Garnethill

"Perhaps she has a lot on her mind," said Louisa.

They speculated about Ailish's motives for a while.

"I'm a bit concerned about the hospital," said Maureen. "I keep thinking about it and avoiding going past it. I think I'm getting phobic about it again."

But Louisa wasn't biting today. "Tell me how you feel about Douglas now," she said.

"I don't feel much about it. Often I didn't see him for a week, so it just feels like that."

"You're probably in shock. When it hits you, and I'm sure it will, I want you to phone me, day or night, okay?"

Maureen thanked her.

She said she'd write a line for Maureen to excuse her from work for three weeks.

"Louisa, you know what I said about the hospital? Well, I want to face it. Do you have any contacts there I could get in touch with?"

"What for?"

"I want to go back and have a look around. It might make me feel better about it."

"I wouldn't recommend it. I think you're under enough pressure as it is."

"I feel sort of fearless just now."

"I think that's shock. You may be focusing on that to avoid your feelings about Douglas."

"Maybe," she said. "I'd still like to go back. I don't want to go around it on my own in case I can't handle it, but I won't know any of the staff there anymore."

"Martin Donegan's still there."

Maureen opened the door and turned back to Louisa, sitting quite still at her desk with her hands clenched in front of her. "Good-bye, Louisa," she said.

"Good-bye, Maureen," said Louisa.

Maureen went back into the waiting room and sat until Mrs. Hardy called her back into the office. "Here we are," said Mrs. Hardy, holding out a sheaf of papers. "That's a line from the doctor."

Maureen took it. "Thanks, Mrs. Hardy."

"Will we be seeing you next week?"

"Aye, see you then."

IT WAS DARKER IN THE streets now and the officer who had watched her enter the hospital followed her back through the town, heading toward the Stewart Street station.

As she walked down the hill the back of her neck stung in the brisk evening air, the razor tips of her hair switching against the raw skin. But the sharp stinging brought to mind Siobhain: she could vouch for Douglas's being alive until half-three, even if she couldn't talk about the hospital.

She could go to see Martin in the next few days. He'd been working as a porter at the Northern for twenty-something years and was a quiet, steady-tempered man. The hospital complex had developed chaotically over the years but Martin knew every corridor by sight. If there was anything she needed to ask about the Northern, then Martin was the man to see.

The officer on the desk said Liam wasn't out yet. She asked how long he was likely to be but the well-ma

The plainclothes officer followed her, sitting downstairs on the bus, watching for her.

She got off the bus and was walking the two streets to the house when suddenly, across the road, passing below an orange streetlight, she saw Michael. His walk was exactly as she remembered it, a defensive, boyish swagger. She dropped back, crossing the road so that she was walking behind him. She followed him for ten minutes before realizing that it wasn't him at all. It was just a tall bald guy. The stabbing-comb teeth left an imprint on her hand. She hadn't sharpened the handle yet: all she could have done was give him a nasty poke. She shouldn't have told Louisa her dream – it revived the sensations.

She still had her key for the house. She worked it into the lock silently, hoping to avoid Wi

Her bedroom had been a beloved refuge during her growing up. When she was thirteen she'd got a Saturday job in a fruit-and-veg shop and bought a Yale lock with her first wage, fitting it on her bedroom door to stop Wi

Wi

She found the shoe box full of photographs under the bed. They had been rifled through recently, photos were bent over and shoved down the side, still springy but resigning themselves to their new position. She stuffed her bag with them, taking all of them, even the ones from when she was small.

The last one was stuck under the fold at the bottom of the box.

She picked and picked at it but it was stuck. She had to unfold the floor of the box to get it out. It was of her and her father. She was sitting on his knee, hugging him. He seemed to be drunk, his shirtsleeves were rolled up – he always did that when he was drunk, they used to look out for it. Maureen remembered the time. It was winter and the abuse had begun. She was adoring to him when other people were there and she knew he couldn't touch her. She thought if she was nicer to him he would stop hurting her when they were alone.

She remembered that it was taken at Christmastime. Liam wanted a chopper bike and Maureen asked for a big doll she'd seen hanging from a stall in the Barras. It had a tartan dress and a big tammy. She got the doll but the minute it was out of the packet she noticed that the stitching was rough and the doll's eyes had been painted on wrong. She cried all day. Liam got his chopper and wouldn't let her have a go on it.

She lifted a copy of The Master and Margarita and a battered hardback, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, stolen from the school library. She put them in her bag and sca

A bizarre ceramic ashtray she'd made in occupational therapy at the Northern was sitting on a table on the landing. It was round, with a target pattern painted on the face of it in red and white glaze. It was the first thing she had made in the class and Pauline had helped her with the colors and the varnish. When she presented it proudly to Liam in the hospital gardens he had said it was great: when she got out she could make a fortune designing ashtrays for badly coordinated smokers. She picked it up and crept out of the house.

They'd been questioning him for three hours. The officer on the desk told her that he didn't know when Liam would get out, it could be a while.

She bought a lemon tea from the machine in the lobby and was just settling down for a long wait when Liam emerged from a corridor followed closely by McEwan. They both looked exhausted and angry. Liam's expression didn't falter when he saw her. He took the steaming plastic cup from her hand and put it down on a chair. "Come on," he said, taking her hand. "We're going home."