Denise Mina - Exile

"The game's a bogie, Mauri," said Liam. "The police found stuff in Harris's house, his wife had been back-"

"What stuff?" interrupted Maureen.

"A set of photos belonging to the woman. In Leslie's shelter place at Christmas."

"But Leslie's got them! She wouldn't have two sets."

"Hey," shouted Liam indignantly, "don't fucking shout at me, I didn't put them there-"

"I didn't shout!" she shouted.

"Mauri, listen. Harris had been in London as well. They've got evidence that he was here when she died. Isn't that proof enough?"

"I'm not going home yet," she said simply.

"Look, Mauri," he said softly, "there's no point sulking about this. Take it from me, Frank Toner is a very scary man. If you've been showing that picture around you need to come home. Did ye show the picture to anybody?"

She shrugged.

"Did ye show it to anyone who could trace ye to home?"

She vaguely remembered showing it to Mark Doyle, or Tonsa – she couldn't remember.

"Tonsa?" she said. "I think I showed it to Tonsa."

Liam was horrified. "Tonsa?" he said, slapping her leg and leaning over her. "Maureen, they'll think you're working for me."

"But you're retired."

"No one retires, you silly cow. If Tonsa realizes who you are and tells Toner, I'm fucked. God." He sat back and looked at her. "Wee hen, you've got to come home before ye do some real damage."

Vaguely, vaguely in a distant place within her shriveled brain, she remembered telling Tonsa she was Liam's sister. She'd said his name to Tonsa, of all fucking people. She looked up at the umbrella floating on the ceiling. He had told her not to mention him. He had specifically told her.

Liam nudged her gently. "Let's go home."

"I need one more day to make it right," she said, panicking. "I need to see her sister again. She's a wee old lady, she doesn't keep well. One more day? Can't we stay tonight and leave tomorrow?"

Liam looked hurt. "Promise me that's all you're going to do."

"I promise."

Martha was leaning on the door frame, her forearms wrapped around her waist in a way she imagined was slimming. She smiled at Liam. "Looks like you're staying," she said, and laughed gaily.

"We're not staying here," said Liam bluntly. "There isn't any room."

"Alex is away for a couple of days," said Martha casually. "There's loads of room. Maureen's comfortable on the sofa, aren't you?"

"Yeah," said Maureen. "It's just one night."

Reluctantly, Liam went out to the hall and phoned the airline, changing the flights for the next evening. Maureen and Martha sat together on the settee, listening and relaxing when they heard him confirm his details. Martha smiled. "It's comfortable, isn't it?"

"What?"

"The sofa. Nice and comfortable."

Confused, Maureen smiled back at her as Liam came back in. "Tomorrow night," he said. "But we can't change them again, right?"

Maureen nodded. "I'd better go back to Sarah's," she said, staring meaningfully at Liam, "and let her know I'll be staying here."

"Good. Come on, then," said Liam, deliberately not inviting Martha.

Maureen said she wanted to see Kilty to give her back what was left of her shopping. In fact, she had been so drunk the night before that she wasn't sure how they had left things. A twitching pang of hangover insecurity nagged at her and she wanted to see her to make sure it was all right. The young landlord let them into the narrow hallway and said that Kilty was upstairs, last door, knock loud.

"She knows we're coming," said Maureen.

"You'll still have to knock loud."

The door to Kilty's room trembled with the reverberating theme tune from the Money Programme, and beyond the wall of noise a trilling little soprano voice sang along badly, following the notes a step late and pausing for breath midbar. Maureen banged on the door as hard as she could but felt the sound being swallowed beyond the door. She banged again and the singing stopped. Moments later the theme tune flickered to a dead stop. "Did someone knock?" asked Kilty politely.

"It's me."

The door opened on a grinning Kilty. Her room was large, with a big oriole window at the far end and wooden shutters like the ones in Liam's house. She had very little furniture: a single bed, a leather armchair and an ottoman. On the far wall a semicircular fireplace built of orange tiles looked like a decorator's take on a sunset. It was stacked with smoke-free fuel, little burning black boiled sweets. A gold mesh fireguard stood in front of it.

'This is my brother, Liam."

Kilty smiled and held out her hand. "Kilty Goldfarb," she said, shaking Liam's hand.

Liam looked bewildered. "What is that?" he said. "An anagram?"

Kilty wiggled her eyebrows alternately at Maureen, and Liam watched them, hoping she'd do it again. Kilty turned off the television and made sure the fireguard was as close to the fire as possible before slipping on her fur coat and turning off the light. She said that the best place for a quiet chat was the Alhambra restaurant and the coffee was beautiful. On the way round the corner Maureen chatted anxiously and managed to glean that Kilty had had a good night the evening before and Maureen had neither said nor done anything spectacular in her company, apart from convincing her to have a drink in the Coach and Horses.

The Alhambra was a North African restaurant decorated with a desert-theme mural. It looked as if the artist could only draw people from a side-on view but they had exploited their limitations to the full; men carried heavy bags and led camels backwards and forwards across the wall while the women stared straight at them or watched their backs. Kilty took a table near the window and began talking to Liam, asking him about himself. They knew the same crowd of people from the Glasgow Tech disco and worked out that they had probably been at several of the same parties when they were in their late teens but had somehow managed never to meet each other. At Kilty's insistence they ordered three coffees. Maureen sipped hers. It was delicious, the bitterness of the coffee tempered by the subtle perfume of cardamom seeds and other hints and flavors too complex for a heavy smoker's palate. Maureen asked Kilty to smoke a cigarette. Liam and Maureen sat and watched her puff-puffing over her coffee, giggling and nudging each other. Maureen didn't expect Kilty to enjoy the negative attention quite as much as she did, but Kilty didn't mind people laughing at her because Kilty thought she was great. And so she was. Kilty stubbed out her fag, finished her coffee and pulled on her jacket, saying she'd better go home and get ready for work tomorrow. She invited them both out for dinner the following evening.

"We're going home tomorrow," said Liam.

"Oh." Kilty looked crestfallen. "What a shame. You will come back, though, won't you?"

"I'll definitely come back and see ye," said Maureen. "I promise."

Kilty leaned across the table, grabbed Maureen by the ears and pressed a smacking kiss into her cheek. She stood up. "I had a fucking top time last night." She pulled her ski hat down over her eyebrows like a cloche. "It was lovely to meet you. Both."

"She's a turn and a half," said Liam, when she had gone.

"She certainly is." Maureen grinned.

Liam had ordered two plates of lamb couscous. Maureen didn't want to eat but the cardamom coffee had given her an appetite. When the food arrived the smell from the meat was rich and heady and the couscous was as light as air. Tentative, she tried eating a little couscous on its own, then with a spoonful of gravy over it and finally got stuck in. Liam ate his dinner and kept an avaricious eye on hers, discouraging her where he could, telling her that dinner was the worst meal to eat with a hangover and lamb could prolong the pain for up to a week.