Maureen went out to the veranda and sat down on the deck chair next to Siobhain, holding her hand and talking about the games the children were playing down below. It was rainy and they wore jackets and hats and wellies. She remembered from the hospital how important it had been to her when people took the time to talk. She explained that they were going to Millport the next day, and, although she couldn't be sure, she thought Siobhain squeezed her hand a little.
She picked up the beeper, put her overcoat on, borrowed Leslie's woolly hat and went downstairs to get the bus over to Levanglen.
Maureen pulled the hat down over her forehead and followed the signs straight to the dispensary. It was a small hole in the wall with sliding frosted-glass windows and a bell next to a handwritten sign telling her to ring for attention. She pressed it and stood away. A honey blond nurse wearing a white uniform and cerise lipstick slid the frosted window back. "Can I help you?" she said, and smiled the most uncomplicated smile Maureen had seen in a long time.
"Yeah, I wonder if you can. I'm looking for Shan Ryan."
"Shan's having his lunch."
She stepped back to let Maureen see him. He was sitting at a desk with his feet up, dressed in a nurse's white button-over jacket with a big ID badge hanging from the breast pocket, eating salad from a Tupperware container. She had guessed that he was half-Asian from his name and she was right. His skin was dark and he had shiny black hair but his almond eyes were khaki green. When he stood up to come to the window Maureen could see that he was at least six foot tall. He stood noncommittally behind the honey blond nurse and looked at Maureen expectantly. His front teeth were large and straight and white, his broad lips seemed unusually red.
"Urn, listen, I just wanted to ask whether you used to know Douglas Brady?"
Shan ignored the question and let the honey blond nurse answer. "The guy who got killed?" she asked.
"Yeah. He used to work upstairs as a therapist."
"I heard about that. His mum was an MEP, wasn't she?"
"Yeah," said Maureen. "Did you know him?"
"No," she said, "I never met him myself, I've just started here, but-"
She turned to Shan Ryan. "Me neither," he said, turning and walking back to his seat at the desk. He picked a cherry tomato out of his salad and sat down, looking Maureen in the eye as he bit the tomato between his front teeth, slicing it in half.
Maureen watched him. "Did you know Iona McKinnon?"
Shan glared into his lunch box.
"Sorry," said the nurse, filling in the silence, "I didn't know her either. Shan?"
Shan looked faintly surprised and shook his head. The nurse turned back to Maureen. "Sorry 'bout that," she said, smiling her delicious smile. "Are you a policewoman?"
"I think the answer to that question is quite obvious," said Maureen.
The nurse smiled at whichever obvious answer she was going with.
Maureen caught Shan's eye once more before thanking them and stepping back from the window. He seemed shrewd, as though he recognized her from somewhere and was trying to place her.
It was only two o'clock: she might as well go back to Leslie's. She had hoped her visit to Levanglen would take longer. All she had left to do was a bit of shopping and, apart from that, it would be a straightforward wait until the next day when she made the phone call to Benny and they caught the train to Largs.
The bus took a long time to come. Maureen stood in the shelter, staring down the dual carriageway in unison with the other damp passengers. The drizzle was intrusive today, swirling into Maureen's collar and up her sleeves. A brisk wind swept under the glass wall of the shelter, freezing her ankles. When the forty-seven finally arrived she climbed on board, bought her ticket and went upstairs, sitting at the back. The bus was a little too warm. Damp rose from thick, wet coats, making the atmosphere muggy and tiring. By the time it got to the Linthouse the smell on the top deck was fetid.
A blue Mini Clubman left its parking space in the Levanglen Hospital car park and drove out of the gates, following the bus through Linthouse, through the town and up the Great Western Road all the way to Anniesland.
Maureen had to change to a sixty-two bus at Anniesland to get to the Drum. She stood up as the bus pulled under the railway bridge and carefully worked her way down the stairwell to the door.
The Clubman driver saw her get up and struggle to the door. He stopped the car under the bridge, waited for the lights to change, then took a sharp left and parked in a side street.
The smell of old damp clothes lingered in her nose and she couldn't be bothered getting straight back onto another bus. She nipped into a coffee importer's and bought a quarter pound of fresh-ground Colombian coffee. The room smelled of chocolate and warmth. Standing at the back of the shop, the coffee grinder was a huge brass monster – it dwarfed the woman who was serving. She had to climb up a three-step ladder to put Maureen's beans into the grinding funnel. Maureen took the warm paper bag from her, paid, and stepped back out the door into the damp day.
The coffee shop's pleasant chocolate smell filled Maureen's head, and she didn't want to lose it. She looked down the street and saw the army surplus sign. She would need a flask and they might have them cheap. She pulled up her coat collar and walked down to the shop. Camouflage army gear and sportswear were hung on tidy racks against the wall. A circular sale rack had been put just inside the door, as if they were desperate to get rid of the stuff.
A plump woman in her mid-forties was serving at the counter. On the shelves behind her were the smaller items shoplifters would favor: hats and gloves, pocket hand warmers and mini butane fires for camping. "Can I help you?" she asked in a clipped, nasal Kelvin-side accent. She sounded like Elsbeth.
"I'm looking for a cheap flask," said Maureen, shaking the rain off her woolly hat.
The woman bent her legs in a bunny dip and reached into the back of the counter. "I'm afraid we only have two models in stock at the moment. This one" – she put a red plastic flask on the counter – "and this one."
The second flask had a matte silver body with a black plastic base and handle. Maureen unscrewed the cup and stopper and looked into it. The lip fanned out smoothly. She put her finger in and tapped the inside with her nail. It sounded sturdy enough. "How much?"
"Eight pounds."
"Fine, yeah, I'll take it."
As the woman put the flask back into its box Maureen glanced out of the window into the busy main street. Shan Ryan was standing outside the window, looking in at her. He was wearing a full-length black leather overcoat. He gestured down the street and disappeared.
"Eight pounds, then?"
"Oh," said Maureen. "Yes." She handed over a tenner.
The woman gave her some change and a bag with the flask in it. "Thank you for your custom," she called as Maureen stepped outside.
Shan was turning into a side street. Maureen paused in the doorway of the army shop and patted her pocket, finding the beeper. She put the flask into her rucksack, and her fingers found the cold metal handle of her stabbing comb. She relaxed a little. She slid it into her coat pocket with the sharp end pointing downward. She might need to pull it out quickly and use it.
When she got to the street corner Maureen stopped and looked around. The lights on a Mini Clubman flashed twice. She walked down the street toward it. Shan reached across the passenger seat and opened the car door for her. A bebop jazz tape was playing quietly on the stereo. She leaned down into the car and looked at Shan. He scowled at the dashboard.
He had shed his white nurse's coat and was wearing a faded pair of blue jeans and a black cotton crew-neck jumper with nothing underneath. She could see the impression of a lot of hair trapped under the front of the jumper, and black hair curled over the collar in a Hokusai wave.
He leaned over the passenger seat and looked up at her. "Get in, then," he said.