"Where are you going?" asked Maureen.

"The center," replied Siobhain. "It's where I want to be."

"I'll come with you," said Maureen. It was said out of a sense of duty: she had no real desire to spend a day sitting on a plastic chair in a smoky room.

"No." Siobhain was very firm. "I can't get on with my business if you're there." She shambled down the hall, as purposeful as a golem, and went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge door, took out a carton of milk and filled a pint glass, spread margarine on five slices of bread, stacked them on top of one another and carried the lot through to her bedroom. She sat down at the dressing table and began opening jars of pills, taking out her medication and laying it in front of her.

Leslie was stirring in the living room. She rolled onto her back and saw Maureen standing in the dark hall. "All right, Mauri?" she said, rubbing her face and stretching. Her eyes were red and puffy.

"Maybe you should get up, hen," said Maureen. "Siobhain's on the move. She's going out."

"Oh," said Leslie, sitting up. "She's okay, then?"

"Seems to be."

Siobhain had finished taking her pills. She had replaced the lids on the jars and was working her way through the slices of bread and margarine. Maureen went into the living room and helped Leslie put the cushions back on the settee. Siobhain appeared in the doorway and Maureen looked up. "Are you off, wee hen?"

Siobhain nodded and walked down the hall. They could hear the front door opening. Maureen picked up the beeper and they grabbed their coats, scanning the living room to make sure they hadn't left anything. They followed Siobhain out of the house, down the stairs and onto the street, catching up with her at the corner. Leslie touched Siobhain's arm. "Where are we going?" she asked.

Siobhain didn't seem to register the touch.

"Siobhain's going to the day center," said Maureen, adding, "we'll just walk round with ye," to Siobhain, in case she thought she was talking over her.

They got to the main door and Siobhain walked in without looking back at them.

"Is she all right, Mauri?"

"I don't know," said Maureen. "She seems better but I don't know what she's like normally."

She waited for a minute and slipped into the day center after her. The sullen receptionist was behind the desk again. Her face lit up a flicker when Maureen walked in. "Heya," said Maureen. "See that lassie that just came in?"

"Fat lassie?" said the girl disparagingly.

"Aye. She's had a bad shock and I was just wondering if you could keep an eye on her. Just see she doesn't get ill or something."

The girl sighed. "Well, okay," she said reluctantly.

"I'll phone later and check up on her," said Maureen when she got outside.

"Listen," said Leslie, "I've got a few days owing. I could skive off and drive you about a bit if you like."

"Naw, I've got to go to the police station. I might be a while."

The blue Ford followed Maureen to the bus stop and cruised around the block, waiting for her bus to arrive.

Chapter 27

McEwan stood at the top of the stairs and gestured for her to come up. He was wearing a white T-shirt under an expensive blue silk suit.

"Miami Vice" said Maureen, pointing at his outfit, knowing before it was out of her mouth that the comment was a mistake.

She followed him upstairs to their interview room. Face-to-face McEwan seemed just as domineering and confident as ever but as they walked along Maureen caught him watching her a couple of times, seeing how she was, as if trying to gauge how she was going to be with him. It was disconcerting. The McEwan she had known to date didn't yield to other people's moods: he decided where he wanted to go and just crashed on through like Godzilla in a suit, certain always that he was center stage and the world was full of extras.

He opened the door to the interview room and stepped back, letting her go in without being told to.

Hugh McAskill was standing unassumingly by the radiator. He nodded a hello. McEwan sat down in his usual chair and turned on the tape recorder. "Right, Maureen," he said quietly. "I want you to tell me everything you know about George I ward."

He took out a packet of twenty Super-delux low-tar cigarettes and offered them to her. She didn't like them but took one to be genial. "I've told you everything I know," she said.

McEwan lit his cigarette with a disposable lighter, which he put down in front of her. He exhaled and got smoke in his eye. "No, you haven't," he said calmly, looking at her as he rubbed his right eye with the tips of his fingers.

Maureen lit her cigarette and placed the lighter back on the table near McEwan. "Yes, I have."

He pulled a photocopy on A4 paper out from under his notes. "We found this," he said, pushing it toward her.

It was the list Martin had written for her but the writing wasn't in Biro, it was written in a grainy charcoal. A couple of the names were indistinct, words and letters trailed off in various places. "Shan Ryan" read as "Sno Ruom."

"We found this imprint on a pad he kept in a drawer," said McEwan. "It's a list. He's written your name at the top. What is it a list of?"

"It's a list of the staff who worked in the George I ward during the trouble."

McEwan smirked unhappily. "Why would he give you that?"

"He wanted me to pass it on to you," she said.

"Why didn't you?"

"I didn't get a chance."

"Maureen," he said, glancing at her with a tired, desperate look in his eyes, "we're not after your brother now, okay? And we know it wasn't you. I know we've had our differences in the past but you really need to cooperate with me now. Do you understand?"

Maureen paused and looked at her cigarette. It would be wonderful to hand it over and step back, to relinquish responsibility and let McEwan do all the work, let him be responsible if anyone else was killed. But she thought about Yvonne with the rope burn on her leg, about poor dead Iona and about Siobhain, and knew she couldn't hand them over to the police, that it would be an act of cowardice, that they would damage the women even more. McEwan hadn't even asked how Siobhain was today.

"Your neighbor in Garnethill phoned me."

"Which one?" She watched his face, trying to anticipate what he knew.

"The man who lives across the close from you," said McEwan. "The Italian guy."

"Right," said Maureen. "Why?"

"Your friend Brendan Gardner has been seen acting suspicious near your house. Did you send him up there for something?"

"Today?"

"No, a week ago yesterday. You didn't send him?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't."

"Does he ever drink?"

She didn't want this: whatever Benny had done she didn't want to be here, dubbing him up to the polis as if he was just a guy she knew. "No," she said. "He doesn't drink anymore. Hasn't had a drink for three years." She must have looked upset because McEwan took it upon himself to lean across the table and pat her hand.

"He's not in the frame yet," he said. "We're just asking. We have to ask."

"What does 'in the frame' mean?"

"He's not a suspect, he just keeps coming up."

"Siobhain didn't tell you anything, did she? She didn't tell you who raped them?"

McEwan sounded utterly exasperated. "Why protect him? I don't understand why she'd protect him like that."

"She isn't protecting him, she's protecting herself."

He thought about it. "I don't understand."

"Well, there are different reasons why people can't tell." McEwan was watching her, listening intently. "Siobhain could have been threatened during it. Some people feel that if they say it out loud it becomes real or they'll make someone else dirty if they tell them about it, and other people have other reasons. She isn't trying to outsmart you."