The Less Dead

by Denise Mina

  They lead the dogs down the dark servants’ corridor to a bright kitchen with a big black range. Lilah pours dried food pellets in their bowls and replaces the water.

  Muttley and Pitstop are her current foster-dogs but she still misses her original foster charge. Huntly, thin as a string and almost blue in colour, was an Italian greyhound who hated walks, food, noise and people. Margo thinks Lilah loved him so much just because he looked like her. Pitstop and Muttley’s owner is in hospital, no one ever said what the old man had or if he’ll be coming back, but Lilah has volunteered to look after them. She wants a dog of her own but she’s not ready for the commitment.

  Lilah has just moved home after ten years in London. She has left yet another disastrous relationship, one in an ongoing series, and Margo is struggling not to blame her for being victimised, while working out the pattern: are the men giving off potential stalker signs or is she doing something to them? What the hell keeps happening with these awful men she’s going out with? This is the third time it’s happened and Lilah is so deep into it she doesn’t seem to know that it’s not normal for couples to spy on each other.

  They put coats on the two dogs, attach their leads and carry them down the stairs to the street. Margo takes Pitstop, a wiry bitch with a warm, bald belly freckled with enormous nipples. The old dog pants happily, watching where they’re going and Margo finds herself unthinkingly kissing the dog’s soft ears.

  Outside, they put the dogs down and walk straight to a cafe in Kelvingrove Park. Lilah says it’s OK, the dogs can’t be arsed walking about in the cold any more than they can.

  They sit outside for the dogs’ sake and order hot chocolate. The dogs lie down at their feet and Muttley instantly falls asleep.

  ‘It’s only two hours away,’ Lilah says.

  ‘Are you aware that the world is on fire? We shouldn’t be flying around all the time.’

  ‘The flight is going whether we’re on it or not. In many ways it’s worse if it goes and we’re not on it, Margo, that’s actually really wasteful.’

  Margo smiles despite herself.

  ‘I know it’s wrong but it was a last-minute deal. Fifty quid each and I could do with getting out of here.’

  ‘What about Muttley and Pitstop?’

  ‘I can get someone to cover for me.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to do that, Lilah. What if the house gets robbed or something? What about the dogs?’

  She considers this. ‘We could leave out loads of grub and let them piss and shit in the house and clean it up when we get back?’

  ‘How is this a “we” thing?’

  The cafe is next to a swing park, deserted during school hours. Lilah seems to know all the dog owners in the park already. A broad, bearded man proudly walking two small French bulldogs with muzzles and harnesses waves to her from the side gate. An old lady dressed in a fur coat trills Morning! to her as she walks along with a rough collie on the path by the cafe. A professional dog walker with five random dogs calls to her in a crackled voice and asks after Muttley and Pitstop’s owner.

  ‘Still no word, Shirley,’ Lilah calls back.

  ‘You’re like the mayor of the dog owners,’ says Margo.

  ‘Because I’m fostering. They like me because they’re thinking about what would happen to their own poor dogs if they got ill,’ says Lilah.

  She’s an unlikely hero. Lilah’s tall and skinny and looks like an art deco ornament. She wears charcoal eyeliner on her big blue eyes, and a Louise Brooks bob so dark that it sheens blue. As with all great natural beauties, she simultaneously doesn’t feel attractive and frets about losing her looks. She once flew to London and spent two hundred and fifty quid having her hair dyed the same colour as it was when she left. Recently, at a Botox party, the man got drunk and injected her too much. Lilah says her forehead now looks like a really good skin graft after a really bad fire.

  ‘The Blue Lagoon is fabulous.’ Lilah catches the waitress’s eye and waves her empty cup to ask for another hot chocolate. ‘It’s a geo-spa and the hot springs are outside, you’re surrounded by snow, they have mineral exfoliating treatments, your skin feels amazing.’

  ‘A rough flannel in the bath at home does the same thing.’

  ‘Don’t you ever want to just fucking run away?’

  ‘Right now, very much. I got an abusive letter from that auntie I met last night. Said she’s going to stab my tits.’

  She shows her the letter and Lilah reads it.

  ‘Well, she’s quite the crazy bitch!’ she declares.

  ‘Major,’ agrees Margo. ‘It was hand-delivered in the middle of the night and I can’t work out how she got into my building or how she knew where I lived. That’s what really bothered me, not the threats or whatever, just: how did she get in?’

  Lilah gives her the letter back. ‘Quite shit threats as well.’

  But she doesn’t know about the scene-of-crime photograph.

  ‘Yeah.’ Margo looks at the letter again. ‘Threats have really come on in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so. Reading this is like a twelve-year-old telling you you’re smelly.’ She fits it back in the envelope. ‘Think she’s trying to suck me into her crazy world view. She thinks a killer is on the loose.’

  ‘Well, that does sound fun.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got windmills of my own to tilt at just now. Are you going to tell me what happened with Richard last night?’

  ‘I will, I will, I will, darling…’ Lilah’s accent has changed since they left school but so has Margo’s. They never talk about it openly but Thomas, drunk, once said that Margo’s accent had gravitated down, Lilah’s had gone up and if you split the difference you’d get somewhere near the truth.

  When they were younger Margo loved Lilah so completely that she half hoped she would end up with Thomas. She imagined them all forming a family unit together, Christmas dinners at home and Margo fussing over their many, many children. She found ways to engineer nights when they were all together, trips to the movies and nights in student unions, but Thomas never made a move. She couldn’t understand it. Lilah was adorable, everybody agreed. She never understood until Thomas told her: Lilah is a pain in the arse, he said. No one needs to be that charming. She’ll end up in prison. She’s feckless and goading and she’d steal the eyes out of your head.

  Margo and Lilah’s friendship is intense, they see themselves in each other, which can be good and bad. Lilah lost weight in fifth year, really a lot of weight, going from a plump girl to underweight in just a few months. Margo hadn’t cared about her weight before, never really thought about it, but then she lost weight too. Slimness was suddenly a currency between them. They got thin at each other. Whenever Margo went to bed hungry or found clothes were too big for her or bought a size XS in a sale, it was Lilah she thought of, and it wasn’t kindly. She loved Lilah and Lilah loved her but the competitive undercurrent was occasionally tinged with malice.

  Lilah almost never forgave Margo for getting into medicine because she wasn’t academic. She couldn’t sit for hours the way Margo did, copying out textbooks or underlining passages and reading them three times. Lilah was good at everything else but Margo could do this. Lilah might be what got Margo into medical school. When their class gathered in the school hall to get their final exam results it was Lilah that Margo was scanning the crowd for. She was the person Margo wanted to crow at. She loved being kind about Lilah’s failure.

  Margo sometimes wondered if they actually hated each other, if they were secretly attracted to each other or thought they were each other. There was always something of the other-self in her feelings for Lilah. But Margo didn’t have that relationship with other female friends and Lilah always seemed to. Whatever it was and wherever it came from, Margo didn’t feel right when she didn’t see her regularly. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was sisterhood. Maybe it was competitiveness. It was no accident that they ended up going out with brothers.

  She was down visiting Lilah for New Year and Ri
chard invited his brother over. Margo was half expecting more of the same when in walked a hippy in ill-fitting cycling tights and a hi-vis jacket. Joe cut across Richard’s braying monologues and made them all get food-van dinners and walk along the South Bank. He was like the anti-Richard. They’d been together for two years and she often wonders why she isn’t with him now.

  Lilah is telling her the story of last night, trying to make light of it but it’s an uphill struggle.

  The baby shower was going well, they were all tipsy, apart from Emma, obviously, because she’s eight months pregnant. They were in the kitchen and Deborah (they both hate Deborah) was in the middle of a brilliant drunk confession about Paul (this is delicious because they both hate Paul even more than they hate Deborah. He’s a humourless know-all who stands too close when he talks to you and is always doling out advice about things he knows nothing about). Anyway, Paul hasn’t touched Deborah for ten months, she thought he was having an affair but it turns out that he watches porn all the time and is functionally impotent. They’re going to couples counselling and Deborah is livid that Paul has to do a sex-fast for two months and that’ll be a year since she’s had sex. She was sobbing into her Chardonnay because she’s so ‘lonely’.

  Lilah and Margo laugh unkindly but Margo feels bad and tuts and says, ‘Oh, poor Deborah!’ and then they laugh even more because it’s such a half-arsed attempt at disguising schadenfreude. Lilah says they were all being kind and trying to listen without laughing when they heard someone kicking the front door. It was Richard and he was screaming for Lilah.

  They piled into the front room to see what was going on and Richard saw Lilah in there, lost it and smashed a big window, all the glass fell into the living room, and then he just stood outside, in a state of utter broiling annoyance, didn’t even try to come in, he just stood outside shouting in at her about his money.

  Well, Lilah shouts back to Richard, this isn’t exactly restoring my faith in your mental health, is it? Following me around and smashing bloody windows. This isn’t even my house, Richard. You’re smashing windows on other people’s houses. Do you see how mental that is?

  Anyway, one of the girls got freaked out and called the police, so annoying, and when they came Richard said it was just an accident, that he turned round too quickly, his bag banged on the glass and it was really heavy because it had his laptop in it and that was what smashed the glass. It would have been fine, they’d have let him go of course, but because Joe had reported him to the police that other time, well, they looked it up and things got serious from there. They took him in and held him for hours and he’s fucking furious now. She flashes Margo a reproachful look, as if she’s responsible for Joe calling the police. They were in a restaurant and Richard threw wine over Lilah. No one was even looking at Joe, they were caught up in the fight at the table. Margo moved out shortly afterwards during an argument. Nothing has been the same since.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Margo.

  ‘Oh, no,’ says Lilah, reaching across the table and squeezing her forearm, ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  They look each other in the eye and smile because she did mean that, she meant exactly that, and they know each other too well to lie.

  Margo shouldn’t have told Joe all the things Lilah told her about Richard, the passport confiscation, the punching her ribs when no one was looking and taking her keys so she couldn’t leave the house. Lilah told her those things in confidence, she loves a secret. Now Margo is shamed for letting Lilah down and she’s furious with Joe for telling. She’s a bad friend. Joe says Lilah’s secrets are bullshit, that she uses them to control her friends. Now he won’t even talk about it because he says that’s what he thinks and what’s the point?

  ‘How does Richard know where Emma lives? I thought she’d just moved. Did he follow you there?’

  ‘No, he got there two hours into the evening. Someone must have phoned him.’

  ‘Give the money back for Godsake, Lilah!’

  ‘I didn’t take it.’ But Margo can tell she did from the way she dips her chin to let her hair fall over her face and changes the subject. ‘You in touch with Joe again?’

  ‘No!’ But Margo is lying too. She’s lying to Lilah, trying to set an example because she’s afraid that if Lilah knows she’s seeing Joe sometimes then Lilah will immediately get back with Richard. Joe is problematic but Richard is dangerous.

  Lilah shakes her head sadly. ‘You’re taking Richard’s side on the money issue?’

  ‘It’s not about sides any more. Give him his stuff back and sue him for back wages. If Joe’s right –’

  ‘If?’

  ‘Well, he says when you leave an abusive relationship, that’s the dangerous time. You might need to do more than pretend it isn’t happening. Maybe you need to go to the police about him and get a restraining order.’

  Lilah is quiet for a moment. Margo thinks she’s still a bit in love with Richard. He was very glamorous when they first met. He flew all over the Middle East on buying trips, drove a big car, had a house in Mayfair.

  ‘Come away with me, Margo. I want to get out of here.’

  ‘No. You always want to get out of here.’ She sighs and stirs the chocolate up from the bottom of her drink. ‘This woman, the auntie, she was a drug user and she said Susan was using heroin when she had me. She wasn’t though. Why would she lie about that?’

  ‘Is she slagging her? Did she hate her?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t remember? If she was off her face a lot of the time she might just not know.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem uncertain. She thinks she knows who killed her.’

  ‘Maybe she killed her.’

  ‘I wondered.’

  ‘Well, this is too sad for me. I just want to go away somewhere lovely.’ Lilah sucks her cheeks in. She looks amazing when she does that, she knows she does. ‘I mean, Margo, as you know, I sweat justice but I’m also a fan of deep-tissue massages, so…’ She pretends to weigh up the two options and makes Margo laugh.

  Lilah says that, before Richard had his little drama, the girls were asking why Margo wasn’t there and Lilah told them she was at the adoption agency meeting her birth family. They were all very sympathetic.

  Margo doesn’t want to be pitied. As Lilah talks on about Richard, about how having a restraining order will just wind him up and Joe should fuck off and mind his business, she composes a heavily edited paragraph about Nikki that makes it sound good: we did meet and it was lovely. She’s a lovely lady. Overcome so much. Tried so hard to find me. She works in a cake shop. She tries it out on Lilah and it works.

  So Margo tells the rest of the depressing story in a funny way, tells her about Nikki’s conviction that she was in Silence of the Lambs. ‘He still writes to me…’ She does it in a witchy voice. She mimics Tracey’s odd walk. They laugh about that for quite a long time.

  Then she tells her about the photograph of the crime scene. She can’t make that bit funny. When she thinks about it, it makes her feel cold and sad and afraid. Lilah says ooo, yeuw, the letter writer mentioned that, didn’t they? Maybe they saw it on the Internet too? She should get that picture taken down. Margo tells her Tracey is trying to do that for her but she’s a bit odd, Tracey. Margo’s not sure about her at all.

  ‘Come away with me?’ whines Lilah, clawing at the table.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll pay for you if the fifty quid is an issue?’

  Margo drops her spoon and looks at Lilah. ‘You know I hate spas. I hate that bit where a teenager in a lab coat explains that rubbing jam on your shins will reverse your kidney function. Can’t listen to that crap.’

  They’ve had this conversation before.

  ‘The great thing here,’ says Lilah, ‘is there’s a language barrier, that’s what’s so great about this one, and swimming…’ She knows Margo likes swimming. ‘I thought it would be nice for us to spend a bit of time together because, you know, of all the stuff goi
ng on.’

  Is Lilah finally admitting that she’s in an abusive relationship? Margo looks at her and sees that she isn’t. The stuff Lilah’s talking about is Margo’s stuff. Janette’s death and the split from Joe. She feels bad every time she does this but she tries again.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of “stuff” going on too, Lilah.’

  Lilah shifts uncomfortably in her chair. ‘Who hasn’t got stuff? Dead people and dogs.’

  Margo realises that neither of the dogs has moved for ten minutes. ‘I’m scared to look down.’

  Lilah does, kicks Muttley gently in the side and asks him if he’s dead. Both dogs stir and then fall back to sleep.

  ‘Not dead,’ she says and smiles. ‘See? Another great day for Lilah.’

  9

  GLASGOW’S HIGH COURT IS shoved over to the edge of the river, facing away from the city like a naughty child sent to a corner to have a think about its behaviour. The building is low, blackened and neoclassical with three sets of grand double doors facing the street, flanked by six massive columns. Litter and leaves tumble about lazily on the stairs behind railings that are shut and chained. The real entrance is a modern extension tucked round the corner in the shadow of a disused railway high line. Margo has seen it often on the nightly news but has never been there.

  It’s a cold, blustery morning as she walks from her car, passing an artisan bakery, a designer wool shop and a dingy porno outlet with windows pasted with offers of trade-in deals on XXX DVDs. The Saltmarket is a mixed area, up and coming but still with pockets of rough-as-fuck.

  She turns the corner to the entrance and finds the door ringed with giant concrete balls, defensive measures against car bombs and ram-raiders. Uniformed police officers gather in clusters, smoking near groups of lawyers in long black gowns. They linger near the door but the public smoke their cigarettes further away, aware that this is someone else’s turf.

  She passes through revolving doors into a high-ceilinged lobby with a balcony running around three sides. There is a metal detector and airport-style security run by a uniformed guard who takes her handbag and shakes his head kindly when she asks him if he needs to check her shoes. He asks her to open the bag and prods the contents with a stick, nudging used tissues and receipts out of the way to check for guns or knives. He nods her through the metal detector and gives her back the handbag on the other side.