by Denise Mina
‘I read about it in the paper. It was a while ago.’
‘It was two and a half years ago. She was called Charlotte. She’d been in the shelter for a while.’ ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yeah.’ She puffed at the cigarette.
‘Give us some,’ said Maureen, holding her hand out for the fag. As Leslie passed it to her their fingertips touched momentarily and Maureen felt how cold Leslie was.
‘Her husband had been beating her and she came to us.
She had these facial scars – you know, the kind that make you shudder when you first see them. Her nose was flattened and one of her eyes was higher than the other. Ina said it was a cheekbone fracture that hadn’t been set, it’d just been left. You could see the bone sticking out sometimes, when she was eating. She’d scars all over her cheek, there.’ She gestured to her left cheek, drawing a circle on it. ‘The really vicious ones cut across cuts so that the doctors can't sew it up. There’s nothing to sew it onto, just bits of skin hanging off. They can’t patch it up, they just have to let it scar. That’s how out of control these fuckers are, they’ve got the presence of mind to go over the cuts a second time.’ She took the cigarette from Maureen and sucked it hungrily.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘she started getting it together, really together. She went on a course and got a job doing landscape gardening. She was going to set up her own business, once she’d saved some money, went to see the bank manager with a business plan and everything. She got herself a wee flat and moved out.
‘Four months later I read in the paper about a rape. They dragged this woman off the Byres Road in the early morning and took her to a house and raped her for eight hours. Then they threw acid in her face. She crawled out into the hall after they left and managed to get into the close. They said she was in a critical condition. We were all talking about it in work and Annie came in and said it was Charlotte.’
Leslie paused uncharacteristically and rubbed her eye hard with the ball of her palm. Her long slim neck was bent and the wispy hairs and bumpy vertebrae were lit in stark relief by the street-light. ‘She was on her way to work out in Lanarkshire when they got her. I knew it was the husband, we all fucking knew. He used to rape her, he’d dragged her off the street and everything – he’d even got his pals to rape her before. So we phoned the police and told them we thought it was him. Anyway, Charlotte died and the police said they couldn’t do anything about it, no evidence or witnesses to any of it.
The husband knew we’d told them and he started coming by the shelter and d’you know what we did? We hid. He was out there every day for fucking weeks. We phoned the police and they picked him up and gave him a doing but he came straight back, standing across the road at a bus stop with a black eye and his arm in plaster, staring in the window, looking at everyone who came out of the house.
Three women left the shelter because they couldn’t take it any more. We hid and I’m never fucking doing that again.’
‘But that was the responsible thing to do,’ said Maureen.
‘There was nothing you could do without harming the shelter.’
Leslie wasn’t buying it. ‘Yeah. Right.’ ‘What happened then?’
Leslie slumped. ‘It gets worse. One of the women used to wait at the bus stop across the road and he started talking to her. We warned her about him, we fucking told her. Then she left. The last time I saw her she had scars on her face.’ She motioned to her cheek again. ‘Same mark, like he was branding his cows or something. Her eyes were empty, way past scared. I tried to talk to her but she ran away from me.’
Leslie stared into the dark room for a few moments. ‘You can’t just stop now because he’s getting closer and scarier, Mauri. This Martin bloke, he was a good man, wasn’t he?
He’d want you to get the guy.’
‘Yeah, he was a good man but he didn’t want any trouble and I brought it to him.’ ‘I’ll be there, Mauri, I promise.’
Maureen lay down next to Leslie, her hand resting on the beeper, and tried to sleep.
Leslie was right, she couldn’t walk away. Whoever it was knew she’d been to see Martin, they’d been following or watching or something. Any one of them could be killed at any time and Maureen couldn’t be ready for it always. If she could flush out the killer, make him come to her when she was expecting it, when she was ready.
She couldn’t have blood on her hands, not a rapist’s, not anyone’s. And yet when she thought of Yvonne’s snakeskin anklet, she knew that she didn’t just want to stop the man who’d put it there, she wanted to hurt him, to make him feel a little of what the women had felt. It wasn’t enough to stop it happening again. She fell asleep with the image of Martin’s hand resting on his stomach, pointing at nothing.
She woke up at nine and went in to see how Siobhain was doing. She was lying on her back with her hands and chubby arms resting on top of the bedspread. Her head was sunk deep into the pillow, her mouth and eyes were open but she wasn’t moving.
Maureen sat down softly on the side of the bed. ‘Siobhain?’ she said.
Siobhain didn’t move. Maureen reached up and brushed a hair off her face. ‘Did you sleep?’
Still Siobhain didn’t move. Maureen had a sudden surge of adrenaline and grabbed Siobhain’s shoulders, shaking her and shouting into her face, ‘Wake up! Siobhain, wake up!’ Siobhain raised her hand slowly. ‘Stop doing that,’ she said, lowering her eyes and looking at Maureen. ‘Help me out of the bed.’
Maureen pulled the blankets back and lifted Siobhain’s feet onto the floor.
Siobhain got out of bed and took off her clothes slowly, stripping down to her pants and vest. She took a grey V-neck jumper out of the chest of drawers and put it on. It was washed out and flared at the bottom. She put on a pair of purple nylon trousers and a blue wind cheater. The sleeves were elasticated at the ends and dug into the fat on her wrists.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Maureen.
‘The centre,’ replied Siobhain ‘It’s where I want to be.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Maureen. It was said out of a sense of duty: she had no real desire to spend a day sitting on a plastic chair in a smoky room.
‘No,’ Siobhain was very firm, ‘I can't get on with my business if you’re there.’ She shambled down the hall, as purposeful as a Golem, and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge door, took out a carton of milk and filled a pint glass, spread margarine on five slices of bread, stacked them on top of one another and carried the lot through to her bedroom. She sat down at the dressing table and began opening jars of pills, taking out her medication and laying it in front of her.
Leslie was stirring in the living room. She rolled onto her back and saw Maureen standing in the dark hall. ‘All right, Mauri?’ she said, rubbing her face and stretching. Her eyes were red and puffy.
‘Maybe you should get up, hen,’said Maureen.‘Siobhain’s on the move. She’s going out.’
‘Oh,’ said Leslie, sitting up. ‘She’s okay, then?’
‘Seems to be.’
Siobhain had finished taking her pills. She had replaced the lids on the jars and was working her way through the slices of bread and margarine. Maureen went into the living room and helped Leslie put the cushions back on the settee. Siobhain appeared in the doorway and Maureen looked up. ‘Are you off, wee hen?’
Siobhain nodded and walked down the hall. They could hear the front door opening. Maureen picked up the beeper and they grabbed their coats, scanning the living room to make sure they hadn’t left anything. They followed Siobhain out of the house, down the stairs and onto the street, catching up with her at the corner. Leslie touched Siobhain’s arm. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked. Siobhain didn’t seem to register the touch.
‘Siobhain’s going to the day centre,’ said Maureen, adding, ‘we’ll just walk round with ye,’ to Siobhain, in case she thought
she was talking over her.
They got to the main door and Siobhain walked in without looking back at them. ‘Is she all right, Mauri?’
‘I don't know,’ said Maureen. ‘She seems better but I don’t know what she’s like normally.’
She waited for a minute and slipped into the day centre after her. The sullen receptionist was behind the desk again. Her face lit up a flicker when Maureen walked in. ‘Heya,’ said Maureen. ‘See that lassie that just came in?’ ‘Fat lassie?’ said the girl, disparagingly.
‘Aye. She’s had a bad shock and I was just wondering if you could keep an eye on her. Just see she doesn’t get ill or something.’
The girl sighed. ‘Well, okay,’ she said, reluctantly. ‘I’ll phone later and check up on her,’ said Maureen when she got outside.
‘Listen,’ said Leslie, ‘I’ve got a few days owing. I could skive off and drive you about a bit if you like.’
‘Naw, I’ve got to go to the police station. I might be a while.’
The blue Ford followed Maureen to the bus stop and cruised around the block, waiting for her bus to arrive.
27
Gurtie
McEwan stood at the top of the stairs and gestured for her to come up. He was wearing a white T-shirt under an expensive blue silk suit.
‘Miami Vice,’ said Maureen, pointing at his outfit, knowing before it was out of her mouth that the comment was a mistake.
She followed him upstairs to their interview room. Face to face McEwan seemed just as domineering and confident as ever but as they walked along Maureen caught him watching her a couple of times, seeing how she was, as if trying to gauge how she was going to be with him. It was disconcerting. The McEwan she had known to date didn’t yield to other people’s moods: he decided where he wanted to go and just crashed on through like Godzilla in a suit, certain always that he was centre stage and the world was full of extras.
He opened the door to the interview room and stepped back, letting her go in without being told to.
Hugh McAskill was standing unassumingly by the radiator. He nodded a hello. McEwan sat down in his usual chair and turned on the tape-recorder. ‘Right, Maureen,’ he said quietly. ‘I want you to tell me everything you know about George I ward.’
He took out a packet of twenty Superdelux low tar cigarettes and offered them to her. She didn’t like them but took one to be genial.‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ she said.
McEwan lit his cigarette with a disposable lighter, which he put down in front of her. He exhaled and got smoke in his eye.‘No, you haven’t,’ he said calmly, looking at her as he rubbed his right eye with the tips of his fingers.
Maureen lit her cigarette and placed the lighter back on the table near McEwan.‘Yes, I have.’
He pulled a photocopy on A4 paper out from under his notes.‘We found this,’ he said, pushing it towards her.
It was the list Martin had written for her but the writing wasn’t in biro, it was written in a grainy charcoal. A couple of the names were indistinct, words and letters trailed off in various places.‘Shan Ryan’ read as ‘Sno Ruom’.
‘We found this imprint on a pad he kept in a drawer,’ said McEwan.‘It’s a list. He’s written your name at the top. What is it a list of?’
‘It’s a list of the staff who worked in the George I ward during the trouble.’
McEwan smirked unhappily.‘Why would he give you that?’
‘He wanted me to pass it on to you,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t get a chance‘
‘Maureen,’ he said, glancing at her with a tired, desperate look in his eyes,‘we’re not after your brother now, okay? And we know it wasn’t you. I know we’ve had our differences in the past but you really need to co-operate with me now. Do you understand?’
Maureen paused and looked at her cigarette. It would be wonderful to hand it over and step back, to relinquish responsibility and let McEwan do all the work, let him be responsible if anyone else was killed. But she thought about Yvonne with the rope burn on her leg, about poor dead Iona and about Siobhain, and knew she couldn’t hand them over to the police, that it would be an act of cowardice, that they would damage the women even more. McEwan hadn’t even asked how Siobhain was today.
‘Your neighbour in Garnethill phoned me.’
‘Which one?’ She watched his face, trying to anticipate what he knew.
‘The man who lives across the close from you,’ said McEwan.‘The Italian guy.’ ‘Right,’ said Maureen.‘Why?’
‘Your friend Brendan Gardner has been seen acting suspicious near your house. Did you send him up there for something?’ ‘Today?’
‘No, a week ago yesterday. You didn’t send him?’ She shook her head.‘No, I didn’t.’ ‘Does he ever drink?’
She didn’t want this: whatever Benny had done she didn’t want to be here, dubbing him up to the polis as if he was just a guy she knew.‘No,’ she said.‘He doesn’t drink any more. Hasn’t had a drink for three years.’ She must have looked upset because McEwan took it upon himself to lean across the table and pat her hand.
‘He’s not in the frame yet,’ he said.‘We’re just asking. We have to ask.’
‘What does“in the frame” mean?’
‘He’s not a suspect, he just keeps coming up.’
‘Siobhain didn’t tell you anything, did she? She didn’t tell you who raped them?’
McEwan sounded utterly exasperated.‘Why protect him? I don’t understand why she’d protect him like that.’ ‘She isn’t protecting him, she’s protecting herself.’ He thought about it.‘I don't understand.’ ‘Well, there are different reasons why people can’t tell.’ McEwan was watching her, listening intently.‘Siobhain could have been threatened during it. Some people feel that if they say it out loud it becomes real or they’ll make someone else dirty if they tell them about it, and other people have other reasons. She isn’t trying to outsmart you.’ He puffed his cigarette and looked sadly at the table. He seemed to be taking Siobhain’s inability to discuss her brutal rape as a personal reproach.‘Well, we’ll try again later,’ he said.
‘I don't think you should do that,’ said Maureen.‘You have no idea what you’re putting her through.’
He ignored her objections and sat upright, regaining his distance.‘What I was saying before is you don’t need to be defensive with us now. You can tell us everything you know.’ ‘I have told you everything.’
McEwan tapped the list.‘Why didn’t you give me this?’ ‘I just didn’t get a chance, Joe. You haven’t been over friendly and I wasn’t going to rush down here with the list so that you could call me a twat.’
He seemed hurt.‘I’ve never called you anything,’ he said. Maureen looked at him. McEwan was like a different man. He was being thoughtful and kind, comfortably displaying genuine emotions and he was asking her to help him without trying to bully her. He had been unbearably adversarial but now that he wasn’t suspicious of her Joe McEwan was almost likeable.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.‘I am sorry for calling you that. You were being very aggressive to me and I wasn’t on top form.’
‘Where is the list?’
‘At home.’
‘We’ll go and get it when we’ve finished here. Now, why were you getting lists off him and why were you visiting someone who was on the George I ward?’ ‘I’m just stuck in the middle of this,’ she said.‘Honestly, Joe, I’m not interviewing people before you get to them. I’ve known Siobhain for years and Martin gave me the list to give to you.’
McEwan seemed genuinely upset.‘Let’s go and get the list,’ he said heavily, and stood up, stepping behind her and lifting her coat from the back of her chair. He held it out for her and helped her into it carefully, lifting the heavy coat up her back and fitting the collar around her neck. She swung back
to the chair to get her bag and saw McEwan out of the corner of her eye. He was smiling to himself, a sly, private smile. Joe McEwan was at it.
The sullen temp was back for another eight hours sitting on the uncomfortable chair. Their full-time receptionist, a middle-aged woman with grey hair, had ME and kept having to take days off. The next time the agency phoned her with this job she’d tell them to get someone else. If she wasn’t saving up for the fortnight in Corfu she’d never have come here in the first place, never mind for a second time. The lobby was draughty and the whole place smelt of the stale smoke from the TV room.
And there was another thing. When she was taking her coat off that morning the mongol man with the tranny came straight up to the desk and tried to touch her on the chest. She wasn’t a nurse, she wasn’t trained to deal with maddies like that. She’d reported him to the back office but she heard them laughing when she walked away. When she went to get a cup of tea she saw the woman social worker holding his hand and the two of them were talking away, quite the thing.
At lunch-time she put the machine on, not that anyone phoned there anyway, and went around to the shops to buy a Wispa and a can of ginger to cheer herself up. The Weight Watchers said she could have a Wispa anyway as long as she took diet drinks and not the real ones. She bought a magazine as well because she had a plan: the desk in the lobby was high enough for her to hide a magazine under the shelf and read it when she was supposed to be working.
If she saw someone coming she could shove it under as they walked over to her and no one would be any the wiser.
The Wispa didn’t even last back to the day centre. She opened the can of diet ginger when she got back behind the desk, took a big mouthful, and turned the answerphone off. She opened the magazine and put it down, walked round the desk quickly and leaned over it from the other side. The magazine was invisible under the shelf. Feeling very clever, she skipped back round and sat down. She started reading a true story about a dog burial service who used the same coffin the whole time and charged all the clients £200 for it.