by Denise Mina
‘Right,’ she said.
‘From this morning. I was in the car with you. I was there when you were interviewed. I’ve got red hair.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she said eagerly, ‘I remember you.’
‘The team are still at the house. You can get in okay.’
‘Smashin’.’
‘Are you going up now?’
‘Aye.’
‘Tell them who you are when you get to the door—’ She interrupted him, ‘Mr McAskill, can I ask you something?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Depends,’ he said tentatively. ‘What was in the cupboard?’ McAskill didn’t answer. ‘It wasn’t just slippers, was it?’
She could hear him exhale away from the receiver. ‘You don’t want to know, pet,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll phone your house and let them know you’re coming.’ ‘You’re very kind,’ said Maureen, and meant it.
As she walked up the stairs in her close she looked out of the landing window. Eight or so uniformed officers were searching the back court; three of them poked around the spilled contents of the big communal wheely-bins.
A uniformed policeman was standing guard outside her front door. She told him she was expected. He asked her to wait and slipped inside, shutting the door in her face. He opened it two sighs later. Something McMummb was in the living room with two men from the Forensics team, still shuffling around in their white paper suits. He peered out at Maureen. ‘That’s her,’ he said.
The officer on the door warned her that they would have to examine anything she wanted to take away and she wouldn’t be allowed into certain parts of the house.
The heat had evaporated and it was cooler. The door of the hall cupboard was sealed shut with thick strips of yellow tape. She could see the first browning footprint in the living room. McMummb stepped lightly to the side, blocking the doorway, letting her know that she wasn’t allowed to go in. Maureen lowered her eyes and went straight into the bedroom. McMummb hung back, talking to someone in the hall.
Everything was exactly as she had left it: the duvet was thrown back off the bed, the shift dress she had worn for work lay crumpled on the floor, half covering her handbag, and her watch was sitting on the bedside cabinet next to a lidless jar of cold cream. She stood next to her bed on the unaccustomed side. She wanted to sit down and rub her sore feet but she knew she shouldn’t touch anything until McMummb came in to supervise. She reached out and touched the rumpled cotton sheet. The pillow showed an imprint where her sweaty head had been.
She looked down at the carpet and saw the cracked corner of a CD cover. She put her toe on it and dragged it out from under the bed without bending down. It was Benny’s Best of the Selector CD, the one she’d borrowed and was convinced she had given back. She had been so adamant. Benny’d never let her forget this.
McMummb came into the room and found her standing by the bed grinning at her feet. ‘I need to see the things,’ he said.
She watched him, waiting for him to finish his sentence but his voice trailed away. He looked unhappily at the carpet in front of him.
‘Okay,’ said Maureen, and handed him her watch to peruse.
She picked out a pair of jeans, her leather rucksack and a mustard cable-knit jumper. McMummb gave her the watch and looked inside the bag. He examined the clothes, held them to the light and checked the pockets. Another man in a white paper suit came into the room and checked them again.
She picked out four pairs of her most going-to-the-doctor knickers, some T-shirts, a tartan scarf and her charcoal cashmere overcoat. The two men looked them over with intense professionalism, running their fingers down the coat’s silk lining. They handed them back to her. She shoved the T-shirts and knickers into the bag. ‘Can I get things out of my handbag?’
McMummb saw it on the floor and picked it up defensively, holding the long strap in front of him with two hands as if he were pushing a pram. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Fags.’
He took out the fag packet and looked at it. He didn’t know what he was supposed to be looking for. He shoved it at the Forensics man who took the trouble to open the packet, look inside and poke the fags about with a long, bony finger. ‘I think we should keep these,’ he said, addressing McMummb solemnly.
‘I think we should keep them,’ said McMummb.
‘Okay,’ said Maureen. ‘Can I get my wallet?’
McMummb took out the wallet and leafed through the cash point receipts and pound notes. The Forensics man did the same and handed it to her. ‘And my keys?’
‘You can’t come in here unless we’re with you,’ said McMummb.
She nodded. ‘When will I be able to come home?’ ‘We’ll notify you,’ said McMummb, as he opened the bag and took out the keys. He shook them, as if some vital clue might be hidden among them and handed them to the Forensics man. The Forensics man held them up and shook them. He waited for them to stop jangling and handed them to Maureen.
‘Thanks,’ she said, and put them in her rucksack.
The less the police picked up about Liam’s movements the better. She went down to a battered, pissed-in call box in the next street rather than use her own phone and, finally, caught up with him at Benny’s house.
At the base of Garnethill on Sauchiehall Street is a small and comfortingly grubby café called the Equal. Maureen took Douglas there for breakfast sometimes. It’s a genuine sixties throwback, when fifties décor had just reached Glasgow: the tables are black Formica with a gold fleck through it and the coffee machine looks like a red and chrome prototype steam engine.
They sat down at an empty table near the window. Liam tapped her on the forearm. ‘Where have you been all day, hen?’ he asked, watching her closely to see how she was.
‘I’ve just been sort of running around,’ said Maureen, her head bobbing nervously when she tried to relax her shoulders. ‘I didn’t want to stop in case I couldn’t get started again. I haven’t eaten all day. That must be why I feel so shaky.’
‘It’s probably got something to do with what happened though, eh?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘yeah, that too.’
‘Scary day, though, eh?’
‘I’ve had scarier.’
He smiled at her bravura. ‘Could you eat something?’ When Maureen got upset the first thing to go was her appetite. She had almost starved herself irredeemably before Liam found her in the hall cupboard and took her to the hospital. ‘Strangely enough, I’m starving today.’
The surreal character of the café was enhanced by the depressed, elderly waitress with a sore leg. When she brought them the wrong order for the second time they accepted it to save her walking all the way to the kitchen again.
‘Mum’s been hassling the police,’ said Maureen, sliding her knife into the underside of an unrequested bridie and letting the excess grease run out of the pastry parcel. ‘She was phoning the station all day demanding my release.’
‘Yeah.’ Liam sipped his coffee. ‘She’s gone into full Jill Morrell mode. They told me about it and I phoned home.
Got Una to unplug the phone.’
‘What kind of things did they ask you about?’
‘They asked about you and about Douglas. They didn’t have a clue what I’m into so that was all right.’
‘Jim Maliano was dead nice to me,’ said Maureen.
‘He’s a bit of an arse usually, isn’t he?’
‘Total arse usually. He brought me out a chair and a cup of tea and everything. And he lent me that beautiful Celtic top to wear while I was being questioned.’
Liam squeezed watery tomato sauce from the plastic bottle on his plate of chips. ‘That must have impressed the polis.’ He watched his sister steer the oily rivulet away from her chips and beans, into a safe empty space at the side of the plate. She dabbed it off with a paper napkin. ‘I can see,’ he said, ‘that you’re used to eating i
n top-class restaurants such as this one.’
‘Yup,’ Maureen smiled. ‘I don't like that Joe McEwan character at all.’
‘Yeah, he’s a total prick but don’t let on you don’t like him.’
‘Why shouldn't I?’
‘He’s a big noise up there. It could make a difference to how they treat you. Try to seem friendly,’ he said, as if he’d spent his life being questioned by the police. ‘They asked me what I was doing yesterday afternoon.’
‘Yeah,’ said Maureen. ‘They were asking me about the morning and afternoon. I guess that’s when they think it happened. I was at my work.’
‘Yeah. I had a key and I can’t tell them where I was during the day.’ ‘Why not?’
‘I was at Tonsa’s seeing Paulsa.’
Tonsa was a courier. She travelled to London on the train once a month, bringing crack to Glasgow. She looked like a well-to-do lady in her early thirties: she had elegant bone structure, a slim figure and expensive, stylish dress sense. Liam had introduced her to Maureen when they bumped into her at the Barras market one Sunday. She looked normal until Maureen noticed her eyes: they were watery and open a fraction too little, they were a corpse’s eyes, Tonsa was dead beneath the skin. Until then Maureen had thought of Liam as the Gentleman Jim of the drugs world. After meeting Tonsa she realized there was no such thing, that Liam must be a heavy guy. But he wasn’t like that with her and she hung on to that. He was her big brother, she reasoned, and she was entitled to censor his life for her own consumption.
Tonsa had been in the papers recently: her boyfriend had been slashed, ear to chin, while he went about his lawful business. The local paper carried a photo of the lovely couple demanding that the police catch the evil men responsible. At the time Maureen had asked Liam why Tonsa let them take her picture, surely she wouldn’t want that sort of attention. Liam had shrugged and said Tonsa was wasted, no one knew why Tonsa did anything.
‘Liam,’ she said, nervous at asking, ‘’member Tonsa’s man was slashed?’
He looked up at her. ‘Aye?’
‘Well, that wouldn’t be anything to do with this, would it?’
‘What d’ye mean?’ he said, staring at her, daring her to go ahead.
‘I just wondered if you knew anyone—’
‘Am I getting the blame for this?’ he snapped.
‘Right, you,’ she wagged a finger across the table at him, ‘calm down. I’m not blaming ye, I’m just asking ye. It’s not an unreasonable question. You’re the only person I know who deals with these kinds of people.’
‘Yeah, well, Maureen,’ he said, trying to be reasonable because she’d had a shitty day, ‘we’re not the only people who do that sort of thing. There are other bad men in the world.’
‘I know that, I’m just wondering, gangsters do that sort of thing don’t they?’
Liam smirked uncomfortably at the table. ‘You watch too many films, Maureen, these are businessmen . . . Ye don’t get much of that sort of thing.’
Maureen looked unconvinced. ‘Someone wouldn't be trying to send you a message? A warning or something?’
‘Look, how does that send a message to me? Why kill my wee sister’s boyfriend in her house leaving no clue as to their identity?’
‘I suppose.’
‘If someone wanted to send me a warning they’d walk up and smash me in the face. It wouldn’t be a secret, I’d know I was out of line and I’d know it was coming. These people are motivated by greed. They don’t want trouble with the police – that just makes it harder to do business.’
‘Right enough. I just thought, because of the slashing . . .’
‘Slashing people’s faces, that’s something trainee neds do to show their mates they’re hard, they don’t even know the person they’re doing it to, they just run past the person and—’ He flicked his wrist in a way she found worryingly dismissive.
‘You’ve never done that, eh?’ she asked timidly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He was staggered at the suggestion.
‘Do you think I’m capable of that?’
‘Not really.’
‘Mauri, do you really think I’d do that to someone?’
‘Auch, no, Liam, no. But I know you’re protective of me since I was in hospital.’ ‘Protective?’
‘Yeah, protective.’
‘And I’m stupid enough to think carving up your boyfriend in your own living room is going to protect you from something much worse? Like what? Like falling out with him?’
‘Aye, right enough.’
‘Anyway,’ he smiled at her, ‘I’d hardly do it when my alibi would get me arrested, would I? I’d be smarter than that, anyway.’
‘Auch, I’m sorry, Liam.’ She smiled back at him. ‘I'm a bit bewildered today.’
She cut a bite out of the bridie and put it in her mouth. It hadn’t been microwaved properly and undissolved fat still clung to the slimy inside of the cold pastry wall. She bit down onto a lump of gristle and made a face. ‘That’s disgustin’.’ She spat it out into a napkin, wrapping it into a little bundle and putting it in the ashtray. Her appetite was gone.
‘I’m so fucked,’ said Liam. ‘I can't tell them where I was.’
‘It might have happened at night. That time-of-death stuff isn’t a set science, it’s just a good guess.’ ‘Did the police tell you that?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But the heating was on in the house this morning – it was belting out. I wondered if that could change a time of death.’ ‘How?’
‘Well, they work it out by comparing the temperature of the body to the surrounding temperature. What would it be if the person was alive – say, thirty-seven degrees?’ ‘I dunno.’
‘Anyway, what if the surrounding temperature wasn't constant? That would change the rate of heat loss. What if the heating was turned right up and set to go an hour or so before he was found? That would heat up the house but wouldn’t be enough to heat up a body. The police would take his temperature thinking he’d been in a warm house the whole time he’d been dead. They’d think he’d died earlier than he actually did.’
‘Maureen, what are you rambling about?’ said Liam seriously.
‘They could have got the time of death wrong. It could have happened in the evening.’
He looked confused. ‘Wouldn’t the police think of that, though?’
She shrugged. ‘Yeah, but even if they did it would still be hard to work out the times: they couldn’t know what the temperature had been before the heating went on.’ ‘And did it occur to you that if the murderer did that deliberately they’d need to know how the police work out the time of death? Where did you hear all that science stuff anyway?’
‘I saw it on Taggart.’
Liam giggled at his plate. He could tell he was making Maureen angry but couldn’t stop himself. He put his hand over his mouth. ‘I’m sorry, Mauri—’ ‘Yeah, fuck you.’
‘Yeah.’ He sniggered. ‘Okay, fuck me.’
‘I read it in the paper as well, Liam.’
‘So it must be true.’
‘What were you doing that night?’
‘I was with Maggie at her mum and dad’s.’
‘And were they in?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, if I was right they could vouch for you.’ He grinned at her as if she was mental. ‘Okay, DrX.’ ‘Don’t take the piss, Liam.’
‘I’m trying not to but you make it so hard.’ Maureen looked downcast.
‘Did you tell the police that?’
She looked even more miserable. ‘I tried,’ she said.
He suppressed a smile. ‘And what did they say?’
She didn’t answer him.
‘Well,’ he said, jabbing at a chip, ‘I’m sure they’ll find whoever did it soon enough. Buccleuch Street’s always busy. Some
one must have seen something.’
Maureen picked at her chips. They were soggy, limp and warm. She should eat something. ‘I don't know why I keep coming here, the food’s horrible.’ ‘Good fry-ups, though,’ said Liam.
‘Did they tell you anything about the cupboard?’ she said, trying to catch the waitress’s eye. She limped over to their table. Maureen ordered an ice cream and a coffee. They looked to Liam for an order. He was eating his chips eagerly now, spearing three at a time with his fork and swirling them around in the mess of ketchup on the side of the plate. ‘Does sir want anything else?’ asked the waitress. Liam looked at her. ‘Nope.’
As she limped away to the kitchen Liam stabbed Maureen gently with his fork. ‘What was that about a cupboard?’
‘They found something in the cupboard.’
‘Which cupboard?’
‘The hall cupboard.’
‘The cupboard I found you in?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘I don't know what it means.’
He watched her. ‘It could just be an accident. It isn’t necessarily significant that you were found in it.’
‘It could make it look like me,’ she said softly, ‘if they find out I was found in there. They might think I did it and then went and hid in there again. They might think I was in there all night and that’s why I didn’t phone them.’
Liam worked the final bushel of chips into his mouth and thought about it. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’re more likely to think it’s significant if you don’t tell them and they find out from someone else later.’ ‘Who knows that except you and me?’
‘You, me and any one of the mental-health professionals who’ve seen your psychiatric notes.’
‘It’s not in my notes. I’ve seen my notes. It says I was hiding in the house, it doesn’t mention that cupboard. Louisa at the Albert doesn’t know.’ ‘What about that guy at the Rainbow?’
‘Naw, Angus didn’t know either. I never discussed that time with him.’
‘So that leaves you and me.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I didn’t do it, Maureen.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant who knows that? Did you tell anyone?’ ‘Like who?’