Garnethill

The lift arrived and he stepped back, letting her get in first.

"Ground floor?" She nodded. "Is it your boyfriend?" he asked, pointing up to the ward.

"No." She sniffed. "Just a friend."

"Don't worry, pet," he said. "I'm sure your friend'll be okay. We see miracles every day in here."

The lift bounced to a gentle standstill at the ground floor. The doors opened onto a crowd of waiting nurses. The porter waved her off in front of him. "Thank you," she whispered as she got out.

She stood next to the car and blew her nose before opening the door and getting in. "Right, Liam," she said. "What's on your mind? If you've got anything to tell me do it now."

Liam took a deep breath and looked at his knees. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Tell me now."

"They didn't say you killed Douglas."

"I gathered that much."

"Yeah, well, I had a good reason for lying."

He stopped and touched the bruise on his neck, patting it twice with the pads of his fingers. He let his hand drop into his lap and looked out of the window, squinting at the cathedral.

"Tell me."

"They do think there's something wrong with your memory."

"That's not all it's about, though, is it?"

He picked at the rotting leatherette cover on the steering wheel. "They said you've got false memory."

"Tell me the whole story, Liam."

Liam cleared his throat. "I didn't want to tell you the truth because I knew it'd do your head in."

She turned suddenly and shouted at him, "Why did you let me go there and make such a prick of myself, Liam? If they thought I was mental before, they'd-"

"I told you to stay away from them," he said morosely. "I told you, Mauri. I said stay away."

"Well, for fucksake."

"I said stay away."

Maureen looked out of the window. "Why did you lie to me?" she said.

"I didn't want you to know."

"You didn't want me to know what?"

Liam turned away, shaking his head.

"Tell me."

"Dad's back," he said flatly. "That's why Marie's here. Dad's back."

Chapter 37

She stood on the steps of the church and tried to work out where the entrance was. He had said Thurso Street but St. Francis was on Lorne Street. She walked down the hill to Thurso Street and leaned round the corner. A fence of high iron railings blocked the back from the road. She went back up the steps of the church and looked in through the open doors. A glass wall had been constructed five feet inside the chapel with doors on either side to keep out the cold and provide a soundproof area for noisy children.

The high altar was a white molded wall of saints on a background of pseudo-Gothic drapery. The front two pews were busy with penitents, sitting down awaiting confession or kneeling on the far side of the aisle from the confessional boxes with their heads bent intently, doing their penance. Just inside the glass wall, on the very back bench, knelt a white-haired woman wearing an old-style black mantilla. She was saying her rosary, her windswept arthritic fingers flicking through the jet beads wrapped around her hand, her lips quivering as she recited the "Glory Be," her pious head bent low.

Maureen looked to left and right. A small dark wood door on the right-hand side of the entrance was slightly ajar. She walked over to it and pushed it open, peering round the corner. It was a long, narrow corridor ru

Rather than knock on the parochial house door and ask where the meeting was, she decided to walk all the way round the church until she found the entrance. She discovered a dark alley between the next-door primary school and the back of the chapel and put her hand in her pocket, wrapping it around her stabbing comb before stepping into the dark. Bright trip lights turned on as she walked down the narrow zigzag alley. She found herself at the top of a flight of steps. Straight in front of her was a small rickety wooden door covered in blistered brown gloss. A light shone out from under it. She trotted down the stairs and listened at the door. Someone was speaking – a woman was telling a fu

The room behind her was very shabby. The concrete floor was bare and the cupboard under the sink unit had lost its doors. Patches of plaster were crumbling on the wall and the thick layer of blue paint looked as if it were holding the wall up. Maureen felt as if she had stumbled on a coven. "I'm looking for a guy called Hugh McAskill."

The woman smiled pleasantly and leaned back into the room. "Hugh, love, it's for you."

Hugh McAskill came to the door, beaming when he saw her. She gri

"Are you here for the meeting, then?" he asked.

"Naw," she said, trying to disguise her delight. "I just came to see ye."

"Come away in and get a cup of tea." He stepped back into the dingy room. The Englishwoman looked disgruntled. "It's all right," he said. "She's one of us, she just doesn't want to come up to the meeting yet, that's all."

Maureen walked in and shut the door behind herself. The floor was angled slightly, tipping toward a drain in the middle of the floor; she could feel her calf muscles compensating for the gradient. Some smoked-glass cups, a plate of expensive chocolate biscuits and a steaming urn were sitting on a wobbly table. Four other middle-aged women were standing around in a group at the end of the room, looking at Maureen with benign curiosity. They stepped forward one at a time and introduced themselves by their first names.

The door opened behind Maureen and a ridiculously tall man in his early twenties came in, dipping his head under the low doorway. "Hello, everyone," he called, looking around the room until he found the plate of biscuits. He made straight for them, picking up three and eating them whole. He looked at Maureen. "Who are you?"

"I'm Maureen O'Do

"Are you an incest survivor?"

"Urn, yeah," she said, frowning and wishing he'd mind his own fucking business. His ma

"There's no need to be embarrassed about that here," he said, gri

"Great," she said.

McAskill pulled her aside, turning her so that her back was to the happy-sad man. "What did you want to see me about?" he said softly.

She lowered her voice, talking into his chest. "I just wondered if Joe McEwan got a phone call of some kind… maybe from an exotic holiday destination?"

McAskill tilted his head back and laughed. She could see his fillings. "You don't give up, do you? D'you know Joe McEwan wants to throttle you? We've got a high-profile case and a nutter shouting about fire."

"Angus's prints matched the ones on Martin, then?"

"Yeah, perfect, he even had one of those big knives with him."

"Where?"

"In the leather bag."

She rolled her eyes and breathed, "Fuck."

McAskill sighed along with her. "You're a lucky wee bugger, you," he said.