"How would Ann get to know a drug dealer? She didn't get into drugs, did she?"
Leslie looked out of her helmet, a strip of eyes blinking slowly like Maureen's memory of Douglas. "Naw, she was a drinker. She might know him from the scheme in Finneston. Anyway, Senga says the woman works at Fraser's in the makeup department."
"We could go and ask Liam about it," said Maureen. "He'll know the guy if he's a dealer."
"Can we go and see the woman first?"
"Are you asking me to visit a two-hundred-square-foot makeup counter?"
"Oh, yes."
"I accept that invitation."
The entire lower floor of the Victorian galleria was given over to the business of makeup and perfume. Fraudulent women in white coats stood sentry by their counters, chatting to one another and picking their nails, ignoring the ugly, rain-sodden customers who wandered by cooing at the price tags. The shop was five stories high, with the different departments spread around a series of wooden balconies. A glass ceiling opened up the floors to natural sunlight, a benefit ignored by subsequent store designers who had inserted dazzling track lighting everywhere. The makeup was on the ground floor, a vast bazaar a-glitter with tatty perfume promotions and giant photographs of airbrushed teenagers.
They had asked for her at several counters and Maureen noticed the counter women tipping Maxine off, catching her eye and pointing them out. They weren't hard to spot: Maureen's coat looked expensive but she was wearing her battered boots and her curly hair could never be tidied anyway. Leslie's leathers and dirty hair would be chic in a biker bar but in the glittery galleria she looked as seemly as a dead toenail in a pair of strappy sandals.
Maxine was hard-faced, with thin lips and a determined chin. She was dressed in a powder pink two-piece suit and stood behind a counter piled high with black and gold boxes. Between her and the shelves at the back was a white leatherette chair with an arm attachment bearing a selection of samples. She wore far too much makeup, which, although skillfully applied, made her look like a burn victim who was covering up very well. Her short blond hair had been tortured into a big puff at the back and smeared into a parting at the fringe, held firm on either side of her face with diamante clips like ornamental staples. She was well practiced at not letting on. She slid across the floor to them, apparently innocent of their interest in her. "Good afternoon. Can I help you?"
"Yeah," said Leslie, leaning through the access gap in the counter. "We're here to ask you some questions. I think you know a friend of ours?"
Maxine looked wary. "Look," she said, under her breath, her accent dropping two social strata, her eyes watching behind them, "I'm at my work here. Leave us alone, will ye?"
"In a minute." Leslie smiled, certain she had the upper hand. "Our friend was called Ann Harris. Maybe ye'd know her from this." She produced the photocopy from her jacket and showed it to her.
Maxine kept her eyes on the horizon, watching for someone. She took the time to glance at the picture but something about it caught her eye and she looked back. "God," she said, staring at the photo.
"D'ye know her?" asked Maureen, muscling in through the narrow gap, standing in front of Leslie.
"What's that on her lip?" Maxine pointed at the picture and cringed. "Fuck."
"How do ye know her?" said Leslie.
Maxine roused herself and looked at Leslie angrily. "I never said I did know her, did I?"
But Maxine did know her. She looked at them, challenging them to contradict her. Maureen took out the Polaroid of wee John and the big man in the camel-hair coat. "What about this guy – d'ye know him?"
But Maxine was looking over Maureen's shoulder into the body of the shop. "The manager's in," she said, out of the side of her mouth. "I cannae just chat – one of yees'll need tae sit down."
Leslie pushed Maureen into the white chair and she found herself staring straight into a halogen spotlight embedded on the underside of a shelf. Maxine tipped back the seat with a foot pedal and followed the manager out of the corner of her eye, watching him float around the shop floor. She tucked a couple of tissues into Maureen's collar to protect her coat and began to move her hands over Maureen's face. "The manager in here's a right prick," she said, tracing lines over Maureen's eyes and lips, drawing circles on her cheeks. "That lassie you're looking for, I don't know her."
Maureen decided not to push it. "D'ye know the guy in the Polaroid?" she asked, trying to sit up.
Maxine's thin lips atrophied with annoyance. "Sit back," she said.
Maureen did as she was told and Maxine pulled out a white bottle from under the counter. She began rubbing oily cream on Maureen's forehead and cheeks, wiping it off with tissues as she leaned over Maureen and muttered aggressively, "Get me intae trouble here and I'll lose the place, right?"
Maureen was afraid to have Maxine near her eyes.
A pockmarked young man in a dark suit leaned across the counter. He was about twenty, the same age as Maxine. "Hello, ladies," he said, his accent a twanging Edinburgh slur. "Are you having a makeover?"
"Yeah," said Leslie.
"Are you enjoying that experience?"
"Yeah," said Maureen. "Very much."
"Good girl, Maxine, good girl."
He stood up and sauntered off, watching left and right, playing with the fist of keys at his belt.
"What an arsehole," said Leslie.
Maxine sighed. "I could have him killed, ye know." She said it casually as she wiped the cream from Maureen's neck. Maureen and Leslie were too frightened to ask her what she meant.
"Where do ye learn to do this?" asked Maureen, her eyes straining against the bright light above her. "You're very good."
"They send ye on a course for a week and ye learn all the secrets."
"Is it a good job?"
"It's a good job for me," said Maxine. "I'm expecting again and I can come and go. There's always these jobs if you're reliable."
"Oh," said Leslie. "Are ye expecting? Congratulations."
For some reason Maxine had taken very much against Leslie.
She was offended by Leslie's good wishes and stopped cleansing Maureen to plant her tongue in her cheek and stare Leslie out. Maureen was being slowly blinded by the track lighting, and the sight of Maxine's flared nostrils was interspersed with dazzling white blotches.
"That cream I've just put on ye," Maxine said, when she turned back to Maureen, "has a special ingredient which opens the pores and lets them breathe"-she illustrated the effect, rolling her hands outwards-"and then contracts the skin"-hands rolling inward-"to protect against pollution."
"Feels smashing," said Maureen, wanting to be nice to any woman who could get her boss killed for being a squeaky annoyance.
"It is quite expensive," warned Maxine, holding bottles of foundation up to Maureen's face to get a color match.
"Much is it?" said Maureen, who had a weakness for cosmetic products promising voodoo benefits.
"Thirty-two pounds."
"Well, I'm sold. Leave us out a bottle."
"Okay," said Maxine, excitedly, letting on that the job was commission. She turned to take a bottle off the shelf and Leslie made a frightened face behind her back. Maxine put the bottle into a bag and left it on the counter to embarrass Maureen into buying it even if she did change her mind. She had decided that Maureen was a mug with money and she wouldn't stop talking about the products.
"It's creamy, creamy, creamy, and will last from first thing in the morning to last thing at night without another application. That's the amazing thing about this foundation." She smeared thick tinted cream over Maureen's face with a sponge, patting it under her chin. "It's the most common mistake women make when applying foundation. They don't blend it in at the neck, giving the face a masklike appearance." She smirked. "We've all seen those women."
Maxine accompanied her drug-dealer boyfriend to court and could have her boss killed, but everyone has standards and she would not tolerate the crime of badly applied slap. Maureen squinted hard, trying to look up at her. "D'you know Senga, Maxine?"