"You'll leave my home?"
"I live you? You out me, I live you?"
He understood what she meant. "You wantae come and live with me?" he said, climbing onto the bed.
"I live you," she said, turning back to face the wall.
He took hold of her ankles and yanked her legs farther apart on the bed. "You wantae live wi' me? Is that it?" He stood up behind her, resting his chin on her skinny shoulder, running a fingernail across her ripped back. "What makes ye think I'd have a cheap cunt like you in ma fucking house?"
Kevin was at the door. "Mr. G.?" he said softly, nodding to Si. "Spot of bother. Complaint from a punter."
Si beckoned him to come in. "What sort of complaint?"
"One of them's speaking English, asking him to get her out of here."
Margaret picked up her handbag and pulled out her Swiss army knife. "Show me," she said.
Kevin led her down the corridor to the far room, fumbling to find the key. Kevin didn't like being alone with Margaret and she knew it. He had seen too much of her to think she was harmless.
"Are ye a bit nervous, Kevin?"
He pressed his lips together and pushed open the door. The woman was still on the wall, slumped and hanging from her wrists, her legs buckled beneath her, bent at the knees, the tops of her feet flat on the pillow. Margaret ordered Kevin to bring her down off there and he held the woman up by the waist as he undid the straps, trying not to hold her so close that he got blood on his suit. He put the woman down on the bed, not roughly but not gently either. Her exhausted arms rose of their own accord, settling by her ears, folding over the top of her head. She had been punched on the nose and it looked fat and broken. Her eyes were swelling up. She tried to look up and see who was there.
"Awake?" said Margaret softly.
The battered woman nodded.
Margaret pointed to the door. "Get out?" she said.
The woman looked around, tried to work out who was there and what was going on. She tried to sit up but couldn't bring her arms to her sides. She cringed and lay back on the bed, folding her arms over her head again, letting the fingers of one hand flop over her eyes.
Margaret leaned forward and took the hand in her own. She yanked it away, making the woman cry out. "Out?" she said loudly. Kevin saw a glint of silver and a sudden spill of blood coming from the back of the woman's hand. "Ye want out?" Margaret held the tip of the knife in the open wound, twisting, letting the weight of the penknife press down into the open flesh. The woman was crying like a child, and coughing, her skinny back arching off the bed. Margaret lifted her hand and, just before she brought it down on the woman's sore face, Kevin saw an expression on it. Her eyes were open a little wider than usual. He didn't know what it meant. He'd never seen any expression on her face at all. For the first three months here he'd wondered whether she had Parkinson's.
As he was locking the door he asked her about using the knife. "Why's it always on the hands?"
"We don't need their hands."
At exactly eight o'clock they heard a single soft rap at the fire door. Si McGee checked the gray CCTV monitor on top of the filing cabinet and saw who it was. He flicked off the fire alarm and stepped across the room, pressing the bar down and opening the door.
Mark Doyle swung the bag in front of him, sitting it on the desk as Si shut the door behind him. He sat down, clicking his knuckles before zipping open the bag and taking out a wedge of laundered twenties. "Is it all here?" Si said, his greedy little eyes lighting up.
"Ye say that every time," said Doyle. "D'ye think Charlie Adams is ripping ye off?"
"Not at all," said Si, staring into the bag. He knew a single remark out of place would be reported back to Charlie Adams. Doyle was his eyes and ears, the sole protector of Adams's investment. "I don't mean that at all."
Doyle's glance fell to the table and the open newspaper. "What's this?" he said, tapping the picture of Maureen O'Donnell with a finger.
Bewildered, Si looked up. "Oh, her." He saw Doyle looking at it intently. "Do you know her?"
"She works in Paddy's," Doyle said, his face impassive. "I've bought fags from her."
Margaret slithered over to the desk and picked up the paper. "She's trouble. We need someone to sort it out. D'you know anyone?"
Doyle scratched at a raw patch on his cheek and Tonsa looked away. "It'll cost ye," he said.
"Much?"
"Ten."
Si frowned at the bag. "Ten's a lot." But he knew he had thirty thousand in clean notes in the bag and was due the same again in a month's time.
"Ten's what it takes to get it done right," Doyle said. He picked up the paper and looked at the picture of Maureen's close.
Si knew how important Doyle was to Adams. One word from Doyle and they'd be gone. He would be the best person to deal with O'Donnell. It was just a question of convincing Margaret.
Doyle shut the paper and put it down on the desk. "Forget it." He was at the fire exit, his hand pressing down on the bar, when Margaret spoke. "Wait."
A mile away, standing in a dark lane, Mark Doyle folded the newspaper and tucked it under the lid of a dustbin. She was his only remaining link with Pauline and no fucker was going to touch her.
Chapter 31
It was Friday night, they had two bottles of spirits and fifteen hundred cigarettes, but they were still miserable. Kilty was sad for the Candys. Leslie had started a course of antibiotics and couldn't drink, which made her fractious. Maureen had to decide what to do about Michael within the next two days and last night outside Una's had made her think that all she could do was give up. The three women sat next to one another on the settee watching the Friday night comedy shows on television, instinctively letting off sickly smiles in time to the laughter tracks. It was an airless night and sweat trickled down their necks and foreheads. They kept having to stand up and peel their T-shirts from their backs. On the screen some pals had a group hug and the adverts came on.
"The Life of the Candys," said Kilty. "What must it be like?"
"Ye know," said Leslie, sipping her cranberry juice, "a huge number of them have been abused as children."
"Really?" said Maureen.
"Yeah," said Leslie. "Massive correlation. Same as rent-boys."
"Why do men do it?" said Kilty. "How could anyone get horny enough to touch Candy I?"
"It's not about being horny," said Leslie. "If it was about uncontrollable male sexuality the men would all be adolescent boys. They're men in their twenties and thirties and most of them are married anyway."
"Are they married?" said Kilty, most surprised.
"Yeah, a good proportion."
Kilty sank into the sofa. "God, that's really creepy."
"Those poor women," said Leslie. "It's sexual oppression, it's straightforward. Same the world over."
Maureen shrugged. "I don't think so. I mean, it's a shit job and ye'd hate to do it yourself, but miners get paid danger money and work in horrible conditions that damage their bodies. They do it because there's a local custom of thinking that's an acceptable way to make a living and all those conditions apply to prostitutes."
"They're not prostitutes, Maureen," said Leslie. "They're prostituted women."
Maureen tutted at her and wished Leslie'd have a drink.
"Oof," said Kilty, forcing fake cheer. "That's depressing, isn't it?"
Maureen could tell by Kilty's resolutely upbeat tone that she was here to gee her along. The introductory music to the next program started and they settled back, watching and laughing. The second half of the program came on and they watched a beautiful couple in a perfect house get on, fall out and make up.
"He's gay, that guy," said Kilty absently, pressing out her cigarette and folding it over itself in the ashtray.