Denise Mina - Exile

The bus hurried up a slip road without losing velocity and hit the car park at fifty. The frightened passengers sat up straight, looking out of the window, holding on to the seat in front of them. The bus slowed and eased to a stop. Maureen stood up and scrambled for the door. As her feet hit the concrete she had a fag in her mouth and was lighting it. She filled her empty lungs.

It was cold and windy in the car park, properly cold and windy, making her nose run and her skin tingle. She walked slowly to the service station, straggling behind the other passengers, taking time to enjoy the weather, smoking and letting the wind peel the ash from the tip. The automatic doors slid back and Maureen found herself facing a sign welcoming her to Knutsford service station. The name reminded her of Ann, but she couldn't remember why.

She went to the loo and washed her face and hands, thinking her way through Moe and Tarn and Elizabeth. Moe still bothered her. She looked at her throat in the mirror. The red marks were turning dark blue. Frank Toner's thumb had impressed a perfect imprint on the right-hand side of her small neck. She remembered. This was where Ann got off the bus and never got back on again. She had probably met someone and got a lift, but if she was ferrying drugs up to Glasgow she wouldn't be that careless. Just out of interest Maureen fished around in her pocket, found the battered and cracked photocopy of Ann and went into the shop. There were two members of staff on but neither of them had been working here before Christmas. They were both new starts. Thinking how reckless it was of the management to leave two new starts running a shop together, Maureen made her way to the restaurant. She stopped and realized that there were CCTV cameras everywhere. The new starts could have been safely left in charge of the Brazilian national debt. Out in the foyer she saw a sign for a pizza bar. She turned the corner and found a I area with red plastic chairs and tables cordoned off from the stairs. A waitress in her fifties was cleaning the chipped plastic with more care than it deserved.

"Excuse me," said Maureen, finding her voice more rough than before. "Have you been working here long?"

"Yes, love, I've been here for five months."

"I'm trying to find out what happened to a friend of mine who was on the night bus to Glasgow. She got off for the break and never got on again about a month ago."

"Oh, yes," said the woman, folding her cloth to a flat surface. "I know."

Maureen got out the picture and showed it to her.

"I know," nodded the woman. "Wasn't it awful? We were all shocked, actually."

Maureen was surprised that news of Ann's death had reached Knutsford. "How did you hear about it?"

"I saw her, dear, I saw her coming out of the toilet and going into the ambulance. It was very sad. We were very shocked."

"Into an ambulance?"

"Yes, she was mugged, dear, in the ladies'. Beaten very badly. Had her bag stolen."

"Her bag?"

"Yes, her handbag. She wasn't found for half an hour. The men that did it were probably long gone by then."

Ann's bag. She'd taken the bag everywhere with her, afraid of it being stolen, drawing attention to herself everywhere she went. If Tarn Parlain told Maxine when it was coming in, Hutton could have been waiting for her at the service station, watching for her, waiting to do what he did best: annihilate the weak. They must have known she was going to get off and come in with a handbag worth tens of thousands. Parlain and Maxine were going out on their own, siding with Hutton against their own family and Toner. Toner would know Maxine lived with Hutton and he must have realized what they'd done before Hutton was killed over a mystery stash. Elizabeth had said Toner had wanted to talk to Ann, and Senga had told Leslie that Ann had recognized Hutton's picture in the paper. Parlain had killed Ann to stop her talking. Poor witless Ann. Toner could afford her no protection here – in Glasgow and London maybe, but not in this wilderness. The CCTV evidence might have been kept, and even if it hadn't, the ambulance would have a record of it.

She went back to the bus early, standing outside on the grass verge, smoking a final fag, wondering about Ann. How desperate would a woman have to be? How much money would she need to owe to take a chance like that? But that's what Frank Toner had been counting on, someone desperate enough to take those chances.

Williams was out of bed and pulling on his trousers before Hellian had finished the sentence. "… under the sofa which gave a superficial match to blood and hair samples from the deceased. Obviously we won't know for certain until the lab have a look at it."

Williams balanced the receiver on his shoulder and knelt down, feeling under the bed for his shoes. The guesthouse carpet was a hideous hangover from the seventies: it flowed and spiraled like a melted box of crayons and smelled of dog. "Parlain, ye said?"

"Yes, Tarn, t-a-m, Parlain, p-a-r-l-a-i-n. Works for the Adams family."

"Those bastards again. Who's Parlain under, did Intelligence tell ye?"

"One Frank Toner, f-r-a-n-"

"And she bought a ticket up on the overnight bus?"

"Yes, but we can't confirm whether she's on it. DCI Joe McEwan knows her and has volunteered one of his officers to give a visual."

"She'd better be on it. You realize that if this gets out before we interview her she's dead?"

"Won't get out this side, sir."

Maureen couldn't sleep. The cigarettes and the story about Ann had woken her up and she was desperate to get home, home to the cold and the red and yellow tenements, the big sky and the rude children. She knew who she was in Glasgow and she was going to fight back before the last and make it safe. It was half four when they reached the wild hills. Steep slopes of mud and jagged rock were capped by creeping snowbanks and the bus felt suddenly colder. She looked at the bare hills and saw the families driven from their homes to make way for sheep, a thousand Coach and Horses all over the world, serving succor to souls who couldn't go home, who didn't even know where home was. Maureen leaned her head on the window and cried for the beautiful land, sobbing and covering her face with her hands, trying not to sniff. The woman on the backseat was at her elbow. "Why are you crying?" she asked.

Maureen sniffed. "Scotland." She pointed out of the window. "It's so beautiful. I haven't been home for so long."

"That's well seen," said the woman quietly. "This is the Lake District."

The bus hurtled into the reluctant dawn, through lowlands and into the flat Clyde valley. A cloudless electric blue sky was marred in the distance by a patty of thick black cloud and in its dark gray shadow sat Glasgow, her Glasgow, and she began to cry again.

The air was very still in the bus station. Maureen's breath hovered in front of her, swirling as she pushed past the other passengers, picked her bag from the growing pile and walked out of the automatic doors. The pavement shimmered and the buildings strained against the cold. A white mist filled the tall street and Maureen cut a swath through it, leaving black footprints in the frost. A black cab glided past her, turning for the city center and the stations. She lit a cigarette. Her raw throat throbbed and she looked like shit but she was home. A sudden flurry of snow bleached the colors out of the city as she passed the foot of Garnethill and walked north. She was tempted to go home first, to dump her heavy bag, but she was sure she'd never come out again. Maureen pulled her scarf around her head and walked on.

Williams parked across the street from the station.

"Here, just here," said Inness. "That'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" asked Williams, cranking up the hand brake and making Bunyan sigh. "We're on a yellow."