Denise Mina - Field of Blood

Dr. Pete talked about a wife who had left for England years before and how she would cook a leg of lamb for special occasions. She stuck the meat with rosemary she grew in their garden and sat potatoes under it to roast in the lamb fat. The meat was as sweet as tablet, as moist as beer; it lingered on the tongue like a prayer. Before he met her he had never eaten food that made him feel as if he had just woken up to the world. The way she cooked that lamb was beautiful. She had black hair and was so slight he could lift her up and swing her over a puddle with one arm around her waist. He hadn’t talked about her in a long time.

The doors were busy with men finishing their shift. Another couple of journalists drifted towards the table, looking for a seat and a joke, but Pete blanked them and they moved off elsewhere.

More uninhibited than she had ever been, Paddy confided in Dr. Pete that she loved his writing in the Dempsie articles and asked him why he didn’t write anymore.

His jaundiced eyes slid across the floor of the pub and he blinked slowly. “I’m writing a book. I’ve been writing a book about John MacLean and Red Clydeside. They keep you back… My wife left…”

Even through the haze of alcohol, Paddy knew he was making excuses. Everyone at the News was writing a book; she was writing a book about Meehan in her head. Pete had just given up and joined the other lazy cynics. She couldn’t imagine him fit enough to lift a woman over a puddle with one hand. She wanted to say something nice but couldn’t think of a pleasantry appropriate to a man who’d pissed his life away.

Both doors opened simultaneously, letting a blast of bitterly cold air swirl into the bar. A number of men clattered noisily towards the table. It was the morning boys, coming in team-handed to visit their leader. Unbidden, they pulled over seats and settled around the table. Paddy stood up, staggering to the side a little, surprised by how drunk she was. She and Dr. Pete nodded to each other. Their time was over.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” said Pete, and he broke eye contact with her, looking back at his drink. Paddy took her half-pint with her as she pulled away into the crowd.

By now the Press Bar was heaving. The air was treacle thick with smoke and the sweet smell of spilled drink. Farquarson was standing by the door, disagreeing with a short man in front of him. A sharp, attention-grabbing, acid undertone was coming from the near corner: a sports boy had snuck in a vinegar-soused fish supper and was surreptitiously eating it off his knees. Apart from Paddy there were only three other women in the room: one, a redhead in a purple sequined top, was flirting with a table of men and being bought drinks; the other two were sitting together, one of them the beady-eyed woman who’d cried as the squat-faced policeman showed her out of the interview room. Both women stared blankly ahead as they nursed small red drinks in round glasses. Keck was hanging around a table of sports guys, laughing and leaning over while they ignored him, forcing himself on the reluctant company.

Paddy decided to go home. She tried to slip behind Farquarson, but he turned to let her squeeze through and the moment for pretending not to have seen each other was past. He tried to incorporate her into the conversation he was having about football with the small man, but she didn’t know anything about it.

“Ah ha,” he said. “More of a rugby woman, are you?”

“I don’t really watch sport.”

“Right.” Farquarson took another sip. “Ah, Margaret Mary McGuire.” He grabbed the arm of the redhead, who was sidling past. “How the devil are you?” Margaret Mary didn’t seem very pleased to see Farquarson, but he persevered. “Have you met our own Patricia Meehan? She’s something else, something else.” He swung away abruptly, leaving the two women stuck with each other.

Margaret Mary, who was too old to be wearing a sparkly top and too ginger to be wearing a purple anything, looked Paddy up and down. Her face soured. “What age are you?”

“Eighteen,” said Paddy, bold with drink. “Why, what age are you?”

“Get stuffed,” said Margaret Mary, and recommenced her sashay to the toilets.

“Hiya.”

Keck was pressing just a little closer to Paddy than the crowd warranted. It hurt her neck and eyes to look up at him.

“Right, Keck?”

“Come on over and I’ll introduce you to the guys.” He motioned towards the sports journalists, who hadn’t even noticed he’d gone.

“I’m all right, Keck. I’m finishing my drink and going in a minute.”

“You should come over, it’s a brilliant laugh.” His eyes swiveled paranoiacally around the noisy room. “Women don’t like sport, eh? What do women like, anyway?” He looked at Margaret Mary’s back. “What do they want from men? Big cars? You’re chiselers, eh?”

“Yeah,” she said, itching to get away. “If you keep coming out with crap like that the only women who’ll keep you company’ll be self-loathing nut-jobs. There are lots of nice women in the world.”

He smiled like a hostage trying not to alert the police. “I’m always frightened to talk to you in case you think, ‘What’s that dirty wee bastard been thinking about me?’ ” His glassy eyes were fixed on her neck. She could tell he was thinking about her tits but didn’t have the courage just to stare at them. “I’m an animal in bed, you know.”

Paddy drained her glass and feigned bewilderment. “How does that work? Have you got a magic mattress or something?”

At the door she turned for a last fond look round the bar and found Pete staring after her in silent entreaty, asking her to get him out of there. Paddy waved good-bye, pretending she had misread his eyes, and left him to be enveloped in a crowd of his own kind.

She sobered up on the train home, sucking her way through a packet of mints to cover the smell of drink and fags. She looked out the window at the passing lights of Rutherglen town hall and thought about the witness who had seen the boys on the train. The witness might not be credible. McVie knew all the policemen in Glasgow; he’d be able to find out something about it for her.

The house was dead. Trisha sat stiffly in the front room as Paddy ate in the kitchen, watching Adam and the Ants on Top of the Pops . They both knew she only had it on for the noise, so they wouldn’t be left alone together in the crushing silence. Paddy finished her dinner, watching the back of her mum’s head, enjoying the detached numbness afforded by the alcohol. She filled her pockets with custard creams and went upstairs to her bed.

She lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling and eating mechanically through the biscuits, letting the crumbs spill into her hair and ears. Valentine’s was on Saturday- just one more lonely day to go. He might not phone tomorrow night, but she knew she’d see him on Saturday. It would be frosty at first, but they’d kiss and touch and sort it out. Sometimes, when she thought about Sean, his handsome face melted into Terry Hewitt’s, with his pretty manners and hesitant smile.

There were definite noises downstairs: someone coming in and getting their tea, and then another couple of people in the living room, everyone talking quietly and abruptly to one another. Muffled footsteps came up the stairs, and someone stopped off to use the toilet. The bedroom door opened and Mary Ann came in, looking serious. She shut the door carefully, climbed across her own bed to Paddy’s, and sat down, poking Paddy in the ribs.

“It’s finishing on Saturday,” she whispered. “We’re having a tea for you, and that’ll be it over.” She kissed Paddy’s forehead, excited as a child at Christmas. “You smell like a brewery.”