"Oh," Leslie grinned, "I've just been with the Queen of Sadness all day. I'd shoot myself in the foot for a laugh right now."
"Yeah," said Maureen. "Where is she?"
"In bed," said Leslie. "We'll have to sleep on the floor again." She tried to rummage in Maureen's bag. "Drink," she said. "Give me drink."
"Wait, wait," said Maureen. She sat Leslie down on the settee and explained that she was going to take Siobhain to Millport in the next couple of days. "Can you come with us?"
"We're not going there for a laugh, are we, Mauri?"
"No," said Maureen. "I'm going to try and flush him out, get him to follow us and take care of it once and for all. Will you come?"
"I said I was in," she said definitely. "I'm in."
Maureen lit a fag. "I've finally been sacked," she said. "There's a letter on its way to my house."
"Because of the sick line?"
"Yeah. I don't mind not working and I can use Douglas's money if things get tight but I can't sit at home with my thoughts all day. I'll go bananas."
"Why don't you come and work voluntary at the shelter for a wee while? We're desperate for extra hands. I mean, you'd need to be passed by a committee and everything but I don't think it'd be a problem."
"That would be brilliant," said Maureen.
"We might not be working the same shifts or anything, and it might only last another couple of months, you know that?"
"Yeah, I meant it would be brilliant to do something that mattered."
Leslie looked at her thoughtfully. "I've been thinking," she said. "The budget committee meets in a couple of weeks. If we could get people to write in and protest it might change their decision."
"Yeah?"
"So?"
"Well, remember what the Guerrilla Girls did in New York?"
Maureen smiled a long, smug smile. "You mean mount a poster campaign?"
Leslie raised an eyebrow. "Might work. What d'you think?"
"I could pay for it out of Douglas's money. I'd like to do that. I don't know what else to do with the money." When Maureen got the bottle of peach schnapps out of her bag Leslie ran away into the kitchen and brought out a two-liter bottle of lemonade and some glasses. They settled down in the living room to watch television and get pissed. The programs weren't very good so Leslie put an old copy of Public Enemy in the video. They watched it, sipping at the sweet schnapps, laughing at Jean Harlow's cardboard hairdo and Cagney's macho posturing. When Cagney punched his mum on the chin Leslie laughed so hard she tumbled off the settee. She crawled to the bathroom on all fours. "Oh, man," she giggled, "I'm so fucking tired."
"Want me to pause it?"
"No, I can't watch any more."
She came back with two sleeping bags.
"I haven't brushed my teeth for two days," reflected Maureen.
"You're a dirty cow," said Leslie, arranging cushions on the floor.
"And I'm not brushing them tonight either."
"That's filthy," said Leslie, and slid into her sleeping bag. Maureen stripped down to her knickers and T-shirt, laid the beeper next to her on the floor and put out the lights. She fell into a drunken, hazy sleep.
Chapter 31
Maureen rolled over uncomfortably and felt the strains and bruises from another night on a floor. Siobhain was standing over her head like a colossus, looking down at her.
"Siobhain," Leslie called softly from the kitchen doorway. "Come away from there, hen. You'll scare the shit out of her."
Siobhain turned around and waddled into the kitchen. Maureen rubbed her face and sat up. She had a tremendous amount of crusty sleep in her eyes. Leslie brought out a coffee for her and sat on the settee watching her drink it. "So, what's the deal today, then?"
"Just hang around here with Siobhain and don't answer the door without checking it first. When we get to Millport all you have to do is sit tight and I'll take care of everything."
"Right," said Leslie quietly. "Maureen, you're not going to stab him, are you?"
"Nah." Maureen climbed out of the sleeping bag and rolled it up. "All being well I won't even touch him."
Leslie nodded soberly and patted her knees with her open hands.
"Are you losing your bottle, Leslie?"
"Yeah," Leslie said. "To be honest I think I am."
"Why?"
"Dunno. I just don't feel like attacking anyone at the moment. You losing your bottle, Mauri?"
"No," said Maureen certainly. "I'm not. I'm getting angrier."
"Maureen, what are you going to do to him?"
Maureen didn't want to tell her. It would be better if no one else knew and she didn't want to have an ethical debate about it. "I'm going to stop him," she said, picking up the phone book.
"Brush your teeth before that, eh?"
Maureen found the number and phoned the Isle of Cumbrae tourist board, asking for information about three-bed flats in Millport. The man on the other end of the phone spoke in a strange transatlantic drawl and kept trying to make personal conversation, asking her if she'd ever been there before. She said no in an attempt to guillotine the conversation but he launched off into a speech about the sights on the island. She finally managed to get contact numbers for five addresses from him. Two of the flats were in the same close – the close they had stayed in the last time they were in Millport, the time Liam and Leslie had taken her, the time of the photograph in the papers. It would be best to get the flats in the same close, in case he found them before she found him.
She called one of the contact numbers and booked the flat for a week starting tomorrow. She hadn't planned it but when the young woman at the other end asked her for a name and contact phone number she found herself making things up, lying so fluently she felt completely in control, she didn't even hesitate when the woman asked her to spell her false surname. Then she rang Liam, gave him the phone number for the other flat in the close and asked him to book it for her. "What for?" he said. "Are you trying to get away from the police for a bit?"
"Yeah."
Minutes later he phoned back to tell her he'd done it. "She asked for my number. I just made it up off the top of my head, is that all right?"
"Should be," said Maureen. "Unless they call to check it."
She wanted him to talk about something, anything, get him to tell her a long story so that she could listen to his voice for a while because there was a chance that she wouldn't come back from Millport. "Has Benny been in touch?"
"No. I had to phone him eventually. He said the police had questioned him and taken his prints. He wanted to know if they'd asked me about him."
"What did you say?"
"I said no. Listen," Liam said, "you know Marie's home this week?"
"Yeah, Una said the other day."
Liam paused. "Did you see her?"
"Yeah."
"For fucksake, Mauri, I told you not to go near them, I told you-"
"I know, I know, I'm not going to."
Someone rang Liam's front doorbell and he had to go. "Stay away from them."
"I will, doll, I will," she said. "You take care. Good-bye."
The insistent caller rang Liam's door again. "Yeah, Maureen," said Liam, bewildered by her solemn tone. "You take care as well."
She took a shower and used Leslie's damp toothbrush, scrubbing hard, making her gums bleed at the sides. She glanced at herself in the mirror. She looked rough. Her skin was gray, her eyes were pink and she had dark shadows under her eyes.
Back in the kitchen Leslie handed her a plate of buttery toast and another coffee. "And where are you going today?" she asked.
"South Side. We're going to Millport tomorrow. Can you get the time off okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, no bother. Is that where it's going to happen?"
"Aye."
"Right," said Leslie, nodding gravely. "Right."
Siobhain was sitting on the veranda, staring at the bald hills out the back.
"I haven't heard her speak yet," Leslie said.
"She's a beautiful voice," said Maureen. "You'll hear her one day."