Denise Mina: Exile

"Moe," said Maureen quietly, "did ye know that the guy who battered the shit out of Ann and took her bag was called Neil Hutton?"

Moe looked nervous. She knew something was coming but she couldn't work out what it was. "No," she said finally, shifting on her feet. "I didn't know that."

"Hutton was shot up the arse for dealing on his own, did ye know that?"

Moe frowned hard. "No," she said more quietly, "I didn't know that either."

"Tarn didn't tell ye that?"

Moe looked frightened.

"Well," said Maureen, moving out to the hall and over to the front door, "that was very remiss of Tarn because he knew about it. He should have told ye, really, shouldn't he?"

Moe followed her out into the hall, confused and wanting to know more.

"How d'ye think Hutton knew Ann would be in Knutsford that night? Will I tell ye? Hutton's bidie-in was a sour-faced cow called Maxine Parlain."

The expression on Moe's face didn't change but, rather, slid a fraction to the side, making her look old and vulnerable.

"Maxine's Tarn's wee sister." Maureen paused. "What d'ye think Toner would have made of that? If he'd managed to speak to Ann he'd have found out, wouldn't he? She could've described Hutton to him. She knew what he looked like and Toner would've worked it out. He'd know Tarn had told Hutton where Ann would be on the bus. He'd know Tarn had planned it all."

Moe had a shocked red flush around her eyes and Maureen imagined she saw blood on her lips. "If Ann ever comes near Jimmy or those kids, I'll kill her myself. You tell her that. And for fuck's sake tell her to stop cashing the fucking child-benefit book." Maureen unclipped the Yale and swung open the door. "Fucked ye both ways, didn't he, hen?"

Maureen headed farther up Brixton Hill. She turned, walking backwards and looking down to the lights of the high street. It was dark and the orange streetlights throbbed awake. She was leaving, she was going home, and the ugly streets and vile buildings and the men in pubs and the hungry beggars couldn't keep her here. She hailed a cab. "Heathrow," she said. "Can ye get me there for seven o'clock?"

"I can get you there for half six."

She didn't know. She'd been thinking about it for days. She thought she'd already decided back at the house. She was going to tell Jimmy that Ann was alive because it wasn't right for her to know and not tell him. But now, in the stippled, pissy lift, she'd changed her mind again. She remembered what Angus had said about the blood and how that one scrap of information had haunted her for months. Jimmy and the kids were just reaching some sort of equilibrium. If she told him, Jimmy might go looking for her, and Ann could end up on a murder charge with the rest of them. But at least the kids would have a mum, and a mum in jail is still a mum. She didn't know.

Alan opened the door to her, but he wasn't playing the helpless child anymore. He held the door tight to his face and looked out at her. "Whit d'ye want?" he said, eventually.

She wanted to say something unpleasant to him, pull him up about his manners or something, but she couldn't find it in her heart.

"Why have ye got that on your neck?" he said, staring at her neck brace.

"I fell. Is your father in?" she said.

"Aye." He didn't budge.

"Alan, son, there's nothing clever about being ignorant. Go and get your da."

Alan's eyes slid to the side, listening to the living room, and he pressed the door tighter against his face. "Da's busy," he said quietly.

"Hey," Jimmy was shouting at him from the living room, "is that someone at the door?"

Alan sighed and looked at Maureen's feet for a huffy moment before opening the door and slipping back into the house. Maureen heard him whisper something as the door fell open.

Jimmy was sitting in the big chair, changing the babies into their pajamas. "Oh." He smiled. "It's you. Hello."

"Hello, you, yourself," she said, and they grinned at each other as if it were Christmas and Santa were real.

He dropped the sweatshirts and climbed over the little people standing around his chair, coming towards her with a big smile. As he got closer she saw his uncertainty. He didn't know whether to hug her or kiss her or what. He squeezed her shoulders, stood on tiptoe to reach across the plastic frame of the brace and planted a chaste little peck on her cheek. She stepped into the hall and the first thing that struck her was the damp warmth. "God," she said, taking her hat off, "it's warm in here."

Jimmy pointed to a calor-gas fire standing in the middle of the room. It was on full and the babies were watching the little orange blanket of flames, mesmerized as if by television. "Eh?" said Jimmy, smiling.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Where did you get that?"

Jimmy nodded out to the hall. "Eh, out of the door money," he said, a little embarrassed.

"Ye charging to get in here now?" she said, watching Alan standing in the kitchen doorway eating a margarine sandwich. She nodded to him. "All right, wee man?"

Alan looked irritated. He stormed past her out to the hall and up the stairs, leaving Jimmy shaking his head in exasperation. "That wee cunt," he muttered. He looked at her. "I've telt him and telt him, we owe everything to you and Isa and wee Leslie, and he still won't mind his manners."

"But ye don't owe us, Jimmy, ye don't. You're the one that does the hard work."

Without seeming to have moved, the babies had somehow gotten closer to the fire. It was obvious that they had been told not to go near it; they were watching Jimmy's legs out of the corner of their little eyes, their backs stiff with naughty apprehension. Maureen pointed to them and Jimmy swung round. "Get away," he said, slow and threatening, raising his hand over his head.

The babies scuttled backwards, grinning and keeping their eyes on the gorgeous flames as they held on to the armchair. Maureen told Jimmy to finish dressing them, and would he mind if she went up to see Alan? Jimmy cringed. "It's no' very tidy."

She climbed the narrow staircase to the cold landing. The bathroom door was lying open. The noise of an anxiously dripping tap and the sickly-sweet smell of mildew filled the air. The bedroom door had a Radio One sticker on it and a slit of light below. She knocked. Alan shouted that she couldn't come in but she opened the door and called into the crack that she'd traveled all the way up the stairs to see his room. He didn't answer her. The smell of baby pee and mildew mingled in the doorway. She opened the door a little more and looked in. Two sets of unmade bunk beds on either side of the room left a narrow three-foot strip of floor between them. The aisle was full of little shoes and clothes, broken secondhand toys and the tails of rough blankets. Alan sat cross-legged on the far lower bunk, watching the door like an angry convict. She should have decided before she came. "Are ye all right, son?"

"Don't you 'son' me," he said, furious but keeping his voice down so that Jimmy wouldn't hear him. "I'm not your son. My mum's dead."

She looked bored. "Doesn't mean that, anyway," she said, staying in the doorway and checking out the comics on his bed. "It's just a thing ye say. What do your pals call ye?"

"Mental Harris," he said, his eyes flashing in the shadow. He was lying. Maureen had known kids like him at school. They probably called him Smelly.

"Well," she said, "I'll call ye… Alan."

He almost smiled at that.

"D'ye like comics?" she asked.

He touched them with his fingertips and said aye, he did, and she stood there for a bit. She wanted to say that she'd been a sad and angry wee girl and she knew how he felt but she didn't know. Even when Michael was hitting Winnie they'd always known that she could handle herself and provide for them. "Ye know, Isa and Leslie don't mean ye any harm."