by Denise Mina
She woke up in the middle of the night, clammy in her day clothes, and undressed sleepily as she made her way to the spare bedroom, falling asleep the moment she lay down. She dreamed that Martin was combing her hair to comfort her.
24
Yvonne
Before she even opened her eyes the next morning she knew that it was time to move home to Garnethill.
She was going to make Liam breakfast but when she looked in on him he was still asleep. There was a large hole in the floor next to his bed: the floorboards had been lifted and left next to the empty space. Nails were sticking up vertically out of the planks, like the ragged teeth on a latent predator. The contents of his clothes cupboard had been thrown onto the floor and the black and white chequered lino in the en suite bathroom had been ripped up. Maureen shut the door quietly and crept downstairs. No wonder he was fucked off.
She picked a twenty-four-hour locksmith out of the Yellow Pages and dialled the number. They said that there would be a twenty-quid bonus charge because it was Sunday but she didn’t care. The man on the phone took her address in Garnethill and said he’d send someone over at twelve with a new bolt and Yale.
She was drinking a coffee and packing her answerphone into a plastic bag when the phone rang out. ‘Hello,’ said Una. ‘I phoned Benny’s but he said you were at Liam’s.’ ‘Well,’ said Maureen, ‘here I am.’
She was intent on meeting Maureen to tell her some good news.
‘I can’t see you, Una,’ Maureen said, mindful of Liam’s warning. ‘I’m moving back home today.’
But Una was determined. She’d come over to Liam’s, she said, and drive Maureen and her answerphone home. Una had driven since she was seventeen and refused to believe that anyone would rather walk anywhere.
‘Well, okay, but I’m leaving now and Liam’s still asleep. He’s exhausted so just knock, okay? Don’t ring the bell.’
When the knock came on Liam’s front door Maureen threw on her coat and scarf and picked up the bag. She opened the door and stepped outside, pecked Una briskly on the cheek and turned away to lock the front door behind her. ‘Aren’t we going to have a cup of tea?’ asked Una, sensing a strained atmosphere and preparing to be offended on the slightest pretext.
‘Well, I need to get on, really,’ said Maureen.
Una looked aggrieved. ‘All right, then,’ she said, magnanimously. ‘If you’re in such a big hurry.’
They walked down the front steps to Una’s company car. It was a big green Rover with a walnut dashboard and electric windows and everything. It was Una’s pride and joy. She started the engine and told Maureen the good news: Marie was coming up for a visit the day after next and the girls were all meeting up at Winnie’s for a lovely lunch on Thursday.
Maureen thought about the three of them together, sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for her to arrive. Why were they having a lunch and not a dinner, like they usually did when Marie came home, and why wasn’t Liam invited? He would stand up for her if he was there. They must be planning something: they were going to confront her, tell her everything she remembered was a lie and she was mental.
As they drove down the Maryhill Road Maureen noticed Una’s eyes flicking to the side when she dared, checking on her wee sister, making sure she wasn’t doing anything crazy. Maureen couldn’t think of anything to say. They’d call Louisa Wishart if she got upset, that would be the first thing they'd do.
She was hot with worry by the time they got halfway down the Maryhill Road. Una asked why she was so quiet and she pretended she hadn’t slept well. ‘Mum’s angry with me for taking my photos away.’
‘I know,’ said Una, drawing her lips tight together and clenching her jaw.
‘But they were mine and she was selling them to the newspapers.’
‘No, Maureen,’ said Una, holding her hand up. ‘Mum didn’t sell them.’
‘Well, she gave them away, then.’
‘Yes, which is different,’ said Una.
They fell into an uneasy silence. The car’s engine hummed quietly as they drew up to the traffic lights and stopped.
‘Did Liam tell you about Mum at the police station?’ said Maureen.
‘Oh dear me, yes,’ said Una, wrinkling her nose. ‘She was a bit excited.’
‘He told me she was screaming her fucking face off,’ said Maureen loudly, her voice quivering with misplaced indignation. Una didn’t like swearing or screeching or untoward emotional reactions of any kind. Maureen could tell she was freaking her out.
Una pulled the car into the kerb and stopped the engine. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she said carefully. ‘D’you think you should be going home today?’
Maureen thought about confronting Una now, weighing up the pros and cons. Not yet. Not just now. She didn’t want to go ballistic. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’m a bit frightened about going home again, that's all.’
Una leaned across and pulled her over, hugging her and pressing the gear-stick into Maureen’s ribs. She let go. ‘We all love you very much,’ she said kindly.
‘I know that, Una,’ said Maureen, crying with fury.
‘We all want the best for you,’ she said.
Maureen turned her face away, angrily swatting the tears off her face. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I know.’
Una had meant to suggest that Maureen go back to hospital but she seemed so unstable that it might not be a good idea. She’d phone Dr Wishart when she got back to the office and ask her about re-admission. She started the car again. ‘You could come and stay with us if you want,’ she said, pulling out into the traffic.
It would be Una’s worst nightmare, herself moping around their ordered house, smoking fags all over the place and watching old movies. ‘You’re such a sweetheart, Una,’ Maureen said, controlling her voice to make it sound normal. ‘I don't know how you do it. We’re all crazy and it just seems to roll off your back.’
Una smiled, pleased at being differentiated from the rest of them. ‘Let’s have some music,’ she said, and clicked the radio on.
They sang along to a jolly pop song all the way up the road, guessing the words and humming the hard parts so they wouldn’t have to speak to each other.
Maureen looked out of the window and told herself that very, very soon, as soon as the Douglas thing was over, she would tell Una and the rest of them what she thought of them.
Una parked the car outside the close, pulled on the handbrake, turned off the ignition and undid her seat-belt.
‘No,’ said Maureen. ‘You can’t come up with me.’ She was desperate to get away from her sister. If Una came upstairs and saw as much as a drop of blood she’d start crying and need to be tended and comforted. She’d phone Alistair and get him to come over, she might even call Winnie and George. She’d be there for fucking hours.
Una stared at her. ‘Why not?’
‘Um, the police won’t let you in, only me.’
‘Why are the police up there?’
‘They want me to show them around the house so you can't come in.’ ‘But I’m your sister.’
‘I know that, Una, but they can’t let just anyone in.’
‘I’m not just anyone,’ said Una, taking the key out of the ignition and pocketing it. ‘I’m your sister.’ She opened her door and put one foot on the pavement.
‘Una,’said Maureen, as firmly as she could without shouting, ‘you cannot come upstairs.’
Una brought her foot back into the car and turned to face her wee sister. ‘Maureen,’ she said solemnly, ‘I am not letting you go into that house without anyone to support you.’
‘Una,’ said Maureen, copying her sister’s sanctimonious tone, ‘I am not letting you come upstairs with me. The police are there, they already dislike our family because Mum was drunk and shouted at them and because our brother is a drug dealer and I am not going to j
eopardize what small relationship I have with them by demanding that they grant you access to the house.’
Una sighed heavily and shook her head. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t the police want me up there?’
‘It’s in case you interfere with some evidence they haven’t collected yet.’
‘But I’m your sister. I don’t think you should go in there alone.’
‘I won't be alone, the police’ll be there with me.’ Una rolled her eyes heavenwards and muttered, ‘Pete’s sake,’ before shutting her door.
‘It’s all right,’ said Maureen, pulling the polythene bag with her answerphone in it out of the back seat. ‘The police are in there.’
They kissed and arranged to meet at Winnie’s for lunch on Thursday, when Marie would be home.
Una watched Maureen walk up the close carrying the poly bag. It was dark inside the door, Maureen’s small shadow jogged up the first flight of stairs, around the corner and disappeared. She sat for a moment before picking up the car phone and dialling Dr Wishart’s number at the Albert Hospital. It was engaged. She hung up and pressed the redial button. Still engaged. She replaced the phone and looked back up the close, weighing up the pros and cons of going after Maureen. She fitted the key in the ignition, started the engine, lifted off the hand-brake and pulled the car out into the steep street.
Maureen climbed the stairs with trepidation, slowing down as she neared the top floor. The sight of Jim’s door reminded her that she had left his Celtic shirt sitting in the bottom of Benny’s wardrobe. She wished he hadn’t told her about watching through the spy-hole, not that she was ungrateful for the information about Benny but she’d never stand on the landing again without imagining Jim, with his worrying hairdo, pressed up behind his door, peering out at her with his jumper tucked tightly into his denims She took out her keys, unlocked the front door and let it swing open.
The house smelt stale and oppressively sweet. She stepped in and shut the door behind her, leaving Jim with nothing to see. She dropped the bag in the hall, took a deep breath and turned the handle on the living-room door.
The blood had turned brown in the direct sunlight. It was hard to spot a bit of the carpet that wasn’t brown. Deep puddles of Douglas’s precious blood had dried into it; action streaks from jugular spurts radiated out from the four circular indents marking the position of the chair. The blue chair had been cleaned by some kind officer; it was by the window, facing it at an angle, as if someone had been sitting there, enjoying the view.
She stepped carefully across the crunchy floor, using the clear spaces as stepping stones to the window which she opened, pulling it right back against the wall, letting the harsh wind into the room. She sat down in Douglas’s blue chair because she was afraid to, and smoked a cigarette by the blustery open window, waiting until the horror of it had passed. She stubbed the end of the cigarette out on the window-sill, lifted the chair by the back and carried it out into the hall.
She stacked the contents of the bookcase into piles on the floor and carried them out one at a time, resting them precariously against the wall by the kitchen door. She took the coffee table into the bedroom, then humped the portable television through, banging her legs with it. Back in the living room she folded the bookcase flat, leaving it near the bathroom door. She wheeled out the old horsehair armchair, recklessly rolling its wooden castors over the crusty brown blood.
She walked back into the empty living room and stood on the spot marked out by the indentations from the chair, looking around and breathing in the dry, bloody dust. Only the settee with the stripe of blood across the arm was left in the room. It wouldn’t clean up; she didn’t know what to do with it. She could throw it away but then she wouldn’t have anything to sit on except the horsehair and that was uncomfortable. She didn’t need to decide right away; she could work around it today. She found the hammer in the kitchen cupboard and, starting below the open window, used the forked end to lever up the carpet tacks around the edge.
When the door-bell rang she had lifted a third of the carpet around the skirting board. She shut the door to the living room before looking out of the spy-hole. A young man, tanned like a tea-bag, was standing at the door holding a small metal box with a handle. He was wearing a T-shirt with ‘Armani’ written across the chest, jeans and a yellow suede jacket. His hair was striped with ill-suited blond streaks that looked green in the close light. He was two hours late and looked badly hung over. He probably hadn’t been home yet. She opened the door. ‘Locksmith?’
‘Mm,’ he said, stepping into the cluttered hallway and fingering the locks on the door.
‘Want a cup of tea?’
‘Naw.’
She left him to it and went off to hide in the kitchen. She wanted to finish the living room but she couldn’t get in there without him seeing the mess and she didn’t feel like explaining. She put the kettle on and opened the door to the cups cupboard. The cups had all been moved around. Rarely used ones had been put to the front of the shelf and several were upside down, the way cups are meant to be stored. She opened the food cupboard and the cutlery drawer: same thing in all of them. The police had been through them and moved everything. They must have been very thorough. Flushed with a sudden shamed panic she went into the bedroom and opened the door to the bedside cabinet. Three broken vibrators had been tidied away in a little triangular pile. The one with the acid burns from the leaky batteries was on the bottom with the red screw-top lid placed neatly beside it. She kept meaning to throw it away but was too embarrassed to put it in a bin, as if all of her neighbours would find it and come to the door en masse demanding an explanation. Both of her Nancy Friday politically correct wank books had been leafed through. She sat down on the bed and tried to minimize it but couldn’t. She slumped on the bed, looking at the floor. The Selector CD was gone right enough.
She went back to the kitchen, trying to convince herself that once she told Leslie it would become a funny story, and made herself a coffee.
After a long pause in the drilling the locksmith came to the kitchen door. He looked downcast and green. ‘Want a cup of tea now?’ she said.
‘Naw.’ His voice was wobbly, as if he was about to spew his ring. ‘Finished.’
She paid him in cash and he gave her two copies of the key for the new Yale lock and one for the bolt. When he left she used the new bolt and locked herself firmly in.
Back in the living room she lit a fag, holding it between her teeth as she levered up the rest of the carpet tacks with the hammer. She lifted the edge under the window and dragged it over itself halfway across the room. It was heavy.
She let go of the carpet and took hold of the settee arm, pulling it over the fold in the carpet and onto the bare floorboards. The last castor stuck on the fold. She tugged the settee and the carpet started to unfurl. She was kneeling down, trying to lift the castor over the fold, when she happened to glance across the room. A tear-shaped drop of blood had dried on the skirting board, red and glassy against the white paint. She crawled over on all fours and sat down next to it, her head resting on the wall, stroking it with her fingertips, over and over, until it got dark.
She turned on the hall light and opened the cupboard door.
The shoe box had been lifted and placed on the high shelf at eye level, leaving the floor of the cupboard empty. In the right-hand corner of the carpeted floor was a bloody oval stain, the size of her palm. She crouched down and put her hand on it. It wasn’t powdery and thin like the stains around the edge of the living room: it was solid like the space under the chair. The pile on the carpet was completely flattened because the blood spill had been so heavy. It was too heavy to be a splash and the mark was too small to have come from her slippers. Something bloody had been put there.
She stood up, letting her eyes linger on the spot as she tried to imagine what sort of thing could have caused a stain that shape. A bloody rag would have left a
stain with uneven edges so that wasn’t it. She tried supposing that the Northern rapist and Douglas’s murderer were the same person to see if that would shed any light on the cause of the mark. It could have come from bloody ropes being dumped there but they’d have had to be dripping with blood and, anyway, Douglas had still been tied up when she had found him.
She couldn’t think what could have caused it.
In the kitchen she opened the door to the boiler and checked the timer for the heating: it was set to go on at five-thirty a.m. and off again at eight. The evening times had been changed too. The little arrows on the dial had been pushed together so that the heating would be off all evening. She changed them back to the previous setting, off in the morning and on from six p.m. until eleven, and shut the door.
The list Martin had given her was still in the condom pocket of her black jeans. If the patients had been raped the only safe approach was through the female members of staff. Starting with the nurses’ list, she picked out the three recognizably female names and got the Glasgow phone directory from the kitchen drawer. The first name was Suzanne Taylor. Fifteen Taylors were listed in the book. Maureen worked out that they were arranged alphabetically by the first name. The last one listed was Spen. Taylor: Suzanne had either married or moved away. The second name, Jill McLaughlin, might well have been hidden among the thirty or so J. McLaughlins.
Sharon Ryan was a godsend. She was one of three if she was there at all. Maureen tried the first one. The number had been disconnected. The second number had never heard of Sharon Ryan; the third hadn’t either.
She hung up and tried to narrow the margins on Jill McLaughlin. Jill would be somewhere between Jas. and Joseph; that left eight possibles. She lifted the receiver and tried the first one, then the second, then the third. She was losing hope. Five McLaughlins and still no Jill. On the seventh a tiny voice answered: ‘Hello.’