Garnethill by Denise Mina (40 page)

She shut her eyes and rubbed them hard. If the Northern rapist had killed Douglas to stop him digging up evidence, he would want to make the police think Douglas died in the afternoon. That way they wouldn't try to trace Douglas's movements during the day and they would miss Siobhain. She led straight back to the Northern rapes. And it would explain why Maureen had been left with a cast-iron alibi; the murderer wanted an empty house that Douglas could have been hidden in all day. Fitting Maureen up badly wasn't a mistake at all, it was halfhearted because it was incidental. His real concern was fucking up the time of death and keeping Siobhain out of it.

She opened her eyes. Shan was trying to mask his evident worry under a frown.

"He made it look like something you done before?" he said slowly.

"Naw," she smiled, "I didn't kill anyone. I hid in the cupboard. I stayed there for a few days and I had to be carried out and taken to hospital. It's not important but only certain people knew that. He left something of Douglas's in there after he killed him. I think he thought the police would find out and make some kind of connection to me."

Shan looked relieved. "Right, I thought it was something bad," he said, shaking his head and bringing himself back to the story. "Just wondering. What did you just ask me?"

"Why did Douglas think they were having an affair?"

"Oh, because he'd seen them together before, a long time before. He saw them in North Lanarkshire. They were sitting in a car and he was touching Iona's neck and smiling."

They looked at each other and Maureen could see a sadness creeping in behind Shan's green eyes. He couldn't fake that, she thought, not that level of empathy. De Niro couldn't fake that. "And Iona wasn't smiling?" she said.

"No," said Shan softly, putting his elbow on the table and resting his forehead on it. "Iona wasn't smiling."

"When was this?"

"Two or three years ago."

Shan was bent over the table, his head resting in his hand, his long fingernails parting the thick black hair. Douglas had thick hair, dark brown with an auburn fleck. Finally, he sat back in his chair. "What you going to do? Are you going to the police with this stuff?"

"No," said Maureen, "I'm not. They've already interviewed one of the women and nearly broke her fucking brain."

Shan nodded.

"What are you thinking?" asked Maureen.

"I spoke to the women he raped, and I'd like to start punching him but I don't think I should."

"Why?"

"Don't know if I could stop."

Shan took an early slip road and stopped outside the lightbulb factory. They got out of the car and sat quietly across the road on a concrete slab, under the lip of the motorway, looking up at the glass building, brightly illuminated by the floodlights on the motorway. Red slivers of light raced across the shimmering glass, reflecting the taillights of cars passing above. Maureen lit a cigarette. She offered the packet to Shan but he waved it away.

"Do you miss him?" he asked.

"Don't counsel me," said Maureen, without intonation.

They looked at the building again for a while.

"Let's go out and get pissed together one night," she said.

"I'd like that," he said. "I'm in the Variety most Mondays."

"I might have some lovely news about our mutual friend when I see you," she said quietly, raising her eyes and looking innocently at the glass-brick turret.

Shan turned his head and examined her face for a moment.

"I'd like some lovely news about that cunt," he said gently.

Chapter 32

FAMILY

Shan dropped her two blocks from Winnie's house. It was still early. She found a functioning phone box outside a green Republican pub on the Pollokshaws Road. The long, broad road led straight to the center of Glasgow and was a major route for cars and buses. She could hardly hear the dialing tone above the noisy traffic. She called Leslie's.

"We're fine," said Leslie, shouting so Maureen could hear her. "We've been watching television all day and we had our dinner on the veranda."

"Is she eating?" Maureen shouted back.

"Fuck, aye. Everything I put in front of her. How did it go at Levanglen?"

"I don't know, to be honest. I'll know tomorrow. Can Siobhain talk yet?" The beeps started and she put another ten pence in.

"No, she hasn't said anything," shouted Leslie. "Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm on the South Side. This phone box is eating money." She noticed a blue Ford parked quite far up on the opposite side of the road, it was the only car parked on the busy street. The lights were off but two men were sitting in it looking straight ahead. It was the car she had been sitting in the morning before, with Joe McEwan.

"Why are you on the South Side?" asked Leslie.

"I'm going to see my mum. Will you be all right for a while?"

"Should be. Why are you going to see Winnie?"

"I'm going to tell her what I think of her."

"Wow, good for you! Are you going to tell her everything?"

"Yeah, fucking everything."

"You even going to say about the hospital?"

" 'Specially about the hospital."

One of the men in the stationary car looked over and caught her eye. She stared back at him. The man got flustered and looked away, he said something to his pal.

"Should you do it tonight, though, Mauri?"

"I want to do it tonight," she said, writing her name on the dirty glass with her finger. "I feel fucking ferocious tonight."

Una's big fancy car was parked outside, incongruous in front of the small council house. The lights in the front room were on and the curtains were open. George'd be in there on his own — Winnie never left the curtains open, day or night, when she was sitting in the room, she said the neighbors were nosy. The upstairs windows were dark. They must be sitting around the table in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Maureen had brought a bottle of whisky for Winnie as a sweetener. She clutched it with both hands and tramped across the thin strip of lawn and up to the door. She rang the bell and drew herself up two inches. George opened it. He seemed surprised to see her and waved her straight down the corridor to the kitchen. He looked a bit green and Maureen figured that he couldn't have developed a compound hangover unless Winnie had one too. She would be relatively cowed and Maureen was glad.

The door was propped open with an old pig-nosed bed warmer and she could see into the kitchen. Marie was sitting at the table with Una and Winnie, her hands clutched in front of her on the table. Winnie turned away her head to ask Una a question and Marie glanced anxiously at Winnie's cup. She saw Maureen and stood up, her frightened eyes belying her smile.

"I thought you were coming tomorrow," said Una.

"I couldn't wait to see Marie," said Maureen.

Marie stepped forward and hugged Maureen stiffly. Her expensive clothes were getting shabby through excess wear. Maureen hadn't thought about it before but Marie must dress up for her family as though she were coming for a difficult interview. Through force of habit Maureen asked how the flight was. Marie blushed. "I took the bus," she said, and sat down. From the nervous, guilty glances passing between them Maureen could tell they had been talking about her.

"How are you, Mum?" she said.

"I've got flu again," said Winnie, her eyes heavy and red.

Maureen leaned over to kiss her and smelled the vinegar edge from a heavy bout of drinking. She sat down at the table, hoping to mask her mood until she had said what she needed to. "I brought you a present," she said, and held out the bottle of whisky to Winnie.

Una's face fell when she saw it. The children had always moved carefully to curtail Winnie's drinking with small tricks and ways of working. Now here was Maureen feeding her bottles of whisky. Winnie was delighted. She brought four wineglasses out from the cupboard and poured a large-large whisky into each.

"Mum," said Una miserably, "I can't drink that."

"Why?" said Winnie, seeming surprised, but the girls knew her of old.

"I'm driving," said Una.

"Auch, well," said Winnie. "It's out now."

She put the glasses on the table, setting the extra one nearest to hers, and sat down, smiling at Maureen, whom she wrongly supposed to be her new friend. She downed a glass with a deft hand and smiled at Marie, holding her eye so that she wouldn't look down. "It's very nice whisky," she said, letting her hand fall to rest next to the orphan glass. "Try it, Marie."

"Doesn't Marie look well, Maureen?" said Una, eager to get the conversation off to a friendly start.

"Listen," said Maureen, "I came here because I wanted to talk to all of you together." She lit a cigarette and sipped her whisky.

"Is it about Douglas?" asked Winnie sweetly.

"Not really, Mum, no." Her voice was steady and she felt that nothing could break her resolve. For the first time in a long while she knew she was right. "I want to tell you that I know what you're all thinking about me. You think I'm mental and I don't remember properly and that I made all that stuff up about Dad." She tapped her fag on the blue-glass ashtray and drank the rest of her whisky. No one spoke. "I want to say that my memory's just as good as any of yours. You can do this revisionist shit as much as you want but it still happened. He still did it to me and nothing can change that. I wish it could but it can't. I didn't touch Douglas. It wasn't me. And you can't use the fact that you've changed your story about Dad to accuse me of something like that."

Una, who had a terror of confrontation, was shaking and changing color rapidly.

Winnie used the diversion to lift the spare whisky and drink it.

"What are you talking about?" muttered Marie. "We didn't say you killed Douglas."

Maureen could feel herself getting angry. "You fucking did, you shitty bitch," she hissed.

Marie shook her head stupidly. "I didn't."

"I know you did, so stop lying."

"But I didn't . . ." Marie's voice trailed away and she sat back, hiding herself behind Una.

"Yeah," said Maureen. "I might not have killed Douglas but I made up all that stuff about Dad for a laugh, so who knows what else I'll do, right? Who fucking knows what I'm capable of? You know, the only reason I'm not in fucking prison right now is because Mum was psychotic with drink when they took her in for questioning."

Una took Maureen's hand in both of hers and squeezed it. "We don't think you're mad, Maureen," she said. "We know you're not mad." Her frightened eyes raced over Maureen's face, looking for a telltale sign that she was. "We love you," she said, "you know that."

Maureen shook off Una's hand. "Look" — she lifted the bottle and poured herself another generous measure, letting the whisky glug-glug into the glass — "I remembered before Alistair came to the hospital, I remembered the house and the cupboard and everything, I just didn't know what it meant. There's fuck-all wrong with my memory. I remember that night and I didn't kill Douglas, so if you've invited me to lunch tomorrow to tell me I did then you'd better think again."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" said Winnie, her personality changing rapidly under the influence. "Tomorrow was just a lunch. I've bought everything in for it—you can look in the fridge if you don't believe me."

"Yeah," said Una, "she's bought lots of food."

"I'm not interested in the food," said Maureen, much too loudly. "My point is, I know you don't believe me, right? I know you're telling each other that my memory's fucked and I make things up all the time and I'm living in a parallel reality."

Winnie leaned over and snatched the whisky bottle away from Maureen, pouring herself an unashamed tumblerful. "The bloody fridge is full of food," she said.

Maureen snatched the bottle back. "Can you even hear me speak? Never mind about the fucking food."

"Where did she get this crap about killing Douglas from?" said Winnie, addressing anyone at the table but Maureen.

"Yeah," said Una, overcoming her fear at the scent of a scapegoat, "who told you that?"

"Never mind who I heard it from, right? It doesn't matter—"

"Liam," said Winnie, looking at Marie. "Liam's told her a load of old shite and she's believed it as usual. Stupid cow."

"It wasn't Liam, Mum, it was you."

Winnie was stunned. "I most certainly did not."

"Don't you remember? When I came to see you two days after, ye asked me if I did it. You accused me."

Winnie didn't know what she had said, she probably didn't remember the visit, she probably didn't remember Friday. She sipped her generous whisky and raised her eyebrows. "Anyway, Maureen," she said, in a voice loaded with emotion or whisky or both, "why are you bringing your father up now?"

Una flinched and kicked Winnie's leg hard under the table. "Fuck off," hissed Winnie.

"Maureen," said Una swiftly, ignoring Winnie's curse, "I don't think for a minute that you had anything to do with Douglas's death."

"Neither do I," said Marie, sitting forward eagerly.

Maureen leaned forward and looked at Marie's face. Marie was a very bad liar.

"You're a bunch of cunts," said Maureen.

There were few words Winnie would flinch at when she was very drunk but she wasn't very drunk yet. Her jaw fell.

"Yes, Mum, even you, especially you. You've bullied me and hassled me and talked to me as if I'm a fucking idiot when I'm bigger than any of you. I can't imagine what would be in your minds when you say these things about me to each other. It happened. I can't prove it to you but I remember. And, Una, you remember it too. You told Alistair before you thought you'd have to face up to Mum with it, didn't you? And then ye buckled. Marie, I remember you standing behind Mum, watching her pull me out of the cupboard. You were standing behind her next to the old telephone table and you were crying and wearing the dress with the giraffe on the pocket."

Marie was sitting with her hands limp on her lap, her head and shoulders shaking nervously. She was near to tears. Maureen leaned over the table, bending down to look her in the eye. She stabbed the table in front of her with her forefinger. "I know you remember it, Marie. When I look in your eyes I know that you remember. You sold me out for peace with a mother ye won't even live in the same country as."