Denise Mina - Exile

"How square?"

She was explaining that the letter was only about as square as the Polaroid and weighed about the same as the Polaroid when she stopped and stared at it.

"Hmm," said Maureen. "What could it have been?"

Leslie smiled faintly and looked at the picture.

"But why would someone send her a photo of one boy?" said Maureen.

"Maybe he was her favorite?" said Leslie.

"Shut your eyes and feel it again."

Leslie did and felt sure it was the right size. "And it felt slippery inside," she said. "Like a glossy card."

"So it could have been this?"

"Could have been."

Maureen pointed down to her plate. "I've eaten enough to get a Chomp, though?"

Leslie looked at it carefully. "Oh," she said grudgingly, "okay," and handed her one from her pocket.

They sat chewing their toffee bars, smoking and watching the black storm clouds steal across the sky and swallow the sunset. The children below began to disperse and they could hear rain approaching in the distance. Maureen thought about what Liam had said, that she shouldn't spoil things for Leslie. "Are you happy with Cammy?" she asked, watching the horizon.

Leslie looked at her. "Yeah," she said, "I am."

"I'm sorry for what I said in the Grove," said Maureen quietly. "I'm a bit wrapped up in myself just now. I do want ye to be happy, Leslie, you're the nicest person I know." The words were hardly out of her mouth when her eyes overflowed. She slapped her forehead impatiently and looked at Leslie. "See?" she said, pointing at her wet eyes. "They're fucking doing it again."

But Leslie was crying too, watching a heavy wall of rain wash across the dirty yard. "I got a fright in Millport," she said, her voice trembling. "Mauri, I got a fright and I was disappointed in myself because I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it."

Maureen leaned over and touched Leslie's cheek, lifting the little fat tears with her fingertips. "Auch, wee hen," she said softly, "I think Jimmy's the same. I don't think he could either."

They sat together for a while, sniffing, their heads inclined together, sniffing and thinking.

"I understand how ye felt at the time," said Maureen quietly. "Right now I want to pack up and fuck off and never come back here."

"Really?" Leslie looked at her. "I always think you're fearless."

Maureen shook her head. "Just want to get the fuck out, away from Winnie and Una. My flat doesn't even feel comfortable anymore."

Leslie had never imagined either of them moving away. She'd always assumed they'd have their kids together, be single mums together, rubbing along and managing somehow. "What would running away solve, though?" she said.

"Don't know, but I can't just keep on fighting everyone all the time, can I? That's no life for anyone."

"You're not fighting everyone all the time."

Maureen sighed into her chest and looked up. "Feels as if I am."

"Ye can't just stop fighting and walk away You're not the sort of person who can just opt not to give a shit just because you live somewhere else. D'ye think what ye did to him in Millport affected ye?"

"Dunno." Maureen shrugged. "I suppose. Violence corrupts."

"Does it, though?"

"It has to. Ye have to lose empathy before ye can deliberately hurt someone, don't ye? Or else ye'd feel it yourself and ye couldn't do it."

Leslie thought about it and hesitated before she spoke. "Does it need to corrupt? Can't ye lose empathy selectively?"

Maureen snorted. "And just attack the bad guys?"

"Yeah."

"In theory, maybe. Those distinctions are hard close up. Maybe if you've got a solid theoretical basis for sorting out the good guys from the bad it's easy, but distinctions always blur close up, don't they?" She sighed and took a draw. "It corrupts ye. Blood will have blood."

"Yeah, close-ups are tricky," said Leslie, looking at her lap. "I've been talking like a psycho for years and I can't even slap a wean's hand. I've been telling women at the shelter not to give their keys out and then I meet someone and within two months I'm asking him to take it."

Maureen wanted to let the doubts about Cammy lie and fester but she couldn't. "I'm not very taken with Cammy but I think he's quite safe."

Leslie sat forward and stared at her intently, the warm kitchen light reflecting off her leather collar. "Do ye?" she said.

Maureen nodded.

"How can ye tell?" asked Leslie, and waited anxiously for a reply.

Maureen stared at her. "Do you honestly not know whether he'd hit ye?"

"No, I don't. I don't know how to tell them apart, the ones that will and the ones that won't."

"Then what the fuck are ye doing letting him into your house?"

Leslie shook her head and looked away. The rain was falling hard, pattering onto the veranda and wetting the toes of their shoes. They could see the water sheets wafting across the wasteground. The few remaining children huddled in dry close mouths waiting for it to finish.

Leslie leaned heavily on her knees, letting her head hang as she took a draw. "D'ye remember when they were looking for the Yorkshire Ripper?" she said. "One of the things that held them back was so many women suspected their partners and reported them and they had to investigate every one of them. I thought that was ridiculous at the time."

Maureen patted her hand. "I don't think Cammy's the Yorkshire Ripper, Leslie."

"I know. But ye think ye know things about yourself, think ye have principles, and then things happen and ye find out ye weren't who ye thought ye were at all."

"That's just growing up."

"Well, it's scary." Leslie sat back and exhaled a gray cloud. "I don't like it."

"Me neither."

Night came quickly and dark clouds continued to roll in from the north. The pavement glistened black smeared with orange from the streetlights. Leslie walked the bike down the gravel alleyway at the side of the house and chained it to the railings, taking care to tuck it in the shadows, out of view from the street. Maureen left her to it, wandering out into the empty road. Rain fell hard, bouncing off the pavement, and she was glad of her big coat. She stood and looked up and down the street, trying to imagine how Ann would have felt standing here, fresh to the shelter with a bruised, bony body and four absent children, looking for somewhere to drink.

It was a broad road, wide enough for two carriages to pass each other comfortably, and long-established trees grew out of the generous pavement. Maureen pulled up her collar and looked at the detached Victorian house behind her. It was built from huge blocks of red sandstone and stood three stories high with a coy attic for the servants' rooms. The neighboring houses were equally imposing, set back from the road by small gravel forecourts and low walls. It was obvious to the most casual observer that the shelter was poorer than the others. There were no cars outside, the narrow front garden was overgrown and lights shone from every window in the house. Leslie came out of the shadows and walked across the road to Maureen. They looked up at the shelter, listening as a radio blared through a frosted bathroom window. The DJ whinnied and played a thump-thump dance record.

"We've ruined that house, haven't we?" said Leslie.

"We haven't done anything that couldn't be fixed," said Maureen, looking down the road. "Did Ann know this area before she came to stay here?"

"No," said Leslie. "She needed to be told where to get the bus into town."

"Okay." Maureen nodded. "She probably just followed the biggest road, then?"

Leslie shrugged. A hundred yards farther up, a yellow-lit junction glistened like a jewel in the inky darkness. They walked slowly towards it, passing big houses with expensive cars parked outside. The curtains were open in one house and an elegantly graying couple were sitting on an oversize white leather settee, watching a large television. Their slim teenage daughter came into the room and moved her mouth at them. She looked pissed off. Her blond hair reached down beyond her waist, so thick and wavy and young it would have made an old man cry. The mother said something and the young blonde slapped her thigh petulantly with her fist and left the room in a huff. They looked warm and satisfied and Maureen wished she were the girl, a cherished member of a comfortable family, with parents steady enough to kick against. "Nice life," she said, wiping the rain from her forehead.