The call came through as they were finishing off. Martin hadn't been on any of the four buses. He had genuinely disappeared.

Maureen relented and told them about the George I ward and what had happened there. McEwan was furious. "I thought you said you'd tell me anything as and when you came across it," he said.

"Martin said he didn't want me to repeat the story. He's got a wee den in the hospital basement."

"I don't give a fuc- monkey's what he told you to do," said McEwan, correcting his language midsentence. "You should have told me about this the other day."

"You wouldn't talk to me about anything the other day. Can we go and look there?"

McEwan leaned heavily on the table and stared at her, his blood pressure showing in his eyes. "I would have spoken to you about this," he said slowly.

"Yeah," said Maureen, a lot less interested in McEwan's mood than he was. "Well, I'm telling you about it now. See, there are parallels between the way Douglas was killed and the way the women were hurt. He was tied up like the women and he had been asking people about the assaults on the women. It was all over the hospital, everyone knew."

"Why was Douglas asking questions about it?"

"I dunno," she said, putting her overcoat on, anxious to get to the Northern. "Maybe he was outraged."

McEwan put his cutlery carefully on the half-empty plate, balancing the fork on top of the knife, and dabbed tiny touches around his mouth with his napkin. Maureen hadn't noticed how anal he was until she saw him eat. He caught the waitress's eye and motioned for the bill. "And what has this got to do with Martin Donegan disappearing?"

"Martin knew about it. He was the one who said there were parallels."

"Let me get this straight," said McEwan, narrowing his eyes and sitting back to look at her. "You went back to the Northern as part of your therapy and, quite spontaneously, Martin Donegan tells you a potentially vital piece of information about Douglas Brady's death."

"Aye. Can we go and look for him?"

McEwan sat forward. "Miss O'Donnell," he said quietly, "if I find out you're messing about and interviewing witnesses before we get to them I will be very, very angry, do you understand me?"

"Yeah," she said impatiently.

"You could face criminal prosecution."

"Aye, I know." She stood up. "Please, can we go?"

McEwan stared at her for a moment. "Where do you think Martin Donegan went?"

"Dunno," she said impatiently. "He's got a secret place in the hospital. I think he'll have left me a note."

They took the passenger lift down to the lower basement. Maureen turned left when they stepped out of the lifts and they ended up in the cavernous hospital kitchen. Ten women in blue hairnets and white coats were arranged around a moving conveyor belt with plates on it. As each plate came past the women took an individual portion of food from metal tubs and slapped it on. They looked over as Maureen and the two burly policemen came in through the double doors. The two groups stared at each other for a moment. Trays of empty plates skimmed past; only one woman was paying attention, frantically throwing boiled potatoes at the belt.

"I took a wrong turn," mumbled Maureen, backing out.

She retraced her steps to the lift and took them down the sloping ramp. She found the right corridor, recognizing it from the direction of the breeze carrying smells from the kitchen. It was dark, the failing strip light had given up. Only the overspill of light from round the corner split the blue dark. Guessing, she opened a wooden door and found herself in the L-shaped room. She could hear the humming engine behind the far wall. "This is it," she said.

McAskill followed her as she felt her way over to the little hill of bin bags at the back. McEwan was standing uncertainly in the doorway, watching them.

"Come on," she called back to him. "Come on, it's quite safe. There's a wee door here."

McAskill waved him over and they followed her around the bags, their eyes adjusting slowly to the damp dark. She tried to push the den door open but it wouldn't give.

"It wasn't locked before," she said.

McAskill pushed the door hard with the flat of his palm. The top of it opened four inches, springing back as soon as he let go, but the bottom didn't give at all. It seemed to be bolted from the inside. He shoved with both hands and felt it give. "Something's stuck behind it," he said, and kicked the bottom. He pushed hard but the door jammed half-open. Maureen stood at ninety degrees to the door and slid her arm along the wall; it felt warm and powdery, like talcum-covered skin. She found the light switch and flicked it on.

Martin was lying on the floor. His feet had been barring the door and McAskill's shoving had pushed them to the side, making his legs lie at a crazy, broken angle. She thought he was facedown, that she was looking at the back of his head, until she saw his copper bangle. His left hand was resting on his stomach, the fingers rolled back into a fist except for the casually extended index finger. His face and upper chest were unrecognizable, a mess of rips of skin and dark red contusions. Martin's face had been ripped apart. The concrete floor was black and silver, awash with syrupy blood.

Maureen's eyes went into spasm, opening wide, making her stare at the worst of it. She rasped, struggling to breathe until McAskill grabbed her roughly by the back of her neck and pressed her face into his chest.

She couldn't stop crying. Someone had given her some pills but they just paralyzed her face and made her mouth hang open. Tears spilled from her eyes like fruit from a cornucopia. They weren't going to let her go until she spoke again. She sat behind the desk in the miserable ground-floor office at the Stewart Street station, with the wall plans and gray filing cabinets, and stared at the door. Hot air was being pumped noisily through a vent by her chair, warming her calves, she could hear it hissing into the room. The skin on her legs began to get angry. She waited until it stung before moving out of the path of the heat.

She didn't know how long she had been there but gradually the tears slowed down and she thought she could talk. She stood up, shaking slightly, and walked across the room, opening the door and looking outside. A uniformed policeman was sitting in a chair just outside the door.

"McEwan?"

McEwan came in, ashen and angry. "Come," he said, and gestured for her to follow him out of the office. He walked in front of her, leading her up the stairs and through the fire doors to the disorienting corridor with the hideous linoleum. The uniformed officer followed at her back. McEwan opened the door to an interview room and stepped back. "In," he said, and Maureen went into the room.

Something McMummb was sitting next to the tape recorder. McEwan nodded at him and he started the tape rolling. "Where were you on Saturday after two p.m.?" asked McEwan.

It took a tremendous effort for her to speak. The words swirled endlessly around in her head before she could summon the energy to move her mouth and say them. "With a friend," she said finally.

"Who was it and where are they?"

"Siobhain McCloud. At the Dennistoun day center. I'll need to speak to her first, I asked her not to talk to the police."

"Oh," said McEwan, "she'll talk to us."

"She won't."

"I think she will," said McEwan, and Maureen started to cry again.

Inness came into the gray office. He wouldn't look at her. "You'll have to come and tell her to talk."

He took her up to the narrow corridor again and into an interview room she hadn't been in before. It was identical to the others but the window was bigger. Siobhain was sitting on the far side of the table. She looked enormous out of the day center: she was wearing the red nylon slacks that cut into her waist and a Mr. Happy "Glasgow's miles better" T-shirt. Her eyes were open wide and she was grinning. She seemed strangely present: Maureen had only ever addressed the back of her head or the side of her face. It was the first time they'd met without being chaperoned by a noisy television.