She found it bizarre that Moe had reported Ann missing. Ann didn't live with her, she had been missing before, and Maureen knew a bit about the reality of living with a drinker. If Ann was away on a binge, and the police found her and brought her back, she'd be looking for money and bringing trouble. Mood swings and grandiloquent claims went with the territory in alcoholic families and Ann saying she was running for her life was probably a monthly occurrence. If Moe was screwing the brew she definitely wouldn't want to draw official attention to herself. It didn't make sense for Moe to report her missing.
Sarah appeared at the kitchen door in a man's old tartan dressing gown and the exploding leather slippers. "Good morning, good morning," she said. "Oh, you've set the table?"
"Sarah, you've been so sweet to me." Maureen stood up. "I'm making you breakfast this morning."
Sarah all but clapped her hands with glee. "Oh, how lovely," she said, and sat down at her place while Maureen made the toast. They were halfway through breakfast when Sarah put her fingertips on the bundle of Jesus pamphlets and pushed them across the table to Maureen. "Why not have a read while you're eating?" she said.
Maureen smiled. "You're fucking joking, aren't you?" she said, and the atmosphere deteriorated from there.
Maureen was on the wrong train. She got off at London Bridge and began the long walk to Brixton. It was only nine o'clock and she didn't have much to do before she met Kilty Goldfarb again. As she walked she looked up at the office blocks, a thousand windows with forty, fifty workers behind each of them every day of the week, each one trying to believe that they were the central character in the big movie. She watched the tube sucking people underground, saw the busy buses and the individual cars jammed bumper to bumper, saw the stream of pedestrians overspill from the pavement into the road, heads down, pretending that no one else existed, as if the knowledge of their number was too much to bear. And it was. Maureen was utterly convinced of her own insignificance.
She walked through the underpass at the Elephant and Castle, enjoying the sense that nothing really mattered, not the truth about the past, nor whether they believed her, not Winnie's drinking or Vik's ultimatum. It was the perfect place to escape from a painful past. She could waste years at home trying to make sense of a random series of events. There was no meaning, no lessons to be learned, no moral – none of it meant anything. She could spend her entire life trying to weave meaning into it, like compulsive gamblers and their secret schema. Nothing mattered, really, because an anonymous city is the moral equivalent of a darkened room. She understood why Ann had come here and stayed here and died here. It wouldn't be hard. All she had to do was let go of home. She would phone Leslie and Liam sometimes, say she was fine, fine, let the calls get farther apart, make up a life for herself and they'd finally forget.
She heard the noise and continued walking, expecting it to pass her, but it remained constant and she realized that it was the pager. Liam wanted her to phone him at home. Her pulse quickened at his name, as if she had been lost and reclaimed immediately.
"Come home right now."
"What?"
"Maureen, Neil Hutton's been found dead. He was assassinated."
Maureen frowned. "Like what? By a sniper?"
"He was shot up the arse. I think even Mossad would have trouble making that shot."
"But I've just this minute got here."
"Look, the way they killed him is a warning about something, and until we know what it's a warning about, you have to come home."
"Keep your knickers on, Liam. I'm asking her older sister about her debts and stuff like that – I'm not getting into a drugs war."
Liam sighed and she could feel him thinking hard. "Please, Mauri," he said quietly, "please come home."
"What is it really? Is it something to do with Michael?"
"No," he shouted. "It's about Hutton!"
"Don't you shout at me."
"You wanker!" shouted Liam. "They shot him up the fucking arse, Maureen."
"God, keep the head. I'm not doing anything dangerous down here."
"Maureen, if she was muling for him and you're asking about her they'll kill ye!" Liam sounded almost hysterical. "They shot him up the arse, Mauri. Think what they'd do to you." It took four pounds in small change for Maureen to convince Liam not to panic, that Sarah's house was safe and she would be home really soon, next couple of days tops. He made her promise that if she got a scare of any kind she would phone him, he'd book a flight on his credit card and she could be home within three hours.
"I've got loads of money," she said. "I can book it myself."
"And listen," he said, "don't mention my name to anyone. Don't even tell anyone your name."
"Why?"
"They might connect us with each other."
"Right," she said, smiling." 'Cause we're the only two O'Donnells in Britain."
Liam paused so long that she thought they had been cut off. "Hello, Liam? Liam, are ye still there?"
"You have no idea," he was muttering, almost to himself, "no fucking idea what goes on."
Maureen passed the door, trying to look inside and anticipate the clientele, but the small windows had been back-coated with orange reflective plastic and any apparent movement inside was actually a reflection of the street. She opened the door and walked in, standing tall, trying to make an impression. The pub split into two rooms just inside the door with a continuous bar running through both. To the left was a room for the serious drinkers, with tables and ashtrays and little else. The room on the right had pictures on the wall and a dartboard, closed over like a traveling altarpiece. The pub smelled strongly of stale cigarette smoke tainted by an industrial lemon scent. Maureen remembered the smell from her time working in the Apollo box office. It was industrial spray sold in gallon containers, guaranteed to cover any smell. The cleaners at the Apollo used it when members of the public messed themselves or spilled milk on the soft furnishings.
Maureen went into the social room and sat down at the bar, shaking off her overcoat, waiting for the barman to get round to her. Sunshine spilled onto the tiled floor, forming little yellow puddles and showing up the filthy grouting. The wooden bar was badly scarred with fag burns and water marks. She could see through the arch into the serious-drinking room. A lone man sat crouched over his beer, asleep, his dirty brown anorak pulled over to one side by the weight of loose change in his pocket. She couldn't see his face. The less serious room was empty. It was eleven thirty on a Saturday morning and the drinking day had yet to begin.
She lit a cigarette as the barman came round the corner and asked him for a lemonade and a whiskey in separate glasses. He was middle-aged, black, dressed in jeans and a blue silk shirt open at the neck, displaying little hairy Afro bobbles on his chest like a dot-to-dot puzzle. He poured the lemonade from the gun, drew a tiny measure of whiskey from the optic and put the two glasses on the bar. Maureen lifted the lemonade and sipped. The oily mixer syrup swirled in the water, catching the light. He was watching her, wanting to talk, busying himself with the hopeless task of cleaning the bar top. Finally, he nodded at the untouched whiskey and asked her if she was waiting for someone.
"No," said Maureen, between gulps of flat lemonade, "I just came in because I'm thirsty."
It was pretty unlikely. The Coach and Horses was a different world, not a small deviation from the street. He wiped the taps near to her, rubbing them with a ripped beer towel, and caught her eye three or four times.