Garnethill

The family got worried when Mr. Scobie, the manager at the Apollo, phoned Wi

One month after she was admitted to the Northern Psychiatric Hospital Una's husband, Alistair, came to visit on his own. He asked to speak to her and her psychiatrist together and broke Una's confidence, telling them that this had happened before. When Maureen was ten she had been found hiding in the cupboard under the stairs. She had been there for a whole day. Her face was bruised down one side and when they gave her a bath they found dried blood between her legs. No one knew what had happened because Maureen couldn't speak. Michael packed a few things, took the checkbook and disappeared forever. Wi

Wi

Leslie came to the hospital every day, working her visits around her shifts at the shelter. She treated the hospital stay as if it was something that was happening to both of them together. Leslie was scared at first and then settled into the routine, getting angry about the pettiness of the ward rules and making friends with the other patients. Everyone else behaved as if they were coming to view Maureen. She knew that it was her friendship with Leslie that prompted her to get angry and get better. Their relationship changed after the hospital: Maureen couldn't bring herself to lean on Leslie in even the smallest detail. She was always reluctant to phone her when she had a problem. Leslie dealt with other people's emotional crises all day every day at the shelter and Maureen knew she could easily tip the scales and go from being Leslie's pal to being her client. She found herself wishing Leslie would have a disaster sometimes, something minor and fixable, so that Maureen could save her and restore the balance between them once and for all.

The Mustache Man was waiting for them at the car-park entrance to the station. They took her into a small reception area and asked her to sign a book saying that she had come to the station voluntarily. They asked her permission before taking her fingerprints.

She still felt light-headed, her stomach ached with tense after-vomit contractions and she was having trouble with her eyes: her depth perception kept changing suddenly, shifting objects closer and farther away. She blinked hard, pressing the rims of her eyelids tight to stop it. She knew she must look pretty crazy but they weren't watching her, they were anxious to get her upstairs.

The policewoman and the Mustache escorted her up two flights, through a set of fire doors and into a windowless beige corridor illuminated with imperceptibly flickering strip lights. The pattern on the linoleum was too big for the small space. It would have been a disorienting place at the best of times and this wasn't the best of times.

"Is this corridor a bit narrow?" Maureen asked the Mustache.

"A bit," he said, worried by the question. "Are you going to be sick again?"

She shook her head. He stopped at one of the doors and opened it, waving her through in front of him. It was a bleak room. The walls were painted with mushroom gloss, the kind that is easy to wipe clean, and a gray metal table was bolted to the floor. A large clumsy black tape recorder was resting on the table next to the wall. A tiny window, high up on the wall, was barred with wrought iron. Everything about the room whispered distrust.

A tall man with ruffled blond hair was sitting at the near side of the table with his back to the door. He stood up when they came in, introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Joe McEwan, and asked her to sit down, motioning to the far side of the table, the side farthest away from the door. She had noticed him back at her house: while she was standing in the close she had seen him in the living room, talking to a man wearing a white paper suit. He had looked out at her, his glance lingering too long to be casual. His skin showed a fading long-term tan, the result of regular foreign holidays. He was in his forties and dressed so carefully in black fla

She sat down and Joe McEwan introduced the Mustache Man as Detective Inspector Steven I

McEwan pressed a button and turned on the tape recorder, telling it the time and who was present. He turned to Maureen and asked her very formally whether or not she had been cautioned prior to the interview. She said she had been. Without looking at him McEwan nudged I

I

I

McEwan took over. "Who has a key to your house apart from yourself, Miss O'Do

"Urn, my brother, Liam, Douglas, and that's it. Oh, I suppose the factor would have one."

"What's the factor's name?"

She told him and guessed at the phone number. McEwan wrote it down in a notebook. "I'm not sure that's the right number," she said.

"It's okay," he said, pleased at her willingness to cooperate. "We can look it up. Where can we find your brother?"

She couldn't let them turn up at Liam's house una

McEwan wasn't pleased. "Can't we contact him?"