Denise Mina - Garnethill

"Who was it and where are they?"

"Siobhain McCloud. At the Dennistoun day center. I'll need to speak to her first, I asked her not to talk to the police."

"Oh," said McEwan, "she'll talk to us."

"She won't."

"I think she will," said McEwan, and Maureen started to cry again.

Inness came into the gray office. He wouldn't look at her. "You'll have to come and tell her to talk."

He took her up to the narrow corridor again and into an interview room she hadn't been in before. It was identical to the others but the window was bigger. Siobhain was sitting on the far side of the table. She looked enormous out of the day center: she was wearing the red nylon slacks that cut into her waist and a Mr. Happy "Glasgow's miles better" T-shirt. Her eyes were open wide and she was grinning. She seemed strangely present: Maureen had only ever addressed the back of her head or the side of her face. It was the first time they'd met without being chaperoned by a noisy television.

"Hello to you," said Siobhain.

Maureen sat sideways in the empty chair, pressing her knees into Siobhain's fleshy thigh. Siobhain reached slowly into her pocket and pulled out a packet of Handy Andys. She folded one around her finger and dabbed the tears from Maureen's face, barely touching her skin with the tissue. Maureen shut her burning eyes and felt Siobhain's milky breath on her lids.

"There," said Siobhain. "Now I can do you a good turn." She lifted her hands slowly to either side of Maureen's head and took hold of her ears, shaking her head softly from side to side, and grinned at her again.

Maureen smiled despite herself, but her eyes began crying again. "Tell them where I was on Saturday afternoon." She sniffed.

Siobhain turned to McEwan. "She was visiting me."

"What time did she arrive?" asked McEwan.

"She came to see me while Columbo was on the television, just after the Hollywood star had ruined the party. She stayed until Howards' Way was over."

McEwan sent Inness to check it out. Maureen noticed that he hadn't turned off the recorder.

"This is the most interesting thing that has happened to me in many years," said Siobhain to a thoroughly uninterested McEwan.

Inness reappeared and McEwan ordered Maureen back downstairs to the grim office.

She had been there for what felt like an hour when McEwan came in for some papers. He still wouldn't look at her. "Could you eat something?" he said.

"No."

"We'll need to talk about protecting you, Maureen. There's every chance that you'll be targeted now. I'd like to offer you a panic button. You can-"

"Why am I still here?" she said.

"We want to talk to you after we've questioned Miss McCloud."

"Why are you still questioning her?"

"She was a patient in the George I ward at the Northern Hospital."

"You can't ask her about that, Joe."

"Why?"

"You just can't. She won't talk to you, will she? She can't talk about it. It'll make her sick."

"Well, she seems to be talking. I'm not questioning her, Sergeant Harris is. Harris is a woman."

"You don't understand. It doesn't matter that it's a woman."

McEwan was impassive. "Why don't you just leave it to us. Are you hungry?"

"No, I'm not fucking hungry."

The station noises died down and the office became still. The hissing stopped and the heating was turned off. As the oppressive heat of the afternoon seeped away the wooden desk and chair contracted, creaking low groans and snapping loudly. It was growing dark outside the window.

The door opened suddenly and McEwan came in. He stood at the edge of the desk playing with part of a broken pencil, picking at the frayed end. "You can go now," he said, his voice low and slow. "I want you to cooperate with us. We need to provide some protection for you. This is a panic button." He put a small gray box the size of a cigarette packet on the table. "It operates like a beeper. If you press this button it alerts us and we can have a patrol car there in a few minutes. Take it." He pushed it across the table toward her.

"What did Siobhain say?" asked Maureen.

"And I want you back here first thing tomorrow morning."

"Where is she?"

McEwan worked a strip off the pencil with his fingernail. He looked upset. "She's in the foyer." He said it as if it were a question.

Maureen lifted the beeper and brushed past him.

The sparkle in Siobhain's eyes was gone and she was trembling. She was walking slowly, shuffling tiny geisha steps. Maureen got her as far as the main road and hailed a cab. She walked Siobhain to the door and opened it but Siobhain just stood, staring at the pavement in front of her feet. Maureen asked her if she wanted to get the cab home but she didn't answer. The driver leaned over and slid the window down. "Come on," he said impatiently. "You hailed me."

Maureen walked Siobhain forward two steps and got her to hold on to the leather strap inside the cab. She tapped the right leg and, holding her ankle, stood it on the taxi floor. She tapped the left leg and shoved Siobhain's bum with her shoulder as she placed the left foot next to the other. Siobhain was frozen in a crouch in the cab door. Maureen pushed Siobhain's hip gently, working her around to the seat, and climbed back out. The red patent-leather handbag was sitting on the pavement. She rummaged under the roll of twenty-quid notes and found an envelope with Siobhain's address on it. "Fifty-three Apsley Street, please, driver."

But the driver refused to take Siobhain alone. "No way," he said. "She's jellied."

Maureen climbed into the cab beside her.

A blue Ford followed the cab at a less than discreet distance.

The address on the envelope was the second floor of an old tenement in Dennistoun, just two blocks from the day center. The close was dark and miserable, littered with free newspapers and flyers for takeaway dinner shops. An acrid blend of piss and cat spray loitered by the back door. They climbed the stairs to the second floor slowly. Maureen found the door key in Siobhain's pocket, a lone Yale on a chipped Shakin' Stevens key ring.

When she shoved the door open, a wall of heavy heather scent wafted out at her. A large jar of it was sitting on the hall table. The sweet smell crept all through the house, hinting at a landscape, broad and brutal, a hundred miles away from the poky flat with low ceilings and cheap fabrics. The furnishings were goodnik castoffs; the walls in all the rooms were painted mushroom. The only personal item in the living room was sitting on top of the television, a small framed watercolor of purple and yellow irises. Tucked into the corner of the frame, obscuring the picture, was a photograph of a small boy. He was wearing shiny red plastic Wellingtons, long gray shorts and a sky blue jersey. He was standing on a windy green hillside, self-conscious in front of the camera, smiling sadly a long time ago.

Maureen sat Siobhain in an armchair and lit the gas fire. She made two cups of tea in the galley kitchen and took them through, turned an armchair round and sat down opposite her. Siobhain wasn't moving.

"Siobhain," said Maureen. "Siobhain, can you speak?"

Still she didn't move. Maureen touched her hair. Getting no response, she waved her hand in front of her face and Siobhain blinked. "Siobhain, I'm so sorry, I didn't know they'd ask you about the hospital. I'm so sorry."

Siobhain sighed the deepest sigh Maureen had ever heard, like all the Mothers of Ireland breathing out at the one time. Maureen's resolve snapped. She couldn't find a telephone in the house so she took the Shakin' Stevens key ring and went to look for a phone box.

"Leslie," she said, when Leslie answered. "Leslie, I've done a terrible thing."