"Not bad," said Maureen, catching the brown jumper Liam threw at her. "You're not in tow with this balloon again, are ye?"
"Well"-Lynn lowered her lids and smiled coquettishly in Liam's direction-"mibi." She sauntered back to the chair, enjoying Liam's eyes on her tidy little body.
Embarrassed at witnessing such a graphic intimacy, Maureen pulled the jumper over her head and Leslie busied herself, pouring two cups of tea from the pot on the floor. They sat sideways in the dip in the Corbusier lounger, smashed into each other, sharing opposite ends of a towel to dry their hair.
"What possessed ye?" said Maureen, rubbing her hair with the towel.
"Well, Mauri"-Lynn slipped back into her chair-"I'm an old-fashioned Scottish girl and I think pity and fear are a healthy basis for a relationship."
She grinned and Liam looked as offended as a novice nun in Amsterdam. "Don't poke fun at our love," he said solemnly, and Lynn cackled in the corner.
Lynn was the first girl Liam had ever gone out with. They had met at the Hillhead comprehensive Christmas disco when they were fourteen. Lynn came from a rough part of Shettleston; she wasn't even at the school – she was only at the dance to stop her cross-eyed cousin, Mary Ann McGuire, from being bullied. Lynn had glided into the hall wearing eight-hole DMs, her shiny black bob swaying at the shoulders of her green silk minidress. Terrified that anyone else would nab her, Liam had run over to her and forgotten his lines. He stood in front of her, startled by her opalescent skin and black eyes, gubbing like a drowning fish. Had she been any other girl she might have laughed and broken his heart, but Lynn took Liam's hand and led him onto the floor, holding it gently as they swayed to and fro, together, apart, together, apart, transfixed by each other. Kylie and Jason sang "Especially for You" and the assembled boys cursed Liam O'Donnell for the jammy wee shite that he was. Mary Ann McGuire was never bullied again. They were together for six years but Lynn didn't like the dealing and she couldn't cope with his anger. She said she was young and she wanted to have a laugh and watch television without a man shouting over the fucking news. It had been two years since Lynn had chucked him and a year and half since Liam had started seeing poor, dull Maggie with the perfect bottom and the whispery Monroe voice that made men want to kiss her and women want to punch her.
"What are you two doing here, anyway?" asked Liam.
Maureen put her hand into the bag of biscuits, taking as many as she could in a oner. "We need to ask you about someone," she said, eating a little ginger heart whole. "Do you know a guy called Neil Hutton?"
Liam stared at her. "I don't know him, but I know of him. Why are you looking for him?"
"We're not looking for him, he's just come up in conversation, that's all."
"Yeah, well, stay the fuck away from him, he's mental. His nickname is Neil 'Bananas' Hutton."
Maureen wrapped her cold hands around the hot cup and sipped her tea, feeling the heat seep through to the small bones in her hands. "And he's a dealer?"
Liam nodded reluctantly. "Yeah," he said. "Out the east end. Why?"
"Oh, it's the east," said Leslie, holding the warm cup to her cheek. "She doesn't know him from the scheme, then."
"Why?" repeated Liam.
Leslie thought the quickest way around Liam's uneasiness would be to tell him the truth, so she sketched Maxine and the news report Senga had told them about and said that Ann had disappeared shortly afterwards. Maureen added that Senga used to visit Fraser's and Leslie fiddled uncomfortably with the sleeve of her jumper.
"Doesn't mean Senga told her where Ann was, though," she said.
"Well, she'd probably tell," said Maureen. "And that's why she said everyone knew where the shelters were, to take the bad look off herself. But why would it matter whether Hutton knew where she was?"
"Did she owe him money on a deal or something?" asked Liam.
"No," said Maureen. "She was a drunk, not a user. Would Hutton beat her up himself?"
"Definitely." He pursed his mouth with disgust. "Hutton likes it. Likes the rough stuff, specially if he knows he can win."
"What else is he like," she said, "apart from mental?"
Liam thought about it. "He's ambitious and he's not a real dealer. He's actually a gangster who deals."
"What's the difference?"
Liam ambled over to Lynn's chair and looked out of the window. "Well, I'll tell you a story about Hutton. He nearly started a war two years ago moving in on another guy. He torched the guy's house, didn't even go in and take the stash first. He wasn't content with taking the patch over, he was obliterating the guy, wiping him out. No dealer would ever do that – it's far, far too angry and it's not profitable. See, Hutton isn't feeding a habit or in it for the money, like the rest of us. He's got a lot more to prove." Liam slid the back of his hand against Lynn's face, lifting the cigarette from her mouth, took a draw and put it back.
Even Lynn was embarrassed by the gesture. She leaned forward to get away from Liam, tapping her fag into an ashtray. "If she wasn't a user," she said, "she might be frightened of him for some other reason. Maybe it was personal or maybe she was a courier for him?"
"Nah." Maureen shook her head. "She's got four kids and she certainly wouldn't courier. She was really underweight and poor looking. She'd be very conspicuous on a plane."
"Not all couriers travel on airplanes," said Liam. "If it was up and down to London she might just have driven."
"Actually, she was found in London," said Maureen. "She's got a sister in London and she was up and down for a month before Christmas."
"She couldn't drive, though," said Leslie. "Would someone else have driven her?"
"Why pay a driver and a courier?" said Liam.
"What about the train?" said Lynn.
"Well, not just now," said Liam. "The police have been all over the docks and they were crawling all over the trains in November and December. That's why there's a dry on. No one's using the trains. What about the bus?"
"I don't think she would courier," said Leslie. "No offense, Liam, but she wasn't that sort of person."
"What? Not an evil person like me?"
"I didn't mean that, but she wasn't involved with criminal people and she was just a drinker."
"Did she owe loan sharks?"
Leslie didn't answer.
"She did," said Maureen. "She owed them shitloads."
"There ye are, then," said Liam. "About five hundred quid would make her evil enough to do a couple of runs and pay them off."
"But that's ludicrous," said Maureen. "Why would they entrust a package of drugs to a nervous, tipsy housewife?"
"Could have been a dummy run," said Liam, "to test and see if it was safe. The police've been picking up everyone. They might have used her because she was a complete outsider, knew nothing about anyone and it wouldn't really matter if she got nicked."
"But the money's not paid off," said Leslie sullenly. "Maureen said there were sharks up at the door every night in the week."
They all looked at Liam for clarification. He frowned. "Maybe she owed different people." He looked at Leslie's miserable face and suddenly smiled. "Why am I arguing with ye? I don't fucking know."
Lynn sat forward. "Would Ann fit in on the bus to London?"
"Perfectly," said Maureen, and looked at Leslie.
"Perfectly," said Leslie.
Liam and Lynn went downstairs, ostensibly to make more tea but obviously to have a snog. Maureen had never known them so demonstrative. It might have been her own lovelorn perspective but their intensity felt desperate, as if they knew it couldn't last and kept having to touch each other to know it wasn't over yet. The muffled chat downstairs slowed to a trickle and Leslie stood up and walked to the window. "God," she muttered, "this is a beautiful house."
"He's done it up nicely, hasn't he?"
Leslie was looking out of the window with her hands behind her back. "Are you ready to go back to your job yet?"