Exile

Chapter 28

The passengers had thinned by the time they reached Brixton. Maureen got off and climbed down the stairs, enjoying a bracing breath of cold air in the street. Everyone in Brixton was dressed for a mild spring and Maureen was ready for the height of a Siberian winter. The sweat from the Underground had dried out, leaving her feeling crusty and damp. She stopped by Woolworths window and took out her A-Z. The lawyer's office was just beyond the high street and Moe Akitza's address was at the top of Brixton Hill, within easy walking distance. The pager in her bag began to sing and she felt for it, finding it at the bottom of her bag under a pair of pants. Jimmy said that the child-benefit book had been cashed yesterday.

She waited at the lights, crossed over to the Ritzy cinema and entered the mouth of Coldharbour Lane. The street ran around the back of Brixton high street, sloping away from it at a forty-five-degree angle. The start of the Lane was busy with bistros and wine bars, small restaurants and tasteful clothes shops. The brave push towards gentrification died suddenly at the intersection of Electric Avenue and the vegetable market. Coldharbour Lane crumbled into a ramshackle ghetto. A big police sign strapped to a lamppost announced that someone had been shot and killed in the Lane at 2:09 a.m., three days ago, and appealed to the public for information. Next to a shop selling nothing but neon yellow chickens stood a subsiding Victorian inn with a sinking stone portico. It was the Coach and Horses, the pub Mark Doyle had seen Ann in before Christmas. It wasn't open yet but shadowy figures moved inside the small orange windows. It looked dirty and run-down and Maureen could easily see Ann drinking in there. Beyond the eroded brick railway bridge stood a row of pleasantly proportioned Victorian shops. On the corner, behind a bank of call boxes, was a whitewashed pub called the Angel, and next to it a long office window was barred with vertical strip blinds. It was McCallum and Arrow-smith, Solicitors. Maureen opened the door, tripping a tinkling alarm bell as she walked in, and stood at the counter, trying to attract the attention of a secretary.

"Don't hold your breath."

A tiny woman in a fake-fur box jacket was sitting on one of the plastic chairs against the window. She had sun-brushed skin, thin brown hair and buggy, goitrous eyes. She was resting her head against the window, her eyes half shut. She looked like a tiny, very beautiful tropical frog. "She'll take fucking ages," she said, her accent a muted upper-class Glaswegian.

For all her worldliness, Maureen found the stranger a bit frightening. But she didn't look dangerous. Her hair was twisted into a loose roll at the back and her little slipper shoes looked expensive.

"Takes ages," said the stranger.

"Aye, right enough," said Maureen noncommittally.

Without sitting up the frog woman opened one bloodshot eye. "Glasgow?"

Maureen nodded a little.

"Whereabouts?"

"Garnethill."

The tiny woman shut her eye and smiled softly. "Ah, Garnethill," she said. "I was at the art school. Long time ago."

Maureen wondered why she was in the lawyer's. She might be a criminal, or getting divorced. Divorce seemed more likely, somehow. She seemed fairly content. A phone rang out on the desk and was intercepted by an answering machine. Maureen remembered why she had come in and turned back to the counter. The office was shallow with two desks standing in front of a door leading to the lawyers' private offices. The young Asian secretary was alone, transcribing something from her headphones. Her hair was permed into tight spirals and hennaed burgundy. She was badly placed to see anyone at the counter but she was aware of Maureen and looked up at her a couple of times, nodding and lifting her hand briefly from the keyboard, letting her know she'd be with her in a minute. Maureen pulled a pen and the service-station notebook out of her bag, and stood at the counter, poised and ready to write, trying to look official.

"Wait till ye see her eyes," whispered the fur-coated woman.

Maureen wasn't sure she was even talking to her. "I'm sorry," she said, "are you waiting to be seen?"

"Just wait till ye see her eyes."

Confused by the irrelevant mantra, Maureen smiled. Despite having her eyes shut the tiny woman smiled too and smacked her lips, nestling her head back against the window.

Six long, hot minutes later the secretary took off her headphones, picked up a clipboard and meandered over to the counter. She wore colored contact lenses of such a pale blue that her pupils looked irradiated, as if the edges of them were melting into the whites around her eyes. Maureen almost let out a little gasp but caught herself. She looked at the frog woman. She still had her eyes shut but she sensed Maureen's intense discomfort and grinned to herself.

"Can I have your name," asked the secretary, in a clipped lilt, "the time of your appointment and the name of the person the appointment is with, please?" The dye, the perm and the contacts seemed designed to contradict her every feature, as if she didn't want to be her at all.

"I don't have an appointment," said Maureen. "I'd like to talk to you."

The secretary looked up, startling Maureen again. "I wanted to ask you a couple of questions," said Maureen, trying to sound official. "It'll only take about three minutes. Would that be okay with you?"

"You're not selling stationery, are you?"

"No."

"Because I'm not authorized to buy anything."

"No, no, I just want to ask you about something."

"What is the nature of your inquiry?" she said.

"I wanted to ask you about a man called James Harris." She let it hang for a minute. "He came into this office a week ago yesterday. He was under the mistaken belief that this office was a different firm of solicitors."

The secretary grinned. "The little Scottish man who thought he was here for a will reading? Like in the films?"

"Exactly," said Maureen. "He spoke to you, did he?"

"Yes, he did. He showed me the letter and everything." She smirked. "Course, it was made-up rubbish. We do criminal work and it wasn't even our name. We used to be McCallum and Headie but then, of course, Mr. Headie left three months ago."

"And Mr. Arrowsmith came on board?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Headie left, did he?" Maureen looked up. The secretary looked uncomfortable but she wasn't giving anything away "Did he retire?"

The secretary didn't know what to say "Sort of."

"Right," said Maureen, jotting "fuck" in her notebook. "Did you get on with him?"

"He was a nice man to work for…"

"And where is he now?"

The secretary hesitated and glanced at the frog woman. "He's in Wandsworth, I think," she muttered.

"Could you give me the number of his new office?"

The secretary sniggered and held her clipboard up to cover her mouth. She tipped to the side to look behind Maureen and the frog woman giggled too. "I haven't got the number of his office."

"Well, thank you for your time," said Maureen, closing her notebook. A shaft of sunlight hit her in the eye and she flinched. "Thanks again."

Out in the street the sun was warm and Maureen desperately wanted something sugary to wake her up. The door to the Angel pub was pinned wide to let in the morning air. She glanced inside to see if it was open. It was empty but someone was standing behind the bar, reading a paper and drinking out of a blue mug. "You open?" she called.

"Naw, I'm waiting for a bus."

The pub was tastefully furnished with dark wood cladding halfway up the walls and chalky white distemper over the ceiling. Plastic transfer etching on the windows softened the light. The person behind the bar was either a butch woman or a small man with nice skin. Little bumps under the T-shirt gave her away. She watched Maureen's feet as she walked up to the bar and waited for her to speak.

"Can I have a lemonade with ice, please?"

The woman slapped her paper on the bar. She sauntered over to Maureen and poured her drink from a big plastic bottle with a 99p promise printed on the label. "Quid," she said, flapping her hand for the money.

"Where's the ice?"

"No ice."

"You're charging me a quid for a glass when the bottle cost less than a quid?"

" 'S what it costs," she said. "Same price everywhere."

Maureen gave her a coin. "There ye are," she said. "Ye can restock your entire bar with that."

The woman screwed the lid back on the bottle and sidled back to her paper. Maureen drank quietly, wondering about the conversation with the secretary and what could possibly be so funny about Mr. Headie's new office.

"You in the Salvation Army, then?" The butch lady-man was calling over to her.

"Why?" said Maureen.

The lady-man nodded to her drink. "Drinking lemonade in a pub."

"I don't think the Sally Ann come into pubs, do they?"

"They do if they're looking for money."

Maureen smiled at her glass and took another sip. "It's nice in here."

"Yeah"-the woman frowned-"my friend just done it up. She's got good taste."

"She has," nodded Maureen. "She really has."

"Course, you can't choose your punters."

"Rough crowd, is it?"

"Very rough. We were hoping for the lunch trade from the offices but they don't make it up here."

"What's the Coach and Horses like?"

The woman waved her hand in front of her nose. "Wild men. Scots and Irish mostly, and you know what they're like, duntcha?"

The woman sidled back over to her. "I know you Scots, tight as gnats' arses, the lot of ya." She lifted the bottle of lemonade from below the bar and topped Maureen's glass up.

"What was that for?" asked Maureen.

"Don't want you starting fights and frightening away my other customers," she said, suppressing a smile and shedding ten years.

The light in the doorway was dammed into shadow. It was the little frog woman from the solicitor's office. She walked over to the bar, took a seat five feet along from Maureen and ordered a mineral water. She paid for her drink and nodded to Maureen. "Eyes, eh?" she said.

Warily, Maureen nodded back. "Yeah, spooky," She thumbed backwards to the office. "Are you waiting for your boyfriend?"

The frog woman bit her tongue between her front teeth and laughed, dropping her chin to her chest. "Yeah, kind of," she said. "Why are you asking about Mr. Headie?"

Maureen turned to face her. "I'm working for a lawyer's firm in Scotland," she said, thinking fast. "They asked me to find out about something down here."

The woman stopped drinking and tipped her head back, looking down her nose at Maureen. "That's crap," she said. "If you were working for a lawyer's firm they'd know about Mr. Headie, they'd know where his new office is, they'd've read about it in Law Society newsletters."

Maureen felt very tired and dirty. "Mmm," she said, and ran out of clever ideas. "Do you know where his office is?"

The woman smiled wryly. "You don't live here, do you?"

"No," said Maureen, "I'm just down this morning."

"Yeah." She drank again.

"You know this area well, then, do you?"

The woman smiled at her and leaned over, holding on to the bar. She held out her hand. "Kilty Goldfarb," she said.

Tickled, Maureen barked a laugh. "Fuck off," she said. "That's not your name."

Kilty laughed too, delighted at Maureen's reaction. "It is," she insisted. "My family were Polish and my granny made up the name Kilty in honor of her new homeland."

Maureen stopped laughing and mumbled an apology.

"You're well cheeky." Kilty smiled. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Maureen O'Donnell."

"That's not exactly an exotic sobriquet, is it?"

"It is if you're from Swaziland," said Maureen.

Kilty finished her drink. "Hungry?"

"A wee bit."

Kilty gestured down the road. "I know an exotic wee place."

The gang of skinny teenage boys in various states of customized brown uniforms were swinging their schoolbags around their heads, kicking at one another and laughing. Williams turned to stare them down and Bunyan cringed. "Leave it," she said, to the stippled lift doors.

"Leave what?" said Williams loudly.

"Leave it, don't say anything. Look, here's the lift."

The metal doors slid open and they stepped in.

"I was just watching," said Williams. He stood at the back of the lift and Bunyan pressed the button. "You're not afraid of them, are you?"

"Having a fight with a gang of teenage Glaswegian boys isn't my idea of a light relief, sir." She turned and looked at him. "Are you sure he'll be in?"

"Yeah," Williams said. "He will be. He's not expecting us until two. He'll be in just now, though, getting the children off to school."

They made their way along the windswept veranda and knocked heavily on James Harris's door. The oldest boy opened it. He was still wearing his pajamas. He smiled up at Williams, a big happy smile, and said, "Hiya," through a rough morning throat. He coughed, clearing the phlegm away. The child sounded like a twenty-a-day smoker.

" 'Ello," whispered Bunyan, in her silly childish voice. "What are you doing still wearing 'jamas, then?"

The boy turned and ran into the living room calling for his da. James Harris had already been out. A shopping bag sat against the wall by the kitchen and he still had his jacket on. He was sitting in his armchair, dressing the babies for a day out. The wee boys had matching hats and plastic capes on, thin as paper and dark green, not children's colors at all. Harris looked up and saw the police officers standing on the step. He rolled his eyes back and blinked slowly. Williams and Bunyan waited for him to speak. They waited a full minute.

"I thought you were coming at two," he muttered, reaching out and pulling off the toddlers' hats.

"Why aren't the boys at school?" asked Bunyan.

"John's away already," said Harris quietly, flattening the little woolly hats on his knee. "Alan isn't well."

"I've got a cough," said Alan, staring adoringly up at Williams.

Williams ignored him. "We need to talk to you alone, Mr. Harris. Can you get the kids to play upstairs for a while?"

"They won't stay up there," said Harris, staring at his feet.

Williams cleared his throat. "Then we'll talk to you here, in front of the children. It's up to you."

Harris looked defeated. "Alan," he said, "take the weans up the stairs."

"Auch, naw, I'll just stay here," said Alan. He looked up at Bunyan. "Ye can talk in front o' me," he said eagerly, "and the babies don't even understand words."

Harris sighed and rubbed his eyes, dragging the thin skin back and forth. "Take the weans up the stairs, son."

Kilty Goldfarb took her burger out of the polystyrene box and pulled off the paper.

"Ah, McFood," she said. "Reminds me of bonny McScotland."

Maureen sipped her Coke and nibbled at a cluster of salty chips. "Have ye been away a long time?"

"Few years." Kilty thought back. "Five years? Just after I graduated. Came down to do a social-work course and stayed." She took a bite out of her burger, stopped to scowl and felt in her mouth with her fingers. She pulled out a slice of green pickle, looked at it as if it were a hair and sat it on a napkin.

"Why did you study social work if you were at the art school?"

"Printmaking just didn't seem as important as this. I was going to save the world."

Maureen sat back. "D'ye ever think about going home?"

Kilty sighed. "All the time. It's hard to find a place for yourself down here, it's hard to meet people you have anything in common with. But everyone I knew's moved on, apart from my mum and dad. Don't really have friends up there anymore." She smiled. "There's no patriot like an expatriate. What do you do, apart from the made-up job with the nonexistent solicitors?"

"I just left my job, actually. I was working at the Place of Safety Shelters."

"Right?" Kilty nodded, recognizing the name. "Why did you leave?"

Maureen tried to think of a way to disguise it but gave up. "I was shite at it and I was about to get rumbled. Plus I hated it. Never seeming to get anywhere and the administrative grind, all that bollocks."

"Not enough drama?"

Maureen nodded and sipped her Coke.

"Know what ye mean," said Kilty. "When I started I wanted to run into burning buildings and wrestle wild animals, not fill out forms to great effect. It's a bit of a disappointment, really." She finished the last bite of her burger and brushed her hands clean. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

Maureen got out her packet and put them on the table. Kilty took one, watching the tip as she held it in her mouth, and lit it with Vik's lighter, sucking the smoke into her mouth, exhaling it and immediately sucking again. Maureen watched her. "You don't smoke much, do you?"

Kilty shook her tiny head. She stopped and looked at the cigarette. "I so want to be a cynical smoker. I keep trying but I can't get the hang of it."

Maureen reached out and took the cigarette off her. "Give that to me before you hurt yourself. Who were you waiting for in the lawyer's?"

"Client," said Kilty, sitting up straight and responsible. "Young guy. Spot of bother."

Maureen nodded. "See, as a social worker, would you know a lot about the benefits system?"

Kilty looked at her, wary and guarded. "Why?"

"What I'm actually doing here is," said Maureen, wriggling forward in her seat, "I'm looking for someone."

Kilty's eyes urged her on.

"She came to us in Glasgow," continued Maureen, "came to the shelter in a terrible way, and then she disappeared but she was seen down here."

"Are you trying to make sure she didn't go back to the man who beat her up?"

"Yeah," said Maureen, relieved that her story was scanning out.

"Well," said Kilty, "what are you doing in the lawyer's office asking about changes in the partnership and Mr. Headie, then?"

Maureen had forgotten all that. "Oh, see, she got a letter from the firm on the wrong headed notepaper-"

Kilty interrupted. "But if you're looking for her, who's the little Scottish man?"

Maureen couldn't think of another silly lie to cover up the other silly lies. "I thought art-school people were meant to be thick," she said.

Kilty raised each of her eyebrows alternately, wiggling them.

"I can't tell you all her business," said Maureen, watching the eyebrows, hoping she'd do it again. "I'm not in a position to do that."

Kilty looked unreasonably annoyed. "I'd better get back," she said, standing up and gathering her fur and her handbag.

"What are you up to tomorrow?"

"Working," said Kilty.

"On a Saturday?"

"I work Saturdays."

"D'you want to meet for lunch?" Maureen was talking quickly and sounded desperate. "I don't know this area at all and she disappeared somewhere around here."

Kilty was standing over her, looking suspicious.

"I just thought you might know people," said Maureen. "Never mind."

Kilty pulled her coat on and stepped out of the leg-trap table. She lifted her bag strap and swung it over her head. "In here, tomorrow at twelve?"

"Yeah." Maureen brightened. "Twelve."

"Sounds like you're sitting on a high-drama story." Kilty slipped past Maureen to the heavy glass door. "I'll wheedle it out of you." She stepped out into the street.

Maureen dug out Ann's sister's phone number and headed for a pay phone. Pornographic photographs of vulnerable young women were papered over the inside of the box. The calling cards said the girls were schoolgirls, bad girls, dirty girls, barely legal, French and Swedish, call now.

"Hello, Mrs. Akitza?"

"Yes?"

Maureen said that she had come to London on behalf of Jimmy Harris's family and she'd be looking around for the next few days, maybe a week. She wanted to come and see her in about ten minutes but she didn't know the area and she didn't know how to get to the house. The voice hesitated and gave her directions from the tube station. Ann's sister didn't seem very excited about seeing her. She hung up on Maureen without saying good-bye.