Denise Mina - Field of Blood

“So.” Sean dug at the edge of a concrete slab with the toe of his shoe. “Do you want to come to the pictures tonight? We never got to see that film.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Sean glanced at the people next to him. “I don’t want to talk about that here.”

“Well, I do.”

“Paddy, you brought it on yourself-”

“Shut up, Sean.” She moved around so her father and mother couldn’t see her face. “Listen, your cousin is being set up. Those children were driven there to kill that child, and no one cares but me. No one gives a shit, and if he was from a better family everyone would want to know what went wrong.” He looked angrily down at her, and she dipped her head. “I meant his immediate family.”

He was quiet for so long she had no alternative but to look up.

“Where’s your ring?” he said.

“I took it off. When I didn’t hear from you I didn’t know if I was still engaged.”

“We’re engaged until I tell you otherwise.”

She almost laughed at him. “Piss off.”

“You made a promise,” he said, “for better or worse.”

“No, I didn’t. I haven’t promised those things yet, remember?”

“I’m not having an argument with you here,” he said firmly.

Paddy shifted her weight from one leg to the other, rubbing the raw, soft tissue in her pants to remind herself about the night before. She smiled at him. Across the yard her father was smiling and talking to her mother.

“Okay, Sean, you want to go to the pictures with me? Let’s go to the pictures.”

“Tonight?” he said accusingly.

“You’re on.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven.” He walked away, brushing past her and knocking her with his shoulder. “And put your ring on.”

Walking Paddy to the train station from the chapel, Mary Ann waited until they were behind the Castle Bar before asking if she had seen Stephen Tolpy’s trousers from the back. Paddy hadn’t, and Mary Ann was laughing too hard to explain why the trousers were funny. Paddy watched her pink face, her twitching nostrils, and joined in for no good reason. The girls laughed all the way down the stairs to the platform, both wondering how anything could be this funny and laughing again at the fact that it was.

The platform was a strip of unsheltered concrete sitting in a large tract of overgrown land. To the north, beyond some low-level buildings, was a view of the city, right to the cathedral and the Drygate high flats. Behind the peaks and spires of the city they could see the clean, snowcapped hills. The wind hurtled across the flat land, coming from the town, making those waiting turn their backs and look away. Together the sisters turned into the wind, narrowing their eyes tightly, catching the dust and grit on their eyelashes, and walked the length of the platform, arms linked and still laughing.

Mary Ann squeezed Paddy’s arm. “I’m glad that fight’s over.”

Paddy knew it wasn’t. “I didn’t do it, you know.”

She squeezed again, harder this time. “I don’t care if ye did. I sometimes wish someone would do something and just-” But she stopped herself.

The train arrived, and Mary Ann waited until it was pulling out of the station, waving to Paddy and laughing, acting as though she was going away for a long time. Paddy waved back and giggled until Mary Ann was out of sight. She knew the fight would never be finished. She’d never belong in the heart of them as she had before.

As Paddy sat on the shuddering train into town, she remembered Meehan and his family and the unbridgeable distance between them.

After seven years protesting in jail, two books about the case, and a television documentary, Meehan had been offered parole papers.

“Sign them,” the officer said. “Put your name there and you’ll be out by the end of the week.”

“Do I have to say I’m guilty?”

“You know you do.”

Meehan had been in solitary for seven years, had got to walk in the yard for only twenty minutes once a fortnight. They wanted an excuse to release him, but it had to be on their terms. Meehan took a chance and said no. They wanted him out. Ludovic Kennedy’s book about the flaws in the case had raised his profile so much that keeping him in was bringing the justice system into disrepute.

Five days later he was standing in his wife Betty’s front room, holding a whisky tumbler in one hand and his royal pardon in the other, raising a glass with his family of strangers. It hurt his eyes to look at them. The colors they wore were so bright and their faces closed to him. His daughter was thin and gray, left weak by the treatment she had received for her nervous breakdown. His eldest son’s jaw was clenched even when he drank, a rope of muscle cutting across his face. And there was his big stupid cousin Alec and his ugly wife, neither of whom had ever liked Meehan much. They didn’t care whether he was guilty or innocent. They were only there because he’d been on telly.

Meehan knew he looked bad. He had the dry, gray skin long-term prisoners always had, and he had lost three stone over the years. He was a skinny old man now. Out of all of them only Betty looked good. She had dyed her hair blond, and it softened her. She was dressed in a white cotton pantsuit and red sandals, and she had been using a sunlamp: she had a faint white stripe across the bridge of her nose from the goggles. Before he went in Betty dressed dowdy; she used to be afraid of color. Now he watched her over the rim of his glass as he drank and saw a cheerful spark in her eye. Someone had put it there, and he knew it wasn’t him. He didn’t even have the heart to feel jealous. He had depended on Betty his entire adult life- he half despised her for being so dependable- but now she was moving away he felt nothing but admiration. He wished her well, he really did. He felt that she had got out too.

This was Betty’s front room, not theirs. This little square room with a window that looked over the river, it rightfully belonged to her. She had made it clear that he was welcome and would be sleeping on the settee. He would get digs as soon as possible and give her peace.

Cousin Alec and his wife left, and the kids went down to the shops for half an hour to leave them alone. Betty and Meehan sat in silence side by side on the settee, drinking tea and slowly eating biscuits.

Terry was waiting in his car, his arm slung over the back of his seat, mock casual, watching the station door for her. She was twenty minutes late, and he looked as if he’d been there for a while. He had washed his hair and shaved, taking the shadow from his chin, making him look boyish and eager. Paddy felt her skin bristle excitedly at the sight of him. She looked away and took a deep breath as she crossed the road. He leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door for her. She slid in next to him.

“Hiya.”

“Hiya.”

They looked at each other for a hard moment, their eyes locked.

“How’s the knee today?”

“Fine.”

They sat in silence. Terry’s hand moved forward, invisible under the dashboard, covering hers. “I had an amazing time last night.”

“Me too.”

His hand pressed on hers. “Actually, I had four amazing times last night.”

“You don’t need to boast to me, Terry. I was there.”

“I know.” He bared his teeth. “But it’s a personal best, and I can’t tell anyone else. Shall we go?”

Paddy nodded, dreading his taking away his hand, savoring the heat from the heart of his palm. He turned to face the road, put both hands on the steering wheel, and sighed contentedly.