Denise Mina - Exile

He said, Hi! He'd just popped up for a visit! Phone him soon! She was starting to hate him.

She sloped back into the room with the bottle of guilt and the wreath.

"Not the police, then?" said Liam.

She fell into the settee. The flowers were pale pink roses, already open, tinged brown on the petal tips.

"They're nice," said Liam.

"I've been kind of seeing someone."

"It must be going well if ye won't even open the door to him."

"He's nice." They didn't usually talk about certain things but she didn't have anyone else to tell. "The sex is great."

"Yeah, that's tricky." Liam didn't seem to mind. "Maggie and I had great sex but that was it for me. You can stay in a relationship like that for years waiting till after the next shag." He glanced at her. "Ye did the right thing."

But Maureen knew she hadn't. She pulled her legs up to her chest as a sudden burst of rain spattered against the window. They fell silent and she looked up to find Liam red-eyed and watching her. He was smiling, as smug as Yoda, and nodded towards the hall. "Phone Leslie," he said.

Maureen's stomach tightened at the mention of her name. "You don't understand," she said. "She doesn't want me to phone her. She lies to me about things. It's like she doesn't trust me."

"Phone and ask her why she's lying."

"I've already asked her and she won't tell me."

"Mauri, Leslie doesn't owe you every thought in her head. Phone her anyway."

"No."

"Ah, go on."

"Nah, fuck off, Liam, ye don't know anything about it."

"But she's been such a good pal to ye. She won't mind if you leave the job. Just tell her. She's very loyal to you."

Liam was right. Leslie had stood by her in hospital; it was Leslie who'd helped her after Douglas died, Leslie who'd come after Angus with her, even though she was terrified and wanted to run away. She'd compensated for Maureen a hundred times and, now it came to it, Maureen wasn't reciprocating. She was a graceless shit.

"Fuck, no." She tucked her head between her knees. "I'm wrong again."

She looked up, wanting reassurance, but Liam was nodding at her. She rolled off the settee and tramped out to the hall, putting on the light and dialing Leslie's number. Liam followed her, bringing the ashtray to smoke his spliff over. The phone rang out at the other end. It rang eight times. Maureen knew Leslie's small flat intimately. No corner of the flat was eight rings away. Deflated, she was hanging up when Leslie picked up the phone. "Hello?"

Maureen whipped the receiver back to her ear. "Leslie?"

"Yes?" She sounded very serious.

Maureen didn't know what to say. "Leslie? Are ye okay?"

Leslie sighed a long slow crackle into the receiver.

"I'm sorry for phoning," said Maureen, bracing herself for a knock-back. She felt like Vik on the stairs. She looked helplessly at Liam, who winked and gave her a happy thumbs-up. He was off his tits; he wasn't picking up on anything.

"Mauri, listen," began Leslie. "Tonight was… Ann's dead."

Maureen faltered. "Ann's what?"

"She's dead," said Leslie, choking on the words, and Maureen suddenly realized that Leslie sounded strange because she had been crying. "She was found in London, in the river."

Maureen thought of Jimmy's BA sticker. Not Jimmy, it couldn't be Jimmy. "Do they suspect foul play?" she said. Liam giggled and fell against the wall.

"Who's that laughing in the background?" said Leslie suspiciously.

"It's Liam," said Maureen, kicking him gently in the shin and turning away. "He's been smoking. And I'm a bit pissed. Leslie, I'm sorry for what I said. I'm a bad friend."

"Yeah. Never mind… Go to sleep, Mauri-"

"I'm sorry," said Maureen.

"We'll talk about it later." Leslie sniffed.

"What happened to Ann? Did she kill herself?"

"Lots of things happened to her. She was tortured and killed, put in a mattress and flung in the river."

"Fucking hell," said Maureen.

They paused. Maureen tried to clear her mind and think of something appropriate to say. "Was it the loan sharks from Finneston?" she asked.

"I really don't think so."

They paused again.

"Leslie, what is Ann to you?"

Leslie sniffed again. "Jimmy's…" She began to cry. "He's my cousin," she said, and Maureen suddenly understood. Leslie had asked for Ann in her shelter because she felt responsible. She must have known it would be safe for Maureen to go and talk to Jimmy, and after years of picking through the rubble of other men's transgressions, she would be far too ashamed to admit that he was family.

"Leslie, I don't think he hit her."

Leslie was sobbing into the receiver. "I was gonnae tell ye," she said, gasping for breath. "I don't want to fight ye, Mauri-"

Maureen interrupted her. "Leslie, don't be alone," she said. "Come over here. We've got loads of whiskey and Liam's got a lump of black the size of his foot."

Leslie sniffed a long hard rumble. "I'll… I'll be there in half an hour," she said, and hung up.

Leslie sat cross-legged on the floor, holding a bundle of Katia's stolen Hello Kitty tissues in one hand and a whiskey in the other. She wiped her nose. "Did ye see the CCB photos?"

Maureen shook her head.

"God," whispered Leslie, "her fanny was kicked in."

"Listen, listen." Excited by something, Liam waved them quiet and looked from one to the other, blinking slowly like a red-eyed idiot. "Listen. Brilliant idea. Who's up for a curry?"

"God," said Leslie. "Can ye shut him up?"

They put on the television to distract him and Liam watched Newsnight, tilting his head left and right, trying to make something interesting out of powerful men haranguing one another.

"When I deal with this every day," continued Leslie, "I'm always looking for someone to blame, just to make sense of it, so it could be avoided, so it didn't need to happen, and I always come back to the families. Their families could have done some fucking thing. And then it's my own family and we weren't even in touch with the guy. Isa would die if she knew she'd been murdered."

"You two know someone else who was killed?" Liam smiled, spliffed and swinging randomly in and out of the conversation. They looked at him. "I'm staying away from you two. You're jinxed."

Leslie sniffed hard and frowned at him. Maureen touched her arm. "How can you be sure it wasn't the hard men from the scheme?"

"Come on, Mauri, London's full of Glaswegians running away from trouble here. She owed a bit of money, that's all."

"Maybe she owed more than we think."

"Yeah. Maybe. Maybe." Leslie took a long drink of whiskey and sighed at its harsh comfort. "The police'll be so hard on Jimmy. God, I'll be surprised if he gets out of an interview alive."

"Why?" said Maureen.

"You haven't seen the photos. She was battered shitless." She slumped against the settee.

Maureen sat quietly, ashamed of herself, unsure whether to tell. "I've got them," she said suddenly.

"You've what?"

"I've got the photos."

"Why?"

"Stole them," she muttered.

Leslie sat upright. "To protect Jimmy? Maureen, if he did beat her up he needs to be put away."

"But he didn't hit her. Are they sure she was killed yesterday?"

"They said she'd been in the water for a week."

Maureen didn't want to tell her about the week-old BA sticker. They were sitting cozy in the nice warm flat, drinking and smoking together, and she didn't want to tell her. "He didn't do it," she said, damning herself. "I promise he didn't."

"How do you know?"

"I just know," she said. "I know it wasn't him."

"You knew she wasn't dead as well. Hoping isn't the same as knowing, Mauri." Leslie cradled her head in her hands. "God, if he goes to prison Isa'll try and take the kids. She's not fit – it'll kill her."