A woman pushing a pram scuttled along the mud track toward her, her anorak hood pulled up against imaginary rain, her head down. On the distant horizon, just before the houses, unsupervised children chased each other around a playground where the baby swings had been maliciously wound around the top bar and the merry-go-round was burned out, the wooden base nothing but a sooty stump. Paddy walked along to the corner and followed the sign for the shopping center.
She came to a row of meager shops. Three of them were shut and shuttered against the populace. A licensed grocer and the law center were still open. The bookies’ was operating with its windows boarded over with wood and a sign declaring cheerfully WE’RE STILL OPEN! inviting the vandals to have another go.
The Easterhouse Law Center was in an unprepossessing shop unit with nothing more than a poster in the window to explain what it was. The glass on the door was covered in notices: yellow posters for an ex-offenders’ support group, a change of venue for a tenants’ rights meeting, notices about expenses available for prison visits.
When Paddy opened the door, notices fell off and fluttered to the floor as a shop bell tinkled happily. She bent down and picked up the papers, turning back to the door and trying to find the space they had come from.
“Leave it,” said a harsh voice. “Give them to me.”
A woman held her hand out. Her hair was cut in a wedge with dyed blond streaks, yellow on black, like a wasp. She was young, about the same age as Paddy, but her mouth was pinched bitterly and her eyes wrinkled where they were habitually narrowed. She looked Paddy over, head tilted to one side, as if she couldn’t quite believe what life was forcing her to look at now.
Paddy put the notices in her hand, expecting a cursory thank-you from the woman. When it didn’t come, Paddy got confused and thanked her instead. She frowned as if Paddy had just shat in her pocket. Paddy apologized reflexively, prompting another look of disgust.
The woman retreated to a desk, dropping the leaflets in the bin as though she couldn’t bear to hold them anymore. She sat down at a paper-strewn desk with a typewriter on it. A purple can of Tab was sitting on a stack of used carbon paper next to a full ashtray.
Paddy glanced around the office to see if there was anyone else she could speak to. There was another desk, bare of effects, but the rude woman was alone. Pulling a cigarette out of a packet of Marlboros and lighting it with a disposable lighter, the nippy woman sat back and looked Paddy over, guessing she wasn’t in for legal representation. She blew an impertinent stream of smoke at her.
“Selling something?”
“No.” Paddy stepped toward her. “I wanted to ask about Mark Thillingly?”
The nippy woman narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, well, Mark’s dead. They say he killed himself.” She shut her eyes for a moment and took a draw on her cigarette.
Paddy guessed that being brutal might pass for integrity. “I know. I was there when they pulled him out of the water.”
The woman flinched but looked at her with renewed interest. “Who are you?”
“I’m Paddy Meehan, Scottish Daily News.” Paddy held her hand out but the nippy woman declined to take it. Paddy dragged a chair over from the other desk and sat down. “So, Mark Thillingly,” she said as she pulled her notebook out. “He worked here, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He worked here.” The woman hesitated again. “He worked here…”
“Did he ever mention a woman called Vhari Burnett?”
“Aye, she worked here too. Mark gave her summer work when she was at uni.”
“And were you here then too?”
“Aye. It was when Vhari and Mark were going out together. Went together until Diana came along and poached him.” She sucked her cigarette hard, breathing in deep, making Paddy’s throat close at the memory of her smoking binge with Diana in the conservatory two nights ago.
“I like Vhari better. She’d meet scum through this center and then help them do stuff like fill out forms for the social security, stuff she wasn’t getting paid for and didn’t need to do. Do anything, she would.”
“Was Mark involved like that?”
“Only when she was here. They made each other nice.” The woman blushed at the silly, pink word. “Know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” said Paddy.
They were in danger of being pleasant to one another. The woman sucked her cigarette again and narrowed her eyes at Paddy, angry that she had unilaterally overstepped the bounds of brisk rudeness.
Paddy examined her notebook to stop herself smiling. “Do you know of any particular cases Mark and Vhari worked on together?”
“They didn’t work on the same cases. They did their own cases.”
“Is there anyone you can think of who came in looking for representation who’d link them?”
She shrugged. “Anyone who was about the office then, I suppose. Everyone knew them as a couple.”
“Who was about the office then?”
“I dunno.” She wasn’t even considering the question. “People.”
“No special cases coming through the center then? Gangster cases?”
“No. We don’t do criminal cases in here. We just help with social security claims and expenses claims for prison visitation. Small stuff, civil cases.”
“Look.” Paddy leaned forward and put her hands on the desk. “What’s your name?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Evelyn McGarrochy.”
“Evelyn, I take it you don’t read the papers?”
“Load of lies.”
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this: the police think Mark killed Vhari.”
Evelyn McGarrochy melted: her shoulders dropped, her face slackened, and her mouth fell open.
Suddenly Paddy understood the rounded backs of the policemen as they took the path up to Mark Thillingly’s house in the middle of Wednesday night. It was a terrible thing to see.
Finally Evelyn spoke. “Why?”
“Because he killed himself the next night.”
Evelyn looked down to her hand and saw that her cigarette had burned down to an oily stub. She dropped it into the ashtray and slowly pulled another from the packet, lethargically dropping it into her mouth like a diabetic in danger reaching for a boiled sweet. Paddy lit a match for her and held it to the end. Evelyn’s forehead twitched as she smoked, and Paddy could see her disbelieving the news.
“Evelyn, do you work here every day?”
She blinked and brought herself back to the room. “Um, yeah. Most days. ’Less I’m sick.”
“Were you working here last Tuesday?”
“Aye.”
“And Mark was working here as well?”
She nodded and pointed to the table behind her. “There.”
Paddy took out her notebook. “What time did you finish?”
“About six.” She shrugged. “It was a busy day.”
“So did he come in early the next day?”
Evelyn shook a finger at her, scattering ash over the carbon papers. “He didn’t come in the next day.”
“Where was he? Did he call?”
“Said he was off visiting Bernie and I wasn’t to tell Diana. If she called just say he was out.”
“Who’s Bernie?”
“Vhari’s brother.”
“Where would Mark go to find Bernie?”
“At his garage in Yorkhill.”
Paddy licked her lips as she jotted it down in shorthand. The day after Vhari’s murder Thillingly skipped work to see Burnett’s brother. He’d hardly do that if he was responsible for her murder.
“Do you know what they did to Vhari?” Evelyn’s voice had shrunk. “How did they murder her?”
Paddy couldn’t tell her about the teeth or the money men or the two steps to safety that Vhari had decided not to take. “They hit her, I think. The police said it was quick. They were trying to scare her, I think, and it went too far.”