Maddie didn't like that. She drew on her cigarette, inhaling the anger, sucking it all down. "He'll get what's coming to him," she said.
"On Judgment Day?"
Maddie inhaled heavily again. " 'Judge not lest ye be judged,' she said. "I know something about being judged by other people."
"What about the next woman he brings over? Should she not judge him?"
Maddie ground her teeth.
"See, justice in the hereafter's all very well," said Maureen, "when all ye need to do is contain your anger. If you're being raped and battered every night in the week it's a bit more complicated."
" 'Judge not lest ye be judged,' " said Maddie weakly.
Maureen couldn't remember if it was from Scripture or just the words of a hymn but she gave it a pop anyway. ' 'Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me,' " she said.
Maddie flushed. "I try to be kind," she said quietly. "I'm talking to you, amn't I?"
With a flush and the crack of a door, Leslie came back from the toilet. Maureen was glad to see her, glad to have the intensity between them broken. "Why don't the Glasgow girls tell on McGee?" asked Maureen.
"Well," Maddie smiled softly and Maureen could feel her slipping back into her happy-Jesus-good-guy frame of mind, "how does the devil appear to us?"
"How d'ye mean?" said Maureen, bending forward to the ashtray and breaking eye contact.
Maddie tapped Maureen on the top of the head and made her look up. "When the devil comes, when temptation comes, how does it seem?"
"I dunno," said Maureen. She was glad it was so bright in the room. She could at least hide her distaste for the holy chat behind a heavy squint.
"Well, it doesn't come as a threat, does it?" Maddie opened her eyes, trying to look scary.
"No," said Maureen reluctantly.
"No, the devil comes as a friend," Maddie said. "He doesn't come with knives in his eyes." Maureen wondered if she was quoting a revelatory pamphlet. "He comes as a friend and promises us what we want. The selfish things, the fearful things."
"Right," said Maureen. "So Si McGee's friendly to them, promises them good money, and they keep quiet about it?"
"Money and threats. The guys who put up the money are from London. They're mental. Ye wouldn't cross them if ye could help it. Anyway, we never got to know the women. They kept them downstairs and they couldn't speak English."
Maureen nodded. "Listen, Maddie, I go to a group on Thursdays. It's a survivors' group, for people who were abused."
Maddie had frozen on the sofa bed, clutching her legs, her back rigid, staring from Maureen to Leslie as if they were attacking her.
"Would ye like me to tell ye where it is?"
Maddie's head shake was so tiny it looked like a tremor.
"Okay. Well, thanks for the tea," said Maureen, feeling as if she had violated her, "and for giving us your time." She wanted to hug her, or say something that would make it okay, something to finish off the conversation and reassure herself that Maddie would be all right left alone. She reached out to touch her hand but Maddie recoiled.
"Should we just go?" Leslie asked her.
Maddie nodded once, watching their shoes as they walked out to the hall and shut the door behind them.
Chapter 36
They were alone at the bus stop. The sun shone in through the thick, warped Perspex roof, refracting and fracturing in the shelter. They had bought more cans of juice and sat on the bench, sipping and watching for the bus.
"So, he's bringing them in and keeping their passports," said Maureen.
"It's not just him, though," said Leslie, sipping her Vimto. "He might have the agency but there must be others involved if they're moving them around the country."
They sat for a minute, trying to catch their breath in the heat.
"Does it really change everything for you if they know what they're coming over for?" asked Leslie.
"It does. It shouldn't, but it does. What about you?"
"D'ye want to drop it, then?"
"Fuck, no," said Maureen quickly. "It shouldn't make a difference."
"Just 'cause they've consented to be prostitutes doesn't mean that they haven't got any rights, does it?"
"No."
"And anyway," said Leslie, "how free is anyone to consent to that?"
"I don't know, Leslie – if it's a choice between juggling asbestos for thruppence a year or doing that and making money, ye can see why people would take that option. We shouldn't try to impose what we want on them."
The bus appeared on the horizon and they stood up, peering through the scratched Perspex until the number on the front came into focus. It was theirs.
"Maybe your problem," said Leslie, reaching over and patting Maureen on the stomach, "is that you've a Jesus-shaped hole inside ye."
"How would you know?" smiled Maureen. "You've never seen my hole."
They caught a bus into town and Leslie insisted they go for breakfast at the Equal because the fry-ups were great, weren't they? Really, though, weren't they? Maureen smiled back and wondered what she was up to.
The Equal cafe was a fifties throwback with black Formica tables flecked with gold, a red and chrome coffeemaker and airbrushed pictures of ice-cream dishes on the wall. It was used by flush art students and office workers and was always quiet on a Sunday. It was down the hill from Maureen's house and she had come here with Douglas for breakfast sometimes, when he got the chance to stay over. The food was cheap and the fry-ups magnificent, but the service was compromised by the sullen old waitress's perpetually sore leg and short-term memory loss. She rarely brought a complete order to the table. Decades of small orders had started to blend and merge in her mind so that lasagna could transform into a toastie or a Coke into a coffee cake in the ten-foot amble between the table and the kitchen hatch.
Maureen and Leslie sat at a table by the window. West Sauchiehall Street was full of pubs and casinos, and the now deserted road was littered with takeaway chip wrappers and bottles from the night before. Outside worshipful Sunday shoppers passed in ones or twos, making their way down to the malls, heading east towards the resurrecting midday sun, squinting at the blinding brightness of it. The waitress shuffled over to them. Her brand-new orthopedic shoes had crepe soles on them that shrieked against the lino. "What d'yees want?"
Maureen was pleased to see that the waitress's foot had healed. She had been wearing slippers with the toes cut out for months, apparently to get the air around some sort of fungal infection. Leslie ordered a fry-up, Maureen asked for a coffee, and the waitress screeched away from them over to the kitchen.
"What do you think about it, then?" said Leslie. "Is Mr. Goldfarb an evil flesh trader?"
"I don't know," said Maureen, lighting a cigarette she didn't want. "I can't see him as an unwitting partner in anything but he wouldn't have told us if he'd known. What I don't get, though, is why Poland? And why would McGee go to the trouble of getting Mr. Goldfarb to sort this out for him? The agency would be a traceable connection between McGee and those women. He's so careful, why would he take that chance?"
Leslie stared out of the window. "To be honest, Mauri, I thought you were off your head there. I didn't think there was anything in it at all."
Maureen sat back in her chair and smirked. "Is that you being honest? Ye hardly kept it a secret, did ye?"
"Didn't I?"
"Leslie, you told me you didn't believe me."
"Did I?" She looked surprised. "I don't remember." She took a cigarette and lit it slowly. "I've been worried."
"About me?"
"About you."
Maureen was irritated. "As is your close friend, Kilty?" she said sharply.
Leslie looked resigned and sat back, smoking and looking at her, chewing her tongue. "What do you weigh?"
"Are you weighing me in for a fight?"
"Mauri, if you could make eight stone with your shoes on I'd be surprised."