Denise Mina - Exile

"I don't know."

Maureen desperately wanted some bluster and comfort. "You don't think I'm in danger, do you?" she said, trying to prompt a response.

"Bollocks," said Leslie, sniggering uncertainly. "Think about it rationally. If he was coming to get you why would he write and warn you? That's evidence against him if he does."

Maureen wanted her to be right, but Angus was bright, probably brighter than both of them, and everything he did had a purpose.

They drove through the town to the Mitchell library, an imposing Victorian building sitting precariously on the verge of an opencast motorway underpass. The building was deceptively big, housing a large library, a cafe and a theater. An obese porter was sitting at the reception desk, panting at the effort of keeping still. He directed them to the fourth floor.

The Business Information Center was a quiet room with three scruffy clients sitting equidistant from one another at a long table. The lights were soft and relaxing and the guy behind the desk smiled cheerfully as they walked over to him. "Yes, ladies, can I help you today?" he said, his eager eyes wet with the desire to serve.

"We need to use a photocopier, color if you've got it." Maureen tried not to smile. "And a set of phone books for London."

"Our color photocopier is over there"-he flicked a finger at the far wall-"and costs fifty pence per copy. Now, London, north or south?"

They didn't really know.

"I have a map here," said the nice man, pulling out a small diagram of the London postal regions and holding it up over his face. "Please, take your time."

Bewildered by the man's courtesy, Leslie walked off to the color copier. After a while Maureen spotted Streatham on the map, south of the river, right next to Brixton. His arms must be getting sore by now. "South," she said, lowering the map to look at him. "I think it's in the south."

"This place is like a weirdos' convention," said Leslie adamantly, once they were safely in the lift.

"He was just being helpful," said Maureen.

"Did ye get the number?"

"Aye. It's the only Akitza in the book. I checked the north as well, just to be sure, but there was only one and it was in Middlesex somewhere."

Maureen looked up. Leslie had turned to her and was standing formally on both feet. She seemed to be trembling. "I'm sorry I tried to fight ye, Mauri," she said and looked like she might cry.

"I'm sorry for being a wee shite," said Maureen. "About Cammy, Leslie, I'm pleased for you."

Leslie looked away and her breathing returned to normal. She paused for a moment and looked at her feet. "Do you mind doing this for Ann?" she asked.

"No," said Maureen, but they both knew why she was doing it, and they both knew she wasn't doing it for Ann.

The low winter sun was a blistering horizontal beam slicing through the city's grid system, leaving patches of ragged frost and frozen puddles on the cross. Pedestrians dragged fifteen-foot-long shadows after them and the high Victorian buildings of the city center melted into the earth. Leslie turned the corner, slowing down as she drove towards the light.

Maureen sat tall on the pillion, her coattails brushing the passing cars and her hair snapping at her neck. She took herself back to yesterday, to the deep calm and the vortex of welcoming air at the windowsill. She was still alive and having another day, losing herself in the problems of Jimmy and Ann and feeling all right sometimes. She looked at the people on the street and realized that the world must be busy with people who tried to kill themselves last night, people who woke up this morning, nauseous and disappointed, and had to go to work, living the afterwards. She thought of Pauline, and it struck her that suicide was never the definitive statement; it was an impulse, a comma, not a stop. If she had jumped from the window the comma would have gone on forever, like Pauline, a breathless hush hanging for infinity without the possibility of resolution.

She thought of Winnie's little hand and there it was again. She was crying under her helmet, as sentimental as a recent divorcee at New Year. And then, for one clear, shining moment, she saw how it would be if only she were wrong about everything. Michael would be a prodigal father, all the more welcome for his long absence. Una and Marie would be her patient sisters, waiting for her to be a sister to them. And Winnie, the kind mother, fighting for her disturbed daughter's affection despite a thousand rejections. It was simple from the other side.

The bike stopped at a set of lights on Woodlands Road and Maureen looked up. An abandoned shop had two of their shelter campaign posters plastered to the window. Maureen and Leslie nudged each other, remembering six thirty in the morning, their hands sticky from a night brushing paste, as the dawn wind gathered and the sleepy shift workers waited at the bus stop. The lights changed and Leslie pulled off into the road.

Siobhain's close smelled of cats and bleach and hot food. A squawking television in the flat opposite sounded urgent and foreign. Leslie knocked and stepped back to wait. The door opened on the chain and Siobhain looked out at them through the two-inch crack. She was beautiful. Her skin was lunar white, her lips salmon pink – even the streaks of white through her thick black hair looked like sheen. "I am watching television," she said, her hootie-shush-teuchter accent sounding like an order to slow down.

"Can we come in anyway?" said Maureen. "We've come all the way over to see you."

"But it's Quincy."

Along the hall they could hear the monolithic television twittering as Quincy made a bunch of brand-new close friends, solved all their problems then never had to see them again. Douglas had given Siobhain a wad of cash before he died and she spent it sporadically on big things. The giant television was Siobhain's delight. She talked about it like a new horse, how well it worked, how sleek it was, how she didn't know of anyone else with one as good as that. Occasionally, when they were sitting watching telly, she'd turn to Maureen smiling and say, listen to that sound, look at the color, wasn't it great? She'd joined a video club as well and had taken to watching wet romances and schlock horrors night after night. Running seriously short of things to say on her fortnightly visits, Maureen had mentioned Liam's films. They weren't very good and there was no story but she thought it might be nice for her to see a film and meet the person who'd made it. Siobhain hated them. Liam sat on the beige sofa at the end of his twenty-minute video and Siobhain turned to him and asked him sincerely why he had bothered.

Leslie pushed in front of Maureen. "Look, Siobhain, we're only here to see if you're okay."

Siobhain pursed her pretty mouth. "You should telephone me before you come here," she said. "This is not a tearoom."

"We tried to phone," lied Leslie, "but you've turned your mobile off again."

Like everyone else with a bit of spare cash in Britain that Christmas, Siobhain had felt the need to have a phone in her pocket at all times and had bought a mobile, but she couldn't stand the noise it made. She would forget to recharge it and kept it in a drawer in the kitchen so that if it ever rang out she wouldn't hear it.

"Oh, I suppose I have." Siobhain shut the door, undid the chain and let them into the hall, closing the door carefully after them and sliding the chain back on. She smiled a pleased, secretive smirk, as if she were walking about with no knickers on, and pointed them into the living room.

Siobhain didn't care about her appearance. She generally wore whatever was clean and came to hand. Today she was modeling a red golfing jersey, gathered tight at the waist, and orange nylon tracksuit bottoms that swish-swished when she walked. She had worked hard to put on as much weight as possible after she was discharged from psychiatric hospital. They'd watched her eat breakfast once, half a loaf washed down with full-fat milk. She didn't care much about her surroundings either. Well-meaning social workers had decorated the house, and every room was painted cleanable beige with a beige carpet throughout and predominantly beige furniture. Maureen didn't usually buy into the spiritual significance of home decor but Siobhain's house made her soul wither. The only thing of any interest in the living room was the painting. She had used Douglas's money to have a photograph of her dead brother reproduced as an oil painting and hung it over the gas fire. It looked exactly like a painting of a photograph, the little boy's spontaneous gestures, a pointed finger, a half wink, suddenly invested with elusive meaning. The little boy stood smiling sadly into the camera, his little knees pink under his shorts, his red wellies trimmed with black mud.