“Yeah, he, well, he was killed by somebody.”
“Tssh. They’re animals.” She didn’t sound very concerned.
“Yeah. But you got the photograph?”
“Yeah.” Voice suddenly high, a little defensive, Paddy thought. “I didn’t really look at it, just saw my own face. Listen, could you leave me out of it? I do not look good in that picture. That’s kind of why I didn’t send the form back, you know, that old hairdo and all. Very unstylish now. They’ll be laughing about me from here to Union Square.” She laughed with her tongue clamped between her teeth, an obligation laugh. Now that she was talking Paddy could hear the phoniness in her U.S. accent, the way it slid up and down the East Coast, the occasional flat vowels creeping in to match Paddy’s own Scottish accent.
“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 granny’s.
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 Ann’s like. She can’t talk about things, describe things.”
“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 announced Trisha’s presence.
“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.”
