They said good-bye to each other and Maureen watched Hugh walk away. He turned back and waved. It was less like a good-bye than a dismissal. Maureen pulled open the heavy door of the public phone box, picked up the receiver and called Mark Doyle. To her surprise it was a pager service and she left a message with the woman on the switchboard, asking him to phone her back that afternoon.
When she got back to the flat Leslie was awake. Dressed in a crumpled silk shirt and shorts from her poly-bags, she was sitting in the kitchen looking tired and drawn. She smiled as Maureen walked in, trying to hide how sad she was, and Maureen smiled back, doing the same. They made coffee and took it into the warm living room, kicking the bedclothes to the wall and sitting down on the settee. Maureen told her she had met Hugh McAskill and the police couldn't do anything about the women.
"All right," said Leslie impatiently. "Fuck them. They're not even fucking attempting to do the right thing."
"What the hell can we do about this?" said Maureen, feeling lost.
"Plan B," said Leslie.
"Plan B won't work, though."
"It's all we can do."
Reluctantly, Maureen stood up and went out to the hall, looking under the gas bills and junk mail on the floor for the business card. She looked at the number on the card for a moment before she dialed it.
Aggie Grey was in a noisy road with traffic hurtling past. "Hello?" she hollered. "Hello?"
"I've got a story for you," said Maureen.
"Who is this?"
"I'm Maureen O'Donnell."
Aggie had a smile in her voice. "No, I'm Spartacus. How're ye, Nicky?" Maureen didn't know what to say. She was obviously a joke between Aggie and whoever Nicky was. "What do ye want, then? Chicken and cashew nuts again?"
"Look," said Maureen, "I am Maureen O'Donnell."
Aggie stalled.
"You were at the door, wondering what the fuck you were doing hassling nutters in their home?" said Maureen.
"Are ye at home?" shouted Aggie, louder than she needed to.
"Aye," said Maureen, "I'm at home."
Aggie Grey sat on the settee smoking a cigarette, looking back and forth between them. She was as butch as a brick, very bright and very nervous. Leslie explained the story to her and asked if she would be interested. Aggie stared at Maureen. "But not you?"
"No," said Maureen, "I'm not any part of the deal."
Aggie sat and thought about it, as though she was considering doing them a very difficult favor. "I can't take this story unless you give me an interview about Douglas Brady to bribe my editor with." She blushed, knowing it was a lie and that she was being greedy, knowing that they knew it too.
"Fuck off," said Maureen. "We'll give the story to someone else. It's brilliant. You know it's better than the Douglas one."
"No, it's a more important story, which doesn't make it a better story. Murdered married men having affairs is the best story. I could make it up, say I've met you and describe the house. Use file pictures." She sounded terrifyingly professional. "You've taken a chance inviting me up here."
"Ye could do that," said Maureen, "but I'd write to the Press Complaints Commission and it would be bad for your career. The murdered-married-man story is better in that shitty paper you work for but this story could be printed in a different paper. You know it could. It would be good for you."
"Will ye give us a picture of your floor?" she said, pointing at the bloodstains. It was all that was left of him.
"Fuck off."
Aggie Grey looked at the cigarette in her hand and thought about it. Finally she nodded. "Tell you what." She picked up her notebook. "You're lucky I'm freelance. Very lucky."
Chapter 42
Black clouds covered the moon, intensifying the oppressive darkness. The soil beneath their feet was wet and soft. She had never seen Mark Doyle so animated. The orange lights from the drive filtered through the dark trees, flickering across his face, obscuring the marks and scars. For a moment he seemed desperately handsome and dashing, the hero who would save the baby and make things all right. She thought of Pauline as a small girl and how strong Mark must have seemed to her, how clean and uncomplicated in comparison to every other member of her sordid family. Together they looked up the hill to Gartnavel Royal Psychiatric Hospital.
It had been built as a fortified containment facility in the Scots baronial style, with battlements on the eaves and solid turrets at the corners. The extensive grounds contained a complex of hospital facilities. At the bottom of the hill were nurses' dorms and Gartnavel General, a long slab of a building eight stories high, looking like an airport hotel, separated from the psychiatric hospital by old trees. Although floodlit, the Royal seemed darker and sadder, hidden away like the mistakes and failures it contained.
She had desperately wanted to drink this afternoon after Aggie left and Leslie had gone to visit her mum. She'd wanted to sit and drink and contemplate her glorious behavior tonight. She had to go for a walk around the town to stop herself and now she was trembling, weak from resisting the desire. Soon it would all be over and she could stop thinking and thinking and thinking about it.
"There's a door around there." Doyle pointed, keeping his voice so low she had to strain to hear him. "It leads into an old kitchen. The back door'll bring you out to corridor F. His ward's F4. It's off it, towards the back. They're shutting this wing down as well so they've not put any security doors or cameras in."
"How do you know all this?" she asked.
"I checked it out this afternoon," he said, reticent and uncomfortable.
"After I phoned ye?"
He nodded.
"That was very good of you."
He glanced at her resentfully. "D'ye wantae chat," he said, leaning over her, "or d'ye wantae fucking do this?"
"Yeah." She looked back at the building as if she were paying attention and could be trusted. "Let's do it."
"Sure?"
"Aye. I want to."
"It's not too late. We can turn back."
"No," she said, trying to look serious. "I'm sure."
She didn't feel serious. She felt elated that the moment was here and almost past. She was ready to do it, ready to make someone cleave to her will, to take a chance and change the future.
"Ye've got the knife I gave ye?"
"Yeah," she said, patting her pocket. "Got it."
"Remember to wipe and drop it once you've done it, leave the knife there, don't take it with ye."
"Leave it there," she echoed.
"Leave it there. Come on."
Still crouching, Doyle led her expertly along a track through the bushes. The soil was damp from the rain and muddy foot tracks from earlier in the day were still distinct.
"Look" – he pointed down – "we're leaving shoe prints. Chuck your shoes after but don't go barefoot. A footprint's like a fingerprint. They can convict ye on it." She had cheap imitation Timber-lands on and they had recently molded to the shape of her feet. She didn't want to throw them away. He led her round the perimeter of the building to an unlit area and stopped. "This bit of the building's shut down already." He pointed to a large ground-floor window on the corner. An unkempt bush was growing in front of it and it was almost completely covered. "It's light in there but no one can see in. Even if a car came past. No one goes there. They'll not find him until morning."
There were no bars on the window. The pane of glass was broken in the low corner but the disused wing was so long abandoned that no one had bothered to patch it up. She looked up and, framed in gray stone, saw herself tap Michael gently on the back, him slipping gracefully to the welcoming floor and an end to all their troubles.
"You listening to me?"
"No one can see in," she said automatically. "They won't find him until the morning."
"By which time you'll be rid of the knife and your shoes. What else have ye to do?"