Garnethill

Chapter 28

Leslie drove through the bollarded end of Scaramouch street and stopped the bike. The usually empty street was packed with big new cars. They took off their helmets and looked around. These were company cars.

It sounded like a rumble. It was coming from one of the tenement closes. Suddenly, a belch of men staggered backward, spilling out of Benny's close, taking photos over their heads and shouting questions and instructions. Maureen shoved the helmet back on, scratching her rough tartan scarf down the back of her neck, knocking a dry scab off and making the skin throb. Leslie put her helmet back on and buckled it under her chin.

Joe McEwan was in the center of the crowd, his head down, fighting through them. McAskill was behind him, following in his wake. The journalists put their arms out, trying to hold them back, jostling and shouting at them. Maureen and Leslie stood at the end of the street and watched as McEwan single-mindedly worked his way through the journalists and headed for a blue Ford.

Maureen and Leslie jumped back onto the bike. "Follow him," said Maureen.

McEwan's car drove out of the far end of the street. Leslie put her foot down, spun the bike in the opposite direction and sped over the pedestrian dead end onto the Maryhill Road, turning a sharp right.

"No," shouted Maureen, over the noise of the bike, "follow"

Leslie didn't react. Maureen panicked. They were screaming up the Maryhill Road toward a red traffic light, going in the opposite direction from McEwan. She banged Leslie on the thigh. "The blue Ford."

Leslie stopped the bike sharply. The back wheel leaped an inch off the road surface, bumping Maureen high off the pillion. "The fucking Ford. Follow the blue Ford!" she shouted.

Leslie pointed to the empty outside lane next to the bike. Just then the blue Ford cruised alongside them and stopped. McAskill was driving, McEwan was sitting in the back next to McMummb. Leslie rapped on the window and pointed behind her, McEwan peeked out and recognized Maureen's tartan scarf. He pointed eagerly down the road. The lights changed and the Ford pulled off with the bike behind it.

A couple of miles up the road the car pulled into a side street. Leslie followed and parked ten feet behind it.

"Sorry," Maureen said to her. "I lost the head there for a minute."

" 'S all right, doll."

McMummb and McAskill got out of the car and walked over to Maureen and Leslie, standing next to the bike. McAskill looked happy: his coat was flapping open and he was swaggering, stepping lightly, swinging his hips. He walked up to the bike and stood close, grinning broadly, showing off his gappy teeth. "He wants to see you in the car," he said to Maureen.

"What are you so happy about?" she asked, slipping off the bike and taking off her helmet.

"Had a wee bit of good news," he said, and turned away as if the conversation was over.

Maureen walked over to the car, leaving Leslie with McMummb and McAskill. McEwan opened the passenger door as she approached, waving her into the backseat with him. "I want to talk to you," said McEwan.

"Were you looking for me at Benny's house?" asked Maureen, unwinding her itchy scarf and feeling a little bloody patch on the back of her neck.

"No, we were looking for Brendan Gardner."

"Are you going to question him?"

"Maybe," he said. "We want his prints. You're not surprised."

She shrugged. "What were the press doing?"

"Brady told them you were there. They think there's a big story. She told them off the record that there was some sort of cover-up."

"I take it I'm the subject of this cover-up."

"She said it, not in so many words, but they got the message. She told them about your brother as well."

"And you're supposed to be protecting me?"

McEwan smirked. "Yeah, I'm putting my career on the line because I like you so much."

Maureen didn't smile back.

McEwan sucked his teeth while his eyes raced over the back of the driver's seat. "We found fingerprints at the locus in the Northern."

"Do they match anyone?"

"No one we know."

She looked out of the window. They were in a suburban cul-de-sac of prissy little bungalows. "The fingerprints were on the back of Martin Donegan's neck," said McEwan.

"On the back of his neck?"

"Aye. He had his hand looped around the back of Donegan's neck while he stabbed him. He watched, at the most, from a foot away while he stabbed Martin Donegan's face."

"Why are you telling me that?" snapped Maureen, disgusted at the details. "No one'll tell me anything for weeks and then suddenly you tell me that."

"I told you because I know what you're doing and I want you to stop it."

Maureen opened the door of the car and shouted to Leslie to give her a fag. Leslie swaggered over. She took the lit cigarette out of her mouth, handed it in through the door and went back to her bike. McEwan watched her walk away. "She picked up the list from the clerk at the Northern then?"

Maureen took a drag on the cigarette.

"I think you're trying to find the guy who did these murders and I think you're putting a lot of innocent people in danger."

"Oh, that's ridiculous," she said, and blushed. "I'm not stupid, Joe, I wouldn't do that. I'm just unlucky, that's all."

Maureen could see his jaw muscles rippling as he ground his teeth in annoyance.

"We've been following you every inch of the way, Maureen. Even if we hadn't been we'd still know what you've been up to. Does the name Jill McLaughlin ring a bell? She's on the list Martin Donegan gave you. We've just phoned her. She said that you'd phoned her asking all sorts of questions."

Maureen picked at a sticky mark on the back of the driver's seat. "I asked her about herself," she said sullenly.

"You were asking about George I."

"She didn't tell me anything, anyway."

McEwan looked at her for a moment. "And Daniel House? What about that?"

"Daniel House?"

"You were there asking about Douglas, weren't you? We saw you go in and come out. One of the nurses saw the picture of him on television last night. She phoned and told us about his visit, just in case it mattered, and she told us someone had been there asking after him, a young woman with blue eyes."

She didn't want to look at him. His voice was so soft she was sure he was building up to shouting at her.

"Maureen," he said quietly, "off the record, this guy's a vicious bastard. I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. You have to stop it. It's madness, you don't know what you're doing."

She looked at him. McEwan wasn't angry, he was worried.

"We know about the Northern now and we're tracing all the male patients and staff with access to the wards. We're keeping our eye on a very promising suspect for the murders right now, so it's all in hand."

"Is it Benny?"

McEwan rolled his eyes. "Stop it. Will you promise me you'll stop it?"

He was asking her, he was asking nicely. "Okay," she said, feigning reluctance. "Okay, I'll stop. Just tell me if it's Benny or I won't know whether to press the buzzer if he comes to see me."

McEwan nodded slowly, giving himself time to think through the implications of telling her. He wouldn't have taken that long if it wasn't Benny.

"Okay, you don't have to say it," she said. "I can tell."

"Good," he said. "Now, until we make an arrest you're in danger. I want you to stay near your house. Stay in it if possible, okay?"

"Okay."

"And lock it."

"Okay, Joe."

He leaned across her to open the car door but she put her hand out and stopped him. "I'm sorry I was so rude to you that time, when I called you… what I called you before, but it's hard to just stop having anything to do with your own life and hand it over to someone else to sort out, you know? I don't suppose it's something that comes naturally to most people."

He sat back and looked at her. "You're wrong about that. It comes very naturally to most people," he said, displaying a level of reflection she would never have suspected of him. "You still got the beeper?"

"Yeah." She patted her pocket. "I've got it."

"Use it, for even the slightest reason. Okay?"

"Okay."

He took the fag from Maureen's hand and drew on it.

"Joe, do you or don't you smoke?"

"Gave up." He handed the fag back and leaned across, opening the car door.

"I know you were at it this morning," she said, "I know ye were pretending to be friendly. I'd have given you the list anyway, ye didn't need to do that."

He looked startled but said nothing.

"You smiled when ye were putting my coat on," she explained. "Gave you away. This is much better, the way you're doing it now."

McEwan coughed. "I'm not doing anything now," he said, and looked out of the window. They sat in a rocky silence.

"Right," she said awkwardly. "Well, it comes over better, anyway."

She got out of the car, took four steps and dropped her scarf. McAskill stepped forward and picked it up for her. "Hall cupboard," he whispered. "His balls. Cut off and put there." He got back into the driver's seat and McMummb climbed into the back next to McEwan. The car pulled away from the curb, followed the line of the cul-de-sac and drove out to the main road. Maureen watched them as they turned. McEwan was saying something serious to McMummb.

"And tell them," said McEwan, "not to let her out of their sight. Not for a minute."

"Yes, sir," said McMummb, and wrote the order in longhand in his notebook.

"YOU WERE RIGHT," muttered Maureen to Leslie, "it is a man."

"How do you know?" asked Leslie.

"Douglas's bollocks were cut off. That's what was in the cupboard."

"And that makes it a man?"

"A woman would've cut his dick off. Bollocks aren't exactly loaded with symbolic meaning for us, are they?"

"Dunno," said Leslie. "I'm not all women. Reckon it's the same guy as the Northern rapes?"

"Yeah."

"Did you tell them?"

"No."

"What are you going to do, then?"

"I'm going to get the fucker," said Maureen, putting on her helmet and fastening it tight.

Maureen sat on the back of the bike and shut her eyes as Leslie drove her into the town. She held Leslie's waist and felt the hum of the engine beneath her, felt the cold air pushing past her, the stinging on the back of her neck, and heard the distant noise of traffic outside her helmet.

In another time her hot face lay on Douglas's damp thigh and he stroked her hair with a gentle hand, his still-wet dick lolling to the side and twitching, his balls contracted into the shape of a love heart.