Joe smiled at her reproachfully, in a way that suggested it would take more than that to get a rise out of him.
"I'm just asking because you're always brown." He didn't answer and she could tell he wasn't afraid of her. "You'll ruin your skin if you keep it up, ye know, and then the smoking too. Bad for you."
Joe blinked and cut her off, took a deep breath and moved forward over the table. "Si McGee's house. What were you doing there?"
The hairs on her neck stirred. Not "Simon" but "Si." Way too familiar.
"Nothing. Do you know him?"
Joe nodded and smiled, creeping her out.
"How do you know him?"
Joe shrugged, a little uncomfortable. "That's not your business."
"Does he live near you or something?"
Joe blinked, brushing the question away. He licked his top lip slowly and moved his right hand across the table, watching his index finger unfurl from his fist. He tapped it once on the tabletop. "Ella McGee works at Paddy's. You work at Paddy's." He looked up at her and clocked her genuine surprise that he had such a handle on her movements. She glanced at Hugh but remembered that she'd never told him where she worked. Joe was trying to disconcert her. And then she realized: Joe didn't know Ella was dead. He looked at the tabletop and tapped his finger again. "Si McGee, brother of Margaret Frampton who, one year ago, made an assault allegation against your brother, Liam O'Donnell." He saw that she didn't know who he was talking about. "Tonsa," he said.
Maureen frowned and leaned forward. "Tonsa?"
Joe nodded, disappointed that she was so confused. "Tonsa Frampton."
"Tonsa is the sister of the guy who owns that house?" It dawned on Maureen that it was Tonsa she had seen standing on the steps of the Park Circus Health Club-Tonsa, and not a foreign wife at all. Tonsa had been a crack courier when Maureen had last heard of her. Just when it mattered most, during the worst part of the investigation into Douglas's death, Tonsa had told Joe McEwan that Liam had beaten her up. She looked like a well-groomed lady, wore Burberry overcoats and dressed carefully, but her eyes were frighteningly dead, watery and open just a touch too little, focused on nothing.
"Why else would you go up there?" said Joe, bringing her back to the small room.
She ran through the dad-from-the-Emirates story, but couldn't think of a variation that would work in this context. "I was looking for Si McGee," she said.
Joe smiled smugly and sat back. "Care to tell us why?"
Maureen sighed. "His mum died."
Now it was Joe's turn to be surprised. "Ella the Flash is dead?"
Maureen nodded. "The hospital couldn't get hold of him. I didn't want him going up there to visit and finding out. I wanted to tell him myself."
"What happened to her?"
"She was in hospital." Maureen exhaled deeply and found that the tears came easily. "She just slipped away, apparently."
Hugh leaned forward and she could tell he was shocked too. "Why did you lie to the officers who came to pick you up?"
"I don't trust the police to be discreet," she said. "I just wanted to tell him myself."
Joe sat back heavily and blinked several times. "Does he know yet?" he said.
"Dunno," said Maureen.
"Bloody hell." He took a draw on his cigarette and stubbed it out. "Ella the Flash."
"Why was she called that?" asked Maureen.
"Is she not called that at Paddy's?" asked Hugh.
"Naw," Maureen said, "not that I'd know. We call her Home Gran because she wears those tracksuits and all the gold."
Joe smiled sadly. "Yeah." He cleared his throat, stopped smiling and restored the distance. "She was too old to wear those. She was called the Flash because she always dressed well, even though she worked the streets. Wore hats and good coats and things. Had a bit of dignity about her."
"Did you know Ella long?" asked Maureen, enjoying the kindly atmosphere.
Joe and Hugh looked at each other and Maureen saw how long they had known each other, how they had grown up together on the police force. She suddenly appreciated how decent Hugh had been to her and how easily he could have blocked her out.
"She was my first collar," said Joe.
"And mine," said Hugh.
"Did she get arrested a lot?"
"No," said Hugh. "We were together."
Hugh and Joe seemed sorrowful somehow, sad for who they had been or who they had become.
"Si's running a brothel in Kelvingrove," Maureen blurted.
Joe shook his head. "No, Tonsa's involved in that but it's nothing to do with him. He's an estate agent."
"You know there's a brothel there?"
Joe sucked his teeth. "The city licenses a number of saunas," he said, and added defensively, "Well, it's better than them standing around on street corners."
"Is Si McGee married?"
"No, I don't think so," said Joe suspiciously. "Why? D'ye fancy him?"
"No," tutted Maureen, indignant at the thought. It had been Tonsa at the hospital when Ella died; the nurses had probably just assumed she was Si's wife. Maureen thought of poor cold Ella lying on the metal trolley and felt tearful again. "She was a kind sort of person, wasn't she?" she said, overcome by drunken sentimentality and starting to cry. "I mean, she was a good person. A mum and that." She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Maureen," said Joe, "are you drunk?"
Chapter 23
Angus Farrell sat on the end of his bed, undoing his shirt buttons and stripping to his vest, going slowly through his ablutions, maintaining the momentum, aware always of the possibility of being watched and having his behavior reported back. He stood by the small sink and squeezed the toothpaste. He opened his mouth and began to brush, shutting his eyes, finding privacy in the moment.
Maureen O'Donnell opening the door to her flat, finding the pictures, wearing cheap clothes and a little makeup, smoking maybe. Not on the doorstep – she wouldn't smoke on the way out of the house. She'd smoke after she saw the pictures, though. Sit in another room and smoke a cigarette, feeling upset. Angus opened his eyes to find his bearings and spat into the basin. It was pink: his gums were bleeding. He smiled and shut his eyes again, brushing hard on the other side. She would sit in the living room, smoking a cigarette, trying not to look at the pictures. She'd put the pictures back in the envelope, cry over them, maybe. When she got the video she wouldn't want to watch it, she'd resist, but he knew she would watch it eventually. She wasn't one for avoidance, even if it was defensive. He spat again. Blood. He could get scurvy in here, the diet was so bad.
He ran the tap, cupping his hand under the bitter chill of the water and rinsing his mouth. He cleaned the bowl, drying it with his towel, hung the towel over the back of his plastic chair and took off his trousers, folding them neatly and putting them on the table for the morning.
He lay in bed with his two blankets over him, hands behind his head, and watched the bulb, waiting for lights-out. Maureen O'Donnell smoking a cigarette, her lips sucking gently on the filter, her cheeks drawing in, a lick of smoke trying to escape from her nostril. The video clicking into the machine, the picture lighting up the screen, and Maureen not wanting to watch it but unable to stop because it was a film of her old chum. She would know it was from him. She'd be terrified when she appeared in court, knowing that she didn't have the measure of him, not by half. It was a pleasing image and Angus had his friend to thank for that.
Lying in his tidy single bed, Angus Farrell looked up at the sickly light from the bare bulb and smiled again, his teeth smeared pink with blood.
The car slowed as it approached the red light. It was dark now and a blanket of clouds covered the fat white moon. Maureen had sobered up and the chill sweat had dried on her back, leaving her feeling dirty and spent. Joe had been worried because she was drunk and wouldn't let her leave without an escort. It was only when Liam walked in through the lobby doors that she realized Joe had been counting on her calling him. He made some snide remarks about junkies and Tonsa and let them go, calling to Maureen that he'd see her next week, if not before. Liam waved at him, smiling superciliously as if Joe were his slightly confused granny.