"No, no," she lied. "How did you know I'd be here?"
"Leslie said. Joe McEwan's looking for both of us. We've to go down to the station again."
"Did he seem annoyed?"
"I don't know, I didn't see him. Benny said he phoned this morning."
Maureen threw her bag into the backseat and got in, shutting the door behind her and taking his fag off him. "What's happening about Maggie?" she asked, and took a draw.
"I dunno," he said, and half smiled. "I bumped into Lynn yesterday."
Lynn was Liam's ex-girlfriend. They had dated each other adamantly for four years and then split up suddenly after a petty fight. Two months later Liam was going out with bland Maggie. At the time Maureen and Leslie gave the relationship a month, tops, but that was over a year ago now.
"Did you bump into her by accident?"
"Yeah."
"Is that the first time you've met her since ye split up?"
Liam grinned. "Aye."
"So… what?"
"So nothing," he said innocently, and started the car. "You hungry?"
"Starvin'."
"What do you want to eat?"
"Any variation on the theme of red meat."
It was a brisk, sunny day. The light in Scotland is low in the autumn, gracing even the most mundane objects with dramatic chiaroscuro. Deep hard shadows from the tall buildings fell across the streets, litter bins stood on the pavement like war monuments, and pedestrians cast John Wayne showdown shadows as they stood at the traffic lights, waiting to cross the road. They drove west up Bath Street, passing alternately through withering puddles of shade and warming blasts of sunshine, heading up to a drive-through burger place at the poor end of the Maryhill Road.
Maureen hadn't been there for a few months and the area had suddenly become desolate. Subsiding buildings had been bolstered up or else abandoned, their windows and doors boarded up with fiberglass. The city surveyors had always known there was an ancient mine there; they thought it was safe, but the medieval miners had left weaker struts in it than they had supposed. Maryhill was falling into a five-hundred-year-old hole.
The drive-through was busy with thrill-seeking lunchtimers. Liam parked and Maureen ran across the road into the burger bar.
When she crossed back to the car Liam had nodded off. She knocked on the window. He opened his eyes and sat up slowly, grinning as if he'd had a dirty dream, and opened the door for her.
"Nothing happened with Lynn, then?"
"Ahh, well." He rubbed his red eyes.
They ate with the windows down and the radio on. Maureen asked him what time he'd left Paulsa's house. "About two-thirty."
"Where did you go then?"
"Went to Maggie's to pick her up and we went to the town to get flowers for her mum. Why?"
"Were you with her all day?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because," said Maureen, "I met someone who saw Douglas alive and well at three-thirty that day."
"Very good," he said, and nodded. "Very good indeed."
"I'd prefer it if the police didn't speak to her, though. She's a bit vulnerable."
"We'll keep her as a last resort, then," said Liam.
He tried to squash her burger into her face every time she went to take a bite. They ended up throwing chips at each other and giggling childishly. Whatever it was he and Lynn did when they were alone it suited Liam well. With Maggie he had been precious and moody but when he was with Lynn he recovered his gleeful spontaneity. They went for a coffee in a nearby shopping arcade to calm themselves before going to the police station.
Given that arcades are the poor precursor to shopping malls, this was a poor arcade: it was full of fancy-goods stores, 99p shops, with window displays of discount toilet rolls, and frozen food shops. Many of the units were empty or to let. A small central space was furnished with benches and fake trees stuck in large pots. The pots had been used routinely as ashtrays and were full of cigarette ends and greasy ash. Above, a clear Perspex roof lit the resting shoppers in an unflattering splat of light.
Liam needed razors so they went into the supermarket, then walked back to a baker's shop with a cafe. It was a grimy, self-service joint. The pile of trays at the counter hadn't been washed properly and the cups were stained. Dirty dishes sat uncollected on all the tables.
They picked a tray from the bottom of the pile and shuffled sideways along the counter. Maureen bought the coffee and began the search for the least dirty table. She stacked up the used dishes and moved them to an empty table before she sat down. The tabletop was strewn with crumbs and sticky patches of what appeared to be jam.
"I don't really want to drink out of that," said Liam, pointing at his cup. It had ring stains on the inside and a chip on the handle.
"It's good for you," said Maureen. "If you eat germs you get immune to them."
Liam wiped a space on the table in front of him with a paper napkin. "That sounds like an excuse for bad housekeeping to me."
"Aye, right enough, I'd never thought of it that way." She turned her cup round to a chipless part of the rim. "Mum used to say it to me. What's she up to?"
"What d'ye mean?" said Liam.
"What's Mum's new thing? She's said Dad's name twice in the past week and Una was looking well shifty."
He raised his eyebrows. "It's nothing, Mauri," he said. "I wouldn't worry about it."
That meant it was bad. Normally she wouldn't have asked Liam. They had an unspoken rule about Winnie that they didn't discuss her except in joking, disparaging terms, and even then it was as a release mechanism so that they wouldn't take her too seriously. They never gossiped about her or told each other what she'd been saying about them: they were old enough to know that none of it mattered, it could only hurt them and she'd be picking on someone else next week. But Maureen had a feeling that Winnie's recent behavior related to something more sinister than usual, and she needed to know. Liam sipped his coffee nonchalantly and grimaced. "That tastes of tires," he said. "What's yours like?"
"Tell me, Liam."
"It's nothing."
She had to cajole him all the way through her coffee. "I'm worried that she's been talking to the papers about me, that's why I need to know."
"Maureen, it's got nothing to do with that, it's not important."
"Why won't you tell me, then?"
Liam gave up on his coffee. "I can't drink that."
"Well, leave it, then," she said irritably. "Tell me."
He frowned and shoved his cup away to the side of the table. She caught his arm. "Tell me. Right now."
Liam sighed heavily. "It's to do with Marie… and Dad," he said.
"Has Marie remembered something?"
"No."
Maureen stopped dead. "What about Dad?"
Liam sat back and shoved his hands in his pockets, swinging backward on his chair. "Look," he muttered, "I really don't want to tell you. I just think you should stay away from them all, at least until this Douglas thing's settled."
"What is it?"
"Maureen, I-"
"DON'T LIE."
He took a deep breath and looked at her. "Marie doesn't believe you about Dad."
"Marie doesn't believe me either?"
"None of them believe you, Mauri." He laughed nervously, trying to make a joke of it. "They don't believe anything they don't want to."
"I know Mum doesn't but Marie was there when it happened. How could she not believe me?"
"I dunno."
"Which bit doesn't she believe?"
"None of it."
"What about Una?"
"She definitely doesn't."
"But Una was the one who brought it up in the first place. She only recanted to get Mum off her back. How could she not believe me?"
He shrugged.
"Marie was there," squealed Maureen. The other customers eyed them furtively. "She was fucking there. She saw Mum pulling me out."
"Mauri, please."
"Those fuckers!" shouted Maureen, curling over the table with fury. "Fuckers!"
A small boy at a nearby table started to cry. Liam pulled at her arm, trying to get her to sit up and calm down. "Keep it down, Mauri, please. We could get arrested for a breach."