Read Online Exile by Denise Mina - Free Book Online Page B

stood in their place. The lights were bright and two large televisions flickered silently at either end of the fifteen-foot bar. The pub attracted a good-natured crowd of regulars — they milled around the room, talking and laughing, watching the horse racing with one eye while they chatted to their pals. Leslie had been thinking about what Maureen had said to her in the Driftwood and had worked herself into a filthy mood. Maureen thought Cammy would be waiting for her at home and Leslie would be anxious to get back before the boil on his neck exploded.
    “What did he say?” Leslie asked casually, as if she didn’t really care, but Maureen could feel her fishing for something, something too private and precious to share with her.
    “Nothing much.” She shrugged. “Ann owes money to loan sharks and he doesn’t think she’ll ever come back. She’s taken the child-benefit book and it’s being cashed consistently.”
    Leslie sat up. “Is it?”
    “Aye.”
    Leslie thought about it. “Does that mean she’s cashing it?”
    “Dunno. When did Ann turn up at the shelter?”
    “December ninth,” said Leslie, without having to think about it. “Why?”
    “There’s about a month-long gap between her leaving Jimmy and coming to us. She was up and down to London, seemingly.”
    “Who says?”
    “He says.”
    “Aye.” Leslie was skeptical. “Why would you believe anything that bastard says?”
    “Look,” said Maureen, “he’s just a poor fucking soul who knows nothing. She won’t go back there and he didn’t hit her either.”
    “You could tell that from one meeting?”
    But Leslie hadn’t seen the bare house, she hadn’t smelled the lift, couldn’t imagine the effort it must take for Jimmy to get up in the morning and manage all day. Maureen lit a cigarette, haunted by the image of Jimmy’s jagged teeth. “I think she had a boyfriend,” she said, “and she’s gone back to him and he hits her. She’ll be there now, pissing it up on the child benefit while that poor bastard feeds his kids on watery bread and margarine.”
    Leslie sneered at her. “Why do you think he’s telling the truth?”
    “Because if he was lying,” said Maureen firmly, “he’d give himself a better part.”
    Leslie watched Maureen looking miserably around the pub, drinking quickly like she did these days, sighing heavily, as if she wanted to get away and be alone. Maureen had changed. Leslie knew she was nervous about her father being back in Glasgow but she was jumpy and moody and frightened of everything. They had been spending less and less time together and Leslie couldn’t see an end to it. Maureen didn’t like Cammy because he wasn’t polished and hadn’t been to university. They should have been closer now that they were working together but they weren’t. Maureen looked freaked out half the time and bored the rest of it, and she had a new boyfriend she hadn’t bothered to mention — Leslie had to hear it from Katia in the office. Leslie was beginning to think they had been too close, that it had been too intense before, with the poster campaign and Millport, and she’d seen a side of Maureen that frightened her. There was a fight brewing between them and she knew it would be a big fight. She took a drag and looked up. Maureen was watching the racing results. She was watching racing results rather than talk to her.
    “What should we do now?” asked Leslie.
    Maureen sipped her whiskey and looked at the racing results again. “You want to find Ann?” she said.
    “Yeah,” said Leslie.
    “Well, why don’t you check out the pubs around the shelter? They’ll have seen her.”
    Leslie stared at her. She’d gone to Millport with her. She’d spent a summer in a mental hospital keeping her company, she had driven her around for weeks after Douglas was killed, and now Maureen was refusing to help her. “You really don’t give a shit what happened to Ann, do you, Maureen?”
    Maureen sighed. “Give it a