of things, how they would relate to others and react to authority. Harris was one of nature’s victims. The other children would take the piss, hit him, kick him, and he’d get up smiling and try to play with them.

  ‘Well, take one, then,’ said Williams softly.

  Harris reached out slowly, watching Williams and Bunyan, as if he expected them to slap his hand away. He fumbled a cigarette out of the packet and retracted his hand quickly. Williams didn’t smoke himself but it was an interesting feature of the interview, the sudden, misplaced sense of community that came in a fag break.

  Bunyan leaned across to give him a light and something on the floor caught her eye. ‘Sorry,’ said Bunyan, leaning down by the side of the chair. ‘May I?’

  Harris nodded his consent and Bunyan picked up a bundle of photos from the floor.

  ‘Jimmy,’ said Williams, ‘what can you tell me about Ann?’ Harris shrugged and inhaled. ‘She drank. A lot.’

  ‘She was badly beaten, very badly beaten. She told everyone that you did it.’

  ‘I never. I’d never ever hit her.’

  ‘Do you think it’s wrong to hit a wife?’

  Harris nodded, shaking his head up and down. His thinning hair fell over his ear and he brushed it back.

  ‘But sometimes,’ Williams was talking softly, siding with him before the pounce, ‘a wife might do something unforgivable, like hurt the kids or go off with someone else.’

  Harris was shaking his head again. He was disagreeing before he’d even heard what Williams was going to say.

  ‘Would it be wrong,’ said Williams, ‘to hit a wife who spent the food money on drink, for example?’

  Harris looked up and realized that they were staring at him, expecting him to speak. ‘Shouldn’t hit people,’ he said. ‘You should never hit people?’ said Williams indignantly.

  ‘You mean if someone was hurting your kids you’d just let them?’

  Jimmy Harris stared at the floor. He was there, someone was hurting his kids, the bruises around his eyes darkened, the tremble in his hand magnified. ‘God, no,’ he said.

  ‘You’d let people hurt your children and stand by and do nothing?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘What would you do then?’

  Harris opened his mouth to speak and realized the trap. He kept his pointed little teeth together to stop himself from speaking and dropped his eyes to his lap.

  ‘It’s not always wrong to hit someone, is it?’ said Williams Harris looked at the floor and took a drag on his fag. His eyes began to fill up. He was going to cry, it was good, it was good, he was going to cry and a crying man has no defences. Wet guilty tears gathered in his piggy eyes. He was playing with his fag, tapping it frantically into the saucer, he was about to break.

  ‘Where did you get these?’ said Bunyan. Williams stared at her. Harris was about to break and she was changing the fucking subject. Bunyan handed the photos to Williams and he looked at them. They were pictures of the dead woman.

  ‘They’re Christmas pictures, aren’t they?’ Bunyan asked Harris. ‘It’s Christmas at the Place of Safety Shelter.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Harris.

  She looked at him curiously. ‘But, Jimmy, you said you hadn’t seen her since November.’ Harris looked confused. ‘It’s just pictures.’

  Williams smiled. ‘Jimmy,’ he said, continuing to smile with his mouth long after his eyes had stopped, ‘you said Ann hadn’t come back to the house after she went into the shelter?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Harris nodded emphatically, ‘she didn’t.’

  ‘So, you haven’t seen her since before Christmas, have you?’

  ‘Not since November.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No contact at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now, listen carefully,’ said Williams, speaking slowly, ‘if a person left point A with item X . . .’ He held the photos over to his right, looking up to see Harris’s face. He was watching the photos. ‘ . . . and the person goes to B . . .’ He moved his hand and the photos to the left and Harris’s eyes followed them carefully. ‘. . . how could item X . . .’ Williams threw the photos into Harris’s lap. ‘ . . . be found in C?’ Harris was staring at the photos, puzzled by the sum. ‘The photos,’ Williams spoke as if he was sharing a confidence, as if he was on Harris’s side, ‘how could they be in your house if Ann hadn’t been back?’

  Harris looked up. ‘But they came through the door,’ he whispered. ‘I thought–a girl I know–she put them through the door.’

  Williams shook his head. Harris’s eyes glazed over and he looked up. The game was up. He was going to confess. ‘They were put through my door,’ he whispered. ‘I never seen her.’

  ‘You never saw her,’ said Williams, correcting his grammar without meaning to. ‘Like you never hit her?’

  ‘I wouldn’t hit her,’ said Harris, squirming on his chair, panicking, losing what little composure he had. ‘I wouldn’t ever, never hit her. I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you hit her if she was hurting the kids?’ But Harris was crying, staring at the ashtray, baring his yellow teeth and sobbing. The kids were the problem. He’d confess if he thought the kids were safe. He wanted to confess or he wouldn’t have kept the photos.

  Williams gave her the nod and Bunyan slipped out to the hall and phoned ahead. The receptionist at Carlisle police station told her to come any time this afternoon. He said there was no need for them to book an interview room, they were usually quiet on Friday evenings. Getting through to the social worker was much harder. Bunyan got through to an answerphone message, which gave her the number of another answerphone, which gave her the number of a mobile that rang out for thirty-odd rings. She slipped back into the room and muttered to Williams that she couldn’t get through.

  ‘Jimmy,’ said Williams, ‘we’re going to take you to Carlisle police station for a formal interview now. Before we phone the emergency social-work department and get them to send someone over, is there no-one who could sit with the kids?’

  ‘Auntie Isa?’

  ‘She’s still not in, Jimmy. Your kids’ll be fine with the social worker.’

  ‘I’m worried about them.’

  ‘Why a
re you so worried?’

  Bunyan shifted against the wall. Williams didn’t have kids. If he had kids he wouldn’t have asked that question. Williams seemed to think there was something sinister about Harris’s fear of the social work but Bunyan understood. She provided a clean house for her family, cupboards full of food, central heating on all the time, judging by the bills, and she still wouldn’t want her parenting assessed by a government official.

  ‘Don’t phone,’ said Harris, crying and trying to talk through his gaping mouth. ‘Please . . . for fucksake.’

  Williams stepped forward. ‘Who don’t you want us to phone, Jimmy?’

  Harris was sobbing now and they were ashamed for him. He could hardly catch his breath to speak. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Who, Jimmy? Who don’t you want us to phone?’

  ‘Social work,’ he said. ‘Don’t phone the social work.’ Williams glanced at Bunyan and crouched by the chair. ‘Why don’t you want us to phone them, Jimmy? Do they know you? Have they been here before?’

  ‘Jimmy,’ interrupted Bunyan, ‘is there someone else we could phone? Someone else who could sit with the boys and set your mind at rest?’

  Harris sat up. ‘Leslie,’ he said, ‘Isa’s daughter, but I don’t know her address. She’ll live in the Drum.’ Bunyan nodded encouragingly. ‘Is Leslie married?’

  Harris looked even more bewildered.

  ‘Has she married and changed her name?’ asked Bunyan.

  ‘Oh, no. I don’t think so.’

  ‘So, her surname’s Findlay too?’

  Jimmy Harris nodded eagerly. ‘She’ll live in Drumchapel. All the Findlays live there.’

  Bunyan slipped out into the hall again. She was trying directory inquiries when it occurred to her that the name was familiar. She’d heard it recently, in connection with the dead woman’s sister in Streatham, but she couldn’t recall the context. The operator gave her the number and as she called the house she repeated the name over and over to herself. ‘Hello, Leslie Findlay?’

  ‘No,’ said Cammy, ‘Leslie isn’t in just now.’

  ‘My name is DC Bunyan from the Metropolitan Police. I’m trying to contact Ms Findlay in relation to her cousin James Harris. Could you tell me how I could get hold of her?’

  ‘Ye could phone her work.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Place of Safety Shelters. If ye can’t get her they’ll take a message.’

  Sarah was very tired. Her crisp blouse was flaccid, her hair looked dull and she had changed her shoes into a pair of badly burst men’s leather slippers. She couldn’t even get excited by the fresh Chelsea buns Maureen had bought in the village and they used to be her favourite. She showed Maureen upstairs to her bedroom. ‘This should do you,’ she said.

  The cornicing on the ceiling was a continuous run of delicate leaves and grapes. The bed was large and soft. At the foot of it, balanced on a stool, stood a white plastic television with a rotation knob. A little door at the side of the room led up a step into a black marble en suite bathroom with blistered mirrors on the wall and verdigris stain dribbling from the taps. ‘Perhaps you’d like a wash before dinner?’

  ‘I don’t think I can stay awake for dinner,’ said Maureen, and Sarah looked relieved.

  ‘Well, feel free to go straight to bed,’ she said. ‘Make yourself at home. There’s hot water and plenty of towels.’

  ‘If I ever go into labour in anyone’s house, I want it to be yours.’

  Sarah didn’t understand the joke but she saw Maureen smiling and mirrored her. She must have had a rotten day.

  ‘Thanks for letting me stay,’ said Maureen.

  ‘You are most welcome,’ said Sarah.

  Maureen took a bath but the water was so hard she could barely muster a head of foam from the soap and an oily husk formed on the surface of the water. She dried herself with a towel and her skin felt scaly, squeaking like a glass fresh from a dishwasher.

  When she came out of the bathroom she found a silver galley tray on the little table by the bed. Sarah had brought her a big mug of tea and a lukewarm plate of strong kedgeree. As Maureen ate, her eye fell on the bedside table and a crumbling black leather Bible held together with elastic bands, set at an angle, pointing at her bed. Sarah must have a hundred family Bibles. Maureen climbed across the bed, turning on the black and white telly before lifting the cold linen sheets and sliding in. She fell asleep listening to a television consumer programme warning her to be very, very careful which dealer she bought her Land Rover from.

  Leslie knocked at the door softly and stepped back. The sharp wind whirled down the veranda, gathering the litter and dust into rustling bundles in the far corner. If it wasn’t to save Isa she wouldn’t have promised to come over after work. She knocked again and the door was opened by a small blonde in a severe suit. ‘Hello, Leslie?’

  ‘Yeah, are you Bunyan?’

  ‘Come in.’ She opened the door wide and Leslie saw Jimmy sitting in his armchair, looking knackered and terrified. He raised his hand in a limp greeting and she nodded back. His eyes were very red. The babies were sitting on the floor in front of him, and Alan, the boy she had met the night before, was standing behind him holding on to the top of Jimmy’s arm as if he was huckling him. A fat bald guy with gold specs stood in the middle of the living room, holding a bunch of photographs and watching her. The wee boy from the Polaroid looked around the door at her. ‘Hiya,’ he said, and looked at her crash helmet. ‘Are you a polis?’

  ‘No.’ Leslie stepped into the hall. It was freezing in the flat and she wished to fuck she’d brought a jumper. She looked at the woman. ‘Why do ye have to go all the way to Carlisle?’

  ‘Oh,’ the woman rolled her eyes, ‘we want to tape the interview and because we’re an English force it has to be in England.’

  ‘That’s a bit mad, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Leslie,’ said Jimmy, ‘thanks for coming over.’

  ‘No bother, Jimmy,’ said Leslie. ‘Are ye just off then?’

  The woman in the suit looked at the fat guy and he looked at Leslie. ‘Actually, Ms Findlay, we wanted to talk to you as well.’ His accent was tempered Glaswegian and he breathed in as he spoke, swallowing his words.

  ‘Tae me?’ said Leslie, sensing that something was amiss. ‘What about?’

  ‘I understand you work at the Place of Safety Shelters?’

  Leslie frowned.

  ‘Could I ask you to step outside with me for a minute?’ Leslie looked at Jimmy’s blank face. The fat guy led her back through the hall and on to the windy balcony, pulling the door shut behind him. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, and smiled, ‘I didn’t introduce myself. I’m DI Williams, Arthur Williams, from the Met.’ He leaned on the balcony ridge and looked out over the traffic, at the big orange buses stopping to pick up passengers and the cars trapped behind them. ‘Do you know anything about the circumstances under which Mrs Harris left the shelter?’

  ‘Yeah, I do, I told you guys about it on the phone. She got a letter or something and disappeared a couple of hours later.’ The fat guy clicked his fingers and pointed at her as if he had just remembered. ‘That’s right, it came in the post and you couldn’t understand how anyone would know the address.’

  Leslie took out her fags and cupped her hand around the lighter as she lit up. ‘I think I know what she got in the letter as well.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A photograph. A Polaroid that was left among her things. It’s a picture of her kid,’ she thumbed back to the house, ‘the second one. He was with a pretty heavy guy.’

  ‘Do you still have the Polaroid?’

  Leslie took a draw and exhaled into the wind. ‘Ah, no, I don’t, my friend’s got it.’

  ‘Can you get it for me?’

  ‘Well, I can’t contact her just now.’
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  The fat guy nodded over the street. ‘I see, I see.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘I’ve got one of you, actually.’ He pulled out a handful of photos and looked through them, his face lighting up when he found what he was looking for and he handed it to her. ‘See?’

  Leslie looked at the picture. It was Christmas Day at the shelter. Ann and Senga and the other residents were standing stiffly in front of the plastic tree. Leslie was behind them, growling at the camera, her pupils fiery red. The timer had run out but the camera had failed. She was cursing and just about to come round and see what had gone wrong when it finally went off. ‘That’s right,’ she smiled, ‘that’s me. Where did you get these?’

  ‘Where do you think I got them?’

  ‘From the office?’

  ‘Nope.’

  He was smiling quite benignly, seemed quite personable, and Leslie didn’t feel a threat. She handed the picture back to him. ‘Well, you must have got it from the office. We only had eight copies done, one for the office and one for each resident.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. I had the copies made. I know there were eight copies.’

  The fat man stood up straight and licked the back of his teeth. ‘These,’ he said, pointedly, ‘are Ann’s.’

  She snorted a laugh. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Ann left hers at the shelter. I’ve got Ann’s copies.’

  ‘We found these in Mr Harris’s house.’

  She was suddenly aware that it was no accident. The fat guy had placed himself between herself and the stairs.

  ‘If I was working on the assumption that Mr Harris killed his wife,’ he said, his quiet voice barely audible above the traffic, ‘I’d have to explain how he found her again after she went into hiding, wouldn’t I?’