G03 - Resolution (19 page)

It was getting late and they were thinking about shutting when, looking over Leslie’s shoulder, Maureen thought she saw a familiar face out in the lane. She had never seen him in the sunlight before, and because he was unusually thin, she thought she might have been mistaken. He was looking at cards on Gordon Go-a-Bike’s stall, leaning over the table with his hands crammed into the pockets of his dirty jeans. Gordon looked down at him, said something short. Paulsa looked up at Gordon and smiled slowly, giving him a one-word answer. Gordon didn’t look pleased. Still smiling, Paulsa wandered away from the table, looking happily around the lane and turning his face up to meet the sun. He squinted into the dark tunnel and stepped in.

Paulsa was a user. The last time Maureen had met him he was jaundiced yellow and down on his luck. Having bought a job lot of bad acid he had lost all his money and was desperately looking for friends to bail him out. When Liam needed an alibi for Douglas’s death Paulsa came forward and admitted that he had been with Liam that afternoon, at Tonsa’s house. Paulsa tiptoed everywhere, as if afraid that making proper contact with the ground might mitigate his delighted, drug-induced stupor. He passed Ella’s empty stall, still smiling, and looked over at Lenny’s TVs. He tiptoed sideways, cupping his groin to get past Elsie Tanner’s friendly nose, and turned and looked at Maureen. They stared into each other’s eyes for longer than a passing glance. Shoulders up around his ears, Paulsa turned back to the tunnel mouth, as if hoping hard would make him invisible, and tiptoed away.

Maureen loped after him, grabbing his elbow. Paulsa had his eyes shut and was cringing so much that he could have held a half-pint in each of the deep dips on his collarbone. “Paulsa,” she said, “how are ye?”

Paulsa opened one eye. “Hi.”

“Where were ye going?”

Paulsa looked around dumbly. “Too cold in here,” he said.

“Are you avoiding me, Paulsa?”

Paulsa exhaled a pale imitation of a laugh. “God. No. God, why?”

She let go of his elbow and he rubbed at it as if she’d been holding it tightly. “You’re keen not to see me,” she said. “Have ye seen Tonsa recently?”

He shook his head, shuffling almost imperceptibly around to the door. “Naw, not Tonsa, definitely havenae seen her.” Near to tears, Paulsa looked to the back of the tunnel. “Is Tonsa here?”

“Naw, Paulsa,” said Maureen kindly. “I’m just asking after mutual friends.”

“Oh.” It took Paulsa a moment to sift through the information, determine that there was no threat to him in it and wheeze a laugh. He looked longingly out to the lane and freedom. They stared at each other for another minute.

“Paulsa, have you heard anything about this case that’s coming up?”

Paulsa looked afraid again and shook his head. “Nut.”

“Aren’t ye going to ask me which case I’m talking about?”

Paulsa shook his head again.

“Is Liam in trouble, Paulsa?”

Paulsa tried to get past her by ramming himself into the space between her and the wall. He stayed there, pushing slightly, his head hanging over her shoulder. She stepped away and Paulsa fled past her, tiptoeing with long strides down the lane, leaping balleti-cally to avoid bodies and stalls.

“What was that about?” asked Leslie, when Maureen came back.

“I don’t know.” She sat down, leaning forward so that only Leslie could hear her. “That’s the guy I bought the acid off, the stuff I gave to Angus. I think he’d read about the case in the paper and was frightened that I’d finger him or something.”

Leslie took a long draw on her cigarette. “Didn’t look like a big reader to me, to be honest.”

Hesitant, spluttering rush-hour traffic left a gritty blue haze over the road. Maureen had sobered up during the day, leaving her with a dull ache to the back of her head and a terrible sense of hopelessness. She had meant to go for a drink on the way home but Leslie insisted on dropping her at the door. She was so grateful to Maureen for letting her move in and said a run up the road was the least she could do. Maureen felt she was being handled, the way the family used to handle Winnie, the way Una made sure they only ever ate in unlicensed cafes, the way drink brought by visitors was confiscated by the children at the front door, the way George made sure she wasn’t left alone before they went out. After Leslie moved in tonight Maureen would be hiding in the bathroom, drinking from secret stashes like Winnie used to. She opened the passenger door. “Listen, I’m going out in a minute,” she said. “I might not be in when ye get there, but you’ve got the spare keys, haven’t ye?”

Leslie seemed disappointed. “You’ll be back later, though, won’t ye?”

“Oh, aye, yeah. I’ll be back later.”

“Where are ye going?”

“See Liam,” she said, and climbed out.

The corner of a yellow Jiffy bag peeked out from the side of her door as she climbed the stairs. She stood and looked at it. It had been placed there by someone who knew she was out at work. If Jim Maliano was delivering for Angus he wouldn’t have left another package so soon after she had accused him: he wasn’t sharp enough for a double bluff. And when she thought about it without a drink in her she realized that Jim didn’t know Angus. It had been the drink talking. She opened the front door and nudged the envelope into the hall with the tip of her toe, afraid to touch it, and shut the door behind her. In the bedroom she changed her T-shirt and walked past the yellow package to the bathroom, watching it as though it might bite her ankles. She splashed water on her face, dried it, and turned back to the hall.

Trying not to touch the Jiffy bag more than necessary, she pulled at the lip. It came open easily and she exhaled when she saw the strip of black plastic. It was a videocassette. She took it out, sat it on top of the envelope and looked at it, chewing her cheek hard and frowning. Maureen didn’t have a video machine anymore. She wasn’t going to watch it. She could guess what was on it anyway. She leaned forward, picked up the envelope by the edges and lifted it, video and all, onto the worktop in the kitchen. She picked up her purse, keys and fags and walked out, slamming the door shut behind her.

She knew that using the phone was an excuse, that there were pay phones outside the pub she could have used. She bought herself a second triple and balanced it on a scarred balsa-wood shelf. “I can’t come tonight, Liam, something’s come up. Can I come over tomorrow?”

Liam sounded furious. “I can’t just sit about here all night waiting for you, Maureen. I haven’t had my dinner because I was waiting for you.”

“Liam,” she laughed, lighter again because of the drink, “for fuck’s sake, it’s only half past seven.”

“I was hungry,” he snapped.

“Well, can’t ye get yourself a bit of bread or something?”

“Why don’t you come over later?”

“I can’t. Leslie’s moving into mine to shake off Cammy and she’s coming over tonight.” She heard Liam tutting. The pips went on the phone and the last six pence tumbled away on the digital display. “That’s my money gone. I’ll talk to ye tomorrow.”

“Mauri, I need to—”

And the phone cut out.

His driveway formed a break in a continuous stone wall leading up the hill and disappeared around a corner. The houses on the road were detached and solid, Victorian maybe. Si’s house was on the summit of a short, steep drive. It had two large windows on either side of the front door and three above. The garden was tidy but not loved. It had the look of a professional gardener about it, a neatly striped lawn, bordered by a single row of pink roses. An intermittent sprinkler spat a circle of water onto the green. The gray Saab was parked in the drive.

Maureen wondered what the fuck she was doing there, loitering behind the gatepost, trying to scare him back. She was waiting but didn’t know what for. She had an urge to go and chap the door and ask Si if he was happy now his mother was dead. She was there looking for a fight. The light changed behind the glass panels on the front door, it swung open, and Si stepped out, pulling on a leather jacket. He was holding his car keys. He unlocked the Saab with a remote beeper and climbed in, reversed and turned down the narrow drive, flicking on the right indicator. Maureen stood back against the gatepost, keeping as flush to the wall as she could. Si drove down to the road, paused, then pulled right. She stayed still for a while, waiting to see if he’d spotted her and would come back.

The back garden was as tidy as the front. The layout was the same: plain grass and thin borders, a dutiful effort by someone who didn’t care. There were no children’s toys or odd bits of garden furniture left sitting out. Through the kitchen window she saw that the place was clean: a single cup sat in the sink, waiting to be washed; the circular pine table was empty apart from a couple of unopened letters and a folded newspaper. The farthest window looked into a utility room with a washing machine and tumble dryer. On a wooden pulley hanging from the ceiling was a series of black Y-fronts and three shirts. There were no women’s clothes in the room. Either Si and his wife were separated or the woman at the hospital had been someone else altogether. She stood there, licking whiskey fur off her teeth, and wondered why Si had bought a family mansion when he obviously lived alone.

“Excuse me, please.” A firm hand grabbed her elbow, swung her arm behind her back and fitted the handcuffs onto her wrists tightly.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Maureen, turning to face two overweight uniformed police officers.

“Actually, miss,” said the burly woman holding on to her, “we might ask you that.”

Maureen realized that she was drunk. She wanted to get away from the police officers and go and drink more. Protesting her innocence from the back of the car, she told them that her name was Lizzie McCafferty. Affecting her poshest accent, she told them that she had booked a viewing of the house but the owners weren’t in when she got there. Because she was a bit pissed, she half believed it herself and got genuinely annoyed when the officers didn’t. Officer Fatman frowned hard. “The owner saw you standing at the gate for ten minutes, and called us before he left the house. Why were you standing there for so long? Why not just go straight up to the house?”

Maureen tutted. “I wasn’t there for ten minutes. I just wasn’t sure of the address.”

“There was no for-sale sign outside the house,” said the woman officer, turning from the wheel. “Didn’t that make you wonder?”

Maureen rolled her eyes. “It was supposed to be a private sale.”

The female officer looked at Maureen’s crumpled T-shirt, her baggy shorts with sagging pockets full of fags and money and tissues, at her outsize skate trainers and smiled. “Were you going to buy the house with cash, miss?” she said snidely.

Maureen looked her in the eye. “I was viewing it for my dad. He’s coming back from the Emirates next week. He’s retiring to Scotland and I’m supposed to find some places for him to look at when he gets here.” Maureen congratulated herself—the Emirates, nice touch.

The female officer thought about it, wavering in her conviction that Maureen was a master burglar. She looked out of the window at the house and back at Maureen. She was going to let her go. “Which other properties have you —”

“Maureen O’Donnell.” It was Fatman. He was smiling and shaking a finger at her. “Garnethill.” His smile blossomed into a toothy grin. “Douglas Brady.”

They had called ahead to Stewart Street to see if Joe McEwan was interested. Maureen didn’t understand what had been said in reply because it was coded but the officer started the engine and headed towards the town. The fat man turned to look at her as his colleague drove.

“What are you staring at?” said Maureen, sweating with annoyance.

He looked her up and down. “I saw you in the paper, in Millport. D’ye like Millport?”

Maureen shrugged.

“I like it there,” he said, turning back into his seat. “Pretty.”

Joe McEwan must have been having a quiet night because he had the time to come and see her arrive at the station. He was standing at the top of the stairs as they came into the lobby, smiling slightly, dressed in a pair of beige trousers and a dark blue silk shirt. He raised his hand in a bitter little wave as the person on the desk took Maureen’s details. She didn’t wave back. “Am I being charged with something?” she asked the desk sergeant.

“No,” he said, apparently surprised that anyone in front of him had the wherewithal to ask such a technical question. “We just want to talk to you.”

“Nice,” said Maureen, drumming her fingers on the desk and glaring at Joe as she raised her voice. “I always have a nice time when I come here.”

The desk sergeant wasn’t listening to her: he was filling in a form and writing something on a clipboard. She took out a cigarette and lit it, breathing in the smoke like a dying asthmatic on an inhaler.

Joe was smiling and smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t asking her questions, just smiling and smoking, smoking and smiling. He opened his mouth to speak once but glanced at the tape recorder and stopped, going back to his cigarette for another puff. Sitting next to him, Hugh McAskill was doing a great job of covering up their friendship. He blinked at her a couple of times, telling her to calm down. She knew he was right but the sight of Joe McEwan enjoying himself so much grated on her. She was sobering up and it was making her agitated. She wanted a drink. “Have you got a sunbed?” she said.

Joe smiled at her reproachfully, in a way that suggested it would take more than that to get a rise out of him.

“I’m just asking because you’re always brown.” He didn’t answer and she could tell he wasn’t afraid of her. “You’ll ruin your skin if you keep it up, ye know, and then the smoking too. Bad for you.”

Joe blinked and cut her off, took a deep breath and moved forward over the table. “Si McGee’s house. What were you doing there?”

The hairs on her neck stirred. Not “Simon” but “Si.” Way too familiar.

“Nothing. Do you know him?”

Joe nodded and smiled, creeping her out.

“How do you know him?”