Exile (36 page)

A bus passed the phone box, sending a gust of air under the door.

“Are ye hungover again?” he said, sounding a bit worried.

“No, I’ve got the flu or something.” She felt like Winnie, telling a hopeless lie to cover up her drinking. “I think I got it from someone on the bus,” she said, digging herself in deeper and deeper, wondering why the fuck she was lying.

“Hutton was trying to move out on his own,” said Liam. “That’s why he was hit.”

It took her a couple of seconds to remember why she cared about any of it. “Oh. That’s good, isn’t it?” she said. “Means Ann had nothing to do with it.”

“Probably. No one knows where he got his stash from. She might have been carrying up to him.”

Maureen tried to think of something intelligent to say but blanked. “My head’s bursting,” she said.

Liam paused. “Why are you outside, then?”

“Sarah chucked me out for getting drunk and bad-mouthing Jesus.”

“So, you got drunk while you had the flu or you’ve got a flu with exactly the same symptoms as a hangover.”

She laughed softly, trying not to shake her head or breathe out too much. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “I feel so bad. I’ve hurt my hand.”

“Well, you shouldn’t drink so much,” said Liam. “I heard they arrested that Jimmy guy.”

“Yeah. Look, Liam, your druggie pals down here, are they nice people?”

“Yeah, they’re nice enough.”

“Can I go and see them? I want to ask them about something.”

“I can’t give you their address, Mauri. It’s a confidential relationship, you know.”

“Come on, Liam, you’re not a priest.”

“They won’t be chuffed if I send you there. They’re a bit, you know, careful.”

“Can’t you phone them first and ask?”

“They might not be in.”

“Well, ye can tell me whether they’re in when I phone back in a minute, can’t ye?”

“They won’t like it.”

“I’ll phone ye back in twenty minutes, Liam.”

Liam tutted and muttered “fuck’s sake” before hanging up. Maureen looked around at the soft porn in the phone box, wondering what the children who came in here thought of it. A lorry passed by outside and the cards on the cheaper paper fluttered, whipping up like curling fingers. The Hebrew Israelites were still chanting threats through a megaphone. She would have given anything to be at home, before Mark Doyle had grabbed her elbow, before Sarah had called her an alkie.

Chapter 37

MARTHA

Martha’s voice was a drawling syrupy balm and her soft eyes were a solace. She wore a colorful wraparound skirt, a short red T-shirt and big trainers. “Alex is away for a couple of days,” she said, blinking slowly, as if she’d just had a smoke or was about to have a smoke. “Anyway, babe, Liam said you had a really bad hangover and I had to look after you.”

Maureen lay back on the settee and looked at the ceiling. Martha lived just across the road from the Oval underground station. It was a poky flat, gracelessly shaved from a more illustrious whole. The odd-shaped rooms were too high, the cornicing stopped abruptly at walls like a discontinued stanza and the galley kitchen was shaped like a streamlined map of Italy, splaying out at the end to avoid cutting the big window in half.

Martha and Alex had not spent a lot of money on decoration but their entire flat seemed specifically designed to appease a hangover. The front room was dark and the heavy curtains were drawn, even though it was one in the afternoon. Damp patches on the ceiling were covered with Paisley shawls and a dim deflected light shone out from underneath a floating umbrella in a high corner. A collection of 3-D postcards of dogs wearing hats was displayed on the fireplace. Compared to Sarah’s house it was the most cozy, welcoming place she had ever been, and Maureen never wanted to move from here. Martha sat down next to her on the sagging sofa.

“Do you own this flat?” asked Maureen.

“No,” said Martha, in her breathy English accent. “We rent it from a bloke who lives in Ireland. He owns the building. He’s cool when it comes to rent and dates and stuff.”

“It’s nice. Very calming.”

“Would you like something to eat? What about a cup of tea and a chocolate mini roll?” said Martha, well versed in the chemistry of comfort.

“Oh, that would be perfect.”

“I’ve got some Valium too, babe,” said Martha, heaving herself up. “You could have one or two.”

Maureen declined. She desperately wanted to stay on the sofa but she thought it might be rude to sit while her host attended to her so she wrenched herself out of her seat and put her shades on again as she followed Martha into the bright kitchen. She wanted to use the phone but thought it might be cheeky to call a mobile in Scotland. The kitchen was homely and comfortable: the cupboards had been painted pink and yellow with matte emulsion, and the fridge had a big picture of Lionel Richie, sans beard, varnished onto the door, looking as if his mouth and jaw had been manipulated in a special computer program. They hadn’t. Martha filled the kettle from the tap.

“It’s very kind of you to look after me like this,” said Maureen, suddenly aware of the sorry spectacle she must present.

“No trouble.” Martha turned off the tap and plugged the kettle in. “How’s Liam?”

“He’s fine,” said Maureen.

“Yeah, is he still with Maggie?”

“No, they split up at New Year.”

Martha stopped still and blinked at the worktop. “When?” she said, the breathy freshness gone from her voice.

Liam had a knack of inspiring obsessive interest in certain types of crazy women. Maureen put it down to his constant low-level aggression. “Not long ago.”

“Yeah?” Martha tried to smile. “Well, he told me on the phone that they were still together.”

Liam, it seemed, did not reciprocate the interest. “Oh,” muttered Maureen, “maybe they got back together, then.”

Martha turned back to the kettle. “Yeah,” she repeated. “Back together.”

“He doesn’t tell me everything,” said Maureen, afraid that Martha would turn against both O’Donnells and refuse to let her back onto the settee. “I wouldn’t know if they were.”

“If they were what?” challenged Martha. “If they were together? Or if they were apart?”

“Well, if they’d got back together, I wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. I don’t get on with Maggie all that well. I don’t see them together much.”

Martha lifted two clean mugs from the busy draining board. “Don’t you like her?” she asked, in a snide undertone.

Maureen could understand Martha not liking Maggie. Maggie’s father was an actuary and the family lived on the south side of Glasgow in a big new house with a garden. She probably wouldn’t sit down in Martha’s house. Plus Martha wanted to fuck her boyfriend.

“I do like her,” lied Maureen. “I just don’t have a lot in common with her. Does Liam come here a lot?”

“Not anymore. Not since he retired.”

Maureen thanked fuck that the conversation was over. Martha pulled a packet of chocolate mini rolls out of the cupboard and peeled back the crunchy cellophane, exposing the row of soft cakes.

“Have a couple, there, babe,” she said. “Worst thing you can do for a hangover is starve it. Your body needs sugar.”

Maureen unwrapped the foil and sank her teeth into the spongy roll. It melted in her mouth, she hardly had to chew.

“Liam said a friend of yours is missing, is that right?”

“Yeah. I wanted to ask, do you know most of the dealers in Brixton?”

“Some,” shrugged Martha.

“Tarn Parlain?” asked Maureen. “Argyle Street?”

“Yeah, he’s not a very nice man. How did you hear about him?”

“Well, I was asking about a solicitor called Headie and his name came up.”

Martha smiled. “Coldharbour Lane?”

“Yeah.”

“Poor old thing.” Martha frowned and petted her lip with mock concern. “Mr. Headie drank,” she said, as if that explained everything. It probably did.

Maureen took the photocopy of Ann out of her pocket. “Have you ever seen this woman?”

Martha unfolded the photocopy and looked at it closely. “No,” she said. “Was she a user?”

“Don’t think so.”

Martha looked closer. She was the only person so far who’d looked at the picture of Ann without flinching. She held the photocopy at arm’s length. “Yuck,” she said disdainfully. “What a mess to get yourself into.” She smiled as she handed it back to Maureen.

“I don’t think she did it to herself,” said Maureen quietly, taking the Polaroid out of her pocket. “What about this guy?”

The kettle had begun to boil and Martha turned it off before taking the picture from Maureen. She looked at it and her face fell. “Where the fuck did you get this?”

“It was among the woman’s belongings after she disappeared.”

Martha threw the picture on the worktop. She didn’t even want to hold it. She held up her hands, wiggling her fingers in panic. “Have you showed this to people?”

“One or two,” said Maureen.

Martha forgot about the lovely tea she had promised Maureen, forgot that Maureen had just had a chocolate sponge on an empty, rebellious stomach. “Get rid of it,” said Martha, poking it away with her finger like a dead rat. “Fucking bin it, get rid of it. Do you have any idea what this picture is?”

“No.”

“It’s a threat. Whose kid is it?”

“The woman who disappeared.”

Martha looked at the picture again. “In a playground — that is un-fucking-human.”

Maureen didn’t know what unhuman was but she had an inkling. “Why is it a threat?”

Martha leaned forward and pointed at the Polaroid. “He knows where the kid is. He’s been near the kid once and he can get to him again. He’s going to hurt her kid.”

They settled back in the living room on the seductively sagging sofa and Maureen sipped the tea and ate more chocolate mini rolls. Martha said that the Polaroid was a way of flushing Ann out and making her come to him. She wasn’t surprised when Maureen told her that Parlain was after it. Parlain worked for Toner and anyone who dealt with Toner would want it: returning the Polaroid to him would be a way to curry favor, keeping it back would give them leverage. She said that if Toner knew Maureen was holding the Polaroid he’d have marked her already. Maureen looked at the picture, at Toner’s spiteful smile and the strain in the boy’s forearm as he tried to pull away. Ann must have been terrified.

“What had she done to deserve that?” asked Martha.

“I’m not certain. I think she was carrying for him and she lost the lot or sold it and then he beat her up and she got away. If she was carrying for him, who’d she be carrying to?”

Martha shifted uncomfortably in her chair and sipped her tea.

“You know, don’t you?” said Maureen.

“It’s not a big secret or anything.”

“What isn’t?”

“Toner’s got a relationship with some people in Paisley.”

“Parlains,” said Maureen.

Martha smiled faintly into her cup. “Liam would be so worried if I told him about this.”

“Oh, God, Martha, please don’t tell him. He’ll be worried sick.”

Martha shrugged.

“No, please, don’t, Martha. I’m going home in the morning anyway.”

Chapter 38

ANAGRAM

Michael had slipped through the window as a smoky vapor and was hanging in the air near her bed, close enough to touch her if he wanted to. Someone was tapping her feet and calling her name. She opened her aching eyes and slowly made out the figure of Martha across the room. She was sitting in the big wicker armchair and had put on a lot of makeup. She smiled sexily at Maureen. “Hello, sleepy,” Martha drawled, lifting a big spliff to her smudged red mouth. “Daddy’s here.”

Maureen scrambled to her feet, staggering on her wobbly legs, trying to scratch the sleep out of her eyes and make out the figure standing stiffly at the end of the sofa.

“Fucking hell,” said Liam.

“Liam?”

“Are you okay?”

“How the fuck did you get here?”

“I flew.” He looked very concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I got a fright.” She pointed at Martha.

“But she’s all right now, aren’t you, babe? She was so ill earlier,” said Martha, keen to give Liam the impression that she and Maureen had bonded.

“Look, Mauri, there’s a flight back tonight,” said Liam, “and I’ve booked two seats.”

“I’m not going back,” said Maureen. “I’m not finished.”

“Maureen”—he glanced sidelong at Martha—”I’ve come all the way down here to get ye out of trouble.”

“I’m not coming home yet.”

Liam sat down on the settee, sinking down to three inches off the floor, and looked up at her. “Come here, come and sit down,” he said, patting the seat next to him.

“I don’t want to sit down.” She sounded like a sullen teenager.

Martha stood up, acting embarrassed, as if she were so fey she’d never seen siblings squabble. “I’ll go and put the kettle on,” she said, and went into the kitchen with an affected, wiggling walk. Maureen waited until she was out of the room before going back to the settee and falling into it. Liam offered her a fag but she refused it.

“The game’s a bogie, Mauri,” said Liam. “The police found stuff in Harris’s house, his wife had been back—”

“What stuff?” interrupted Maureen.

“A set of photos belonging to the woman. In Leslie’s shelter place at Christmas.”

“But Leslie’s got them! She wouldn’t have two sets.”

“Hey,” shouted Liam indignantly, “don’t fucking shout at me, I didn’t put them there—”

“I didn’t shout!” she shouted.

“Mauri, listen. Harris had been in London as well. They’ve got evidence that he was here when she died. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“I’m not going home yet,” she said simply.

“Look, Mauri,” he said softly, “there’s no point sulking about this. Take it from me, Frank Toner is a very scary man. If you’ve been showing that picture around you need to come home. Did ye show the picture to anybody?”

She shrugged.

“Did ye show it to anyone who could trace ye to home?”

She vaguely remembered showing it to Mark Doyle, or Tonsa — she couldn’t remember.

“Tonsa?” she said. “I think I showed it to Tonsa.”