Denise Mina - Exile

"Can I have a lemonade with ice, please?"

The woman slapped her paper on the bar. She sauntered over to Maureen and poured her drink from a big plastic bottle with a 99p promise printed on the label. "Quid," she said, flapping her hand for the money.

"Where's the ice?"

"No ice."

"You're charging me a quid for a glass when the bottle cost less than a quid?"

" 'S what it costs," she said. "Same price everywhere."

Maureen gave her a coin. "There ye are," she said. "Ye can restock your entire bar with that."

The woman screwed the lid back on the bottle and sidled back to her paper. Maureen drank quietly, wondering about the conversation with the secretary and what could possibly be so funny about Mr. Headie's new office.

"You in the Salvation Army, then?" The butch lady-man was calling over to her.

"Why?" said Maureen.

The lady-man nodded to her drink. "Drinking lemonade in a pub."

"I don't think the Sally Ann come into pubs, do they?"

"They do if they're looking for money."

Maureen smiled at her glass and took another sip. "It's nice in here."

"Yeah"-the woman frowned-"my friend just done it up. She's got good taste."

"She has," nodded Maureen. "She really has."

"Course, you can't choose your punters."

"Rough crowd, is it?"

"Very rough. We were hoping for the lunch trade from the offices but they don't make it up here."

"What's the Coach and Horses like?"

The woman waved her hand in front of her nose. "Wild men. Scots and Irish mostly, and you know what they're like, duntcha?"

The woman sidled back over to her. "I know you Scots, tight as gnats' arses, the lot of ya." She lifted the bottle of lemonade from below the bar and topped Maureen's glass up.

"What was that for?" asked Maureen.

"Don't want you starting fights and frightening away my other customers," she said, suppressing a smile and shedding ten years.

The light in the doorway was dammed into shadow. It was the little frog woman from the solicitor's office. She walked over to the bar, took a seat five feet along from Maureen and ordered a mineral water. She paid for her drink and nodded to Maureen. "Eyes, eh?" she said.

Warily, Maureen nodded back. "Yeah, spooky," She thumbed backwards to the office. "Are you waiting for your boyfriend?"

The frog woman bit her tongue between her front teeth and laughed, dropping her chin to her chest. "Yeah, kind of," she said. "Why are you asking about Mr. Headie?"

Maureen turned to face her. "I'm working for a lawyer's firm in Scotland," she said, thinking fast. "They asked me to find out about something down here."

The woman stopped drinking and tipped her head back, looking down her nose at Maureen. "That's crap," she said. "If you were working for a lawyer's firm they'd know about Mr. Headie, they'd know where his new office is, they'd've read about it in Law Society newsletters."

Maureen felt very tired and dirty. "Mmm," she said, and ran out of clever ideas. "Do you know where his office is?"

The woman smiled wryly. "You don't live here, do you?"

"No," said Maureen, "I'm just down this morning."

"Yeah." She drank again.

"You know this area well, then, do you?"

The woman smiled at her and leaned over, holding on to the bar. She held out her hand. "Kilty Goldfarb," she said.

Tickled, Maureen barked a laugh. "Fuck off," she said. "That's not your name."

Kilty laughed too, delighted at Maureen's reaction. "It is," she insisted. "My family were Polish and my granny made up the name Kilty in honor of her new homeland."

Maureen stopped laughing and mumbled an apology.

"You're well cheeky." Kilty smiled. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Maureen O'Donnell."

"That's not exactly an exotic sobriquet, is it?"

"It is if you're from Swaziland," said Maureen.

Kilty finished her drink. "Hungry?"

"A wee bit."

Kilty gestured down the road. "I know an exotic wee place."

The gang of skinny teenage boys in various states of customized brown uniforms were swinging their schoolbags around their heads, kicking at one another and laughing. Williams turned to stare them down and Bunyan cringed. "Leave it," she said, to the stippled lift doors.

"Leave what?" said Williams loudly.

"Leave it, don't say anything. Look, here's the lift."

The metal doors slid open and they stepped in.

"I was just watching," said Williams. He stood at the back of the lift and Bunyan pressed the button. "You're not afraid of them, are you?"

"Having a fight with a gang of teenage Glaswegian boys isn't my idea of a light relief, sir." She turned and looked at him. "Are you sure he'll be in?"

"Yeah," Williams said. "He will be. He's not expecting us until two. He'll be in just now, though, getting the children off to school."

They made their way along the windswept veranda and knocked heavily on James Harris's door. The oldest boy opened it. He was still wearing his pajamas. He smiled up at Williams, a big happy smile, and said, "Hiya," through a rough morning throat. He coughed, clearing the phlegm away. The child sounded like a twenty-a-day smoker.

" 'Ello," whispered Bunyan, in her silly childish voice. "What are you doing still wearing 'jamas, then?"

The boy turned and ran into the living room calling for his da. James Harris had already been out. A shopping bag sat against the wall by the kitchen and he still had his jacket on. He was sitting in his armchair, dressing the babies for a day out. The wee boys had matching hats and plastic capes on, thin as paper and dark green, not children's colors at all. Harris looked up and saw the police officers standing on the step. He rolled his eyes back and blinked slowly. Williams and Bunyan waited for him to speak. They waited a full minute.

"I thought you were coming at two," he muttered, reaching out and pulling off the toddlers' hats.

"Why aren't the boys at school?" asked Bunyan.

"John's away already," said Harris quietly, flattening the little woolly hats on his knee. "Alan isn't well."

"I've got a cough," said Alan, staring adoringly up at Williams.

Williams ignored him. "We need to talk to you alone, Mr. Harris. Can you get the kids to play upstairs for a while?"

"They won't stay up there," said Harris, staring at his feet.

Williams cleared his throat. "Then we'll talk to you here, in front of the children. It's up to you."

Harris looked defeated. "Alan," he said, "take the weans up the stairs."

"Auch, naw, I'll just stay here," said Alan. He looked up at Bunyan. "Ye can talk in front o' me," he said eagerly, "and the babies don't even understand words."

Harris sighed and rubbed his eyes, dragging the thin skin back and forth. "Take the weans up the stairs, son."

Kilty Goldfarb took her burger out of the polystyrene box and pulled off the paper.

"Ah, McFood," she said. "Reminds me of bonny McScotland."

Maureen sipped her Coke and nibbled at a cluster of salty chips. "Have ye been away a long time?"

"Few years." Kilty thought back. "Five years? Just after I graduated. Came down to do a social-work course and stayed." She took a bite out of her burger, stopped to scowl and felt in her mouth with her fingers. She pulled out a slice of green pickle, looked at it as if it were a hair and sat it on a napkin.

"Why did you study social work if you were at the art school?"

"Printmaking just didn't seem as important as this. I was going to save the world."

Maureen sat back. "D'ye ever think about going home?"

Kilty sighed. "All the time. It's hard to find a place for yourself down here, it's hard to meet people you have anything in common with. But everyone I knew's moved on, apart from my mum and dad. Don't really have friends up there anymore." She smiled. "There's no patriot like an expatriate. What do you do, apart from the made-up job with the nonexistent solicitors?"