He took out a packet of twenty Super-delux low-tar cigarettes and offered them to her. She didn't like them but took one to be genial. "I've told you everything I know," she said.
McEwan lit his cigarette with a disposable lighter, which he put down in front of her. He exhaled and got smoke in his eye. "No, you haven't," he said calmly, looking at her as he rubbed his right eye with the tips of his fingers.
Maureen lit her cigarette and placed the lighter back on the table near McEwan. "Yes, I have."
He pulled a photocopy on A4 paper out from under his notes. "We found this," he said, pushing it toward her.
It was the list Martin had written for her but the writing wasn't in Biro, it was written in a grainy charcoal. A couple of the names were indistinct, words and letters trailed off in various places. "Shan Ryan" read as "Sno Ruom."
"We found this imprint on a pad he kept in a drawer," said McEwan. "It's a list. He's written your name at the top. What is it a list of?"
"It's a list of the staff who worked in the George I ward during the trouble."
McEwan smirked unhappily. "Why would he give you that?"
"He wanted me to pass it on to you," she said.
"Why didn't you?"
"I didn't get a chance."
"Maureen," he said, glancing at her with a tired, desperate look in his eyes, "we're not after your brother now, okay? And we know it wasn't you. I know we've had our differences in the past but you really need to cooperate with me now. Do you understand?"
Maureen paused and looked at her cigarette. It would be wonderful to hand it over and step back, to relinquish responsibility and let McEwan do all the work, let him be responsible if anyone else was killed. But she thought about Yvonne with the rope burn on her leg, about poor dead Iona and about Siobhain, and knew she couldn't hand them over to the police, that it would be an act of cowardice, that they would damage the women even more. McEwan hadn't even asked how Siobhain was today.
"Your neighbor in Garnethill phoned me."
"Which one?" She watched his face, trying to anticipate what he knew.
"The man who lives across the close from you," said McEwan. "The Italian guy."
"Right," said Maureen. "Why?"
"Your friend Brendan Gardner has been seen acting suspicious near your house. Did you send him up there for something?"
"Today?"
"No, a week ago yesterday. You didn't send him?"
She shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"Does he ever drink?"
She didn't want this: whatever Benny had done she didn't want to be here, dubbing him up to the polis as if he was just a guy she knew. "No," she said. "He doesn't drink anymore. Hasn't had a drink for three years." She must have looked upset because McEwan took it upon himself to lean across the table and pat her hand.
"He's not in the frame yet," he said. "We're just asking. We have to ask."
"What does 'in the frame' mean?"
"He's not a suspect, he just keeps coming up."
"Siobhain didn't tell you anything, did she? She didn't tell you who raped them?"
McEwan sounded utterly exasperated. "Why protect him? I don't understand why she'd protect him like that."
"She isn't protecting him, she's protecting herself."
He thought about it. "I don't understand."
"Well, there are different reasons why people can't tell." McEwan was watching her, listening intently. "Siobhain could have been threatened during it. Some people feel that if they say it out loud it becomes real or they'll make someone else dirty if they tell them about it, and other people have other reasons. She isn't trying to outsmart you."
He puffed his cigarette and looked sadly at the table. He seemed to be taking Siobhain's inability to discuss her brutal rape as a personal reproach. "Well, we'll try again later," he said.
"I don't think you should do that," said Maureen. "You have no idea what you're putting her through."
He ignored her objections and sat upright, regaining his distance. "What I was saying before is you don't need to be defensive with us now. You can tell us everything you know."
"I have told you everything."
McEwan tapped the list. "Why didn't you give me this?"
"I just didn't get a chance, Joe. You haven't been overfriendly and I wasn't going to rush down here with the list so that you could call me a twat."
He seemed hurt. "I've never called you anything," he said.
Maureen looked at him. McEwan was like a different man. He was being thoughtful and kind, comfortably displaying genuine emotions, and he was asking her to help him without trying to bully her. He had been unbearably adversarial but now that he wasn't suspicious of her Joe McEwan was almost likeable.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I am sorry for calling you that. You were being very aggressive to me and I wasn't on top form."
"Where is the list?"
"At home."
"We'll go and get it when we've finished here. Now, why were you getting lists off him and why were you visiting someone who was on the George I ward?"
"I'm just stuck in the middle of this," she said. "Honestly, Joe, I'm not interviewing people before you get to them. I've known Siobhain for years and Martin gave me the list to give to you."
McEwan seemed genuinely upset. "Let's go and get the list," he said heavily, and stood up, stepping behind her and lifting her coat from the back of her chair. He held it out for her and helped her into it carefully, lifting the heavy coat up her back and fitting the collar around her neck. She swung back to the chair to get her bag and saw McEwan out of the corner of her eye. He was smiling to himself, a sly, private smile. Joe McEwan was at it.
The sullen temp was back for another eight hours sitting on the uncomfortable chair. Their full-time receptionist, a middle-aged woman with gray hair, had ME and kept having to take days off. The next time the agency phoned her with this job she'd tell them to get someone else. If she wasn't saving up for the fortnight in Corfu she'd never have come here in the first place, never mind for a second time. The lobby was drafty and the whole place smelled of the stale smoke from the TV room.
And there was another thing. When she was taking her coat off that morning the Mongol man with the tranny came straight up to the desk and tried to touch her on the chest. She wasn't a nurse, she wasn't trained to deal with maddies like that. She'd reported him to the back office but she heard them laughing when she walked away. When she went to get a cup of tea she saw the woman social worker holding his hand and the two of them were talking away, quite the thing.
At lunchtime she put the machine on, not that anyone phoned there anyway, and went around to the shops to buy a Wispa and a can of ginger to cheer herself up. The Weight Watchers said she could have a Wispa anyway as long as she took diet drinks and not the real ones. She bought a magazine as well because she had a plan: the desk in the lobby was high enough for her to hide a magazine under the shelf and read it when she was supposed to be working. If she saw someone coming she could shove it under as they walked over to her and no one would be any the wiser.
The Wispa didn't even last back to the day center. She opened the can of diet ginger when she got back behind the desk, took a big mouthful, and turned the answer phone off. She opened the magazine and put it down, walked round the desk quickly and leaned over it from the other side. The magazine was invisible under the shelf. Feeling very clever, she skipped back round and sat down. She started reading a true story about a dog burial service who used the same coffin the whole time and charged all the clients £200 for it.
The phone rang. "Hello," she said apathetically. There was no answer on the other end but she could hear a strange, loud clicking noise. "Hello?" she said. "This is the Dennistoun day center." The caller hung up. Confused, she put the phone down just as another call came through on the same line. "Hello," she said. "Dennistoun day center."