Garnethill by Denise Mina (13 page)

When the films were over Liam went home and Benny hurried off to bed. Maureen sat in the dark on the edge of the settee and tried to cry but her eyes just stung and burned.

The next morning they were puffy and sore. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked mad. Anyone with an ounce of wit would think she had killed Douglas. She washed her face, splashing cold water on her eyes, hoping to soothe them. She wanted to go to work, she was missing Liz, but she comforted herself with the thought that it was Tuesday and she'd be seeing Leslie later.

She phoned Liz to tell her she could sue for defamation. Liz said that the booth was besieged by journalists and sensation seekers coming for a peek at her. Mr. Scobie kept trying to shoo them away but the minute he went inside they came back. He told her to shut the ticket office until he could find someone to take her place. So she was sitting alone in the dark booth, answering the single daily call for the hypnotist-show tickets because he wouldn't let her go home without docking her pay. She said that the photograph in the paper made her look as if she had a double chin. "He's dead pissed off with you, Maureen."

"Yeah, well, he's gonnae be more pissed off, because I'm taking a couple of days off."

Liz inhaled sharply. "Shall I tell him?"

"Yeah, go on. I'll see ye later, yeah?"

"See ye, Maureen."

Chapter 11

SHIRLEY

It seemed to be overcast and raining every time Maureen went to the Rainbow Clinic. She got off the bus and crossed the empty dual carriageway, following the ten-foot-high wall around to the driveway.

The clinic operated out of a converted creamery, built as part of the Levanglen Lunatic Asylum estate. It consisted of a long, single-story building with Portakabins at the back, where the admin was done. Maureen walked in the front door, went straight past the pay phones, through the main foyer and down the short corridor to the waiting room. The walls were painted yellow and covered in posters of puppies and kittens and monkeys. When it was full of patients the maniacally cheerful room looked like a sarcastic joke.

Straight across from the entry door, beyond Shirley's desk, a set of fire doors led through to the corridor where Angus, Douglas and Dr. Murray's offices were. Douglas had spoken of Murray often, usually in a less than loving manner. They had had a fight over extending the Rainbow's client group to include patients being moved back into the community from a long-term hospital to the east of the city. Douglas thought that they didn't have the resources to deliver the service but Murray was determined to spearhead the development and get his name on all the letters. Douglas said he was disgustingly self-promoting.

The waiting room was empty except for a young girl sitting in the corner, pretending to read a battered copy of
Good Housekeeping.
She was wearing a leather jacket, combat trousers and big boots. She seemed to have cut her hair herself: it was chewed short and uneven with long lumps sticking up at the back. Her left jacket sleeve was deliberately pushed back to display an angry grid of slash scars on her inner wrist. Visible scars are a good way to stop casual approaches from the happy and content. Maureen turned away and sat down in a plastic chair against the other wall.

She had met many depressives in hospital. They were interesting company when she could coax them to talk: they seemed more in touch with reality than most people. Depressives, in full flight, can correctly estimate their chances of getting cancer, being the victim of a sexual attack or winning the lottery. They don't dilute to taste.

The fire door to the offices opened and Dr. Murray bustled into the waiting room carrying a sheaf of files. He put half of the bundle on Shirley's desk and walked out to the main foyer with the rest. The combat girl watched him leave. Maureen hoped she wasn't waiting to see him. He hadn't even acknowledged her presence. The foyer door opened and Shirley came in, carrying a tin tray with steaming mugs and cream and sugar set on it. She put the tray down on the desk before looking up and seeing Maureen. "Helen?" she said, surprised to see her. "What are you doing here?"

Maureen motioned for Shirley to follow her out to the foyer corridor. "Shirley, my name isn't Helen, it's Maureen O'Donnell."

"
You're
Maureen O'Donnell? But there was a picture of her in the paper yesterday."

"I know. I know. They took a picture of the wrong person."

Shirley didn't bother to mask her incredulity. Maureen wasn't particularly offended, Shirley must have seen some sights in her time and an ex-patient posing as the most recent city saddo wouldn't be beyond the bounds of possibility.

Maureen took out some ID. "It really is me. Look."

Shirley glanced at the library card and Maureen's cashpoint card, turning them over and looking at the back for extra clues.

"Okay, right, you might not believe me, but assuming I am who I say I am, will you answer some questions for me?"

Shirley thought about it. "I dunno. It's not about anything sick, is it?"

"No, no, I just wanted to know who could get to see my file here."

"Well . . . I'll go along with it but I'm stopping if you ask me anything weird, and I don't want to talk to you about Douglas. If you are Maureen O'Donnell then you probably know a lot more about him than I ever did, and some journalists have been hanging around and asking about him. Okay?"

"Tops, Shirley."

Shirley relaxed, resting her back against the wall in the dimly lit corridor.

"Okay," said Maureen. "First thing, how did the police find out I was here for treatment? I didn't tell them."

Shirley paused, forming her answer cautiously. "All I know is that the police phoned security early on Sunday morning and got them to let them into the offices."

"Did they know what they were looking for?"

"Yeah, they logged into the system, called up the right file and printed it out. I checked. It was the only file they called up."

"What would the file be called?"

"Name and date."

"Would it have been filed under Helen?"

"Yes."

"They couldn't have used a different field to call it up?"

"No, it's the old DOS system. Those are the only fields we use. We were sold the system before any of us knew what it was like."

"So they not only knew I'd been here, they knew what name I used when I was here?"

"Yes."

"I didn't tell a soul what name I'd used," said Maureen, putting her ID cards back into her wallet. "What sort of information would be on that file? Would it have notes from the therapy sessions?"

"No," Shirley said definitely. "It's just an admin file. It's only got the appointment times, who saw you, where you went, things like that."

"How could they know I was here, Shirley?"

"I assumed that someone working here had seen the picture in the paper, remembered the girl's face and telephoned them, but I suppose it couldn't be the case if you're the Maureen they're talking about."

"I am, Shirley, honestly."

"Well, that makes more sense," said Shirley. "I couldn't understand how the girl in the picture could have been attending the clinic last January without me meeting her."

"Yeah, well, she wasn't."

"Was she ever here?"

"No, never been anywhere near." Maureen picked her lip. Someone already knew her but they were pretending they'd recognized her picture in the paper.

"I heard that someone was having an affair with a patient," Shirley murmured.

"Who told you that?" said Maureen, feeling embarrassed, as if she had disgraced Douglas.

"One of the cleaning staff."

"Right," said Maureen, anxious to move the conversation on.

"Said she walked in on them. They were at it." Shirley suddenly noticed how uncomfortable she was making Maureen. "Sorry," she said, "it's not important now, I suppose. I just thought it was someone else."

Maureen was incredulous. "They were fucking in the clinic?" she said. "She walked into them in the clinic?"

Shirley bit her thumb and thought about it. "I thought her name was Iona but that could have been a false name."

"That wasn't me." Maureen snorted.

Shirley stiffened and stood up straight. "Actually, I don't really know who you are, I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"Okay, whatever," said Maureen, surprised that Shirley wasn't more shocked by the story. "Urn, how many people work here?"

Shirley thought for a minute. "About fiftyish, including job shares and cleaning staff."

"God, fifty people?"

"Yeah. Could be more, actually, I'm just guessing."

"Another thing," said Maureen. "The police seem to think that I saw Douglas instead of Angus. Do you know how they could have got that idea?"

"Well, they questioned nearly everyone here. To be honest, everyone was looking at the paper in the staff room and remembering the girl in the picture. One of the nurses said she'd tried to hit her once."

Maureen smiled. "So, basically, God alone knows what they've been told."

"Basically, yes."

"Surely it would say I saw Angus on my file?"

"Well, yes, it would, now you mention it. I don't know how they got that idea."

"And would it say who I was referred to in the file?"

"Yes, it would."

"Cheers, Shirley, you've been a great help."

"Would you go in and see Angus? He's been hit terribly hard by this. He'd be delighted to see you. You could take his coffee in to him."

"He'd be delighted to see me now that I'm involved in a murder investigation?"

"Helen, you left here and never came back or ended up across the road in Levanglen. As far as we're concerned you're a success."

They went back into the waiting room. The combat girl looked up. "Won't be long now," Shirley said to her. "The doctor's just finishing off his lunch." She stirred three sugars and a drop of cream into one of the mugs of coffee and handed it to Maureen. "I take it you can remember where the office is?"

"Sure."

Maureen walked down the corridor, passing Douglas's door and feeling slightly guilty, as if he might step out any minute and give her trouble for coming back here. She knocked on Angus's door and he called for her to come in. "Hello," he said, looking at her. He didn't seem to know her. He stood up and came over to greet her. "I haven't seen you for a while," he said, fishing for clues, "have I?"

Maureen said he hadn't.

The room was dark and comfortable and stank of fags. It should have been bright but was kept in perpetual dawn by the pall of smoke and the half-closed vertical blinds. Against the near wall stood two leather armchairs with high backs, a rickety coffee table between them with an ashtray and a box of tissues on it. Behind the farthest armchair stood a six-foot rubber plant.

Angus was in his midforties. His hair was graying and receding pleasantly, just enough to make him look a little weather-beaten. He dressed like a down-at-heel laird, in worn tweed jackets and balding corduroys. He chain-smoked and his love of tobacco had created an immediate bond between them. During their sessions they'd sat in the armchairs, leaning forward, huddled together, puffing hard as Maureen talked him through the worst of her childhood, giving one another lights and passing the ashtray to and fro.

Angus held his fag between his teeth, pushed his steel-framed glasses back up his nose and smiled a confused, expectant little smile, waiting for her to introduce herself.

Maureen grinned and handed him the mug of coffee. "Shirley asked me to give you this."

He took the mug and put it down on the coffee table, turning back to her and shaking her hand.

The tall rubber plant had been flourishing when she had been here before but its leaves were speckled with ominous crisp brown patches. "Your lovely plant's not well," she said.

"Oh, I know, I can't think what's wrong with it. I've tried pruning it back and everything. I thought it might be the cigarette smoke but I wash it once a month. I suppose they just die sometimes." He stroked one of the healthy leaves with his forefinger and suddenly looked up her. "Helen!" he said.

She laughed. "You couldn't place me there for a minute, could you?"

"No, no, I couldn't, but I remember you now!" He put out his fag in the ashtray and held her hand in both of his, shaking it warmly. "Helen, how are you?"

"Not bad." She smiled.

"You look fantastic. Hey, look, sit down, sit down." He bustled her backward into one of the armchairs. "I'm embarrassed, I wouldn't have forgotten any other time but just now . . . Did you hear about Mr. Brady from across the hall?"

"He was murdered."

"He was."

She could see baby tears nestling on the rims of his eyes. He sat down and lit another fag, inhaling deeply. "It's been a nightmare," he said softly.

"Were you close?"

He nodded. "We've known each other for years and years. It's unthinkable. Even for his clients . . . The last thing the long-term patients need is to have to go over their case histories to a locum . . . We're trying to cover them ourselves but we're not exactly at our operational best . . . None of us can take it in." He smiled unhappily. "We had to cancel the grief-counseling group Dougie used to take. We didn't want to tell them what had happened but we had to."

He saw that her hands were empty and pushed his packet of cigarettes across the table. She took one out and looked up as she was lighting it. Angus was watching her. "You see," he smiled, "I do remember you."

"Actually, that's why I'm here. Because of Douglas."

He looked at her, not quite understanding.

"My name isn't Helen. That was an assumed name I used for coming here. My real name is Maureen O'Donnell. Does that mean anything to you?"

"God's sakes, I read the papers. But there was a photograph."

"Yeah, it's a girl I work with. They took a picture of the wrong person."

He gave a wry smile. "It's not like the papers to get things wrong, is it?"

"I didn't know they were that incompetent."

"They've been harassing the staff
and the clients
" he said indignantly. "The bloody clients."