It took her a while to find her voice and when she did, it was weak and cracked. "Aye. Finish."
He climbed the stairs slowly and paused before he opened the door. "Is it off?" he said, staring at her face.
"Yeah." She pointed to the blank television screen. "It's off."
Liam sat down sideways on the Corbusier lounger, bending over his knees, looking small. "It's not from Farrell, then, is it?"
Maureen rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. "Aye," she said finally, "it is."
"But how could he know about Pauline?"
She was in shock, she knew that, and it was taking her a while to answer. "He worked at the Northern for eight years. Pauline was in there for ages before I went. Farrell's a predator. He'd've read through case notes, found her in there, probably." She flicked her cigarette into the ashtray. "If he was asking about me he'd have heard she was my pal."
Liam was trying not to look at the television, as if the image were still up there. "Why would they make a video like that, condemning themselves?"
Maureen shook her head. "They didn't just make that video for themselves. They made it for other people to see. There's networks of these people, ye know. They swap videos of things they do. There was a pedophile gang, UK-wide, got done last month for swapping films of themselves on the Net. It's a status thing among them. Farrell probably got to know that network. Any vicious pervert in Glasgow could have sent that."
Liam leaned over, took a cigarette from her packet and lit it. He pointed to the video machine. "Will we take it to the police?" he said.
"For what?" The final image came to Maureen's mind again and she bent over her knees, wishing she could be sick. "Both of the people in it are dead."
"The dad's dead?"
She nodded.
"How do you know that?" he said.
"Know her brother."
"Not the brother?"
"No." She shook her head. "The other brother. His dad and the other brother are dead, he told me."
"Poor guy," he said, and it occurred to Maureen that Liam and Mark Doyle probably had a lot in common. "What's he like?"
Maureen didn't know how to describe Doyle. She stopped for a minute and thought about him, growing up with that, maybe not knowing the details but aware of the atmosphere, the implications.
"He's… I dunno what he's like. He's covered in sores and he walks about as if he's dead already. Can a zoom on a video work remotely?"
"Yeah, if there's a button on a lead."
"What about without a lead?"
"Nut," said Liam.
"It zoomed in at the end," she said. "The other brother was in the room."
"But why would Farrell get it sent to you now?"
She sat back and took a deep breath. "He must have heard I'm giving evidence – he wants me to lose it again."
They sat for a while, Maureen looking out at the perfect sky, Liam bent double, picking at a loose strip of plastic on his trainers. "Ye know what's really disturbing about that video?" he said eventually. "It looks like other pornography, but I know Pauline didn't want to be there and I know that's her dad and I know she killed herself because of it."
"So?"
"Makes ye think about other porn, doesn't it?"
Maureen sniffed hard. "Not just a bit of saucy fun when it's your hole, is it?"
Chapter 34
Three men were sitting on the pavement outside and smiled up at them as they walked past. The Wayfarers' Club was a soup kitchen serving out of the cavernous Gothic arches under the Central Station bridge. The entrance was a gray metal door built at the far end of a glorious blond tricept. Uplighters filled the dome and the structure quivered and hummed as a train passed overhead.
Maureen rang the bell and stepped back. They were dressed for the Polish Club, in conservative skirts, makeup and jackets, all of which felt ludicrously inappropriate down by the river.
"God," said Kilty looking up, "it's beautiful. Why doesn't someone do something with this space?"
"Well, they are doing something with the space," said Leslie, ringing the bell again.
"But there must be more suitable spaces for a soup kitchen than a Gothic cathedral."
The giant steel door scratched open a little and a stocky wee man in glasses looked out, assessing their clothes. "Aye?" he said quickly.
"Hello," said Kilty. "I wonder if you could help us. We're looking for someone who used to work here, her name's Candy?"
He thought about it. "Nut," he said, and started to shut the door.
"That might not be her name," said Maureen, stepping forward and putting her foot in the door. "She worked here and she was very religious."
"She's not working here now." The man's voice was a nasal squeal. "We're shorthanded and I've got twenty loaves to butter."
"Why don't we give ye a hand?" said Maureen, and realized immediately that she should have kept that bargaining tool as a last resort.
The man was about to open the door but stopped. "Are you the police?"
"Naw, we're just looking for our pal."
"If she's your pal how come ye don't know her name?"
Kilty stepped forward. "She was a prostitute and she got out of it. We want her to come and talk to someone we know, see if she can help them get out of it as well."
He looked quite interested and glanced at Leslie's long, bare legs. "Are yous all prostitutes?"
"No," said Leslie.
"No," said Maureen. "We're just trying to help someone."
The man's eyes slid back to the hall behind him and all the work he had to do. He opened the door. "Come in, well."
The hall was gigantic, a vast rectangle. At the top of the room stood a small rostrum, above which hung a shakily hand-painted sign inexplicably declaring, "Wayfarer's – Are Go." Along each of the windowless walls leaned high stacks of chairs and folding tables. A blond man with his sad past written in the droop of his shoulders stopped setting up the serving table at the top of the hall and stood, staring, as if he had never seen women before.
"Hiya," said Kilty, raising her hand.
The man raised a hand, bewildered, and turned back to what he was doing, suddenly self-conscious.
"Yous can set up the chairs and the tables along the way." The nasal man gestured sideways with his hand.
"D'ye want an aisle down the middle?" asked Maureen.
"Aye. Just fill the hall halfway."
"And after this you'll talk to us?"
"Aye."
He scuttled away down the length of the room, disappearing through the door at the side of the rostrum. Kilty dropped her handbag by the wall and they set about laying out the chairs and the tables in rows. Above them a train rumbled out of the station, gathering speed, filling the hall with a hissing groan. Maureen nodded to the handwritten sign. "D'ye think that's supposed to read 'Wayfarers Are Go!'?" she asked when the train had passed.
"Or 'Wayfarers' Argot'?" muttered Kilty. She nodded at the kitchen door. "That guy's taking the piss. He doesn't know who we're talking about."
"Yeah," said Maureen, swinging two plastic chairs from the stack to the floor.
Kilty picked up some chairs and carried them over to the blond man. He was setting up the sturdy serving tables at the top of the hall, grabbing handfuls of plastic spoons out of a cardboard box and laying them on the table, spreading them wide to avoid a crush of bodies when the hungry men came to grab them. Maureen could tell from the tension in the man's neck and shoulders that he felt Kilty's approach.
"Hiya," said Kilty.
The acoustics of the hall were such that every word was audible. It must have been deafening when it was full. The man winced and looked up, grayer than before.
"I'm looking for a pal of mine that used to work here," said Kilty.
He nodded, holding his breath.
"Her name was Candy at one time but she might have changed it. She'd been a prostitute down at Anderson but she got Jesus and chucked it."
"Maddie?"
"Was that her name?"
Struck by sudden stage fright the man blushed. He attempted a casual shrug but the muscles in his shoulders clenched tight, making him look as if he were doing a tiny Michael Jackson dance move.