Garnethill

"I'm not sure we have yet," said Ly

They sat in silence until Ly

Ly

Maureen sat on it and her knees were immediately covered with a carpet of purring animals. Ly

"Yeah."

"It looks like scratches or something."

Maureen didn't answer. The cats writhed on her lap, purring and digging their claws into her legs, nesting her as if she were a blanket.

"It looks a wee bit raw," said Ly

"Please."

She went out of the kitchen and came back with a huge jar. "Nicked it from the work," she said, when she saw Maureen looking. She rubbed the smelly cream gently, gently, onto the ripped skin on the back of Maureen's neck. "How's it feel now?"

"Itchy."

"You should put some foundation on that, doll, or wear a scarf or something. It looks a bit frightening." She screwed the lid back on the tub, washed her hands in the sink, lifted the scissors and carried on trimming. "Now," she said, "tell us why ye phoned."

"I need a favor," said Maureen.

"Big one? Wee one?"

"It's just a question. I don't know if you'd know anyway. I want to find something out from someone's medical records."

"Is it a patient at my surgery?"

"Naw. Ly

"Okay."

"I think Be

"Be

"But I think he's been in my house recently, when the police wouldn't let me in. I think he's talking to the police or something, I du

She would have told Ly

"I think he might have known Douglas. The police told me he'd been arrested in Inverness a few years ago. They didn't bring the case to court, he was sent for psychiatric treatment instead."

Ly

"Me neither."

"Did he get treatment in Inverness?"

"No," said Maureen. "It must have been in Glasgow. He's never been away for any length of time."

"Maureen, Be

"I don't know what to think about anything now."

Ly

"I need to know how to get access to his medical record. I want to find out who his psychiatrist was. I think it might have been Douglas."

"Maureen, you can't get to see someone else's record without their consent. It's illegal. You can't hardly get to see your own."

"Really?"

"Yeah, man."

She finished cutting and handed Maureen a mirror, holding another behind her so that she could see what she had done. "There," she said, "that's a nice haircut."

Maureen looked at herself. It was the shortest she'd had her hair in a long time. It made her look younger. Ly

"It's not bad, is it?"

"I think it's lovely," said Ly

"Do you know a guy called Paulsa?"

"Bad Acid Paulsa?"

"That guy who came forward for Liam."

"Yeah, I know him. We went up to his house once."

"Where does he stay?"

"You know that big Unionist pub off the Saltmarket? Next close."

"Oh, aye."

Maureen suddenly realized she had been talking about herself since they met and she'd barely asked Ly

Ly

"She's all right. Not much crack, though. Are ye going out together again?"

"Naw," said Ly

"How come?"

Ly

"Yeah," conceded Maureen. "He's angry enough."

Ly

Maureen pulled her coat on. "It was good of you to come and meet me there," she said. "I think I lost the place for a wee minute."

"Happens to the best of us," said Ly

"I will, Ly

She walked down through the town, feeling her father's breath on her neck all the way to the shelter.

Leslie met her in the hallway. She led Maureen out of the house quickly and spoke to her on the doorstep. She couldn't come home, she said. Her shift didn't finish for another three hours. "The police came to see me again, they asked me about the night we went to that pizza place. I just told them the right times, is that okay?"

"Yeah."

"Can I pick you up at Be

"No, no," said Maureen. "I'll come back."

Leslie could see that something was wrong with Maureen: she was pale and her eyes were unfocused. "Where are you going?"

"I'll just wander about for a bit."

Leslie rubbed her arm. "Look," she said, trying to make eye contact, "urn, go to the pictures or something, all right? Don't just wander off somewhere."

"Naw, I'm all right," Maureen murmured, and toppled off the outside step, wandering away with her hands deep in the pockets of her overcoat.

They had been there for a picnic once. Be

It was much darker now. The tide was coming in and the river flowed backward, slapping against the wall far below her feet. She thought about the ships passing down the river many years ago, taking emigrants to America, whole families of Scots lost to their own people forever. Lost to drizzling rain and a fifty-year recession, to endemic domestic violence and armies of drunk men shouting about football.