Exile

Chapter 10

Michael had a fever. He was scratching through the window into her bedroom, his knife-edged nails gouging through the glass. She was sweating and exhausted, and knew she couldn't take the noise anymore. She leaned across to open the window and a river of blood flooded into her house. The anxious, heavy knocking woke her up. Her first thought was Leslie, Leslie had come back, but it wasn't her knock and she didn't do morning visits. She sat up and looked at her watch. It was nine thirty and the Ruchill fever tower lurked behind the bedroom curtain.

It was cold out in the hall. A lone blue envelope ached on the mat and the answering machine flashed a red message. She pulled on her overcoat over her T-shirt and knickers, kicking the letter under the telephone table for later, and looked out of the spy hole. Detective Inspector Hugh McAskill brushed the rain from his red hair and looked back at her, his long melancholy face distorted wide by the convex glass, his blue eyes watery and tired, his cheeks flushed from the cold. Behind him stood mustachioed DI Inness, dressed for the weather in a scarf and gloves and sturdy anorak. It was a bad day for this; she felt stupid and friendless and sick. She could pretend to be out and hope they'd go away.

"We know you're in there." McAskill spoke gently. "We can hear you moving about."

Maureen paused with her hand on the latch, took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Hugh."

McAskill nodded sadly. "Can we come in for a minute, Maureen?"

She opened the door and the policemen brushed their feet on the mat before stepping into the hall. She had left the heating on overnight, hoping to evaporate some of Douglas's money, and it was warm in the flat. They took off their scarves and gloves. "Why has he sent ye this time?" she said.

Hugh raised his eyebrows and pressed his lips together. Chief Inspector Joe McEwan was determined to get her for the assault on Angus in Millport. He had no evidence, he couldn't place her or Leslie on the Isle of Cumbrae at the time, and Angus himself was acting mental and wouldn't tell them anything. But Joe had made it a special point of principle to question her about any detail that came up, just to remind her that he was still in the game.

" 'Nother line of questioning's come up," said Hugh, "so here we are."

"How are you today, Miss O'Donnell?" said Inness unpleasantly. He was an officious prick with a Freddie Mercury mustache and the social skills of a horny lapdog.

"Look," said Maureen, praying she wouldn't cry and watching her feet as she did up the buttons on her overcoat, "just tell me why you're here. I'll get scared and then ye can leave."

"We have been given information," began Inness, warming to his petty office, slapping his gloves through his palm like a TV Nazi, "that you have been receiving letters from a certain hospital patient. We've come to pick them up."

Maureen folded her arms. She could give him the letters, just hand them over and let them deal with it, but the letters hinted at Millport. "Tell Joe that I know I don't have to answer anything," she said.

"Well, why on earth would you refuse to answer us?" said Inness, feigning cheap surprise. "Could it be that you have something to hide?"

McAskill blushed and looked at his shoes.

"I'd think you'd want to help us," said Inness, plowing on with an already failed ploy.

Maureen caught Hugh's eye. "Isn't his patter woeful?" she said in a vain attempt to cheer herself up.

Hugh raised his eyebrows again. He was always more or less silent during these visits. They had been friendly to each other during the investigation into Douglas's death. She knew he was sharper than Inness and that Joe trusted him more, but every time they came up Hugh stood by and let Inness do the talking.

"Angus Farrell has convinced the doctors that he's mental," said Inness, glaring into the living room. He saw discarded newspapers, full ashtrays and the low sun seeping through the sheen of white dirt on the windows. He looked at Maureen, tousle-haired and half naked under her overcoat. She felt the implicit criticism of everything his eye fell on and knew he'd report every detail to Joe McEwan.

"Maybe he is mental," said Maureen.

"Yeah," said Inness. "My boss thinks Farrell knows what it means if he's mental. He knows he'll get a short sentence in minimum security. Maybe he'll make a miraculous recovery in two years' time and get out. Do you think a psychologist would know that?"

Maureen shrugged. "I don't know him that well," she said.

"But he was your therapist."

"Briefly," she said. "Only briefly."

"The hospital told us he's writing to you. Is he?"

"No," she said, conscious of the letter below the telephone table.

"The nurses," said Inness forcefully, "post the letters to you, so you can stop lying. I'll ask again. Is he writing to you?"

"Maybe he's got the wrong address. Did ye think of that?"

"Is he threatening you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Inness ground his teeth. "If Farrell gets a sentence in low security who do you think he'd be most anxious to see?"

Maureen began to sweat and felt an anxious prickle on her neck. She looked to Hugh for support, but he slid his eyes away from her and left her alone. Whatever she said or did was going straight back to McEwan. She took a deep breath. "Look, Inness," she said, "I know Joe sends you down to do the talking because he hasn't got anything on me. He sends you because you're an idiot and you're aggravating." She could see Inness getting annoyed. She could see him thinking through the order to come down here, thinking through the politics at the office, wondering if she was right. Hugh bit his bottom lip and stared at the ceiling. "So just tell him from me, you're not as much of an aggravation as he thinks you are and I'm not going to confess to an offense I didn't commit to get out of your company. Will ye tell him that for me?"

Flustered, Inness raised his hand to his face, flattening his mustache. "This place is filthy," he said bitterly. "Is that a feminist thing? Not cleaning up after yourself?"

Maureen mustered her threadbare dignity. "Are you taunting me in an official capacity now?" she said, feeling the rising panic at the back of her throat, hearing Michael scratching through the glass. "Tell Joe that this isn't Chile. He can't just send you up here whenever he feels like it. These fishing trips are illegal."

"Who told you that?"

"My brother."

Inness gave himself a couple of seconds to think up a witty retort. "How is your brother? Still selling drugs to schoolkids?" Evidently a couple of seconds wasn't long enough.

"Liam's retired," she said. "You know he's retired."

"Aye, he's a student now. Selling drugs to other students, is he?"

She felt hot and furious, felt the heat of the blue envelope at her heels, felt Leslie's saliva on her eye, and knew that she might start bubbling at any moment. She couldn't cry in front of Inness – he'd love it, he'd tell Joe McEwan – she couldn't. She pushed past him and threw open the front door. Startled, Inness dredged through his mind for something to hit her with. "How's your friend?" he said. "The girl on the motorbike? Maybe she'd like to talk to us?"

"Inness"-she slapped his arm, keeping her head down to hide her tears-"you're pathetic. You're fucking pathetic." She was shoving him into the close and shouting at him, "Get out."

Inness was shocked. O'Donnell had never shown emotion before but she was crying, slapping him, pushing and shouting at him. She was genuinely upset. "What are ye doing?" said Inness, giggling nervously, trying to wrestle her flailing hands down.

Maureen didn't know what to say so she told the truth. "You're frightening me," she shouted.

Inness stopped still. "I didn't mean to," he said stupidly.

In a TV movie they would have hugged each other, he'd have come back in and they'd have had an honest discussion about their feelings, a sun-dappled moment of tenderness with a stranger, and they'd leave, elevated and touched at their common humanity. But this was Glasgow. "Fuck you," shouted Maureen, and slammed the door in his face.

She turned round and found McAskill standing by the living-room doorway like a spare arse. "Hugh," she said, struggling for breath, "how can you stand by?"

"Maureen-"

She threw open the door again and McAskill brushed past her, turning and muttering to her, "It's my job."

She slammed the door the moment he was through and stared at it, crying and listening as the two men murmured to each other and walked away down the stairs, their footsteps receding to a gentle clip-clop as they reached the ground floor and opened the door to the street. She skipped into the living room, flattened herself against the wall and looked out. They were climbing into a car. She watched as Inness wound down the window and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out into the street. They pulled out and drove away.

Maureen lit a cigarette. Back in the hall she leaned under the telephone table and pulled out the blue envelope. She ripped it open. Angus was writing to say he hoped the bleeding had stopped and he would like to cut her himself. The answering machine was blinking.

"I know you're there," slurred Winnie. "Pick up, you little shit."

"Yeah, I'm a shit," she murmured, taking a deep draw on her cigarette, savoring the knowledge of an early death. "I'm a shit. I'm a shit."

It was nine forty-five in the morning and she wanted to get drunk and stay drunk.