Denise Mina - Garnethill

"Liam's being a prick. Have you got your bike with you?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Can we go to yours? I want to get away from him."

Leslie gave her the spare crash helmet from the carrier box and Maureen climbed onto the pillion, wrapping her arms around her friend's waist, and nuzzled her face into her shoulder. Leslie sat back a little as she kick-started the bike, pressing into Maureen, letting her know she was all right. The cold rain nibbled Maureen's legs numb as they rode to the northern outskirts of the city, to the Drum, the scheme where Leslie lived.

As they hit the lip of the hill overlooking the scheme a sudden burst of sunshine from the west lit the rain as it fell. In the deep valley below, the high-rise blocks stood like giants paddling in a shallow sea of bungalows.

Leslie lived on the fourth floor of an old-fashioned block of six flats. She was lucky: her neighbors were good-natured and elderly; they were at home most of the day and asleep most of the night. They put net curtains, plants and bits of carpet in the close to give it a homely atmosphere.

She pulled up outside the close, dragged the bike through to the back court and chained it to a large metal ring attached to a block of concrete. Three tiny girls were playing at skipping ropes out the back. They stopped and stared at Maureen. The weeest girl had a square head too big for her body and thin, wispy baby hair, pulled up into a pony tail at the top of her head. She was dressed in a pale pink skirt and a red woolly jersey with bleach scars on the sleeve. Her mouth was stained with orange juice. Maureen made a silly face at her. She blushed, giggled and pulled her skirt up to cover her juice-stained face.

"That's wee Magsie," said Leslie. "She's three and a half. Aren't ye, wee teuchie?"

Wee Magsie kept her skirt over her face and giggled shyly, rocking from side to side.

"Yes," said the biggest girl, who could only have been seven. "I'm her big sister and I've to look after her today."

Wee Magsie ran away.

"Don't be fuckin' stupid, wee Magsie," shouted her big sister, running after her and dragging her back. She spat into a tissue and wiped at the orange stains on wee Magsie's face. Magsie held on to her sister's jersey with both hands and grinned as her face was roughly scrubbed.

"See that?" said Leslie. "They're wee mammies before they stop being kids."

Leslie made some coffee and listened as Maureen told her everything that had happened.

Two hours had passed and they were both tired. Leslie poured them a glass of beer each and heated up a pot of stew made with slices of onion and fifty-pence-shaped carrots.

"It's not like you to cook, Leslie," said Maureen, buttering four slices of bread and putting them on a plate.

"Mrs. Gallagher across the close made it."

"And how did you get it? Did ye steal it from her?"

"No," said Leslie, "she brought it across. She always does that, makes too much and gives ye some."

"Una does that sometimes, when she bakes."

"How is Una? Up the duff yet?"

"No, it's a sin. She was over the other day. Mum's telling everyone I'm crazy. She said I might have killed Douglas and not remembered."

Leslie ladled the stew into bowls. "I think you should stay the fuck away from her. No offense, I know she's your mum and everything, but she's-"

"I know, Leslie, you don't have to say it out loud."

"You should, though."

"I know, but she's the only parent I've got and you need at least one."

It was a fine night and Leslie liked eating hot food in the open air so they put their jackets on and took the stew out onto the veranda, sitting in the dark on old stained deck chairs, knee-deep in a forest of dead plants. The stew was thick and salty. The veranda overlooked a patch of waste ground with irregularly undulating hillocks, bald and strewn with litter. Children were shouting and chasing each other around, apparently without purpose, as a flamingo pink sunset bled into the navy blue night.

Maureen finished her stew. The waste ground was emptying, most of the children going home to their tea. Three or four hung around, silhouetted against the dying light, kicking at the ground and talking to each other. She huddled inside her big overcoat, wrapping her hands around the glass of beer as though it would warm her, and lit a cigarette. "What are you going to do about the shelter, then, if the appeal fails?"

Leslie dunked a folded slice of buttered bread in the hot gravy in her bowl. "I have not one fucking clue," she said. "We've got a meeting with the subcommittee next week. We should've got a lawyer in the first place but the action committee were against it, said we'd save a week's running money if we did it ourselves. What are you going to do about Douglas?"

"I dunno either," said Maureen. "The police don't seem very sharp. They totally missed Suicide Tanya and the photograph in the paper. They must have missed other stuff too, things I didn't stumble across."

"Yeah," said Leslie, combing through the thick gravy with her fork, looking for the meat. "I bet they did."

Maureen sipped her beer and watched Leslie biting a lump of meat off her fork. "Do you think I should leave it to the police?"

Leslie chewed a space in her mouth. "No, I don't. They'll charge you and if they don't get you they'll get Liam."

"That's what I think."

Leslie swallowed. "The police don't have an infinite amount of time to spend on anything. They just go with the most obvious answer. You're both so dodgy-looking. Think about it, the two people who could get into the house. You've got a psychiatric history which you've already lied about, you were his mistress-"

"I wasn't his mistress"

"That's what they'll call it and they probably can't conceive of a woman who doesn't want to get her man and keep him. And Liam, heavy guy, dealer, public enemy number one, wee sister seeing married older guy. Gets protective and kills him."

Maureen slumped in her deck chair. "They'd planted footprints with my slippers and they did something in a cupboard. It's the cupboard Liam found me in before he took me to hospital."

"In the same cupboard?"

"Yeah, same one."

"Who the fuck knew that? I didn't even know that."

"No one did. Just me and Liam."

"Which means one of you told someone else. Did Douglas know? Could he have told someone?"

"Not that I remember. Christ, I'm really fucked. Whoever did this really knew how to pick a winner."

Leslie wiped her bowl clean with a slice of bread. "He's not daft, is he? You need to find him in case he finds you first. You should carry something in your bag to protect yourself."

"What, like a knife?"

"Oh, for Christ sakes, no. The police could arrest you if they found it." She lit a cigarette. "Hair spray, you can spray it in his eyes, or one of those metal combs, you know, the ones with the pointed ends. I've got one."

She collected the dirty bowls and clambered over Maureen's legs to get into the house. When she came back she had the comb with her. She handed it to Maureen. It was stainless steel, with a long tapered handle ending in a rounded point. "Once you've sharpened that end rub it with oil to make all the metal the same color."

Maureen took it. "I think I'd freeze."

"No, you won't," said Leslie. "Just remember what he did to Douglas. He's a vicious bastard so don't flinch and don't wait for him to hurt you first." She climbed back over Maureen's legs, the tip of her cigarette leaving a glowing crimson trace against the dark sky, and sat down in her deck chair.

"I don't understand why they'd plant footsteps with my shoes and maybe even fix the timer but do it while I was at work."

"Yeah. Maybe it was just a mistake."