Sleepyhead

'Have you got a neighbour called Jenny?'

'I don't think so. He said he was sure he'd got the right address and we had a bit of a laugh about something or other and he started being a bit naughty, you know, saying how it was a shame to waste a bottle of champagne. He was flirting… I think he was a bit tipsy.'

'You said when you called that you could give us a very good description.'

'Did I? Oh, bloody hell. Right, well he was tall, definitely over six feet, glasses, and very well dressed. He had a very nice suit on, you know, expensive…'

'Colour?'

'Blue, I think. Dark blue.'

Holland was jotting it all down and keeping his mouth shut like a good boy.

'Go on, Maggie.'

'He had short, grayish hair…'

'Grayish?'

'Yeah, you know, not silver, just graying, but he wasn't that old, I don't think. Well, not as old as me at any rate.'

'How old?'

'Thirty-six… thirty-seven? I've always been rubbish at that. Well, I think most people are, aren't they?' She turned and looked at Holland. 'How old d'you reckon I am?'

Holland could feel the colour coming to his cheeks. Why the hell had she asked him? 'Oh… I don't know… Thirty-nine?'

She smiled, acknowledging the kindness of the lie. 'I'm forty-three, and I know I look older.'

Tughan, anxious to get back on track, cleared his throat. The cat, startled, shot off Margaret Byrne's lap and flew out of the door. This, in turn, made Tughan jump, which Holland would later remember as the only amusing thing about the entire interview.

'What did he sound like? Did he have an accent?'

'Pretty posh, I'd say. A nice voice.., and, you know, very good-looking. He was handsome.'

'So you invited him in?'

She brushed more cat hair than there was from her skirt. 'Well, I think he was dropping hints. Like I said, he was waving this bottle around.' She looked at Tughan and held eye-contact. 'Yes. I invited him in.'

Tughan smiled thinly. 'Why?'

Holland was starting to feel uncomfortable. This woman could help them. She might well be the only person who could help them. Why she had invited the man who might have killed her into her home was information they didn't need now. This woman wasn't mad or desperate or sex-starved, for Christ's sake. Loneliness was not a crime, much as Tughan seemed to be enjoying touching the tender spot of it. She hadn't answered him anyway. He let it go.

'What happened then?'

'Like I said on the phone, this was the funny part. He opened the champagne – I remember being disappointed because there wasn't a pop – and I said I'd go and get some glasses. He said great and he was just going to make a quick phone call.'

Tughan looked at Holland then back at Margaret. 'You didn't mention that when you called.'

'Didn't I? Well, he did.'

Tughan sat forward in his chair. 'He made a call from here? From your phone?'

'No. Just as I was going off to the kitchen I saw him take out one of those horrible little mobile things. I hate them, don't you? Always beeping and playing daft tunes when you're sitting on a train.'

'And you were in the kitchen?'

'And I was in the kitchen, and I'd just got the glasses down and given them a wipe out because they were a bit dirty, and I heard the front door slam. I came back out and he'd buggered off. I opened the front door but I couldn't see him. I heard a car pull away up the road, but I didn't really see it.'

Tughan nodded. Holland had finished writing. Margaret Byrne looked quickly from one to the other.

'You reckon he was the bloke who killed that girl up in Holloway, then?'

Tughan said nothing. He stood up and threw Holland a look, telling him to do the same. 'If we send a car for you tomorrow could you come down to Edgware Road and work with one of our computer artists?'

She nodded, and picked up a passing cat as she got to her feet.

When they reached the front door Tughan stopped and looked at her. She smiled nervously at him.

'Why did you wait so long before reporting this matter?'

Tughan said. 'I mean, you even waited for four days after the reconstruction went out on TV.'

She pulled the cat close to her neck. Holland stepped forward, putting a hand a little too forcefully on Tughan's shoulder.

'We'd better get going. Thanks for all your help.'

The gratitude in her eyes was obvious. She took hold of his sleeve. 'Was it him?'

Tughan was already on his way to the car. Holland watched him deactivate the alarm, climb in and slam the door. He turned back to her. 'I think you were very lucky, Maggie.'

She smiled and gripped his sleeve a little fighter as her eyes began to fill with tears. 'It would be the first time…'

I'm in a much better mood now. I don't mean generally, that's still up and down. Tim said l was moody before and he's probably right. But now, in here, I can be a right bitch. I think that's fair enough, though. I think I deserve a medal for the few nice moods I do have. anyway…

Eve in here there's always something that can cheer you up. It's not exactly Carry On Doctor but there's laughs to be had if you look for them. Sick ones, usually, but you can't be too fussy. There's this nurse, Martina, who's taken it upon herself to make sure I look pretty all the time. Under normal circumstances, of course, I'd tell her that you can't improve on perfection, but granted, she's got a job on her hands. To be honest, I think she's doing it to get a break from the catheter and arse work, which is hardly brimming with job satisfaction, is it? At first I didn't mind when she was trimming my hair and cutting my toenails but she's started getting a bit ambitious. I think she's a failed beauty therapist or something. She painted my nails the other day and the colour was fucking revolting and yesterday afternoon she decided that a bit of lippy might cheer me up. Putting lipstick on somebody else is like trying to have a wank with your left hand. Forget it. I looked like a clown in a coma, or a tit in a trance, as my Nan used to say. I think she was trying to make me look like one of those hideous women who work on the makeup counters in department stores – you know, the ones who spend all day surrounded by cosmetics and haven't got a fucking clue how to put them on.

Here's a tip. Don't use a trowel. I always want to creep up behind them and shout, 'Mirror! Use a mirror!'

I didn't plan what happened this morning, I swear, but I quite wish I had. Obviously some of the other nurses had noticed that Martina was spending all her time tatting me up instead of doing any of the dirty work and she got lumbered with cleaning out my breathing tube. I can fully understand not wanting to do it, it's bloody foul. So Martina is supposed to pull it out and clean out all the muck or something so it doesn't get blocked. Imagine somebody was waggling, a tube around in your mouth. Well, it's pretty much the same when it's straight into your neck. You'd want to cough, wouldn't you?

Coughing isn't one of my best things, these days, but I must have been saving it up. There's Martina trying to be all efficient and [just let one go. I couldn't help it. I coughed out of my neck, for Christ's sake.

Like I said, it wasn't on purpose and she didn't help by screaming the place down, but this enormous lump of phlegmy glop just splattered on to her forehead.

I hope she might stay away for a bit now. Or maybe just stick to the rear-end stuff. At least you know what's coming at you. Come on, though, pearl nail polish?

Everything's moving along on the blink front. Another small complication is that sometimes I screw things up by blinking just because my brain thinks it's high time I did. Same reason you do. That doesn't help. I'm spelling away, then I suddenly throw in an X or a J for no good reason. Like suddenly shouting,

'Bollocks,' in the middle of a conversation. It's like Newcastle on a Saturday night.