Denise Mina - Exile

"Oh, my," said Mrs. McGregor, pulling out a chair and sitting herself down, "but it's wild out there today. Is that you, Leslie, pet?"

Leslie looked as sullen as she ever had. "Aye, hello, Mrs. McGregor. How ye keeping, all right?"

Mrs. McGregor helped herself to a shortbread biscuit and looked at Maureen. "And who's this?" she said, looking her up and down. "Is this your life partner, Leslie?"

"Stop trying to be modern, Mrs. McGregor. She's my pal."

"Very good," said Mrs. McGregor, taking a half cup of weak tea from Isa and filling it to the brim with milk. "Your mother says I can't stay long because you've had a death in the family."

"That's right," said Leslie.

"Aw, well," said Mrs. McGregor, opening her mouth, letting shortbread crumbs fall willy-nilly onto her coat. "And just after Christmas as well." She wrinkled her nose at Maureen. "No time for turmoil."

They had to wait until Mrs. McGregor left because Leslie wouldn't leave Isa alone with her. "McGregor bullies her," said Leslie, unchaining the bike from a lamppost. "She'd be staying for her tea if we hadn't seen her out."

"You're very abrupt with her," said Maureen. "Who is she?"

"She's a misery magnet, that woman," said Leslie. "Every time there's a tragedy on this scheme that woman turns up for the purvey."

Maureen put her helmet on and did up her coat, watching while Leslie jump-started the bike.

"Why did she think I was your girlfriend?"

"She's been saying I'm gay since I was wee. And then the bike, ye know."

"Oh, yeah, sure sign. Ye should tell her that a bipolar conception of gender is widely discredited now."

Leslie threw back her head and laughed a wide-mouthed dirty laugh, baring black fillings and coffee stains. And Maureen wanted her to keep laughing so she could watch.

"So far nothing, then?"

"Yes, sir. So far fuck all," said Williams.

Dakar shook his head and stood up. He remembered himself, remembered what he would look like to Bunyan, and held in his belly until he got to the window and had his back to her. "It's a mattress, for Pete's sake. Thames Division say an object that big doesn't move far so it had to go in near the Chelsea Wharf. They're not even sure it could have made it across the river so it had to go in at that side of the river. Someone must have seen something."

"I'm sure someone did," said Williams, between bites of chicken bap, "but they're either keeping quiet about it or they didn't realize it was suspicious."

Bunyan sat forward, pressing her waist against the edge of the desk, pulling her blouse tight. Williams saw Dakar being careful not to look. "If," she said, "they dumped the mattress at four in the morning, that road could have been completely empty. Maybe no one saw anything."

"Possible," agreed Dakar. "Quite, quite possible. The husband's the only thing we've got to go on, isn't he?"

Bunyan nodded. "Can't place him in London until we talk to him, though."

Williams swung back in his chair and thought about home. They'd have to go to Glasgow and interview the husband. He hadn't been back for years, not since his dad's funeral.

"… Glasgow," finished Dakar and looked expectantly at Williams.

Bunyan was looking at him too. "We have to go to Glasgow," she said.

"Oh, right," said Williams. "Obviously."

Dakar pointed at him. "I'll approach Liaison about a spot on Crimewatch. She's a mother of four, for God's sake. Someone must have seen something."

Maureen had never seen CCB photographs before. The glossy pictures were spread over the floor, a patchwork of angles and body parts lit by a harsh white light. "Are they always like this?" she whispered reverently.

"No." Leslie sat down next to Maureen and looked out over the sea of photographs. "They're not usually this bad. These are the worst I've seen."

Ann was standing against a white wall wearing nothing but her tired underwear. She looked into the camera, vacant and resigned, her mouth hanging open with Hindleyesque apathy. Full-length shots of her front, side and back established the scale and then the pictures homed in on her injuries, slicing her body into digestible pieces. She was seriously underweight; her arms were pencil thin and her pelvic bone jutted out of her back. There was a two-inch chasm between her bony thighs. A whispering silver road map sprawled across her withered belly and spent breasts. Someone had kicked the shit out of her.

A punch to her jaw had split her lip and left it grotesquely swollen. Black and yellow bruises were clustered on her back, creeping around her torso to her chest, slipping under her gray bra. One series of shots concentrated on the injury to her groin. The pictures centered on the modest bridge of her pants, a patch of white cotton in a sea of blackened skin that extended all the way down to her knees.

"See there?" Leslie leaned forward and pointed to an oval bruise on the back of Ann's neck, gesturing with her pinkie as if reluctant to touch it. "That's a stamp mark, from a shoe."

"Jesus," whispered Maureen, "she must have fought like a bastard."

"No," said Leslie, picking up a full-length shot and pointing to the back of Ann's hands. "Look at that. There's not a mark on the back of her hands or her arms."

Maureen didn't get it. "What does that mean?"

"This is what ye do when you're being hit"-Leslie crossed her hands over her head and rounded her back-"but Ann didn't. See that big bruise?" She traced a big diagonal one on her chest. "She wasn't defending herself at all. She was probably unconscious."

"She might have been steaming," said Maureen, pointing to Ann's legs in the full-length shot. Cuts and bruises of various ages were slashed across the knife-edge bone on her skinny shin. Ann had a habit of falling down. She'd been falling for a long time. Maureen looked at Ann's tired eyes. "She looks dead already."

They sat for a moment looking at the pictures, frowning and sick and sad. Maureen tried to imagine how angry someone would have to be to do that to a limp body. The clouds parted outside the window, and for a brief moment Leslie's living room was full of brilliant yellow sunshine.

It was a small flat in a good low-level block in Drumchapel. Leslie was lucky with her neighbors. They were elderly and watchful of one another, and they kept the close clean and tidy. The houses were small and neat with low ceilings, little square rooms and a veranda through the door at the back of the kitchen. Leslie's favorite thing was to eat hot food outside, she said it made her feel privileged, and on milder nights they used to sit on the veranda, watching the wasteground around the back, and eat dinner together. Maureen supposed that Cammy sat with her now – his presence was evident everywhere else in the house. His jacket was hanging up in the hall, his shaving foam was in the bathroom and, judging by the Celtic mugs in the kitchen and the bad oil painting of Jock Stein, he had brought his most treasured possessions over to the house so that he could be near them. Maureen berated herself. She should wish Leslie well – she was her friend, after all, and they seemed happy together, the house felt comfortable. She looked down at Ann again and sat back on the settee to distance herself from the pictures.

"Did Ann know you were Jimmy's cousin?" she asked.

"No," said Leslie. "I didn't recognize the name but I knew her when I saw her face. Mum's got photos of a cousin's wedding a few years ago and Ann and Jimmy were there. I kept my distance."

"Did ye tell the committee you knew her?"

"No, well, I wasn't sure it was her. I can't tell ye how pleased I was when you said ye didn't think it was him."