Denise Mina - Garnethill

Maureen thought her way back through the room, censoring Douglas's body out of the picture. "I dunno, um, no. But I didn't get a good look, really." She blinked and saw a blood-soaked curl of hair behind his ear, and below that his poor broken neck, sliced open like a raw joint. She got up, washed her hands over the dirty dishes in the sink and tried to blink away the image.

"I'm just asking because it'd be good if they didn't find one," he said.

She splashed cold water on her face. "Find one what?"

"A murder weapon."

"Why?"

"Well, if you were in the house all the time and the weapon's found somewhere else that means someone came in, did it and then went away again. That'll be good for you."

"Okay," said Maureen, having trouble seeing how any of this could be good for her. She sat back down at the table. "It turns out they were married, after all. I feel like such a mug."

"Douglas was married to Elsbeth?"

"Yeah."

He touched her forearm and spoke softly. "I thought ye'd decided he was an arse anyway."

"Yeah," she said miserably, "but he was my arse."

Benny scratched his head and looked at her shirt. "You look mental. Let's find you something to wear."

They went into the bedroom and Benny dug out a red T-shirt with "The Broad Left Anti-Capitalist Dynamos F.C." printed on the front. The Anti Dynamos were a football team Benny used to play for. Maureen had been openly coveting the shirt for years and she appreciated the gesture. Benny was over six foot and Maureen was only five two so they couldn't find her any trousers.

"You'll have to keep those joggers on."

"I hate these things," she said. "They always make me think of fat guys with free-range bollocks."

He gave her a key to his house. Maureen could sleep on the sofa bed in the front room until she wanted to go home. The arrangement was perfect: Winnie would never come here.

"Can I ask another question about it, Mauri?"

"God, please, Benny, anything you can think of…"

He bit his lip and looked at her. "It's a bit of a rough one, though."

"I can take it."

"sure?"

"Positive."

"Did you notice whether there were a few cuts or just one?"

"What, on his neck?"

"Yeah, were there a few cut marks and then a big one?"

She blinked. "Naw, from what I saw there was just one big one." He exhaled slowly. "Fuckin' mental," he muttered. Maureen asked him what he meant.

"It means whoever killed him just tied him up and did it, no threat to do it, no first go. It means they didn't hesitate."

As soon as Joe McEwan appeared at the top of the stairs Maureen could tell he was still pissed off with her. He held her eye as he walked steadily down the steps and came straight up to the desk, standing too close to her, looming over her so she had to bend her neck to look him in the face. "Did you contact your brother?" he said abruptly.

"Yeah," said Maureen. "And here he is."

Liam stepped forward and smiled. McEwan recognized him as the scruffy man who had been waiting in the lobby, the man who had driven Maureen O'Donnell up to Maryhill in the red Triumph Herald. He glowered at her. A double door next to the stairs opened and Inness and the red-haired man appeared, greeting McEwan with conspiratorial nods.

McEwan looked out of the glass doors. "You go with them," he ordered. Neither Maureen nor Liam knew which of them he was talking to. The red-haired man tapped Liam on the shoulder and jerked his head to the doors by the stairs, signaling for him to move. Liam looked back at his wee sister, still standing at the desk, looking underfed and brittle in the shadow of the tall policeman. He gave her a nervous thumbs-up and she waved him a silly cheerio.

"You come with me," growled McEwan, and stomped up the stairs, taking her back to the narrow corridor.

The high midday sun shone in through the miserly window in the interview room, hitting the wall inches above the tape recorder in a glowing yellow smear. A gangly young officer was sitting at the table waiting for them. He smiled up at Joe McEwan as he came into the room. McEwan grunted back. Disconcerted by McEwan's filthy mood, the young officer turned shyly and introduced himself to Maureen. He spoke so quietly that she couldn't make out his name. It sounded like Something McMummb. His hair was mousy brown and he had a matching mousy brown mole on his left cheek. Three coarse hairs stuck out of it like the legs on a tiny milking stool. He was dressed in a brand-new suit.

Maureen took her seat at the other side of the table, away from the door. McEwan sat down and took a slim leather-bound notebook out of his pocket, placed it on the table and slid a skinny pencil out of the spine. He turned on the tape recorder and leaned into it, telling it who was present this time. She listened for McMummb's name but McEwan's intonation dipped at the end of the sentence and she was left none the wiser.

"Did you check the heating in the house?" she asked.

McEwan lifted his notebook and began to look through it. "The heating switch was on a timer," he said.

"Yeah, but it wasn't set for-"

McEwan interrupted her. "Were you drunk when you came home last night, Miss O'Donnell?"

"Well, yeah," she said, surprised by his adversarial tone.

"You don't seem very sure now. You were sure this morning when you said you didn't see the body because you went straight to bed. Were you or weren't you drunk?"

"What has me being drunk got to do with the central heating?"

"Is it possible that you came home and put it on?"

"I know I didn't," she said meekly.

He ignored her and wrote something in his pad. She decided to try again. "When I come home drunk I've got better things to do than fiddle about with the heating."

"Like what?"

"I dunno." She smiled, trying to get them onto a friendly footing. "Like pass out."

McEwan looked at her, thinly masking his disapproval. "You were that drunk, were you?" he asked.

They weren't going to have a friendly conversation, she could tell that now. McEwan leaned his arms on the table and meshed his fingers together. He looked her in the eye as he worked the tip of his tongue into his wisdom tooth. "You said Douglas worked at the Rainbow Clinic," he said suddenly. "Was he your therapist?"

"No," said Maureen, emphatically, defensive at the implied slight on Douglas's honor. "Never."

"Well," he said, a petulant edge to his voice, "your mother said you have received psychiatric treatment in the past."

"Urn, yeah," said Maureen, uncomfortably. She knew he was launching straight into the psychiatric questions to disarm her and it was working. Most people with no experience of mental illness don't see it as part of a continuum, it's them and us, the nutters and the whole people. "I was in the Northern for five months in nineteen ninety-six," she said, "and I've seen a psychiatrist. Not for anything special, really, just in case."

McEwan wouldn't speak or break eye contact. He was much better at it than Inness. Maureen focused on the bridge of his nose.

"In case what?" asked McEwan finally.

"I had a breakdown. That's why I was in the Northern. The psychiatrist was just a follow-up thing, in case it happened again. Not that it's likely… just in case… you know."

"No, I don't know," said McEwan unpleasantly. "What were you being treated for?"

Maureen looked at them. Something McMummb seemed impressionable, probably just out of training. He watched McEwan intently, his face reacting to Maureen's answers as if he were conducting the interview himself, glancing at McEwan every so often, desperate for some sign of approval. And McEwan sat there between them, his hands clasped together, his face smug and confident, a fight looking for a venue. Fuck him, she thought, if he's so fucking smart he can find out for himself. "Depression," she said. It wasn't a lie, exactly, it was more of a half-truth, and holding information back from him made her feel empowered and confident, as if it was still her life even if McEwan was legally entitled to rake through it. She put her hands on the table, playing with an old bus ticket she had found in the pocket of Jim Maliano's jogging trousers.