"I've got my good gear on."
McAskill held on to the end of the roll and dragged it across the living room and out to the front door, leaving a brown trail of blood dust. Maureen nipped into the bedroom and put on her boots. She dropped her money and the new keys into her overcoat pocket, handing the coat to McEwan as she stepped over the rolled carpet and lifted the free end in the living room. McAskill opened the front door and stepped out into the close. "You shouldn't have to do it," he said.
McEwan muttered a curse and moved to take off his coat. "Let go," he said to Maureen.
"I can manage, Joe," said Maureen.
"Let go of it," he said firmly.
' 'M fine," said Maureen. "I've lifted things before." But the carpet was much heavier than she thought it would be. It was rolled up loosely and was difficult to get a hold of.
McAskill was standing pressed up against Jim Maliano's door and still the end of the carpet was inside the front door.
"Can we bend it?" said Maureen.
"Aye," he said, bracing himself. "Give it a shove."
Maureen pushed hard, getting the carpet to bend slightly in the middle. She moved sideways onto the first step.
"Look," said McEwan, following them out onto the landing, "I'll get it."
' 'M fine," she said, trying not to sound breathless. "Lock the door after ye. The key's in the pocket."
McAskill and Maureen struggled down the stairs, negotiating the landing turns by bending the roll and shuffling sideways. McEwan locked the door and followed them sullenly. The carpet was beginning to buckle of its own accord, the belly sagged downward, dragging on the ground, making it heavier, and Maureen was losing her hold on it. The weight was bending her fingernails back.
They turned slowly on the bottom landing and carried it out of the back door. They were both sweating when they got outside. A cool rain speckled Maureen's hot forehead as she staggered the last few steps to the midden. McAskill's face was blotchy and red. He bent over to put the carpet down and his head inclined close to hers; his eyelashes were dark and long, the pores on his nose were open.
"I found a stain in the cupboard," said Maureen, shaking her sore hands.
"Yeah?" puffed McAskill.
"Yeah."
He brushed off the front of his coat and rubbed his hands together.
"What was it, Hugh?"
"What was what?"
"What was in the cupboard?"
"I can't tell you that, Maureen."
"Why?"
"We'll need it to identify the killer. If it leaks it's useless."
"There must be other facts you could use. I wouldn't breathe a word. I know how to shut up, hand on heart."
McAskill looked at her suspiciously. "Why's it so important?"
McEwan appeared in the doorway carrying Maureen's coat. "Come on!" he shouted.
"It's important because I live there," she said.
McAskill sighed and wiped his hands clean.
"Because it's my house," she said.
He turned to the close. "I can't tell you," he said under his breath. "I'm sorry".
He walked back to McEwan, head bent against the damp weather, leaving Maureen standing next to her bloody carpet, both of them growing soggy in the spitting rain.
McEwan peered out at her. "Come on," he shouted unpleasantly. "We haven't got all day."
"You are a fucking arsehole," whispered Maureen to herself.
MAUREEN AND MCASKILL BOTH ordered the all-day breakfast and McEwan asked for a salad. When the waitress brought the wrong things he sent her back for the right things. Her limp and her depression got visibly worse every time she returned to the table and McEwan got more and more annoyed. When it finally arrived it was a very Scottish salad: limp garnish stepped up to the size of a meal. McEwan looked at it miserably for a long moment before attempting to eat it.
His mobile phone was sitting on the table, swaddled in soft black leather. Maureen kept looking at it, willing it not to ring and tell her she was wrong, tell her that Martin wasn't sitting on a coach with his pals, drinking lager and laughing his head off.
The all-day breakfast consisted of a runny fried egg, a potato scone, black pudding, Lorne sausage, mushrooms, fried tomato and bacon. Maureen worked her way silently through various combinations, egg yolk over sausage, scone and crumbling black pudding, egg white and mushrooms, but nothing sat comfortably in her mouth or her stomach. Martin's wife was worried. He hadn't phoned to tell her he was going to Metz. It felt like a long time since she'd enjoyed a meal.
The call came through as they were finishing off. Martin hadn't been on any of the four buses. He had genuinely disappeared.
Maureen relented and told them about the George I ward and what had happened there. McEwan was furious. "I thought you said you'd tell me anything as and when you came across it," he said.
"Martin said he didn't want me to repeat the story. He's got a wee den in the hospital basement."
"I don't give a fuc- monkey's what he told you to do," said McEwan, correcting his language midsentence. "You should have told me about this the other day."
"You wouldn't talk to me about anything the other day. Can we go and look there?"
McEwan leaned heavily on the table and stared at her, his blood pressure showing in his eyes. "I would have spoken to you about this," he said slowly.
"Yeah," said Maureen, a lot less interested in McEwan's mood than he was. "Well, I'm telling you about it now. See, there are parallels between the way Douglas was killed and the way the women were hurt. He was tied up like the women and he had been asking people about the assaults on the women. It was all over the hospital, everyone knew."
"Why was Douglas asking questions about it?"
"I dunno," she said, putting her overcoat on, anxious to get to the Northern. "Maybe he was outraged."
McEwan put his cutlery carefully on the half-empty plate, balancing the fork on top of the knife, and dabbed tiny touches around his mouth with his napkin. Maureen hadn't noticed how anal he was until she saw him eat. He caught the waitress's eye and motioned for the bill. "And what has this got to do with Martin Donegan disappearing?"
"Martin knew about it. He was the one who said there were parallels."
"Let me get this straight," said McEwan, narrowing his eyes and sitting back to look at her. "You went back to the Northern as part of your therapy and, quite spontaneously, Martin Donegan tells you a potentially vital piece of information about Douglas Brady's death."
"Aye. Can we go and look for him?"
McEwan sat forward. "Miss O'Donnell," he said quietly, "if I find out you're messing about and interviewing witnesses before we get to them I will be very, very angry, do you understand me?"
"Yeah," she said impatiently.
"You could face criminal prosecution."
"Aye, I know." She stood up. "Please, can we go?"
McEwan stared at her for a moment. "Where do you think Martin Donegan went?"
"Dunno," she said impatiently. "He's got a secret place in the hospital. I think he'll have left me a note."
They took the passenger lift down to the lower basement. Maureen turned left when they stepped out of the lifts and they ended up in the cavernous hospital kitchen. Ten women in blue hairnets and white coats were arranged around a moving conveyor belt with plates on it. As each plate came past the women took an individual portion of food from metal tubs and slapped it on. They looked over as Maureen and the two burly policemen came in through the double doors. The two groups stared at each other for a moment. Trays of empty plates skimmed past; only one woman was paying attention, frantically throwing boiled potatoes at the belt.
"I took a wrong turn," mumbled Maureen, backing out.
She retraced her steps to the lift and took them down the sloping ramp. She found the right corridor, recognizing it from the direction of the breeze carrying smells from the kitchen. It was dark, the failing strip light had given up. Only the overspill of light from round the corner split the blue dark. Guessing, she opened a wooden door and found herself in the L-shaped room. She could hear the humming engine behind the far wall. "This is it," she said.