Denise Mina - Field of Blood

Mary Ann went out to change into her nightclothes in the bathroom and left Paddy alone. She took another biscuit from her pocket and chewed it meditatively. To hell with them. She wasn’t going to be in on Saturday. She was going out with Terry during the day, and in the evening she’d be out at the pictures with Sean.

Paddy shucked off her coat by the door and walked across to the bench. A balding subeditor with a small horn of hair on his forehead caught her eye and muttered hello. It made her feel suspicious and worried. She didn’t answer back. Ten minutes later, a different journalist patted her arm and said he was sorry when she brought him a box of staples.

She was on the bench, wondering whether she’d done something in the pub that she didn’t remember, when Dub came back from the print room. She told him what had happened and said she was worried they were being friendly for a bad reason.

Dub stretched his skinny legs out in front of him. “Name a bad reason for being friendly.”

“Dunno. I was in the Press Bar for a few hours yesterday afternoon. I just hope they don’t think I’m fast or something.”

Dub snorted. “No one thinks that.”

She looked nervously around the room for clues. She didn’t know if it was the aftereffects of the drink the day before, but she was as tense as a trip wire this morning.

“Keck confided that he’s worried in case I guess all the dirty things he’s been thinking about me.”

Dub laughed and told her that Keck was a crippled-dick-wank-donkey-fucker and he had the photos to prove it. Paddy liked the word and laughed along with him, enjoying the camaraderie of having a mutual enemy.

They stayed on the bench, letting Keck take the calls, chatting for a while. Dub told her the police had been chucked out of the building. Farquarson and McGuigan had had a set-to because they were disrupting the running of the paper, pulling people out of meetings and making all the women cry. They’d missed a big story on Poland because of them, lost a phone line when the police yanked Liddel off the newsroom floor.

It wasn’t until after the editorial meeting that she finally heard why everyone was being nice to her; it was one of those morsels of city gossip that could never be used in the paper, like the children’s names or the details of how Brian had died. Callum Ogilvy had attempted suicide the night before and been rushed to hospital. He’d used a knife and done it under a table in the refectory with everyone there. He almost cut his hand off. It was so bad they had to operate. Only because he was almost a relative Paddy suddenly thought she should go and visit him. The thought stayed with her; Sean could probably go and visit Callum. If she went with him she could interview the boy for the paper. Her family would never talk to her again if she did that. She’d have to think of something else.

She approached the subeditor on the news desk, the horned man who had shot her a sympathetic glance earlier, and asked him for McVie’s contact details. He got the phone number from someone on features.

“I heard you were related to that Ogilvy boy.”

Paddy was copying out the telephone number from a Rolodex card and didn’t answer.

“You can’t choose your family, can you?”

“Or your colleagues,” said Paddy, picking up a phone receiver without even asking for permission.

“McVie won’t want you to call him.”

“He’ll be fine.” She dialed the number. “I know him. Honestly, he won’t mind. He gave me his number before but I lost it.”

McVie sounded groggy. “What in the name of pissing hell are you doing phoning me at home, you fat cow?”

“Fine, yeah.” Paddy looked at the sub and pressed her lips together, nodding to show the call was welcome.

“Where the hell did you get my number from?”

“Oh, so I suppose, aye.” She spun away from the table and scratched her nose, covering her mouth. “Listen, I need a favor.”

“It’s ten o’clock in the fucking morning. Ye can shove your favors up your arse.”

“The police asked me about Heather and you.” She dropped her voice. “They wanted to know about the calls car and why you invited her out.”

He hesitated. “What did you tell them?”

“What should I have told them? Nothing happened. You’re a good guy.”

He sighed and lowered his hackles. “What’s the favor, then?” She drew breath to speak, but he interrupted. “It better not be big or involve me leaving the house in the next hour.”

“I want the name of the witness who saw the Baby Brian Boys on the train.”

“Why?”

“I don’t believe they were on the train at all.”

“What’s the difference how it went down? They did it, there was blood all over them. She picked them out of a lineup fair and square.”

She didn’t want to tell McVie her suspicions, much less reiterate them in the newsroom, where anyone could be listening. “It makes a difference to me.”

“Because you’re a relative?”

It was easier just to agree. “Yeah.”

“Well, it’ll take a lot of string pulling. Witnesses are special cases. If anything comes out of this I want my name on it.”

“Come on, McVie.” She smiled weakly and looked around the room. “You know I’m an idiot. Nothing’s going to come out of it.”

He was suddenly wide awake and interested. “You’re really onto something, aren’t you?”

Paddy bit her lip. “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound enthused. “I really think I’ve got a big story here. I promise your name’ll go on it, right next to mine.”

“Ah.” He thought about it for a moment. “Well, now I don’t know what to think.”

“I was talking to JT about the witness. He said women always come forward and it’s usually for attention.”

“Balls, that’s just like the man. It’s much more complicated than that. People want to see things. Some think they see things. Some wish they could see things. People who say it’s for attention are arseholes.”

“For Godsake, everyone in the world can’t be an arsehole except you and me.”

“I never said you weren’t an arsehole.”

She almost laughed out loud. “You know, McVie, you’re a real character.”

She could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Funny,” he said. “Fat, but funny.”

Farquarson had noticed that half the staff were using little pens stolen from bookies’ shops and thought it looked unprofessional. As Paddy went around the tables giving out fresh Biros to everyone, she thought about Paddy Meehan and the lineup, when Abraham Ross, fresh from his dead wife’s bedside, picked him out and then fainted in front of him.

Meehan had talked about the injustice of it afterwards, but no local journalist would listen. Every convicted man in Barlinnie Prison claimed he had been set up, and Meehan was a well-known old con, neither liked nor respected and hardly known for his principled core. It wasn’t until Ludovic Kennedy began researching his book about the case that the details of the day were documented.

Meehan had gone into the police station feeling confident. Griffiths was dead and the paper from the Rosses’ safe had been found in his pocket, but it was a plant and really strong evidence was starting to go his way. The Kilmarnock girls had been found and were coming to identify him, and he had been told that the two robbers had referred to each other as Pat and Jim throughout the job. The police would know that no professional criminal would ever call another by his real name. Plus the police were looking for two guys from Glasgow, and Griffiths had a deep Lancastrian accent. Everyone who ever met him commented on it.