G03 - Resolution (20 page)

Joe shrugged, a little uncomfortable. “That’s not your business.”

“Does he live near you or something?”

Joe blinked, brushing the question away. He licked his top lip slowly and moved his right hand across the table, watching his index finger unfurl from his fist. He tapped it once on the tabletop. “Ella McGee works at Paddy’s. You work at Paddy’s.” He looked up at her and clocked her genuine surprise that he had such a handle on her movements. She glanced at Hugh but remembered that she’d never told him where she worked. Joe was trying to disconcert her. And then she realized: Joe didn’t know Ella was dead. He looked at the tabletop and tapped his finger again. “Si McGee, brother of Margaret Frampton who, one year ago, made an assault allegation against your brother, Liam O’Donnell.” He saw that she didn’t know who he was talking about. “Tonsa,” he said.

Maureen frowned and leaned forward. “Tonsa?”

Joe nodded, disappointed that she was so confused. “Tonsa Frampton.”

“Tonsa is the sister of the guy who owns that house?” It dawned on Maureen that it was Tonsa she had seen standing on the steps of the Park Circus Health Club—Tonsa, and not a foreign wife at all. Tonsa had been a crack courier when Maureen had last heard of her. Just when it mattered most, during the worst part of the investigation into Douglas’s death, Tonsa had told Joe McEwan that Liam had beaten her up. She looked like a well-groomed lady, wore Burberry overcoats and dressed carefully, but her eyes were frighteningly dead, watery and open just a touch too little, focused on nothing.

“Why else would you go up there?” said Joe, bringing her back to the small room.

She ran through the dad-from-the-Emirates story, but couldn’t think of a variation that would work in this context. “I was looking for Si McGee,” she said.

Joe smiled smugly and sat back. “Care to tell us why?”

Maureen sighed. “His mum died.”

Now it was Joe’s turn to be surprised. “Ella the Flash is dead?”

Maureen nodded. “The hospital couldn’t get hold of him. I didn’t want him going up there to visit and finding out. I wanted to tell him myself.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was in hospital.” Maureen exhaled deeply and found that the tears came easily. “She just slipped away, apparently.”

Hugh leaned forward and she could tell he was shocked too. “Why did you lie to the officers who came to pick you up?”

“I don’t trust the police to be discreet,” she said. “I just wanted to tell him myself.”

Joe sat back heavily and blinked several times. “Does he know yet?” he said.

“Dunno,” said Maureen.

“Bloody hell.” He took a draw on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “Ella the Flash.”

“Why was she called that?” asked Maureen.

“Is she not called that at Paddy’s?” asked Hugh.

“Naw,” Maureen said, “not that I’d know. We call her Home Gran because she wears those tracksuits and all the gold.”

Joe smiled sadly. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, stopped smiling and restored the distance. “She was too old to wear those. She was called the Flash because she always dressed well, even though she worked the streets. Wore hats and good coats and things. Had a bit of dignity about her.”

“Did you know Ella long?” asked Maureen, enjoying the kindly atmosphere.

Joe and Hugh looked at each other and Maureen saw how long they had known each other, how they had grown up together on the police force. She suddenly appreciated how decent Hugh had been to her and how easily he could have blocked her out.

“She was my first collar,” said Joe.

“And mine,” said Hugh.

“Did she get arrested a lot?”

“No,” said Hugh. “We were together.”

Hugh and Joe seemed sorrowful somehow, sad for who they had been or who they had become.

“Si’s running a brothel in Kelvingrove,” Maureen blurted.

Joe shook his head. “No, Tonsa’s involved in that but it’s nothing to do with him. He’s an estate agent.”

“You know there’s a brothel there?”

Joe sucked his teeth. “The city licenses a number of saunas,” he said, and added defensively, “Well, it’s better than them standing around on street corners.”

“Is Si McGee married?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said Joe suspiciously. “Why? D’ye fancy him?”

“No,” tutted Maureen, indignant at the thought. It had been Tonsa at the hospital when Ella died; the nurses had probably just assumed she was Si’s wife. Maureen thought of poor cold Ella lying on the metal trolley and felt tearful again. “She was a kind sort of person, wasn’t she?” she said, overcome by drunken sentimentality and starting to cry. “I mean, she was a good person. A mum and that.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “Maureen,” said Joe, “are you drunk?”

Angus Farrell sat on the end of his bed, undoing his shirt buttons and stripping to his vest, going slowly through his ablutions, maintaining the momentum, aware always of the possibility of being watched and having his behavior reported back. He stood by the small sink and squeezed the toothpaste. He opened his mouth and began to brush, shutting his eyes, finding privacy in the moment.

Maureen O’Donnell opening the door to her flat, finding the pictures, wearing cheap clothes and a little makeup, smoking maybe. Not on the doorstep — she wouldn’t smoke on the way out of the house. She’d smoke after she saw the pictures, though. Sit in another room and smoke a cigarette, feeling upset. Angus opened his eyes to find his bearings and spat into the basin. It was pink: his gums were bleeding. He smiled and shut his eyes again, brushing hard on the other side. She would sit in the living room, smoking a cigarette, trying not to look at the pictures. She’d put the pictures back in the envelope, cry over them, maybe. When she got the video she wouldn’t want to watch it, she’d resist, but he knew she would watch it eventually. She wasn’t one for avoidance, even if it was defensive. He spat again. Blood. He could get scurvy in here, the diet was so bad.

He ran the tap, cupping his hand under the bitter chill of the water and rinsing his mouth. He cleaned the bowl, drying it with his towel, hung the towel over the back of his plastic chair and took off his trousers, folding them neatly and putting them on the table for the morning.

He lay in bed with his two blankets over him, hands behind his head, and watched the bulb, waiting for lights-out. Maureen O’Donnell smoking a cigarette, her lips sucking gently on the filter, her cheeks drawing in, a lick of smoke trying to escape from her nostril. The video clicking into the machine, the picture lighting up the screen, and Maureen not wanting to watch it but unable to stop because it was a film of her old chum. She would know it was from him. She’d be terrified when she appeared in court, knowing that she didn’t have the measure of him, not by half. It was a pleasing image and Angus had his friend to thank for that.

Lying in his tidy single bed, Angus Farrell looked up at the sickly light from the bare bulb and smiled again, his teeth smeared pink with blood.

The car slowed as it approached the red light. It was dark now and a blanket of clouds covered the fat white moon. Maureen had sobered up and the chill sweat had dried on her back, leaving her feeling dirty and spent. Joe had been worried because she was drunk and wouldn’t let her leave without an escort. It was only when Liam walked in through the lobby doors that she realized Joe had been counting on her calling him. He made some snide remarks about junkies and Tonsa and let them go, calling to Maureen that he’d see her next week, if not before. Liam waved at him, smiling superciliously as if Joe were his slightly confused granny.

Maureen could ask Mark Doyle about Tonsa. She’d seen them having a drink together in Brixton the year before and was sure that he’d know what Tonsa was into now. She just wasn’t sure he would tell her. The car engine spluttered and stopped. Liam sighed and pulled out the choke, revving the engine until it started again. He raised a placating hand to the driver behind him and took off. “What was that Tonsa crack about?”

“Joe McEwan thought I was up at the guy’s house because he’s Tonsa’s brother.”

Liam turned to look at her. “Tonsa’s got a brother?”

“Yeah, a dead creepy one. I think he runs a brothel. He’s a bit of a gangster.”

Liam pulled up outside her house and parked nimbly on the corner. “He doesn’t sound like a gangster if he saw you outside his house and called the police.”

“He might not have known it was me, though.” She lowered her voice. “Joe mentioned the assault again.”

“I told you it was crap.”

“I know, I know,” she said, too insistently.

“Mauri, Tonsa’s made allegations left, right and center. Remember her mental boyfriend got slashed and she went to the papers with it? She said it was the UDA.”

“Listen, we’ve got a wedding tomorrow.”

“Advertising herself all over the town. What wedding?”

“Kilty’s brother’s wedding.”

“Auch, shit. I forgot all about that. Kilty’s family would have loved all this, wouldn’t they?”

Leslie was sitting in the dark, her legs tucked into the sleeping bag and a cigarette burning in the saucer next to her. She was hugging her knees and rocking slightly when they opened the door, tear tracks streaked down her face. Around her in the living room were bin bags of clothes and tapes and shoes. She was in for the long haul.

Maureen carried all the bedding she could find through to the front room, spread the duvets over the floor and brought in a big pot of tea and cups, slipping some whiskey into her own. They sat up through the dawn, smoking fags and drinking tea, talking about Cammy and telling Liam about Si McGee and poor dead Ella and the door caved in from the inside. Maureen told them about the hand-delivered letters and the pictures, and Liam and Leslie looked at them and agreed that they were probably from Angus. Liam offered to watch the video in his house and tell her what was on it.

Insistent birds were chorusing and the sky was smeared pink and blue like Cinderella’s dress as they nodded off. It had been such an eventful night that it didn’t occur to Maureen to ask Liam why he had wanted to see her so much and Liam hadn’t had the heart to tell her.

They woke up an hour before they were supposed to be outside Kilty’s house picking her up. Liam rushed home and came back thirty minutes later looking little better than when he left. He hadn’t shaved and was dressed in a black jacket and a secondhand kilt in dark Gordon dress tartan. The kilt was water damaged and the pleats didn’t sit properly. From the back it looked like a puffball skirt. Maureen had thrown on a tarty pink dress she bought in a sale when she was at university and had never worn. Leslie borrowed a pencil skirt and a tight red linen shirt that yearned for an iron. They looked as if they were leaving a wild party instead of heading for a tame one.

Liam took the mystery video and pictures of the children to get them out of Maureen’s house. On the way down to the car Maureen bought cans of juice and chocolate bars for breakfast. The girls put on their makeup in the car, taking turns with the magnifying mirror and mascara when the car came to a stop at traffic lights. Maureen dabbed so much concealer and foundation over the bags under her eyes that she just looked dirty.

They could tell Kilty was nervous by the way she was swinging a plastic bag and checking the traffic up and down the road. She looked magnificent in a long green vintage dress with a matching silk flower in her hair and a pink angora shoulder muff. Her jaw dropped as she approached the car. “Christ Almighty,” she said, “did you crash on the way over?”

Liam drove as fast as he could up through Anniesland and Drumchapel, past concrete rural ghettos on the outskirts of the city and along the motorway to Loch Lomond. They were early so they stopped by the roadside and straightened themselves out, drinking the fizzy juice and smoking fags as Kilty picked at marks on their clothes, combed their hair and fixed their makeup mistakes. She took rose buttonholes out of the plastic bag and pulled the wet tissue from the stems, pinning them where they were needed to hide stains. Liam yanked the ripped roof down on the car, bagged up all the old fag packets, ginger cans and sandwich wrappers, and threw a blanket over the backseat to hide the rips in the leatherette. Kilty hid the bag of rubbish in a bush by the roadside. By the time they took off, they looked like real people on their way to a wedding they gave a shit about.

It was a spired, single-story church on the banks of the loch. The village was composed of pretty bungalows built from local stone and ended in a wooden jetty out to the loch. It was a mile deep with strong undercurrents, notorious for dragging unsuspecting swimmers to their death. The deceitful water flashed a pretty silver, like fish skins in aspic. Across the loch loomed high, sudden hills, carpeted in green suede. Occasional whitewashed houses nestled near thickets of trees. Liam parked by the walled churchyard between a Merc and a BMW.

The people corralled inside the low wall were of their own age but better off and much better groomed. The men wore kilts or smart suits in cool summer colors. The women were dressed in an array of expensive dresses and hats, damp patches vivid under their arms and down their backs. Maureen walked through the gate into a haze of expensive perfumes, sweet and lingering, like the alien scent of certainty. Everyone was loud and excited.

A few people greeted Kilty as she approached, smiling to hide their ambivalence. They called her Kay and apologized for not having seen her since she got back. They glanced behind her, assessing Maureen, Liam and Leslie, deeming them unworthy of interest. A kilted man shaped like a cube ran towards Kilty and gave her an unwelcome hug, leaving his arm around her shoulder while she introduced him as Tugsy. “Brilliant to meet you all,” he said, trying hard to smile at the alarmingly scruffy threesome, then backed off. “Andy’s inside.”

Kilty went into the church. Afraid of being left alone with a load of happy strangers, Maureen, Liam and Leslie traipsed after her.

Andrew Goldfarb was a handsome man. He looked like Kilty but with darker hair and less buggy eyes. She had told them that he was a skinny, specky kid at school but had beefed himself up with an obsessive gym regime, muscle drinks and contact lenses, a process she referred to as “exorcising the Jew.” He was dressed in full Highland regalia with kilt and ruffled shirt, black jacket with tails, a sporran trimmed with silver and an ornamental skean-dhu. Traditional lace-up shoes made his feet look girlish and dainty below heavy calves.