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“Karen, Terry’s dead too.”
Down the line, metal clunked against metal. She heard a hiss and “plouf” as the gas was lit.
“I see… Really?” She paused as if Paddy was talking and then replied, “Great, baby, so you can leave me out of it?”
Karen wasn’t alone. She was putting on a show for someone. Paddy flattened the close-up of McBree and the car, touching the corner of Karen’s face that she had included in the enlargement.
“The book won’t come out now, Karen. You’re quite safe.”
“Well, that’s great… Yeah, I’m making coffee.” She laughed again, for a long time. The sound of her voice seemed to pivot away from the receiver and back, as if she was watching someone moving. Suddenly they were alone. “Listen, you see that picture doesn’t come out, right? I’ll get my fucking arse felt if it does.”
Flat Glasgow South Side accent, undisguised.
“Karen, I’ve known both Kevin and Terry since I was eighteen. I need to know why.” She looked at the photocopy of McBree, at the fat man turned away from the camera, a hand on the driver’s door handle. “Who’s the suit?”
Karen drew a breath, muttered, “In the bathroom now.”
“Who is he?”
“British.”
English people were English. Scottish people were Scottish. The only people who called themselves British worked for the military or the government and he was too fat to be a soldier.
“I, um,” Karen was whispering, sounding tearful, “I liked my picture. I’m sorry.”
Paddy found herself listening to a flat dial tone. A small hand landed on the soft inside of her elbow.
“Mum, I’m hungry.”
II
Dub remembered where the canteen was. They no longer made hot food but the room was furnished with fizzy drink and food vending machines, selling all the crap adults tried to keep children away from. Paddy asked him to pick the least appalling thing and promised Pete a proper meal when they went to his gra
They walked up the stairs and Paddy went back into the office, considering her next move.
Back at the desk she put her notes, one photocopy, and the list into an internal mail envelope with a note to Bunty, asking him to get Merki to write it up. She found some small satisfaction in the thought that Merki would have to contradict himself in print. She jotted notes on the meaning of the picture, and slid the clippings envelopes in with it, folded the envelope shut, opened the wire butterfly clips, put her name on the front as the sender, and slipped it in Bunty’s pigeonhole.
She kept thinking about her dad. Couldn’t shove him to the back of her mind the way she usually did, but his company felt comfortable today, as if he was supporting her elbow, helping her.
She needed to be alone when McBree came. Eriskay House was blighted by death already but Callum was there, eating dry bread, enjoying the countryside. She could get Dub to drive out with her and make him come back to the city with Callum. She could tell him she was meeting a contact from British Security, top secret, ask him to come out and get her the next day. If Dub promised to stay with Pete and her mother and she made sure McBree knew where she was, they should be safe enough.
She had one last thing to do, though. She could do it on the way out to Ayr. Garrett’s suggestion. She smiled when she thought about the taciturn police officer. Decent woman.
THIRTY-TWO. MARTY
I
An unfamiliar van was parked outside Trisha’s house, a rusted burgundy van with painted back windows and empty food wrappers on the dashboard. Paddy had never seen it before but knew exactly what it signified.
She bolted for the front door and fitted her key, Dub and Pete hurrying after her. As soon as she saw the light from the living room she knew that the television was on and the lights off. Her brothers, Marty and Gerry, were home from London.
They looked up at her from the settee, side by side, cups of tea and the trail of biscuit crumbs on the arms. Marty slipped his eyes back to the television but Gerry tried a smile, sensitive enough to be a little shamefaced about his sudden appearance.
“All right?”
She didn’t answer him.
Marty had changed his style since he moved to London. He had grown his hair long and was dressed in a threadbare checked shirt, jeans and scuffed Converse trainers. Gerry had stuck to a plain T-shirt and jeans, clothes his mother could have bought for him in a charity shop.
“Not pleased to see us?” Marty kept his eyes on the television screen.
“I know why you’re here.”
Pete squeezed past her legs and threw himself at his uncles. They caught him, making a fuss of him without smiling. Gerry let Pete slide down his legs and yanked him back onto the settee by an arm and a leg.
“Mum phoned ye about her?”
Marty answered for both of them. “Aye.”
“It’s more complicated than you think. You both know what Mary A
“Is she pregnant?”
“No,” said Paddy sharply, worried about Pete picking up on the conversation. “Just, you don’t know what’s going on.”
Pete pulled himself free. “Where’s BC?”
“Visiting his dad,” said Gerry. “He’ll be back soon.”
Dub sat down in an armchair that their father had always used, nodding his hellos. The boys had known him forever and didn’t question his presence, just nodded back, glancing at the television again to break off contact.
A sudden clack of plates from the kitchen a
“You two keep Pete in here,” Paddy ordered her brothers and stepped into the kitchen.
Standing facing the door as she came in, beyond a table set with five places, Trisha glared at her, bitter as a Mafia widow.
“Mum-”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Mum-”
Trisha had raised five children, her husband had been unemployed for five years before he died, had a breakdown that no one ever acknowledged and died a terrible death, but Paddy had never heard her shout as savagely as she did now. “You didn’t tell me.”
Shocked by the violence of her own voice, Trisha clutched the back of a chair to steady herself. The Church was the only certainty left to her.
“Sit down, Mum.” Paddy took her arm and backed her into a seat, pushing her up against the table to trap her. The teapot was underneath the tea cozy, the tea still warm enough if a little stewed. Paddy poured out a cup and put milk in it, setting it in front of her mother, taking a seat next to her and ordering her to drink.
Holding the cup with two hands, Trisha lifted it to her mouth, gurning at the strong tea but taking another sip anyway.
“She only told me three days ago,” said Paddy. “When did you hear? Mary A
“Because of what he did to her.” Trisha’s face contorted with shame and pain.
“He didn’t rape her, Mum. She’s in love with him.”
“In love?” Trisha slammed the cup down on the table. “In love? What would you know about that? Love isn’t taking a shine to someone you’ve met once or twice, it’s living together year after year, getting through bad times, caring for each other, nursing each other.” She was rocking back and forth in the chair, missing Con, her softer self.
In the living room someone turned up the television to keep the sound of the conversation from Pete.
Paddy couldn’t bring herself to mention her father directly. It would hurt too much. “Mary A
“She knows nothing about life.”