The Less Dead

by Denise Mina

  Nikki shakes her head as if she’s never really thought about it much. ‘I suppose he was, really. I mean, he had your hair, Susan’s hair and that, so… yeah. But we were teeny-weeny when we left. I don’t remember him much, Hairy didn’t know him at all. What I do remember is Patsy’s face.’ She cups a hand over one eye to show how swollen it was. ‘She nearly lost an eye that night so she filled a bin bag and we all got on the bus to Glasgow. That was that. Never went back. Never seen him again.’

  ‘Brave,’ says Margo, because she thinks she should say something positive.

  ‘No, just desperate,’ counters Nikki.

  ‘But I mean to go out in the streets to provide for her kids, though. She must have cared a lot to put herself through that.’

  Nikki gives her a strange look. ‘Think so? She was drinking a lot of it.’

  ‘Well, I would imagine it’s pretty terrifying being out there, alone in the dark. You don’t know who’s down there…’

  Nikki’s not amused any more. Now she’s just annoyed. ‘Hm.’

  ‘She must have had quite low self-esteem.’

  ‘“Low self-esteem”?’ Nikki tuts. ‘Listen: Patsy couldn’t read or write but she walked away with a sore face and a bin bag of jumpers because she thought she was due more. She kept her weans and found a way to make a living and be drunk all the fucking time.’

  ‘I just think, you know, probably no one does that job unless they’ve been traumatised in some way.’

  Nikki shuts her eyes. ‘POOR,’ she says, exasperated.

  ‘What?’

  She looks hard at Margo. ‘She was poor. We were very poor. That’s why we did it. We were poor. It’s not a mental illness, she didn’t have secret daddy issues, it’s not about sex for the lassies out there. I mean, you’ll tell a punter that if they want to hear it, but it’s about money. Getting money because we’re poor. Upsets the status quo, doesn’t it? That’s why it’s policed the way it is.’ Nikki huffs. ‘The cops are there to protect the public. Folk like us, we’re not the public. We’re a nuisance to the public. That’s how most cops seen it. They hated us, we hated them.’

  ‘You seemed to like Diane Gallagher.’

  ‘I’ll always love her for trying. Don’t always agree with her, she’s got her opinions, but as a person–yes. She was the only woman in the CID–they used to roll her out as a spokesman. She wasn’t in charge then. They were barely investigating the murders before she took over.’

  ‘Why?’

  She whispers, ‘We didn’t matter. That’s how they seen us.’

  ‘But people were being murdered.’

  Nikki shrugs and holds it, a profound sadness in her eyes. ‘See, in New York, back then, when street people got killed the cops used to mark the file NHI: “No Humans Involved”. Not even human. When we get killed they call us the “less dead”, like we were never really alive to begin with. See, if Susan was a doctor, like you, they’d have brought the fucking army in. You’d be the perfect victim.’

  She looks away and Margo wonders if she’s just been threatened. It surprises her because it’s not something she wonders about very often and she decides that she must be mistaken. She puts her hand over Nikki’s.

  ‘Listen, I don’t feel that way about Susan. I don’t think she’s less than human or not important because of what she did for money.’

  Nikki snorts and shakes her hand away. ‘Don’t give me that.’

  ‘But I don’t.’

  ‘Why even say it? Would you tell me you don’t think she’s less than human because she was a teacher? A bus driver?’

  Margo is stumped. She’s right.

  ‘The other day, I thought McPhail’d be at the High Court, that’s why I was in a bit of a state when I met you.’

  ‘What if it wasn’t him?’

  Nikki is offended. ‘It was. He’s still writing threatening letters to me. The only reason he never got charged was the cops covering up for him.’

  ‘That sounds a bit paranoid.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Yeah, to be honest.’

  They are sitting very still now and Nikki is grinding her teeth together.

  ‘Well. See,’ sneers Nikki, ‘when it comes to family, you get who you get. Who were you expecting–Jacob Rees-Mogg or some posh prick like that?’

  ‘Honestly, that’s pretty much the only scenario that could be worse than this.’

  Nikki smirks and Margo smiles back. Nikki grins and Margo starts laughing and so does Nikki. Then they can’t stop because their laugh is the same: mouths wide, heads back, chests huffing. Nikki slaps the table and Margo copies her and they laugh louder.

  The barmen look over. One of them smiles with surprise as if he hasn’t heard anyone laugh in a while.

  The alcoholics glance over disdainfully, one around the side of his paper, one over the top. They think the women are drunk but they’re not. They’re just too sad to stop laughing.

  Finally, when the tide of hysteria recedes, Nikki says slyly, ‘I’ve got those letters if you want to have a look.’

  ‘On you?’ says Margo, wondering if Nikki wrote the abusive letters as a set, if this is the trap she’s been setting up all along.

  ‘Keep them at my pal’s, a wee walk down the road from here.’

  ‘Why don’t you keep them in your own house?’

  ‘In case he breaks in and kills me and steals them. Want to see them?’

  17

  THEY’RE COMING OUT OF the pub together. The Susan in front and then Nikki-fucking-Brodie in that pink jacket. They’re not drunk, they’re steady on their feet, but that’s a mistake, they’ve missed a trick by not getting a skinful, it’ll make their shift much harder down by the cold river in the dark sucking off guys for fivers.

  She got the letter, seems nervous. That’s good, she’ll be jittery and easier to get into the car.

  Nikki leads the way, training their weans like they always do. She’s a dried-up sack. She’s a pig who couldn’t give it away. Just as well she retired. Nobody would touch that.

  They have to be young to be teachable. Have to get them young and teach them what they are. Can’t teach an old whore new tricks. To get them really working they need to get broken young.

  It’s when they make their money, when they’re young. She’s younger but not that young. She’d do well though.

  They’re walking down towards the Green where they belong, crossing streets, walking fast, down to get their hole ripped up for money.

  The smell of her. Is it a memory? A memory of a smell? Disgusting. Filthy. Meat gone bad. Must be a memory but it lingers on the nose. It’s a dirt smell, the kind that makes you turn away and shut your eyes. Contamination. Needs cleaned away.

  Their kind give it off, it comes from the blood. They can look down on you, they can have qualifications coming out of their ears, but you can always tell where the rot is, where the smell of rotting is.

  Dirt.

  18

  THE SALTMARKET IS SLOWLY going upmarket but it still has pockets of the old rough city. There are dead ends and dark corners, beggars and fighting drunks, but Margo feels comfortable there. Nearby there are streets of cool restaurants and independent photography galleries and a bar full of retro arcade games, frequented by bearded hipsters.

  It’s seven o’clock on a quiet Wednesday evening in the city centre. The temperature has dropped, frost is creeping white along the pavement, sparkling in the air under street lights. Occasional buses trundle past, windows dripping with condensation, passengers shifting around inside like fish in dirty tanks. Taxis patrol the main streets, prowling for customers, but they’re not taking a taxi, they’re walking.

  Despite being clean and sober Nikki still has an addict’s distinctive walk. She’s fast, lifts her knees high like an antelope, never looking to see if her companion is beside her, eyes dead ahead, on a mission. Margo sees underweight people in ones and twos walking like that through busy streets all the time. She envies their sin
gleness of purpose, the certainty that they’re walking towards something that, if they can only get it, is guaranteed to make them feel better.

  Nikki walks fast taking a route that Margo wouldn’t and Margo trails her, hurrying to keep up.

  They skirt waste ground, go down an alley stacked with mattresses that stink of piss, cross a car park pitted with broken tarmac. Nikki doesn’t take the streets lined with arty venues. That’s not what the area looks like to her.

  They pass under a low railway bridge and slip between a gathering of smokers outside a pub. Margo steels herself for personal comments, insinuations, insults, but none of the smokers even look up. They all seem glum, intent on their cigarettes or vapes. It’s so cold now that thick frosted breath is almost indistinguishable from sweet-smelling vape clouds.

  Nikki stops suddenly at the edge of the pavement and looks across the broad street, up to a brightly lit window on the second floor. Her face softens.

  She looks left and right on the empty street, down to the bridge to the Gorbals, up to the Trongate tower where witches used to be burned. ‘Mon.’ She darts across the road and Margo follows her.

  They reach the door of a high tenement and Nikki presses the buzzer. The door falls open. She pushes it wide and holds it for Margo. Margo hesitates: this seems unsafe. She has no idea what is in there or who Nikki really is.

  Still holding the heavy door, Nikki smiles. ‘Text a pal this address. Tell them to call the polis if they don’t hear from you.’

  Margo is slightly stunned. That’s exactly what she should do and precisely what she was thinking her way towards. She doesn’t even have to disguise what she’s doing because Nikki told her to do it.

  Nikki waits, holding the door open with her back, watching patiently as Margo texts Lilah and puts her phone away, realising that it’s probably what a sex worker does when she goes into a building she doesn’t know. She steps into the close and Nikki lets the door go.

  ‘Would people do that if they’re…’ She doesn’t know the word. She points to the street. ‘Out there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you send it to your pimp?’

  Nikki barks a high-pitched, ridiculing laugh. It’s gorgeous and honest. ‘We didn’t do pimps, not in Glasgow, we needed every penny.’ But she waves a hand and corrects herself. ‘Nah, that’s the old days. It’s all cam work and indoors now, they’re all paying cuts. But we never.’

  Margo likes Nikki more the longer she’s in her company. She doesn’t trust her but she likes her. She hopes she has her grace, a disjointed way of moving: pelvis then legs, shoulders then spine, wrists then fingers. In the meantime she’s enjoying being near to Nikki and the frankness of her.

  The door falls gently shut on the street, slowing as it closes, giving out a loud click that sounds like a finale.

  It’s a plain close, no fancy tiles or flooring, just painted green gloss up to shoulder level and cream above.

  The bitter edge of the cold evening is tempered in here. Margo can smell bacon cooking. Nikki leads her up to the second floor and an open door behind a worn rainbow flag doormat. She pushes it open and they go in.

  It’s a square hall, higher than it is wide. The walls are hung with clip frames crammed with jumbled family photos, some have slipped and fallen over other photos. None of the pictures look staged, they’re all snaps of parties and faces and people sitting on settees holding babies. The sound of a television comes from a dark room on their left.

  Nikki calls, ‘Hiya?’

  ‘Nikki, that you?’ The voice is so gruff it’s hard to gender. It’s coming from the direction of the television.

  Nikki goes into the room and Margo follows her.

  A middle-aged person as small as a child is sitting in the lone armchair, their back to them, greying hair in a mannish cut.

  She only knows it’s a woman because Nikki says, ‘Lizzie,’ and touches the hair gently.

  Lizzie is watching football on a gigantic flat-screen TV bracketed to the wall. The room is warm and cosy, the TV the only light source. A hospital bed table is swung over her seat and on it sits a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray, a lighter and a giant mug with ‘I love the boaby’ printed on it. Lizzie is so engrossed in the football that she doesn’t turn round to look at them.

  ‘Go all right, honey?’ she asks the screen.

  ‘Aye.’ Now Nikki is watching the football too. She has crossed her arms. ‘Brought her over to show her the letters. OK to just take them?’

  ‘Aye, aye,’ Lizzie tells the television. ‘Look at this shower of donkeys.’

  ‘Pile of halfwits,’ says Nikki fondly.

  A young footballer fumbles a pass. The screen is so big and clear it’s almost half life-size. Another player gets possession and the first player, apropos of nothing, falls over and his face crumples in pain.

  Nikki and Lizzie laugh disparagingly. Their eyes never stray from the screen.

  ‘Dear oh dear,’ says Nikki. ‘Three hundred grand a week or something.’

  ‘I mean –’ Lizzie’s tiny hand comes out in entreaty towards the telly–‘for that money: take some acting lessons.’

  They huff their knowing laughs again and Nikki turns and pushes past Margo. ‘Mon.’

  She leads her through to a small kitchen, muttering excuses about the mess in a shamed undertone. Packets of cheap biscuits line the worktops and the sink is full of dirty plates and pots. She reaches up to a high wall cupboard and opens it to a jumble of mugs. A fat brown envelope is tucked into the side, flush to the wall. She takes it out. It’s battered and ripped and almost full. At the table she uses her forearm to sweep letters and flyers to the side and clear a space. She puts the envelope down and they sit next to each other and look at it.

  Bracing herself, Nikki reaches into the envelope and pulls out a bundle of ten or twelve clear food bags, fanning them out on the table like a set of playing cards.

  Inside each is a handwritten letter, the paper size and type variable, sometimes A4, sometimes proper letter-writing paper, sometimes it’s a page ripped from a jotter. It’s all in the same handwriting as the letter Margo found in her hallway yesterday morning. The words slant forward distinctively and the ‘t’s and ‘f’s are all small and straight, just like the letter she gave Robertson. They’re written by the same person.

  Margo suddenly feels cold and small. She forces herself to take a deep breath and nods calmly at Nikki. ‘Why are they in plastic bags?’

  Nikki looks down at them, puzzled. ‘I thought we might get DNA off them or hairs or something, if I kept them good. Put them in there a couple of years ago.’ She glances up at Margo, as if she might know. Margo thinks Nikki was copying actors in TV cop shows.

  ‘DNA has to be preserved at the time, Nikki.’

  ‘So…? These bags are pointless?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Nikki looks at them sadly. ‘I just thought it might be worth a shot, you know?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m doing my best for her.’

  ‘I know.’

  Margo looks down at the letters. One letter has a clump of dark frizzy hair stuck to the inside of the plastic. It could be her own hair if she didn’t oil it. It’s held together with a rotting blue elastic hairband. Another one has a dirty scrap of tartan blanket with the same pattern as the crime-scene photo: red shot through with yellow.

  Nikki points at the hair but baulks at touching it. ‘Hair,’ she says, as if that needed pointing out. ‘Her hair. He knew she was nicknamed Hairy and it was all wiry like that. And the bobble? That’s hers.’ She rubs her forehead sadly, moving her lips as she reads lines of the text. ‘Well, this one here is the second one. I got it a year after Susan was found dead.’

  Margo reads:

  To Nikki Brodie: I’m the boy who murdered your hoor of a sister. I stabbed it and washed it and pissed on her as it died. She was a peece of shit. I fund her in Wellington Lane & brung her to mine. I had [scored-out word] her sex ma
ny times but this was the sweetest.

  I enjoyed it. My work isn’t done yet neither.

  The Ram

  Margo reads it again. Same handwriting, same grammar, same syntax as her letter. She thinks of gender-ambivalent Lizzie watching the football in the living room and, probably just because of that, notices how insistent this letter writer is that they’re male. It makes her wonder how often anonymous letter writers mention their gender. It makes her wonder if the author is a woman insisting that she’s a man to deflect suspicion. Nikki could have written these herself. ‘Pathetic,’ she says, for something to say.

  ‘Yeah.’ Nikki clears her throat. ‘But I’ve had worse said to me in the street, that’s not what bothers me –’ her voice is shaking and breathy–‘it’s the things inside with the letters. He knew her. He did. I think he was with her when she died.’

  Margo watches Nikki blinking quickly, trying not to cry. The letter is quite creepy.

  ‘Nikki, how old were you when you got this?’

  ‘Twenty-two?’ she whispers, rubbing her index finger hard between her eyebrows as if she wants to cover her eyes. She nods and keeps her hand there. ‘Stopped when McPhail was in prison. Last one was two months ago.’

  ‘Why didn’t Gallagher do something about these? Warn him off or something?’

  ‘She said they could be from anyone. But I know it’s him and I know he killed Susan. He was known for pissing on lassies. Sometimes he’d pay and then piss on you after. He had these black eyes, the pupils, deep, kind of… hard to describe.’ She sucks her teeth. ‘Anyway, there’s details in the letters, about what she was wearing, where he grabbed her. Only the cops knew that stuff so it was definitely from him. Cops were interested at one point, they took the letters from me and examined them, but said it was nothing. I had to make her give them back to me.’

  ‘Gallagher?’

  ‘Yeah. The guy before her wouldn’t even look at them.’

  ‘And the letters had details only the police knew?’

  ‘Aye. Genuinely. I’m not making that up. Stuff I didn’t know but they knew. About the peeing on her. Gallagher said the letters were right about that stuff.’