by Denise Mina
‘Yvonne Urquhart’s still got one on her ankle.’
‘Yvonne?’ His face brightened.‘How is she? Have you seen her?’
‘You don’t want to know how Yvonne is . . .’ Shan watched her carefully.‘Okay, I can imagine anyway,’ he said, his voice dipping to a whisper.‘Yvonne had a stroke . . . after . . . So, anyway, Iona wouldn’t come upstairs with me. She said she wanted to go home, that’s all she would say, she wanted to go home. I decided to drive her to her house, stay with her till the panic’s gone, limit the damage. She wouldn’t speak. When we got to the house she told me that he hurt her then. She knew what she meant and I knew what she was telling me. I asked her if she wanted to go to the police and she started pulling at her skin again so I took her over to Jane Scoular at the Dowling Clinic, it’s all female staff there, and she got an emergency admission. The next day she hung herself in the staff toilets.’ ‘Did you tell the police?’
He looked desperate.‘Tell them what, for Christ’s sake? Someone’s been accused of a disgusting rape by a woman who’s killed herself and also had a lifelong psychiatric history? She wasn’t exactly a good witness, you know.’
‘Yeah,’ said Maureen,‘I know exactly. Did you speak to Douglas?’
‘No, that was later. I didn’t know what the fuck to do.’
‘How many women were there?’
‘Four that we knew of,five including Iona.’
‘Surely one of them would want to testify?’
‘Maureen,’ Shan said, using her name for the first time, ‘after Douglas got the list from the office we went to see all of them. We even went to see some that were just on the ward at the time. They either can’t talk or they’re terrified at the mention of his name. Most of them can’t even say it.’ ‘Did Douglas know it was him?’
‘Yeah. I told him a couple of weeks after Iona killed herself,’ continued Shan.‘I was in the Variety Bar and I saw Douglas, pissed to fuck, coming up the stairs from the toilet so I called him over. Man, he was so drunk, he almost couldn’t breathe. You know that laboured way?’ He mimicked someone breathing heavily.‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ said Maureen, not much the wiser.
‘Douglas wanted me to order a drink for him, the barman had refused him. He was behaving strangely, he kept crying and laughing, and when I asked him where he lived he’d point in different directions and wouldn’t say so I took him up to mine to crash. On the way home he started to sober up a wee bit and by the time we got to mine he was more or less lucid. We sat up with a bottle and he was acting crazy, like crazy mood-swings, and then he told me that Iona had hung herself. She was a colleague’s patient and Douglas knew they were having an affair. He knew and did nothing and she killed herself. He said she always seemed fine to him, he thought she was all right. He’d been keeping an eye on her.’
‘And he felt guilty because he knew about it and did nothing,’ she said, taking a cigarette out and lighting it with Shan’s lighter.‘Did he know it wasn't an affair?’
‘No, he really thought it was consensual. I could tell by the way he was talking about it.’Shan smiled uncomfortably. ‘When I read about you it all made a lot more sense. That’s why he wouldn’t report them for having an affair.’
‘But I wasn’t his patient,’ she said, lowering her eyes.
‘I was at the Rainbow but I was Angus’s patient. I didn’t have a professional relationship with Douglas.’
‘That’s a bit thin,’ said Shan.‘Fucking a patient is fucking a patient, whichever way you look at it.’
Maureen inhaled heavily and kept her eyes on the table. She needed to believe she wasn’t a victim just as much as Douglas had.‘It might be a bit thin . . . but it’s still different, isn’t it?’
‘No.’ Shan shook his head adamantly.‘It’s not. Doctors and nurses shouldn’t fuck patients. That’s fundamental. We all know that. Douglas knew it, we all know it.’
Maureen took a heavy gulp of the bitter lager.‘All right, it’s a fine distinction,’ she said.‘But it is still a distinction.’ ‘Bollocks,’ said Shan.‘Don’t fuck the patients. How complicated is that? You’re either fucking the patients or you’re not.’
Shan was right and Maureen knew he was.
‘People who do things like that,’ said Shan,‘they always say to themselves,“This is different because yada-yada-yada, because I’m not her therapist now, because she’s better”—’
‘Because she’s got a big hat.’
‘Exactly, they’ve all got justifications. They don’t say to themselves,“I’m a bastard and I’m doing a fucking terrible thing.” Rapists do it. Paedophiles do it too. They say,“They wanted it,”“They were asking for it.”’
Maureen rubbed her head. Thinking of Douglas in the same league as a paedophile made her eyes ache.‘I don't think he saw himself in the same league as them,’ she said, sad and disgusted.‘He always drew the distinction that I wasn’t his patient. I think he believed it. When did you meet him? What day was it?’
‘A Monday,’ said Shan ‘Monday’s country-and-western night at the Variety. Monday,five weeks ago.’
‘He didn’t touch me after that,’ she murmured.
‘What– like, sexually?’
‘Yeah. Never again.’ She lifted her beer.‘Never again before he died.’
Maureen drank a throatful as Shan sat back and sighed. ‘Well, maybe the justification stopped working the night I told him. Maybe he was crying for himself as much as anything.’
Maureen looked up at Shan ‘Was Douglas crying?’ ‘Yeah, big-time,’ said Shan.‘He started crying when I told him about Iona, he was sobbing. He hid himself in my bathroom. He was in there for an hour– I could hear him crying through the door.’
‘Fuck,’ she said.‘I went out with him for eight months and I never saw him crying.’
‘Well, he couldn’t have been more upset if Iona was his own daughter.’
Maureen dropped her cigarette onto the floor, stepping on it to put it out.‘He withdrew the contents of his account,’ she said,‘and paid Yvonne’s nursing-home fees. I think it was to ease his conscience. He gave me money too.’ ‘How much?’
‘Too much. It feels like blood money.’ Maureen picked up her packet of fags.‘D’ye want one?’ ‘Yeah,’ said Shan pleasantly.‘Go on.’
‘Anyway,’ Shan went on, when he’d lit their cigarettes, ‘I told Douglas who it was and I told him about the Northern.’
‘What did he say?’ she asked, hoping that Shan would repeat something Douglas had said or say something like he would say it, so that she could hear Douglas’s voice again. ‘He didn’t say anything,’ said Shan.‘In the morning he was very serious and we talked about it. He said we should try to prosecute through the courts, for the sake of the victims we might never find. They’d see it on TV and know they were safe. He got the list from the office in the Northern and we started going to see them all.’
‘But why was he so clumsy about getting the list?’ she asked.
‘We didn’t think anyone would pay a blind bit of notice, to be honest.’
‘Everyone in the Northern knew,’ said Maureen. Shan cringed.‘Really?’ ‘Yeah.’
‘God.’ He shut his eyes tight.‘Fuck, we thought we were being well fly.’
‘Maybe he only knew Douglas was involved because of the list. You weren’t there when he got it, were you?’
‘No. They wouldn’t have given it to me.’
‘That’s why he was killed– because he was finding out about the Northern.’
‘Actually,’ Shan held up his hand to stop her,‘I know he didn’t kill Douglas. I know that for sure.’ ‘How?’
‘Well, when the police came to see us they were asking about the day-time, yeah? I was working and he was in the office all day. He didn’t leave until half-six and then he drove one of the secretaries home to Bothwell
and that’s miles out on the South Side. He didn’t even leave his office to go for lunch—’
Maureen interrupted,‘They’ve been asking about the evening too now.’
Shan was stunned.‘They’ve been what ...?’ ‘They seem to think it happened in the evening now. It’s a bit of a media myth, the time of death thing, they just have a good guess.’
Shan had turned grey.‘I was sure it couldn’t be him because the only time he left the room was to use the pay phones in the foyer.’
Maureen’s heart was palpitating ‘Why would he use a pay-phone? Isn’t there a phone in his office?’
‘Yeah, but the line’s only for domestic calls,’ Shan said.
‘Shirley said he was calling abroad or something.’
‘What time did he use the pay-phone?’
‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘Just . . .’ She shook her head.
Shan shrugged.‘I’ve no idea.’ ‘Can you try to remember?’
He thought about it.‘Before lunch, about eleven or twelve the first time. Then after lunch. Early. Early afternoon.’
‘How many more times?’ she asked.
‘Only twice that I know of. All before two o’clock because there was a case conference in his office after that and he was definitely there.’
She ran her finger over the spilled coffee on the table, drawing a snake pattern.
‘Who was he phoning?’ he asked.
‘He phoned me,’ she said.‘At work. He wanted to see if I was there. My pal said I wasn’t in. He thought I was away for the day.’
‘Why would he phone to see if you were in?’
‘He needed the house to be empty during the day. He did it at night and fixed it to look as if it happened much earlier. He made a half-arsed attempt to frame me. He made footsteps near to the body with my slippers as well. He even got information about me and fitted the scene to look like something I’d done before . . .’
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 half-hearted 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 finger-nails 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 light bulb 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 tail-lights 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.
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 centre of Glasgow and was a major route for cars and buses. She could hardly hear the dialling 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 neighbours 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 bedwarmer 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 wine-glasses out from the cupboard and poured a large-large whisky into each.
