Trying not to touch the Jiffy bag more than necessary, she pulled at the lip. It came open easily and she exhaled when she saw the strip of black plastic. It was a videocassette. She took it out, sat it on top of the envelope and looked at it, chewing her cheek hard and frowning. Maureen didn't have a video machine anymore. She wasn't going to watch it. She could guess what was on it anyway. She leaned forward, picked up the envelope by the edges and lifted it, video and all, onto the worktop in the kitchen. She picked up her purse, keys and fags and walked out, slamming the door shut behind her.
She knew that using the phone was an excuse, that there were pay phones outside the pub she could have used. She bought herself a second triple and balanced it on a scarred balsa-wood shelf. "I can't come tonight, Liam, something's come up. Can I come over tomorrow?"
Liam sounded furious. "I can't just sit about here all night waiting for you, Maureen. I haven't had my dinner because I was waiting for you."
"Liam," she laughed, lighter again because of the drink, "for fuck's sake, it's only half past seven."
"I was hungry," he snapped.
"Well, can't ye get yourself a bit of bread or something?"
"Why don't you come over later?"
"I can't. Leslie's moving into mine to shake off Cammy and she's coming over tonight." She heard Liam tutting. The pips went on the phone and the last six pence tumbled away on the digital display. "That's my money gone. I'll talk to ye tomorrow."
"Mauri, I need to-"
And the phone cut out.
Chapter 22
His driveway formed a break in a continuous stone wall leading up the hill and disappeared around a corner. The houses on the road were detached and solid, Victorian maybe. Si's house was on the summit of a short, steep drive. It had two large windows on either side of the front door and three above. The garden was tidy but not loved. It had the look of a professional gardener about it, a neatly striped lawn, bordered by a single row of pink roses. An intermittent sprinkler spat a circle of water onto the green. The gray Saab was parked in the drive.
Maureen wondered what the fuck she was doing there, loitering behind the gatepost, trying to scare him back. She was waiting but didn't know what for. She had an urge to go and chap the door and ask Si if he was happy now his mother was dead. She was there looking for a fight. The light changed behind the glass panels on the front door, it swung open, and Si stepped out, pulling on a leather jacket. He was holding his car keys. He unlocked the Saab with a remote beeper and climbed in, reversed and turned down the narrow drive, flicking on the right indicator. Maureen stood back against the gatepost, keeping as flush to the wall as she could. Si drove down to the road, paused, then pulled right. She stayed still for a while, waiting to see if he'd spotted her and would come back.
The back garden was as tidy as the front. The layout was the same: plain grass and thin borders, a dutiful effort by someone who didn't care. There were no children's toys or odd bits of garden furniture left sitting out. Through the kitchen window she saw that the place was clean: a single cup sat in the sink, waiting to be washed; the circular pine table was empty apart from a couple of unopened letters and a folded newspaper. The farthest window looked into a utility room with a washing machine and tumble dryer. On a wooden pulley hanging from the ceiling was a series of black Y-fronts and three shirts. There were no women's clothes in the room. Either Si and his wife were separated or the woman at the hospital had been someone else altogether. She stood there, licking whiskey fur off her teeth, and wondered why Si had bought a family mansion when he obviously lived alone.
"Excuse me, please." A firm hand grabbed her elbow, swung her arm behind her back and fitted the handcuffs onto her wrists tightly.
"What the hell are you doing?" said Maureen, turning to face two overweight uniformed police officers.
"Actually, miss," said the burly woman holding on to her, "we might ask you that."
Maureen realized that she was drunk. She wanted to get away from the police officers and go and drink more. Protesting her innocence from the back of the car, she told them that her name was Lizzie McCafferty. Affecting her poshest accent, she told them that she had booked a viewing of the house but the owners weren't in when she got there. Because she was a bit pissed, she half believed it herself and got genuinely annoyed when the officers didn't. Officer Fatman frowned hard. "The owner saw you standing at the gate for ten minutes, and called us before he left the house. Why were you standing there for so long? Why not just go straight up to the house?"
Maureen tutted. "I wasn't there for ten minutes. I just wasn't sure of the address."
"There was no for-sale sign outside the house," said the woman officer, turning from the wheel. "Didn't that make you wonder?"
Maureen rolled her eyes. "It was supposed to be a private sale."
The female officer looked at Maureen's crumpled T-shirt, her baggy shorts with sagging pockets full of fags and money and tissues, at her outsize skate trainers and smiled. "Were you going to buy the house with cash, miss?" she said snidely.
Maureen looked her in the eye. "I was viewing it for my dad. He's coming back from the Emirates next week. He's retiring to Scotland and I'm supposed to find some places for him to look at when he gets here." Maureen congratulated herself-the Emirates, nice touch.
The female officer thought about it, wavering in her conviction that Maureen was a master burglar. She looked out of the window at the house and back at Maureen. She was going to let her go. "Which other properties have you -"
"Maureen O'Donnell." It was Fatman. He was smiling and shaking a finger at her. "Garnethill." His smile blossomed into a toothy grin. "Douglas Brady."
They had called ahead to Stewart Street to see if Joe McEwan was interested. Maureen didn't understand what had been said in reply because it was coded but the officer started the engine and headed towards the town. The fat man turned to look at her as his colleague drove.
"What are you staring at?" said Maureen, sweating with annoyance.
He looked her up and down. "I saw you in the paper, in Millport. D'ye like Millport?"
Maureen shrugged.
"I like it there," he said, turning back into his seat. "Pretty."
Joe McEwan must have been having a quiet night because he had the time to come and see her arrive at the station. He was standing at the top of the stairs as they came into the lobby, smiling slightly, dressed in a pair of beige trousers and a dark blue silk shirt. He raised his hand in a bitter little wave as the person on the desk took Maureen's details. She didn't wave back. "Am I being charged with something?" she asked the desk sergeant.
"No," he said, apparently surprised that anyone in front of him had the wherewithal to ask such a technical question. "We just want to talk to you."
"Nice," said Maureen, drumming her fingers on the desk and glaring at Joe as she raised her voice. "I always have a nice time when I come here."
The desk sergeant wasn't listening to her: he was filling in a form and writing something on a clipboard. She took out a cigarette and lit it, breathing in the smoke like a dying asthmatic on an inhaler.
Joe was smiling and smoking a cigarette. He wasn't asking her questions, just smiling and smoking, smoking and smiling. He opened his mouth to speak once but glanced at the tape recorder and stopped, going back to his cigarette for another puff. Sitting next to him, Hugh McAskill was doing a great job of covering up their friendship. He blinked at her a couple of times, telling her to calm down. She knew he was right but the sight of Joe McEwan enjoying himself so much grated on her. She was sobering up and it was making her agitated. She wanted a drink. "Have you got a sunbed?" she said.