by Denise Mina
‘It looks like scratches or something.’
Maureen didn’t answer. The cats writhed on her lap, purring and digging their claws into her legs, nesting her as if she were a blanket.
‘It looks a wee bit raw,’ said Lynn carefully.‘Will I put some Germoline onto it?’ ‘Please.’
She went out of the kitchen and came back with a huge jar.‘Nicked it from the work,’ she said, when she saw Maureen looking. She rubbed the smelly cream gently onto the ripped skin on the back of Maureen’s neck.‘How's it feel now?’
‘Itchy.’
‘You should put some foundation on that, doll, or wear a scarf or something. It looks a bit frightening.’ She screwed the lid back on the tub, washed her hands in the sink, lifted the scissors and carried on trimming.‘Now,’ she said,‘tell us why ye phoned.’
‘I need a favour,’ said Maureen.
‘Big one? Wee one?’
‘It’s just a question. I don’t know if you’d know anyway. I want to find something out from someone’s medical records.’
‘Is it a patient at my surgery?’
‘Naw. Lynn, don’t tell Liam or anyone else this, right?’
‘Okay.’
‘I think Benny’s been in my house.’
‘Benny? Of course Benny’s been in your house.’
‘But I think he’s been in my house recently, when the police wouldn’t let me in. I think he’s talking to the police or something, I dunno. I can’t put it together.’
She would have told Lynn about the migrating CD but she knew she looked a bit mad and Lynn would think that she gave it back and then just forgot.
‘I think he might have known Douglas. The police told me he’d been arrested in Inverness a few years ago. They didn’t bring the case to court, he was sent for psychiatric treatment instead.’
Lynn stopped cutting.‘I never heard about that,’ she said. ‘Me neither.’
‘Did he get treatment in Inverness?’
‘No,’ said Maureen.‘It must have been in Glasgow. He’s never been away for any length of time.’
‘Maureen, Benny might be a bit mental sometimes but I don't think he’d talk about you to the police.’ ‘I don't know what to think about anything now.’
Lynn started snipping at her hair again.‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘I need to know how to get access to his medical record. I want to find out who his psychiatrist was. I think it might have been Douglas.’
‘Maureen, you can’t get to see someone else’s record without their consent. It’s illegal. You can’t hardly get to see your own.’ ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, man.’
She finished cutting and handed Maureen a mirror, holding another behind her so that she could see what she had done.‘There,’ she said,‘that’s a nice hair-cut.’
Maureen looked at herself. It was the shortest she’d had her hair in a long time. It made her look younger. Lynn danced around her, pretending to be a hairdresser, showing her the reflection from both sides, holding it at an angle so that Maureen couldn’t see the cuts on her neck. ‘It’s not bad, is it?’
‘I think it's lovely,’ said Lynn.
‘Do you know a guy called Paulsa?’
‘Bad Acid Paulsa?’
‘That guy who came forward for Liam.’
‘Yeah, I know him. We went up to his house once.’
‘Where does he stay?’
‘You know that big Unionist pub off the Saltmarket? Next close.’ ‘Oh, aye.’
Maureen suddenly realized she had been talking about herself since they met and she’d barely asked Lynn how she was. She grinned unsteadily.‘Did you and Liam get it together again, then?’
Lynn looked embarrassed.‘Yeah, a wee bit. What’s this Maggie character like?’
‘She’s all right. Not much crack, though. Are ye going out together again?’
‘Naw,’ said Lynn, picking lumps of hair off the back of the settee.‘I don't think we will be either.’ ‘How come?’
Lynn displayed a polite reticence and then told her,‘Uch, you know, Mauri, I used to look at him and all I could see was sunshine. It’s not like that now. He’s a bit too angry for me.’
‘Yeah,’ conceded Maureen.‘He’s angry enough.’ Lynn punched her gently on the chin.‘Like all the rest of the fucking family.’
Maureen pulled her coat on.‘It was good of you to come and meet me there,’ she said.‘I think I lost the place for a wee minute.’
‘Happens to the best of us,’ said Lynn.‘You stay in touch anyway, eh?’
‘I will, Lynn, I will.’
She walked down through the town, feeling her father’s breath on her neck all the way to the shelter.
Leslie met her in the hallway. She led Maureen out of the house quickly and spoke to her on the doorstep. She couldn’t come home, she said. Her shift didn’t finish for another three hours.‘The police came to see me again, they asked me about the night we went to that pizza place. I just told them the right times, is that okay?’ ‘Yeah.’
‘Can I pick you up at Benny’s?’
‘No, no,’ said Maureen.‘I’ll come back.’ Leslie could see that something was wrong with Maureen: she was pale and her eyes were unfocused.‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll just wander about for a bit.’
Leslie rubbed her arm.‘Look,’ she said, trying to make eye contact,‘um, go to the pictures or something, all right? Don’t just wander off somewhere.’
‘Naw, I’m all right,’ Maureen murmured, and toppled off the outside step, wandering away with her hands deep in the pockets of her overcoat.
They had been there for a picnic once. Benny took Maureen and Liam down there– he had played there when he was a wee boy. It was a track of wasteground by the river, looking over to Govan and the shipyards, surrounded by run-down warehouses. It was probably a dangerous place to come at night, the motorway cut it off from the town and it was dark, but Maureen was tired of caring and she had her stabbing comb in her pocket. She lifted the chicken wire, crouched down and scrambled under it. She climbed to the top of a ten-foot-high concrete wedge sticking out of the river wall and sat down. Across the water she could see into the shipyards through an open slide door. Sparks from the welders’ tongs flew in slow, red arcs. She pulled her coat tight against the mean river wind and lit a fag.
It was much darker now. The tide was coming in and the river flowed backwards, slapping against the wall far below her feet. She thought about the ships passing down the river many years ago, taking emigrants to America, whole families of Scots lost to their own people for ever. Lost to drizzling rain and a fifty-year recession, to endemic domestic violence and armies of drunk men shouting about football.
When she climbed down the rock and straightened her coat she felt taller somehow, as if, without trying to, she had floated across the dividing line between fear and fury. She got there just in time to meet Leslie coming off her shift. She hadn’t noticed before but Leslie had been crying.
The appeal committee had notified them that morning that they would not allow them to make additional submissions. In the afternoon a husband had found the address of the house, came round and convinced his wife to move back home.‘He broke her pelvis last time,’ said Leslie.‘They only took the pins out last month.’ ‘How the fuck did he do that?’
‘He beat her with a baseball bat.’
‘I suppose everyone’ll be going home if the appeal fails,’ said Maureen.
‘Don’t even say it,’ muttered Leslie, and handed Maureen a crash helmet.
21
Frank
Next morning Maureen adopted an English accent and phoned the Northern from Leslie’s house. She asked reception to put her through to Frank in the office.
As soon as he lifted the receiver she realized th
at she should have thought it through beforehand. She didn’t know who she was going to pretend to be, she didn't even know what story she was going to tell. She asked him whether he had seen the article about the superannuation mix-up, it was in the newsletter, he had probably read it. Well, Frank said, he remembered something about that, yes. Stunned that the story was hanging together, she staggered on: obviously it wasn’t her fault, she had been called in to sort out her predecessor’s mistakes, wasn’t that always the way? Frank agreed vehemently. Maureen couldn’t imagine Frank being called in to sort piss from shit but she didn’t say so.
He agreed to get her a printout of the names and national insurance numbers of the full-time medical staff spanning ten years from 1985 to 1995, excluding agency, and Maureen would send a courier to pick it up at two that day.
She looked at the phone before she put it down. Martin was right: Frank was really stupid.
Frank finished his sticky blueberry muffin and played another three games of Tetris. This was a bit lucky. If he did them this favour they might remember if he applied for a job at the regional office. A job in a real office. An office where you wouldn’t be surrounded by bloody loonies.
At ten past two she walked into the office wearing a crash helmet and Leslie’s leathers. Frank handed her a brown envelope. Curious as to how far she could push it, she made him sign a receipt for a novel she had bought a couple of weeks before. She walked down the back stairs and out of the hospital with her visor down, feeling untouchable, like a movie hero. Leslie had kept the engine running and the stand up on the bike. Maureen swung her leg over the seat and Leslie turned, spraying grey gravel. The lights further down the road changed, causing a break in the traffic, and they pulled out into the road.
Back in the Drum they broke open a quarter bottle of whisky, took a slug each and opened the envelope. Frank had printed out a single sheet from his files, all medical personnel employed at the Northern covering the years 1985 to 1995, excluding agency. It was a list of national insurance numbers. No names. Frank really was a stupid bastard.
As they finished the whisky Leslie showed her how to sharpen the end of the stabbing comb into a point. She drew the long handle of the comb across a black wedge of silicon carbide, backwards and forwards, turning it over at the end to sharpen both sides, dragging it on the diagonal to give it an edge. She wrapped a J-cloth over the teeth and gave it to Maureen to have a go. She scratched the handle over the block, turning it over and drawing it through. She kept going until she brought it to a neat point with an inch long sharpened ledge on either side of the tip. Leslie rubbed margarine into it to disguise the scratches.
Maureen thought about the stabbing comb as Leslie drove her back to Maryhill and Benny’s house, she thought about it and it warmed her, as the remembrance of a great love would.
Leslie dropped her at the bollards in the Maryhill Road.
Benny was in the hall, on his way out to the library. ‘Maureen, where were you yesterday?’ he said, and hugged her.‘How’re ye keeping?’
She stood stiff in his arms, trying to remember how she used to react to him when he touched her. She pressed herself into his chest and guessed.‘I’m fine, Benny,’ she said, drawing back and looking him straight in the eye, holding his cheek with the flat of her hand. She looked at him, willing them away, but her suspicions about him refused to subside.
He squeezed her shoulders.‘Good, wee hen.’He grinned. ‘That’s good. You’ve changed your hair It’s really nice.’
‘Yeah, I got it cut.’
‘God, is that whisky on your breath?’
‘Um, yeah.’
‘Maureen, watch yourself, it’s only three in the afternoon.’
‘I’m watching myself,’ she said resentfully, and pulled away from him ‘I’m just . . . I just wanted some today, that’s all.’
‘Naw,’ he pulled her back by the arm,‘don’t be like that.’ He hugged her again and she found herself more uncomfortable than the first time.
‘Just see ye don’t end up like me, that’s all I mean,’ he said, and let her go.‘Spending your days and nights in smoky rooms with a bunch of old alkis.’
The police had phoned for her and she was to phone the Stewart Street station. He said he’d made dinner for her and left it in the oven. She shouted a cheerful cheerio after him as he shut the front door behind himself.
She slipped on the oven gloves and took out the casserole dish, feeling the warmth seeping through the cheap gloves. She lifted the lid. It was a mouth-watering cheesy pasta thing. A large portion had been sliced out of it: the fresh cliff of cheese and pasta was collapsing slowly, sliding down and filling the base of the dish. She cut herself a portion and dirtied a plate and some cutlery with it before dropping it into a plastic bag ready for the bin. She arranged the plate and fork on the draining board to look like the disregarded crockery of a happy eater. She ducked into the bedroom and checked the bottom drawer. The CD was still there, unmoved since she put it back.
Her T-shirt was covered in itchy shards of hair from the night before. She went into Benny’s cupboard and found the mustard crew-neck jumper she had brought from the house. She took the jaggy T-shirt off and pulled the jumper over her head, opened her leather rucksack and lifted most of her clothes from the shelf, shoving them into the bag. Her hand hovered over the Anti Dynamos T-shirt. She took it for spite and left a pair of knickers and a T-shirt on the shelf in case Benny noticed everything was gone and got suspicious.
Joe McEwan couldn’t come to the phone but the officer knew who she was and told her they wanted to see her at the station as soon as possible. He offered to send a car for her but she said it was okay, she’d make her own way down. He didn’t object and she took it as a good sign. She collected the bag of food from the kitchen sink and dumped it in a street bin.
She was halfway down the road to the police station when she remembered Jim Maliano’s Celtic shirt and jogging trousers sitting on the floor of the cupboard among the dirty socks. She would have to go back to Benny’s at some point.
*
Hugh McAskill came to collect her from the reception desk with Inness at his back. Inness had shaved off his gay-biker moustache. It may have been because she was used to seeing him with it or because the freshly shaved skin was a lighter colour than the rest of his face but his top lip seemed odd and prominent. Her eyes kept straying to it of their own accord. Inness saw her looking at it and turned his head away to shake off her gaze.
They took her to an interview room on the ground floor. McAskill seemed to be in charge. He gave her a cheeky encouraging look, took a big chocolate bar out of his pocket, ripped the packaging down the middle with his thumbnail and broke the chocolate into squares. He put it down in the middle of the table, sitting it on top of the wrapper like a serving suggestion.‘Wire in,’ he said, sucking on a square. Inness took two and Maureen took one.‘Thanks,’ she said, and wondered why he was always so nice to her.
Inness turned on the tape-recorder, told it who was present and what the time was.
‘Now, Miss O’Donnell,’ said McAskill, swallowing his chocolate and addressing her in a formal telephone voice, ‘the first thing I need to ask you is whether or not you’ve ever seen this before.’
He produced a knife from a crumpled paper bag and put it on the table. It was a new Sabatier kitchen knife with an eight-inch stainless-steel blade and a black wooden handle. She had seen them in shops. They were expensive. A paper tag was attached to it with a piece of string, a long number scrawled on it in biro. It had been cleaned and polished, the blade flawlessly reflecting the fluorescent bulb above their heads, a pitiless slit of light sitting on the table.
Maureen wished she hadn’t taken the chocolate. Her mouth was dry and the sticky paste was stuck under her tongue and up between her gums and cheeks. Her mouth began to water at the sight of the knife in a way she found disturbing.
‘Is that it?’ she asked, staring at it.
‘Is it what?’ said McAskill.
‘Is that what was used on Douglas?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Have you seen it before?’
‘No,’ said Maureen.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay,’ he said, and handed it to Inness. Inness put it back in the bag. She thought it was a stupid way to keep a sharp knife, blade down in a paper bag. ‘Where did you find it?’ she asked.
‘How do you mean?’ said McAskill uncomfortably.
‘Where was the knife? Was it out the back of the flat?’
‘We found it in the house. Why?’
‘I just thought you’d have asked me about it before, that’s all.’
‘We only just found it,’ said Inness.
‘A week and a bit afterwards?’ said Maureen.
‘It was quite well hidden,’ muttered Inness, lifting another square of chocolate and putting it in his mouth.
Maureen wondered how well hidden anything could be in a flat the size of a fifty-quid note with ten men raking through it.
‘Can I ask you something else?’ she said, addressing McAskill this time.
‘Depends what it is,’ he said carefully.
‘Have you any idea who did this?’
‘We’re following a number of leads,’ he said, shuffling his papers.
‘One more question?’
He smiled kindly.‘Go on then, try me.’ ‘Did you talk to Carol Brady?’
‘Aye,’ he said.‘She’s not your greatest fan.’
‘Yeah, I know that.’
‘She’s convinced you blackmailed him for that money.’
‘I didn’t even know it was there, honestly.’
‘We’ve seen the security video at the bank,’said McAskill. ‘Douglas paid in the money himself.’
‘When?’
‘First thing in the morning on the day he was killed.’ Maureen could almost see the time-lag security video, blurred and grey, Douglas jolting across the floor to the teller like a bad animation.