Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

She brushed past him into her bedroom. Her underwear was all over the place, the sheets on her bed had been dragged onto the floor, and a dark wet stain was drying in the middle of her mattress.

“Piss. Consider yourself lucky, they said, some of them do a shit. They get excited and it loosens their bowels.”

She slumped in the doorway, staring at the mess.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” She didn’t so Dub stroked her hair awkwardly. They were rarely affectionate to each other when the lights were on. His hand found a rhythm, some way between boyfriend intimacy and supportive friend.

She looked up at him. “What did they say?”

“The police? Neds. They asked the neighbors and one of them saw a wee guy in a tracksuit heading down the stairs.”

“A black tracksuit?”

He was surprised that she knew. “Yeah. Black tracksuit.”

She took hold of his arm. “You need to come with me. It’s not safe here.”

“I’m not scared of a vandal.”

“He’s more than that. He’s a lot more than that. Get your coat.”

They pulled the door over to make it look secure, fitting the splintered wood back in around the useless lock.

Dub looked at it. “Paddy, that won’t fool anyone who wants to steal something.”

“They don’t want to steal anything,” she said. “They’re trying to scare me.”

A tin of white paint had been thrown over the windows of the Shammy since she had been there last, probably by a Loyalist. A rudimentary effort had been made to wash it off, smearing the white over the shop front, mixing it with the street dust already gathered on the walls, making it look like a slightly dirty protest. Irish flags hung in the high-up windows.

She turned the engine off and Dub looked at her. “You’re not going in there?”

“Wait here,” she said, getting out of the car.

He was on the pavement next to her. “Don’t go in. Those places are mental.”

But she shook his hand off. “I’ve been in before.”

She left him standing in a quandary by the car, watching after her, afraid to let her go but worried about leaving the car unguarded in such a rough area.

She pushed the black-painted doors open and walked into a wall of smoke and chat. There were hardly any women, but it looked no rougher than the Press Bar in the olden days. The clothes were cheaper, the chat less conversational, just drunk men slurring at each other. Music was playing in the background, a high, tinny Irish tune played on pipes, an old song about the green of the homeland and Brits shooting at children.

She glared along the lineup at the bar, checking each of the leathers, but didn’t see Donaldson. The barman recognized her though, half watching her as he wiped the bar with a stained cloth. She looked around the tables tucked to the side of the door. Red-faced men looked up at her from a crowd grouped around an ashtray. Two of them had taken their jackets off and wore Celtic tops. She didn’t recognize any of the faces.

Their eyes were gathering on her back and she pushed through the crowd to the dimly lit booths. Behind her someone whooped at the sight of an angry woman: “Someone’s getting a thick ear tonight, bhoy.”

Six plump men were squashed into the booth but he was standing by, a hanger-on, no more than that, a heel sniffer. His hands were in his pockets, his elbows locked tight with excitement at being in their company, pulling the tracksuit trousers out at the side, making a V of his legs.

He saw her and started. A parliament of heavies sat at the table, a thick smog of smoke hanging over their heads. Their shot and half-pint glasses were filthy: an old man’s habit to keep the same glass all night, build up a taste on it.

The leader of them looked up at her, taking the measure of the plump, furious woman standing at the side of his table. A flushed face, drink-sodden eyes, his fist so big that it obscured his half-pint glass. The other men looked to him to say something, set the tone.

“Wha’?” The effort of talking seemed to take it out of him.

Paddy pointed at the tracksuit. “Who is this fucker?”

The men looked at the boy, bewildered, as if he’d just appeared at their side and they’d never seen him before. They looked back to their leader.

“Wha’?”

“This idjit, is he working for you?”

“Him?”

The men looked at the tracksuit, who smiled nervously back, tipping onto his toes, keen for someone, anyone, to acknowledge him. No one did.

They looked back at the leader and he shook his head slowly, signaling to the others that he didn’t want to talk to her. A big man at the end of the table stood up, blocking her approach with his chest. She tried to step around him but he wrapped his hand around her arm, pulling her back. “Naw.”

“Your boy’s been following me for two days. He ripped my house apart. He followed me taking my son to school.” The memory of Pete made her angry enough to pull her arm away from him. “My son .” She looked up at his face and spat at him, “How dare you.”

A fleck of saliva hit his cheek but he didn’t flinch. This man wasn’t fat. This man looked as if he had just left a maximum security prison, possibly through the wall. As she stood three inches from him, his chest looked as big as her bed. He glanced back to the drunkard boss, who flicked his wrist in the direction of the door.

The Mountain stepped between her legs and took hold of both arms, ready to wrestle her out of the bar. He was expecting Paddy to fight him but she went limp and he fumbled as she slid below his waist, letting go for a second, giving her an opportunity to duck around him and scream across the table, “He threatened my son!”

The Mountain grabbed her around the waist, dragging her back from the table just as the tracksuit came forward and punched her in the stomach. It wasn’t an expert punch. The flat of his knuckles didn’t slam into her spine, but made a short jab up to the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of her, bruising her lungs, making her jackknife over the arm.

An uncomfortable quiet fell over the bar. The tinny music droned in the background, an upbeat tune with a jig rhythm. She opened her eyes as the Mountain spun her in a half circle. The whole bar was watching them now, retreating, appalled.

The Mountain dragged her on her heels, not to the front door but out the back.

“What the fuck did ye do that for?” a Scottish voice asked.

Lifting her head for a second, she saw the tracksuit shrug.

They were going through a fire exit door, painted black with a bar handle, leading straight out to the dark and a dirt floor next to stinking bins. He lifted her over his own leg, dumping her but keeping hold. Rats scuttled away behind a wall and Paddy realized that she was utterly fucking done for.

The door slapped shut behind them, blocking out the music and the silence, leaving them alone. The Mountain pinched her face between his thumb and middle finger, cutting the inside of her cheek on the edge of her teeth, and held her up to look at him. He was very calm.

“You-”

Behind him the door opened again and Paddy shut her eyes, expecting the tracksuit with his sharp jab.

“Off. Inside. Move it.”

She opened her eyes. Donaldson.

The Mountain dropped her back onto her feet and turned. “Oh,” he said, politely, “awful sorry.” He looked down at her. “Awful sorry. Are you OK?”

She nodded hard, hoping he’d go away. Donaldson flicked his thumb at the door and the Mountain stepped back into the bar, letting the door fall shut behind him.

Donaldson reached out and brushed her shoulder, making her jerk upright, flinch away from him.