Denise Mina - Exile

Maureen leaned into Leslie's ear. "Leslie," she muttered, "gonnae go and sit down? No one's going to talk to us." Leslie nodded reluctantly and turned away from the bar. Maureen went for the double. "And stop looking so angry," she said. "They'll think we're trouble."

"I'm not looking angry," snapped Leslie. "It's the way my face falls."

"Are ye, though?" Malki was staring at Leslie's back. "Are ye a polis? I like polis, especially the wummen." He hacked a laugh, looking from Maureen to Leslie. He saw that they weren't joining in. Unperturbed, he stopped laughing abruptly and took a sip.

"I'll go," said Leslie, pointing to an empty table at the back of the room.

"Aye," agreed Maureen, "you go."

Leslie sloped off and Maureen slid into her place at the bar. "Hey, Malki," she said, "listen, do you come in here a lot?"

"Aye, how?"

"We're looking for a lassie called Ann – ye seen her?"

Malki's eyes shifted from side to side. "Naw," he said, and turned to the bar.

Maureen leaned over to him and smiled. "How d'ye know ye haven't seen her?"

Malki looked around the bar for someone.

"Will ye let me buy ye a drink?" she said, waving a tenner under his nose.

Malki relaxed a little. "Aye," he said, toasting her with his glass. "Large red."

She leaned over the bar, showing her tenner and trying to catch the attention of one of the staff. They were running around at the far end of the bar, handing drinks and taking money, waiting for their turn at the till. Impatient for his free drink, Malki stood up on the foot rail. "Service!" he screamed, louder than anyone should in an enclosed space. "Service!"

A young barman walked over to them, his heavy hooded eyes looking tired and pissed off. He tipped his chin at Malki.

"More wine," shouted Malki, and pointed to Maureen's tenner. The barman looked from the money to Maureen.

"And two whiskeys," yelled Maureen.

The barman hesitated, looking at her, wondering what the fuck she was doing in there. He decided it didn't matter anyway and went to get their drinks. Malki was pleased to be seen at the bar with a woman and a tenner. He smiled at her.

"How are ye fixed?" asked Maureen.

Malki frowned at her. "I'll get ye one back," he said, unconvincingly.

"I don't want one back," said Maureen. "I just thought – if you're a bit stuck."

She was leaning into him, shouting intimately, when the crowd parted behind them and a shaft of light hit the side of Malki's head. Maureen looked into the flat plane of his ear and found herself inches from a nest of the biggest, ripest blackheads she had ever seen. Reeling with nausea, she caught herself and shouted again, looking over his shoulder this time, "I thought, since I want information about my pal, you might find a use for a fiver or so?"

Malki looked up at her, a greedy glimmer in his eye. He stopped himself and looked around the bar again. Whoever he was looking for wasn't there. Malki turned back to her. "We'll sit down," he said, pointing at the barman coming back with their drinks.

Maureen paid, and they carried the greasy glasses over to Leslie. She was sitting alone at a table on a raised platform two steps up from the floor of the pub, glaring and daring anyone to speak to her. No one had tried. They sat down and arranged the drinks on the dirty table. Maureen offered Malki a fag and he took it. "So, do ye want a fiver?" she asked, as she lit it for him.

"No," he said. "But I want a tenner." He grinned, screwing up his eyes; it was less of a smile than a disguise.

Maureen hesitated, trying to look reluctant so he wouldn't push the price up again. "Well, okay," she said finally. "But answer everything, okay?"

Malki looked at his full glass of wine. "Give us it now," he said.

Maureen shook her head. "After," she said, wishing any fucker had approached them but this wee bastard.

"Now."

She sat back. "Forget it, then," she said.

It took less than thirty seconds for Malki to tug her sleeve.

"Okay, okay," he said. "After."

Maureen took out the folded photocopy, sliding it under the table to Malki's lap. He looked down at it. "Recognize her?"

Malki nodded vigorously, looking at his drink, imagining the glass full again.

"When was she in here?"

"Weeks ago, haven't seen her since."

"Where did she go?"

"Dunno. She just doesn't come in anymore."

"Did you speak to her?"

"I tried." Malki smiled a horny smile. "I always try."

"Who did she hang about with?"

This was clearly the question Malki was afraid of. He glanced around the faces in the bar. "Everyone, everyone," he said. "We're all pals."

"You can tell me," said Maureen, flirting with him. "She's a friend of mine."

But Malki wasn't playing. He drank some wine and puffed his fag nervously, looking to the left and correcting his gaze so suddenly that Maureen knew he'd seen something. "Was she hanging around with someone in particular?"

He crumpled his face into a smile again. "Are yees polis?"

"No," said Maureen, leaning across the table to him, closing the circle, making it just the two of them. "See, Malki, her man was hitting her. We want to make sure she's not gone back to him."

Still grinning, Malki shook his outsize head at her. "She's not with her man," he muttered.

"Is she with another man?"

Malki was about to answer. He teetered on the edge of indiscretion, swaying at the precipice, looking down and making himself dizzy. Leslie sat forward to increase the pressure and shoved him back onto safe ground. He looked at her. "You've got a lovely big arse, you," he said loudly.

Leslie wanted to hit him and Malki felt it. "Gae us my money," he said.

Maureen was dismayed. "But ye never answered me."

"I did so answer ye," said Malki, ready to make a scene if he didn't get his cash.

"Malki, here's the thing," said Maureen, thinking on her feet. "Leave your drink here. Go to the toilet and come back and I'll give ye the tenner. Okay?"

He looked bemused.

"I know he's in here," said Maureen. "I know ye've just looked up and seen him. So, you go to the toilet and on your way past him you scratch your head and I'll know. That way you're not telling me and I'm paying ye anyway okay?"

Malki hovered, reluctant to leave a drink but more reluctant to walk away from someone holding his tenner.

"It's the only way yell get the money." she said.

He paused and looked at his glass. "I think I'll take my drink with me," he said, and stood up. "That way I'll have something anyway."

"Ye can buy ten glasses of wine with a tenner, Malki. Make a night of it, eh?"

Malki shuffled away into the crowd. A third of the way round the bar he raised his hand high and scratched his head. He was standing in a milling crowd of drunk men and it could have been any one of them, but Maureen knew immediately whom he meant. He was fatter now, his face bloated and watery, pink with drink, but she knew him. He was a head taller than the short drunk men around him, wearing a rain-warped donkey jacket and drinking a half pint of red wine. He was looking at her and he recognized her too. He put out a hand, pushed the men in front of him aside, and made his way over to their table.

"Mother of God," said Maureen, shrinking into the table. "Mark Doyle."

"What?" asked Leslie.

"Mark Doyle. Pauline's brother," whispered Maureen.

Leslie hadn't heard her and he was standing by their table before Maureen had the chance to say it again.

"How are ye?" said Maureen.

"Aye, what're yees doing in here?" His diction was drawled, like a tough guy used to getting fat lips in fights. He stood by the table, looking them over.

"We're trying to find a pal of ours," said Maureen.

He nodded slowly and looked at Maureen. He had very bad eczema – his skin was flaking and painfully dry. A raw patch under his left eye was oozing clear fluid, and lumps of scalp were falling away under his thick hair.