Denise Mina - Garnethill

She looked down at the carpet and saw the cracked corner of a CD cover. She put her toe on it and dragged it out from under the bed without bending down. It was Benny's Best of the Selecter CD, the one she'd borrowed and was convinced she had given back. She had been so adamant. Benny'd never let her forget this.

McMummb came into the room and found her standing by the bed grinning at her feet. "I need to see the things," he said.

She watched him, waiting for him to finish his sentence, but his voice trailed away. He looked unhappily at the carpet in front of him.

"Okay," said Maureen, and handed him her watch to peruse.

She picked out a pair of jeans, her leather rucksack and a mustard cable-knit jumper. McMummb gave her the watch and looked inside the bag. He examined the clothes, held them to the light and checked the pockets. Another man in a white paper suit came into the room and checked them again.

She picked out four pairs of her most going-to-the-doctor knickers, some T-shirts, a tartan scarf and her charcoal cashmere overcoat. The two men looked them over with intense professionalism, running their fingers down the coat's silk lining. They handed them back to her. She shoved the T-shirts and knickers into the bag. "Can I get things out of my handbag?"

McMummb saw it on the floor and picked it up defensively, holding the long strap in front of him with two hands as if he were pushing a pram. "What do you want?" rags.

He took out the fag packet and looked at it. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking for. He shoved it at the Forensics man, who took the trouble to open the packet, look inside and poke the fags about with a long, bony finger. "I think we should keep these," he said, addressing McMummb solemnly.

"I think we should keep them," said McMummb.

"Okay," said Maureen. "Can I get my wallet?"

McMummb took out the wallet and leafed through the cashpoint receipts and pound notes. The Forensics man did the same and handed it to her.

"And my keys?"

"You can't come in here unless we're with you," said McMummb.

She nodded. "When will I be able to come home?"

"We'll notify you," said McMummb, as he opened the bag and took out the keys. He shook them, as if some vital clue might be hidden among them, and handed them to the Forensics man. The Forensics man held them up and shook them. He waited for them to stop jangling and handed them to Maureen.

"Thanks," she said, and put them in her rucksack.

The less the police picked up about Liam's movements the better. She went down to a battered, pissed-in call box in the next street rather than use her own phone and, finally, caught up with him at Benny's house.

At the base of Garnethill on Sauchiehall Street is a small and comfortingly grubby cafe called the Equal. Maureen took Douglas there for breakfast sometimes. It's a genuine sixties throwback, when fifties decor had just reached Glasgow: the tables are black Formica with a gold fleck through it and the coffee machine looks like a red and chrome prototype steam engine.

They sat down at an empty table near the window.

Liam tapped her on the forearm. "Where have you been all day, hen?" he asked, watching her closely to see how she was.

"I've just been sort of running around," said Maureen, her head bobbing nervously when she tried to relax her shoulders. "I didn't want to stop in case I couldn't get started again. I haven't eaten all day. That must be why I feel so shaky."

"It's probably got something to do with what happened, though, eh?"

"Well," she said, "yeah, that too."

"Scary day, though, eh?"

"I've had scarier."

He smiled at her bravura. "Could you eat something?"

When Maureen got upset the first thing to go was her appetite.

She had almost starved herself irredeemably before Liam found her in the hall cupboard and took her to the hospital. "Strangely enough, I'm starving today."

The surreal character of the cafe was enhanced by the depressed, elderly waitress with a sore leg. When she brought them the wrong order for the second time they accepted it to save her walking all the way to the kitchen again.

"Mum's been hassling the police," said Maureen, sliding her knife into the underside of an unrequested bridie and letting the excess grease run out of the pastry parcel. "She was phoning the station all day demanding my release."

"Yeah." Liam sipped his coffee. "She's gone into full Jill Morrell mode. They told me about it and I phoned home. Got Una to unplug the phone."

"What kind of things did they ask you about?"

"They asked about you and about Douglas. They didn't have a clue what I'm into so that was all right."

"Jim Maliano was dead nice to me," said Maureen.

"He's a bit of an arse usually, isn't he?"

"Total arse usually. He brought me out a chair and a cup of tea and everything. And he lent me that beautiful Celtic top to wear while I was being questioned."

Liam squeezed watery tomato sauce from the plastic bottle onto his plate of chips. "That must have impressed the polis." He watched his sister steer the oily rivulet away from her chips and beans, into a safe empty space at the side of the plate. She dabbed it off with a paper napkin. "I can see," he said, "that you're used to eating in top-class restaurants such as this one."

"Yup." Maureen smiled. "I don't like that Joe McEwan character at all."

"Yeah, he's a total prick but don't let on you don't like him."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"He's a big noise up there. It could make a difference to how they treat you. Try to seem friendly," he said, as if he'd spent his life being questioned by the police. "They asked me what I was doing yesterday afternoon."

"Yeah," said Maureen. "They were asking me about the morning and afternoon. I guess that's when they think it happened. I was at my work."

"Yeah. I had a key and I can't tell them where I was during the day."

"Why not?"

"I was at Tonsa's seeing Paulsa."

Tonsa was a courier. She traveled to London on the train once a month, bringing crack to Glasgow. She looked like a well-to-do lady in her early thirties: she had elegant bone structure, a slim figure and expensive, stylish dress sense. Liam had introduced her to Maureen when they bumped into her at the Barras market one Sunday. She looked normal until Maureen noticed her eyes: they were watery and open a fraction too little, they were a corpse's eyes, Tonsa was dead beneath the skin. Until then Maureen had thought of Liam as the Gentleman Jim of the drugs world. After meeting Tonsa she realized there was no such thing, that Liam must be a heavy guy. But he wasn't like that with her and she hung on to that. He was her big brother, she reasoned, and she was entitled to censor his life for her own consumption.

Tonsa had been in the papers recently: her boyfriend had been slashed, ear to chin, while he went about his lawful business. The local paper carried a photo of the lovely couple demanding that the police catch the evil men responsible. At the time Maureen had asked Liam why Tonsa let them take her picture, surely she wouldn't want that sort of attention. Liam had shrugged and said Tonsa was wasted, no one knew why Tonsa did anything.

"Liam," she said, nervous at asking, " 'member Tonsa's man was slashed?"

He looked up at her. "Aye?"

"Well, that wouldn't be anything to do with this, would it?"

"What d'ye mean?" he said, staring at her, daring her to go ahead.

"I just wondered if you knew anyone -"

"Am I getting the blame for this?" he snapped.

"Right, you" – she wagged a finger across the table at him – "calm down. I'm not blaming ye, I'm just asking ye. It's not an unreasonable question. You're the only person I know who deals with these kinds of people."