Denise Mina - Exile

"Jimmy," said Leslie, "why are ye back here? Are they letting ye go?"

"We're just here to pick up some evidence," said Williams. "Mr. Harris flew to London the week his wife was killed."

"Aw, get real," said Leslie. "Where would he get the money to fly to London?"

Williams raised an eyebrow and looked at Leslie's leather trousers. "There's always someone to lend a hand, isn't there?" His phone rang out the theme tune from The Simpsons in his pocket. He took it out with his free hand. "Hello?" he said formally, and paused to listen. "Speaking," he said, and nodded intently at the floor as the caller spoke. "Thanks. We know about that now. Yes. Heathrow." He glanced up at Jimmy and nodded at the floor again. He looked up at Leslie, caught his guard and motioned to Bunyan to get hold of Jimmy's arm. She did as she was told and Williams opened the front door, stepped out onto the balcony and pulled the door shut behind himself.

Bunyan looked at Leslie. "How did you manage with the boys last night? All right?"

Out on the balcony Williams leaned into the receiver. "Listen," he said to DI Inness, "can you check and see if you have any intelligence on a Leslie Findlay? She lives in Drumchapel-"

Inness sounded excited. "Has she got a motorbike?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you asking about her?"

"She seems to have been involved in this case. Do you know her?"

"We all know her. She came up in an investigation a while ago. An assault case. Her and another woman. She works at the women's shelters, doesn't she?"

"Yeah." Williams glanced at the door. "You said it was an assault? Is she violent?"

"Could be," said Inness. "They messed someone up really badly."

"Was she prosecuted?"

"Can't get any evidence on them, but I'll tell you what – if she's done it again you'll've made my DCI's day."

The bar was quiet. The few big town shoppers frittered the afternoon away, missing their connecting train, not quite making it home. Two men at a table laughed unhappily and sipped at brown drinks. Maureen thought about Parlain asking for the Polaroid. Frank Toner was something to him. Toner might have crossed him. Parlain might be looking for a photo to identify him, to show to people and ask about him. None of the scenarios she came up with sounded right: Parlain was paranoid, he was hardly going to carry out a revenge attack and who ever heard of gangsters showing one another photos? They all knew one another.

"There you are," said Kilty, putting the glass down in front of her. "Whiskey and lime. Now, relax."

"I just got a bit freaked, that's all." Maureen drank deeply.

"It was mad of you to go up there," said Kilty. "You don't know the area at all."

"Do you live there?"

"Yeah, well, in Clapham. I rent a room in a Victorian terrace near the common. High ceiling, gorgeous open fire from the fifties – it's lovely."

"Can't you afford a house on a social worker's salary?"

"I'm not that settled."

"Why don't you come home?"

"Why don't you stop barking questions at me?"

"I'm sorry," said Maureen. "I'm rattled, that's all."

"He gave you a fright, did he?"

"God, yeah, I don't even know why. He was just a paranoid wanker. He wanted a photo I've got and I could have given it to him but I didn't."

"Why didn't you?"

"I dunno."

"Let's have a cigarette," said Kilty, taking her second fag out and sitting it on the table.

"Fuck." Maureen breathed out heavily and rolled her head around her neck, trying to relax a little. "That was scary."

Kilty used Vik's lighter and began producing banks of smoke from her fag. Maureen watched her and was thinking that it would be criminal to correct her when it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't cried once in four whole days. She had been shit scared this afternoon but she hadn't felt weepy or out of control. It had been months since she got through a day without her eyes transgressing. Maybe it wasn't infinite. She sat up, feeling odd and hopeful, and lit a cigarette. Kilty smiled at her. "Right, you," she said. "It's payback time. Tell me the story."

So Maureen told her about Ann in the mattress and about Jimmy and the kids, about Moe's unlikely missing-persons report, about the child-benefit book and about Hutton being shot up the arse. She went on as the drink warmed her and told her about the thin babies and Alan on the stairs and about the wee boys in their Mutant Ninja Turtle pajamas. When she looked up Kilty was staring into her drink and looking distraught. "Jesus Christ," she said, "the Turtles were ten years ago."

And they drank on. Kilty hated her job too. She'd been inspired by what Maureen had said and had been toying with chucking it all last night. "I'm not going to try and save the world anymore. From here on in"-Kilty stabbed the table with her finger for emphasis-"I'm tending my garden. And you tend yours."

"I think saving the world's easier in my case."

"Why?"

"My garden's full of drunk buffalo."

Kilty tipped her head and smiled wryly at the phrase. "Oh, right?" she said, as if she'd understood. "Well, what do you want, then?"

"I want beautiful things around me," said Maureen, "and I want a nice man to have a laugh with. And I want to feel content."

"And you think seeking justice on this earthly plain will do that for you?"

"Everyone wants things to come right in the end, don't they? It's a fundamental human desire." Maureen thought of Sarah rattling around her big house with the ghosts of naval syphilitics. "That's what attracts wronged people to religion and politics, isn't it?"

Kilty grinned. "I thought they just liked getting on and off minibuses."

"No, but, you know, the true religious are never happy campers, are they? I bet your social-work department is full of people with sorry histories."

"You're probably right," said Kilty, stubbing out her half-smoked fag. "They'd hardly tell me. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. My mother's a delight and my father's utterly charming. The only reason I'm in London is to dodge a good marriage to a big fat advocate."

"Really?"

"Christ, yeah. They're desperate for me to consolidate their social standing. It's a nouveau-riche immigrant thing."

"But you don't want that?"

"Fuck off," she sneered. "I've got better things to do with my life than choosing chintzy curtains at Jenner's."

Kilty sipped her drink and Maureen realized where she was from. She could hear the traces of the private school in her accent. Maureen was attracted to her calm acceptance of the world around her, as if no one had ever been a real threat to her and everyone was of interest. Maureen'd like that for herself. Everyone she knew was chippy. Kilty sat forward. "You see, down here coming from a posh background is considered a good thing."

"But back home?"

"Nice people won't talk to you. They think, quite rightly, that you've had a bigger slice of the pie."

"And social work is your penance for that?"

"Catholicism hangs over you like a shroud, Maureen O'Donnell."

They got round after round in, drinking slowly and enjoying the company, watching television sometimes, sitting quietly with each other. They moved on to another bar when some ridiculously young men tried to chat them up, packing Kilty's bag of shopping into Maureen's cycle bag. By the time they hit bar three Kilty was taking a lemonade every second round so that she didn't pass out and was slurring heavily. They made crazy, drunken plans together. Kilty would come home and live at Maureen's for a while. She couldn't go home to her folks – they'd want her to spend all day horse riding and attending ghastly parties. She'd come home and try being an artist, and she said Maureen should let the buffalo out of the garden. She sang "Don't Fence Me In" in a precariously high octave all the way to Brixton. The taxi driver was glad to see the back of them. He was dropping them outside the Coach and Horses before they had fully considered the other options.