by Denise Mina
He turned the page on the pad.‘Bad ma uuera hurrel.’ Maureen read it several times.‘Bad ma uuera hurrel?’ He turned the page.‘HAD ME OVER A BARREL.’
‘You dubbed me up for your career? He was going to kill me, Benny.’
‘I BEEN CHARGED.’
‘What with?’
‘BREAKING.’
‘So your career’s fucked anyway, eh?’
Benny lay still, his hand resting on the pad. She took the Anti Dynamos T-shirt out of her bag and put it on the bed. ‘I brought your T-shirt back,’ she said.
He turned the page.‘PLEASE KEEP IT.’ ‘Don’t want it,’ she said, standing up and bending over the bed as if to kiss him. She forked her fingers, gave the blood-swollen flesh on his eyelids a vicious poke and walked out.
A small bald man was waiting for the lift. He wore blue overalls with ‘Albert’ printed in white across his shoulders. Maureen was breathing in unevenly to stop herself crying. The porter flashed her a consolatory smile.‘Are you all right, pet?’
‘Not really.’ She tried to smile back but failed, disabled by her trembling chin.
The lift arrived and he stepped back, letting her get in first.‘Ground floor?’ She nodded.‘Is it your boyfriend?’ he asked, pointing up to the ward. ‘No.’ She sniffed.‘Just a friend.’
‘Don’t worry, pet,’ he said.‘I’m sure your friend’ll be okay. We see miracles every day in here.’
The lift bounced to a gentle standstill at the ground floor. The doors opened on a crowd of waiting nurses. The porter waved her off in front of him.‘Thank you,’ she whispered, as she got out.
She stood next to the car and blew her nose before opening the door and getting in.‘Right, Liam,’ she said. ‘What’s on your mind? If you’ve got anything to tell me do it now.’
Liam took a deep breath and looked at his knees.‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. Tell me now.’
‘They didn’t say you killed Douglas.’
‘I gathered that much.’
‘Yeah, well, I had a good reason for lying.’ He stopped and touched the bruise on his neck, patting it twice with the pads of his fingers. He let his hand drop into his lap and looked out of the window, squinting at the cathedral. ‘Tell me.’
‘They do think there’s something wrong with your memory.’
‘That’s not all it’s about, though, is it?’
He picked at the rotting leatherette cover on the steering wheel.‘They said you’ve got false memory.’ ‘Tell me the whole story, Liam.’
Liam cleared his throat.‘I didn’t want to tell you the truth because I knew it’d do your head in.’
She turned suddenly and shouted at him,‘Why did you let me go there and make such a prick of myself, Liam? If they thought I was mental before, they’d—’
‘I told you to stay away from them,’ he said morosely. ‘I told you, Mauri. I said stay away.’ ‘Well, for fucksake.’
‘I said stay away.’
Maureen looked out of the window.‘Why did you lie to me?’ she said.
‘I didn’t want you to know.’
‘You didn’t want me to know what?’
Liam turned away, shaking his head. ‘Tell me.’
Dad’s back,’ he said flatly.‘That’s why Marie’s here. Dad’s back.’
37
Hugh
She stood on the steps of the church and tried to work out where the entrance was. He had said Thurso Street but St Francis was on Lorne Street. She walked down the hill to Thurso Street and leaned round the corner. A fence of high iron railings blocked the back from the road. She went back up the steps of the church and looked in through the open doors. A glass wall had been constructed five feet inside the chapel with doors on either side to keep out the cold and provide a soundproof area for noisy children.
The high altar was a white moulded wall of saints on a background of pseudo-Gothic drapery. The front two pews were busy with penitents, sitting down awaiting confession or kneeling on the far side of the aisle from the confessional boxes with their heads bent intently, doing their penance. Just inside the glass wall, on the very back bench, knelt a white-haired woman wearing an old-style black mantilla. She was saying her rosary, her windswept arthritic fingers flicking through the jet beads wrapped around her hand, her lips quivering as she recited the ‘Glory Be’, her pious head bent low.
Maureen looked to left and right. A small dark-wood door on the right-hand side of the entrance was slightly ajar. She walked over to it and pushed it open, peering round the corner. It was a long, narrow corridor running the full length of the chapel. She walked halfway down it before realizing where she was going.‘It’ll hardly be in the fucking sacristy,’ she muttered to herself, cursing for badness’ sake, because she was in a chapel and didn’t belong there.
Rather than knock on the parochial house door and ask where the meeting was, she decided to walk all the way round the church until she found the entrance. She discovered a dark alley between the next-door primary school and the back of the chapel and put her hand in her pocket, wrapping it around her stabbing comb before stepping into the dark. Bright trip-lights turned on as she walked down the narrow zigzag alley. She found herself at the top of a flight of steps. Straight in front of her was a small rickety wooden door covered in blistered brown gloss. A light shone out from under it. She trotted down the stairs and listened at the door. Someone was speaking– a woman was telling a funny story or something. Another voice interrupted her, a man’s voice. Maureen knocked on the door. The voices stopped and the door opened. A tall blonde woman wearing a smart black office suit looked out at her and smiled politely.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked in a lyrical, upper-class English accent.
The room behind her was very shabby. The concrete floor was bare and the cupboard under the sink unit had lost its doors. Patches of plaster were crumbling on the wall and the thick layer of blue paint looked as if it was holding the wall up. Maureen felt as if she had stumbled on a coven. ‘I’m looking for a guy called Hugh McAskill.’
The woman smiled pleasantly and leaned back into the room.‘Hugh, love, it’s for you.’
Hugh McAskill came to the door, beaming when he saw her. She grinned back, overjoyed to see him and his gappy teeth and his gold and silver hair.
‘Are you here for the meeting then?’ he asked.
‘Naw,’ she said, trying to disguise her delight.‘I just came to see ye.’
‘Come away in and get a cup of tea.’ He stepped back into the dingy room. The English woman looked disgruntled.‘It’s all right,’ he said.‘She’s one of us, she just doesn’t want to come up to the meeting yet, that's all.’
Maureen walked in and shut the door behind herself. The floor was angled slightly, tipping towards a drain in the middle of the floor; she could feel her calf muscles compensating for the gradient. Some smoked-glass cups, a plate of expensive chocolate biscuits and a steaming urn were sitting on a wobbly table. Four other middle-aged women were standing around in a group at the end of the room, looking at Maureen with benign curiosity. They stepped forward one at a time and introduced themselves by their first names.
The door opened behind Maureen and a ridiculously tall man in his early twenties came in, dipping his head under the low doorway.‘Hello, everyone,’ he called, looking around the room until he found the plate of biscuits. He made straight for them, picking up three and eating them whole. He looked at Maureen.‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Maureen O’Donnell.’
‘Are you an incest survivor?’
‘Um, yeah,’ she said, frowning and wishing he’d mind his own fucking business. His manner was so insistently cheerful that Maureen suspected she was looking at a profoundly unhappy man.
‘There’s no need to be embarrassed about that here,’ he said, grinning through a mouthfu
l of chocolate crumbs. ‘We’ve all been fucked by our families.’ He looked at her, expecting some sort of response but she couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘Great,’ she said.
McAskill pulled her aside, turning her so that her back was to the happy-sad man.‘What did you want to see me about?’ he said softly.
She lowered her voice, talking into his chest.‘I just wondered if Joe McEwan got a phone call of some kind . . . maybe from an exotic holiday destination?’
McAskill tilted his head back and laughed. She could see his fillings.‘You don’t give up, do you? D’you know Joe McEwan wants to throttle you? We’ve got a high-pro file case and a nutter shouting about fire.’
‘Angus’s prints matched the ones on Martin, then?’
‘Yeah, perfect, he even had one of those big knives with him.’
‘Where?’
‘In the leather bag.’
She rolled her eyes and breathed,‘Fuck.’
McAskill sighed along with her ‘You’re a lucky wee bugger, you,’ he said.
She nodded.‘Not half. What made McEwan think it was me?’
‘Well, you slipped surveillance and your prints were all over the note. They were pretty smudged, though. The nurse at the cottage hospital managed to hold the note in about fifty different ways before phoning us.’
McAskill smiled at her and she thought she might chance her arm.‘Can I ask you something, Hugh? Something about the case?’
He looked uncertain.‘Depends.’
‘Why did you stop looking for someone available in the day-time? Why did you start thinking it happened in the evening?’
He was stunned.‘How do you know about that?’ ‘Auch, I just do.’
He looked hurt.‘Are you talking to someone else?’
‘No, it’s just . . . I noticed that ye were asking about the day-time and then, about the second time McEwan interviewed Liam, you started asking about the evening.’
‘Oh,’ said McAskill, thinking it through.‘Right enough.’ He looked despondent.‘’Member the thing in the hall cupboard?’ ‘Yeah.’
‘It was decaying at a different rate from the rest of it. The timing was all messed up.’
‘Oh,’ she said, wishing to fuck she hadn’t asked.‘I see.’
‘Anyway,’ he said,‘McEwan thinks you did it to wind him up.’
‘Yeah, everything I do is about Joe McEwan.’ McAskill eyed her with earnest admiration.‘You did it for her, didn’t you, for your pal?’
Maureen didn’t want to talk about her motive just yet. She had been doing it for Siobhain and the other women right up to the moment when she ran forward and nutted him.‘Yeah. A bit. Anyway,’ she said, scratching her scalp, digging her nails deep into the skin,‘Joe’s annoyed but he’s not coming after me for anything?’
‘No, we couldn’t prove anything. The guy’s a mess but he’s got LSD all over his mouth and in his throat. We can’t say he didn’t take it himself. All we had was a drunk man in a chip shop who saw three strange women. The prints on the note are useless. There’s nothing we could do.’
‘God, I was lucky,’ she said, almost to herself.
‘Aye, you’re that, all right,’ he said.‘He fell over by the way, smashed his nose.’
A hot blush rose up the back of her neck.‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said perfunctorily.
‘Do ye want a biscuit?’ He leaned over, snatched the plate away from the young man and held them out to her. The chocolate was bitter and dark and so thick that when her teeth sank into it they caused a tiny vacuum.‘God in Heaven,’ she said.‘They’re lovely.’
‘Aye,’ said McAskill, looking lovingly at his biscuit.‘We get these every week.’ ‘Where is he now?’
‘Who, Joe?’
‘No, the guy from the exotic holiday destination.’
‘In Sunnyfield.’
‘The mental hospital?’
He shook his head solemnly.‘It’s not a mental hospital, it’s a state mental hospital.’ ‘What’s the difference?’
‘The public gives a damn about people in mental hospitals.’
‘Didn’t think it would last that long. It’s been five days.’
‘Yeah,’ said McAskill,‘ye can’t tell how long LSD’ll take. Anyway, he’s been charged so he’s going nowhere.’
The English woman in the black suit opened a little door in the wall. It led to a wooden spiral staircase.‘That’s us, everyone,’ she said.‘That’s eight o’clock.’
The waiting crowd picked up their cups of tea and made their way, single file, up the stairs.‘Sure you won’t come?’
‘Naw, Hugh, another time.’
‘You might enjoy it.’
‘Yeah, there's some stuff going on in my family . . . If I come upstairs I’ll just have to think about it and my head might burst.’
McAskill looked at her respectfully.‘I doubt that somehow. Come back though, eh? If only for the biscuits.’ She poked him softly in the ribs.‘I’ll come back to see you.’
He grinned.‘You do that.’
He watched her as she walked out into the brightly lit alley and pulled the door closed behind her.
38
Angus
Siobhain had been shopping with her roll of Douglas’s money and bought a television with a thirty-two-inch screen. It had a video machine built into the body, detachable stereo speakers and its own matching matt black stand. It dwarfed everything else in her living room. Even the gas fire on the wall looked like a toy next to the monster telly. Leslie uncoiled the flex and plugged it in. Maureen stepped forward to turn it on.‘No,’ said Siobhain.‘Watch.’
She took the remote control out of the plastic bag,fitted the batteries into it and pressed a button. The magnificent television came to life. They stood back and looked at it.
‘Wow,’ said Leslie.‘I’m not mad keen on TV but that is a thing of fucking beauty.’
‘Don’t swear,’ said Siobhain, reading the instructions for her remote control. ‘Eh?’
‘I said don’t swear, not in my house. There’s no need for bad language.’
She played with the remote, skipping backwards and forwards between channels, increasing and decreasing the volume and colour at each stop, oblivious to Leslie who was flicking the vickies at her behind her back.
‘And it goes like a five bob rocket, as well,’ said Maureen, trying to keep the peace. She looked at Siobhain, not knowing if it was the right time. She reached into her bag and pulled out the corner of the video-tape, showing it to Leslie. Leslie nodded softly.‘I’ll just go for a quick hit-and-miss,’ she said jauntily, and disappeared into the bathroom. ‘Siobhain,’said Maureen,‘I want to show you a videotape. It’s something I got off the telly last night. D’you want to see it?’ ‘Okay.’
Maureen took out the tape and put it into the machine ‘It’s got a picture of Angus on it,’ she said.
‘Angus who?’ said Siobhain, still absorbed by the remote.
‘Angus Farrell.’
‘Oh.’
Maureen was expecting a bigger response, tears or a fit of muteness, but not this casual disinterest. She put the tape in anyway.
‘Is it rewound?’ asked Siobhain.
‘Yeah, just turn it on.’
Siobhain changed to the video channel and pressed Play. The woman news-reader looked nineteen eighty-fourish on the enormous screen. The footage showed slow-motion detail of Angus being led from a big stone doorway into a waiting police van. He was handcuffed to a police escort. His nose was flattened to the side like a boxer’s and he didn’t have his glasses on. His mouth was hanging open. The voice-over said he had been charged with murdering Douglas Brady and another man. He was to be held at Sunnyfield state mental hospital on a temporary basis for further treatment. Carol Brady came on and said tearfully that she was grateful t
o the police for all their sterling work and she just wanted to be left alone with her family now. The report ended and a black line rose swiftly up the screen, wiping the picture away.
‘It’s broken,’ said Siobhain, and banged the remote with the flat of her hand, changing the channel to a documentary about skiing.
‘No, Siobhain,’ said Maureen.‘That’s it. I stopped taping at that point.’
It took a minute for the information to register.‘Oh,’ said Siobhain.‘Is it all there is on that tape?’ ‘Yes, that’s the end of the story.’
‘But if I put on a different tape it will be all right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘All right, then.’
She took the full instruction booklet out of the big box and started reading it. Maureen coughed. Siobhain glanced over at her feet and went back to her reading. For a long shaky moment Maureen thought she’d got the wrong guy. ‘So,’ said Maureen.‘How do you feel about Angus now?’ Siobhain shrugged.‘He can’t hurt me now.’
Maureen breathed a sigh of relief.‘That’s right.’ She smiled encouragingly.‘He can’t hurt you because he’s in a prison hospital and he’ll be staying there for a long time.’ ‘No,’ said Siobhain disagreeably, looking at Maureen as if she were stupid.‘He can’t hurt me because I have friends now, because I have you and Leslie to look after me.’
‘Well, yes,’nodded Maureen,‘yes. There’s that too.’Siobhain went back to her reading.
‘Hoi, Mauri,’ called Leslie from the hall.‘Let’s get tae fuck out of here or we’ll miss the police changing shifts.’
‘Yeah.’ Maureen stood up.‘We’re away, then.’ Siobhain said goodbye without looking up.
Out on the street Leslie handed Maureen a helmet. Did you get water?’ she said.
‘Yeah, it’s in the tub,’ said Maureen, tapping the plastic pot of paste in the open luggage box. Next to it were the posters.
‘That’s shit paper,’ said Leslie.‘It’ll melt like toilet paper if it rains.’
‘Yeah, but it cost next to nothing and it doesn’t need to last for ever.’
‘Far be it from me to say this,’ said Leslie, slipping on her helmet,‘but Siobhain’s a prick.’