The Less Dead

by Denise Mina

  ‘Until he does. I know he’s enjoying upsetting me.’ Nikki gives a bitter smile. ‘I know that’s why he does it. But know that film? The one about the cop? With her in it?’ She clicks her fingers, trying to remember. ‘You know the one: he’s a psychiatrist in the FBI and she’s a cop? If they don’t catch him in time he’ll kill again?’

  ‘Isn’t that all of them?’

  ‘But in that one he doesn’t care about killing them, he wants to scare them. He does kill them at the end but what he enjoys is their fear, he’s getting off on it, like –’ She mimes masturbating a man slightly too vividly. She all but spits on her hand.

  The conversation has taken quite a bizarre turn. Margo’s already allowing for the fact that long-term drug misuse would leave Nikki disinhibited, with strange patterns of speech and odd coping strategies, possible memory gaps, but eloquently miming a handjob is quite hardcore especially when it’s done in the first five minutes of a family reunion by a woman in her mid-fifties. Nikki knows she’s done something wrong but rattles on anyway. ‘If you won’t look up his record, you could get someone else to do it, couldn’t you?’

  Margo shakes her head. ‘I’m not doing that.’

  ‘OK.’ Nikki huffs in exasperation. ‘Well, here’s another thing you can do: I’ve got samples of his DNA. I can prove that he killed Susan but the cops won’t even test it.’

  ‘Where are the samples from?’

  ‘On the letters.’

  ‘Well, if that pans out what you’ve got there is proof that he wrote the letters, not that he did the murder.’

  ‘But only the murderer could write the letters because he sends me things she had with her that night, the night he killed her. I’ve got the proof. What I need is a doctor to test it.’

  ‘You don’t need a doctor, you need a DNA lab.’

  But Nikki isn’t listening. ‘See today? I was at that High Court, some poor guy with a Russian name, Moorov, he’s up for one of those old murders. DNA. He wasn’t even in the frame back then, they thought it was her boyfriend.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I was waiting for the case to come up but they didn’t call it. We were all waiting for hours. I had to be there, for Susan. This is what I’m saying about being psychic, the timing and everything.’

  Margo concedes. ‘Well, that is quite weird.’

  And Nikki warms to her. ‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it, though?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But I mean, what does it mean? Meeting you on the same day that that comes up: nothing. It means nothing. But it is weird.’

  ‘It is quite weird.’

  They have reached a consensus: this is quite weird. And somehow it bridges the gap between them because the will to connect is there. But Margo sees Nikki suddenly wonder how she can use her to get what she wants.

  ‘I thought McPhail might be there today.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He did this one as well. He’d be there enjoying it. Watching all of us. They’re saying they’ve found this Russian’s DNA on the lassie. Does that mean he’s killed her? I don’t know. Could have been McPhail again. The girl was working the streets, for fucksake, she’d have been teeming with DNA. But see –’ she leans in to Margo–‘the DNA on those letters–that’s definitely just him.’

  ‘So… sorry, what actually happened to Susan?’

  Nikki takes a breath and slows herself down. ‘She was abducted in a van. She was murdered. Her body was dumped at a bus stop in Easterhouse and found the next morning.’

  ‘Gosh, and this was…?’

  ‘October 12th 1989. The anniversary is just by. I light a candle… No one else really remembers but back then it was like Jack the Ripper times. Girls were dropping like flies out there and no one remembers. Cops didn’t bother their arses, no one cares, but you could help me if you wanted. You could look at his record. You could test his DNA.’

  ‘I see.’ Margo has partially shut down. She’s a public servant herself and knows that police officers don’t do things like that. People don’t get murdered and no one cares. She has information to harvest and then she wants to go. ‘How old was Susan when she had me?’

  Nikki shrugs. ‘Nineteen?’

  ‘Oh, not quite as young as I thought…’ She had supposed Susan was a mid-teen, perhaps too young to look after a baby. Nineteen seems quite grown up.

  ‘So, the cops refused to admit McPhail could have done it. Still refuse. But he was corrupt. He was giving out baggies for blow jobs, was rough, was taking girls in his car, two, three at a time, he had a thing about pissing. I mean we all knew him, me, Susan, all the lassies out there, working on the street for our drug money, oh aye, we all knew.’

  Did Nikki just tell Margo that her birth mother was a drug-addicted street prostitute? Margo looks up and sees that she did. Nikki watches it land. Margo doesn’t think she meant to be mean when she told her though. It just seemed to come out.

  ‘Right?’ says Margo. ‘Susan? She was…’ Descriptors fail her. ‘Out there?’

  ‘She didn’t want to be. No one does. She was doing it because she was desperate with the drugs, our Susan. Just, incredible, the worst I’ve ever seen. Never seen anyone as bad with it. She was spending three hundred quid a day.’ Nikki flattens her hand to her chest. ‘Me? At my worst two hundred, and I was bad.’

  ‘And this addiction led Susan into… sex work?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Worked the Drag down Anderson way and men was down there, preying on us like Jack the Ripper. Just like him, just as vicious. Some people think it was one guy, some folk think it was all McPhail –’

  ‘Nikki… this is too much.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, so–not the records but will you help me with the DNA?’

  ‘No, I mean this whole thing, it’s too much. I’m just here to find out where I came from, this isn’t for me.’

  ‘But she’s your mum.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  Margo clears her throat. She’s afraid to look up and meet Nikki’s eye.

  Out in the office they can hear Tracey fixing the tea, opening the fridge door to get the milk–pphhut–closing it–poup–laying a tray. Margo is planning how to get away from Nikki. When they get down to the street she’ll run or jump a cab, because fuck this.

  ‘You’re like everyone else,’ whispers Nikki. ‘You don’t care.’

  ‘I do, Nikki, but I’m not here to get involved in something… it’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘You could help if you wanted to.’ Nikki narrows her eyes. ‘You’re clever. A clever lassie.’

  Nikki doesn’t know if Margo is clever; what she means is Margo is middle class and people will listen to her, that she has access to resources and medical files and DNA labs and Nikki doesn’t. Margo does have access to those things and she retains access because she plays by the rules, understands the limitations, knows when to shut up and knows not to accuse the police of conspiracy.

  ‘I think Tracey wants to shut the office.’

  ‘You don’t care.’

  ‘I really think you should give the letters to the police.’

  ‘I did. They said they meant nothing.’

  ‘Well, if the police say that –’

  ‘You could do the DNA on them.’

  ‘Look: DNA tests are only confirmatory and they cost money and would be completely pointless in this instance because I don’t have access to a database to compare a sample to.’

  ‘Can’t you get access to one?’

  Nikki’s upset but there’s so much to explain that Margo doesn’t know where to start. She just wants to get up and leave, but just at that moment, Nikki wipes her nose with her hand. She wipes left to right and left again, using her index finger, curling her hand on the recoil. It’s a very specific gesture executed in a very specific way. She has a mild crease on her left nostril showing where she has been repeating that exact movement for years. Margo did that. She used to always do that until Janette berated her to stop–use a handkerchi
ef, for goodness’ sake, that’s revolting. She still has to remind herself not to. She has never, ever seen anyone else do it.

  ‘Because you’re a doctor. I mean, if you can’t do it, who will?’

  ‘Nikki,’ Margo says carefully, ‘please listen to me: I’m not getting involved in that. It’s not that I won’t help you, it’s that I can’t help you. I’m trying to be very clear. You’ve misunderstood the procedure involved in getting access to medical records and what is achieved by sampling DNA.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’ Nikki crosses her legs away. ‘OK, well, fine. What do you want to talk about then, if you don’t want to talk about Susan?’

  Me, thinks Margo. I want to talk about me. ‘I do want to talk about Susan –’

  ‘It was hard for an addict to go through with a full pregnancy, you know, it was hard for all of us.’

  That’s the end of it for Margo. ‘Look, I know Susan was clean when she had me.’

  Nikki looks guilty. ‘No, she wasn’t. She was a heroin user, she was caning it up to the last minute before you were born –’

  ‘No, she wasn’t. I know that’s not true.’

  She can see Nikki trying to work out how she knows that. ‘No, but –’

  ‘Because I was handed over to Janette at two days. If Susan was using when she gave birth to me I would have been kept in for longer. Any baby born to an active drug user would be kept in intensive care, they’d be monitored and bloods would be taken, they wouldn’t be released for weeks. My birth weight was over nine pounds. Susan must have been clean. If there was any suggestion that she was using they would have kept me in for observation.’

  Nikki blinks hard. She half shakes her head and whispers, ‘Yeah, well, the gear was a lot weaker then.’

  But Susan was clean. Margo has thought hard about that over the years. It matters to her because she has worried about damage that might have been done to her in utero, missing neurological paths and attachment issues. She has obsessed about genetics, most adoptees do, and as a medical student her interest took on an extra dimension.

  Nikki is lying but patients lie to doctors all the time, as if the counter-evidence isn’t carved into their lungs and ventricles and livers. Sometimes it’s not because they’re ashamed or malicious. Sometimes it’s a coded way to impart important information: I am in pain, I’m depressed, my drinking is compulsive.

  Margo suddenly thinks that maybe Nikki isn’t lying about Susan because she’s vindictive and manipulative. Maybe she’s just nuts and people can’t always help that. Is Nikki really saying: I cared for you before you were born so be nice to me? Maybe Susan is alive. Maybe Nikki is Susan. Maybe she couldn’t face Margo as herself, but why would she choose that story? She could have said Susan died arranging flowers or saving a dog from a river or something because this corrupt cop murder story isn’t making Margo interested. It’s making her want to run away.

  ‘Here we are!’ Tracey comes back in with a breezy smile and a tray with a mug, a selection of sugar sachets standing upright in a glass, a carton of milk and a plate of biscuits. ‘Tea!’

  There’s a lot of messing around with the tea, does Nikki want milk, sugar or sweetener? Biscuit? Have you tried these ones? Nikki answers politely, fluent in the universal coded language of biscuits: these are lovely, I’ve had them before, have you tried the Lidl version? They’re great. These have nicer chocolate though.

  Margo nods and shakes her head and wonders about Nikki having the presence of mind to wait until Tracey was out of the room before saying all that mad stuff.

  ‘Where was Susan living when she had me?’

  ‘Wi’ Barney Keith.’

  ‘Can you tell me more about her? Anything?’

  ‘Looked like you. Same hair.’

  She’s already said that.

  ‘Did she like music? Did she keep well? Did she have asthma or eczema?’

  ‘Oh, now you want me to help you?’ Nikki eats her biscuit angrily and looks at Tracey. Then she downs her tea in a oner and is on her feet, indicating that Margo should get up.

  ‘OK. Come on then. We’ll go to a pub and I’ll answer your questions and we can talk about the DNA thing.’ She says to Tracey, ‘Thanks for your help. We’re offski.’

  Tracey isn’t sure about them leaving together so soon after meeting and she asks to talk to Margo alone. They put Nikki out in the corridor and shut the door and Tracey asks if Margo is happy to leave with her aunt. Margo isn’t but she just wants to get out now so she says it’s fine. Thank you for your patience. Tracey’ll phone Margo tomorrow and check everything is OK.

  Nikki is invited back in and sees that she has won without being told. They gather their things, sign some papers and Nikki apologises to Tracey for being ‘that wee bit late’ as they pull on their jackets and scarves.

  They leave the office and walk downstairs together, their steps slowing as they move from oppressive warmth to the cold. The strangeness of the situation dawns on both of them: they look alike but they’re not alike. They’re family but they’re not family.

  As they pass the glass door into a dark office suite Margo catches their reflection. She looks like a stodgy social worker, escorting a difficult client to an appointment she simply must attend. They don’t fit together at all.

  Margo has not had a cloistered life. She worked in Accident and Emergency for two years and has dealt with people from all over the city, set bones, extracted knives from legs and glass from faces, but this is too much for her. It’s mad and sad and makes no narrative sense. Nikki doesn’t care how she feels about this.

  They pass through the foyer and step out into the cold street.

  It’s dark. The temperature has plummeted. A crisp frost is forming on the pavement and the bonnets of parked cars. It was sunny and bright when Margo went in. She feels as if Nikki has stolen the day from her.

  ‘Mon, well,’ Nikki pulls her by the elbow to George Square.

  Shoulder to shoulder with her confabulating aunt, she walks towards the corner. There’s a pub across the street–that’s where Nikki is taking her. It has steep stairs up to the entrance. Margo has been in George Square hundreds of times, for concerts and demos and Hogmanay parties, cutting across it to Queen Street Station. She’d swear on her life that she has never, ever seen that pub before. Red blinds are pulled low in all the windows. She feels as if she’ll never get out if she goes in.

  The traffic favours them and they cross straight over, dazzled by the headlights of waiting cars, stark against the dark. Nikki is walking so fluidly that she seems to be falling forwards in a dance, leading with her chin, hardly breaking step as they reach the kerb and she skips up the steps to the pub door. Margo knows that whatever is said in there will just involve her saying more noes to Nikki, no to losing her licence to challenge a conspiracy that doesn’t exist, no to trying to save a mother who has already died.

  ‘Nikki.’ Margo stops at the bottom of the steps and looks up at her.

  Nikki turns back, smiling, her face a question.

  ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t… I just don’t know how…’ Margo backs away, turns to the road. She waves a panicky arm and a passing taxi draws into the kerb. She’s opening the door and scrambling in before the driver even gets the handbrake on.

  The taxi pulls away and she keeps her eyes front, sees Nikki’s silhouette from the corner of her eye as it slides past the window. The taxi turns a corner and she sits back, taking deep calming breaths.

  She did the right thing. She did what she could. She doesn’t owe Nikki anything. She did the right thing. She’s allowed to leave. She can choose.

  The taxi rumbles down through the town and she takes her phone out and googles ‘Susan Brodie’, ‘Glasgow’ and ‘murder’.

  And this is how she finds out that Nikki was telling the truth.

  Mostly.

  4

  WATCHING THE TWO OF them coming out of the door, walking down the street like a pair of bitches with somewhere to go. Two of them. Nikk
i and a woman who is Susan Brodie’s double. But older than Susan. Susan if she’d got older.

  It’s exciting, watching the traces of the long-dead girl in a new face, shuffling along behind Nikki, along the pavement to the lights, over the road, going straight for a pub.

  Nikki’s doing her usual: looking for something to take the edge off.

  Nikki Brodie looks a million years old now. Skinny, nothing to her, face like a bag of balls, teeth all different. The new teeth change the shape of her face completely. She’s dressed up all clean and normal like she’s going to a probation hearing. No pelmet skirts or bra tops, none of the shit she used to wear. She looks boring and respectable. Ridiculous for someone like that, who’s done the things she’s done, things she’s done with that dry old body.

  How many did she take on? How many alleys and billboards did she go behind, demean herself, dirty herself, rolling in the filth there and smiling when the money was put in her hands? Yet there she is, walking along a road like a clean, normal person, pushing the button at the lights. Anyone could touch that button after her. A clean, decent person could touch it, a child could press it and get the traces of Nikki Brodie on their hand. She dirties everything she touches.

  Something happens on the pub stairs, can’t see what, can’t hear, but then the Susan-looking one is backing away, she seems scared. Maybe she has seen the filthiness of Nikki Brodie, the squalor of her, and got disgusted and needed to run.

  Maybe other people can see it too, that Nikki Brodie is nothing but a stain.

  5

  IT’S DARK INSIDE THE taxi cab but Margo is staring into the bright face of her phone. She’s mesmerised by only the second photograph she has ever seen of her birth mother. Susan looks even more like her in this one than the one Nikki gave her because she’s not smiling.

  Susan is sitting against a blank white background. She looks unsure, her expression wary, as she watches someone to the left of the frame. Someone behind the camera seems to be directing her. She’s wearing a coat with a furry collar and is catastrophically thin. Her cheeks are hollow, she has a cluster of cold sores on one side of her mouth but has lip-pencilled over them. She looks very young, still very much like Margo but a splinter Margo, one who lost a bet with life. It’s a strange photograph for a newspaper article to use of a victim.