"Yeah, but Ella died just before the case came up."
Maddie snorted again. " 'S a bit suspect, innit?"
"Look, Mauri," said Leslie suddenly, "I'm fucking dying here. Can we go and get a cup of tea at least?"
Maddie turned away, her blouse stuck to her back, articulating a knobbled spine and razor-sharp shoulder blades. "Come to mine," she said, and led them up the hill to the high flats.
A crowd of young neds were hanging about in the shadow of the tall block. Dressed in tracksuit bottoms and vests, they lay around on the bald grass lethargically, cursing one another and smoking rollies made to look like spliffs. They called to Maddie, shouting that Jesus loved her and so had everyone else in Spring-burn. One boy ran over and tried to pull up her skirt. Maddie skipped out of his way, muttered at him to fuck off and pulled open the door into the lobby.
It was cool in the lift and they pulled at their damp clothes, getting air to their suffocating skin. The flat was a small studio – a bathroom off the hall on the way in, a living room with a sofa bed in it and a galley kitchen off to the side.
The front room looked out onto another set of high flats and the sharp sunlight glinted off the windows across the way, glaring into Maddie's flat like a searchlight. The window was open, letting fresh cool air filter in. There was no television in the room, just a lone shelf on the wall with a few books sitting on it: a Bible, a prayer book and a couple of Scott Pecks. Maddie called from the kitchen over the noise of the gurgling kettle, "D'yees want tea?"
"Please," said Leslie.
She brought in a tray with three mugs, a fourth with milk in it and a stack of paper sugar sachets on the side. "I haven't stolen them," said Maddie, indicating the sugar. "I only take them when I've bought a tea in a shop. I've paid for them."
Maureen smiled at her concern and Maddie grinned back, the yellow light softening her face. They sat down, Maddie and Leslie on the sofa and Maureen on the floor in front of them, sipping their tea and enjoying the breeze. Maureen lit up and offered the packet around. Maddie took a pie tin down from the window ledge so that they could use it as an ashtray.
"What can ye tell me about the health club?" said Maureen finally.
Reluctantly Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "I was there for a year and a bit. Then they chucked us all out. How's Alison with the bunches?"
"She's okay," said Maureen.
"I tried talking to her," said Maddie, "but what can I say?" She gestured around her bare room. "Ye sleep better?"
"Are there Polish women in the club?"
"I don't know where they're from. They're foreign. They only know a few words in English." Maddie looked at her cigarette. "They're not always there. They move them on."
"Are the women brought into this country by Si McGee?"
"Dunno," said Maddie unsteadily, her faint voice fading. "They move them to a different city every couple of weeks so the punters don't get to know them. They chuck the Glasgow girls out when they're coming, don't want us there at the same time. I think they come from Newcastle. I don't know where they go."
"Why don't they want the punters to get to know them?"
Maddie looked out of the window, a haunted, guilty shadow in her eyes. " 'Cause they'll try to help them," she said.
"Help them how? Get them out of prostitution?"
Maddie looked from Maureen to Leslie. "Ye don't know anything about this, do ye?"
Not knowing how they'd given themselves away, they couldn't bullshit their way out of it. Maureen shook her head. "Actually, no. All we know is that he's got an employment agency in Poland, that Ella got beaten up and died after she'd submitted the small claim and you used to work there."
Maddie drew on her cigarette, sucking her thin cheeks into her mouth. She looked as if she'd just been tickled. "That's it?" fraid so.
"No," said Leslie defensively. "Everyone knows that young women from Eastern Europe are being tricked into coming here, thinking they're waitresses and au pairs and being forced into prostitution."
But Maddie sneered. "Isn't that terrible?" she said. "Would ye think it was terrible if they came over thinking they were gonnae be working girls and just weren't given any of the money they earned? Would ye be here if that was it?" She waited patiently for an answer.
"I don't know if we would, no," said Maureen finally.
"But what if these dirty bitches had their passports taken away and got battered if they tried to leave? What if they were told they'd to pay off a massive loan before they could keep any money? What if they'd to do stuff they didn't wantae?" Maddie looked out of the window and they could see she was really angry now, and hiding it behind a big empty smile and a cigarette. "See?" she said, flicking her cigarette into the ashtray. "People like you only want to save people like you. Yees don't want to save us, just women like you, women who'd need to be tricked into it." She took a draw and narrowed her eyes, looking at Leslie. " 'Cause you think you'd never do that. You think that's beneath ye, like your dignity cannae be took away." She stopped and tried to calm herself, taking deep breaths, moving her mouth as if she was counting.
"We just don't know anything about it," said Maureen softly. "We don't mean-"
"What if the women were doing it to keep their kids and they didn't get paid? It's all right if it's for weans, isn't it? Ye think ye know how low pros are until ye are one. No one cares. Down at Anderson we were getting raped and battered. No one cares."
"Don't the police care?"
"Oh, the police do care," she said quickly. "The Glasgow police are decent enough – they try and help ye out of it and tell ye where to get a cup of tea and medical attention and stuff-they're all right. It's people. It's the public. They'll walk past ye getting your face kicked in, they laugh at ye and hit ye for nothing. There's been one pro murdered every year in Glasgow city center for the past nine years and they never get anyone for it. Murdered in the street, in the open, some of them, and no one seen nothing. And d'ye know what sickens me about it? It's not the same guy, it's different guys. I have to pray not to get angry about that all the time."
Maureen touched her arm. "Sometimes it's good to be angry."
Maddie frowned and blushed. "It's bad. I have an anger in me." She stopped, trying to word it. "It's like a fire that'll eat me, eat my being, know what I mean?"
Maureen and Maddie were leaning close in to each other. Leslie muttered an excuse and went to the bathroom, shutting the door after her.
"I do know what ye mean," said Maureen.
"I've been angry and feart since I was wee," said Maddie, hopelessly. "Cannae shake it off."
Maureen saw Maddie blink and when she opened her eyes again she had gone back to another time, to an angry, fearful time when she was small. She pulled her legs up under her on the sofa bed, clutching her knees defensively, keeping them together. Maureen thought suddenly of the picture of the child in her cupboard. "Your dad?" she whispered.
Maddie looked up, appalled and afraid at what she had said. She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head but her hollow eyes contradicted her. Maureen touched her hand to her chest. "My dad too."
Maddie took it in, lips pursed, not looking at Maureen, wanting her to talk about something else.
"Tell me about Si McGee," said Maureen.
"Anger is not accepting things as they are," said Maddie. "That's what Jack says. When we accept life as it is, we're no longer angry."
"I think that's shite," said Maureen. "We should try to change things. Anger's a good thing. It can make ye challenge things that aren't fair. It's not comfortable and it's not even nice to see in other people but it's there for a reason. D'ye think he should be allowed to take women from Poland or wherever and make money from their wee bodies and for it to happen next door to houses with children in them and bars and curry houses and no one says anything? "