"We don't care about that, Miss O'Donnell, it's not important."

"But it's important to me," she whispered.

"Look," said McEwan, "we know about your father. I'm not interested in that. You lied to me." This clearly upset him. "Do you lie all the time, Maureen? Do you know when you're lying? I spoke to your psychiatrist today, Louisa Wishart, remember her? The woman you see every Wednesday at six o'clock. Remember?"

"Louisa? How did you find out about her?"

"It was in your notes at the Rainbow."

"How did you find out about the Rainbow?"

"You were seen, in the paper."

"How could they see me in the paper?"

McEwan's face flushed very red very suddenly. He bent forward, his voice was staggeringly loud. "STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS."

The seedy officer cringed. The color drained from McEwan's face as suddenly as it had risen. He flipped over a couple of pages in his notebook. "Let's see," he said, completely composed, "you were referred to her in February from the Rainbow Clinic and have attended the Albert ever since. Is that a bit closer to the truth?"

"Yes," said Maureen.

McEwan paused and looked at her. "I want to know why you lied to me," he said.

Maureen took out the packet of cigarettes she had bought at the shop and held it up. "May I?" she said.

McEwan nodded.

"Want one?"

He shook his head firmly but watched the cigarette as she lit it and inhaled. Her throat closed against the rough cigarette smoke, choking her momentarily, feeling like the strangling nightie in the dream.

"I lied because of the cupboard."

McEwan was intrigued. "Did you go into the cupboard?" he said softly.

Maureen got smoke in her eye. She rubbed it hard with her fingertips. "No, when I had my breakdown I was found in that cupboard."

He looked disappointed. "So?"

"Well, I didn't know what was in there, you kept asking about it, I thought it might be something that tied in with my notes, something that made it look like I did it."

"What do you think was in the cupboard?"

"I dunno. A note or something?"

"Guess again."

"Something of mine?"

He smiled enigmatically. "And that's why you lied?"

"I didn't want you to see my psychiatric notes because I thought it might make it look like me."

She watched McEwan's face. He was giving nothing away.

"Don't lie to me again," he said, gesturing for her to leave. "It makes my job much harder."

Maureen stood up. McEwan told the recorder that he was ending the interview and turned it off. He pointed at her. "And don't give my officers a false name if they come for you again."

"Yeah," said Maureen, and walked out, taking the newspaper with her.

Maureen had never been happier to see a bottle of whisky. She ordered a large Glenfiddich with ice and lime cordial. The barman asked her if she was joking. She had to give him step-by-step directions. "Put a large Glenfiddich in it, that's it, now fill it up with ice, now put the lime cordial in it."

"How much lime?"

"Same again."

The barman looked at the drink as he put it on the bar. "If the bar manager came in and saw me serving a malt whisky with lime juice I just-I don't know what he'd say."

"Aye, right enough," said Maureen, drinking it in three gulps and wishing Leslie was with her.

The whisky slid down her esophagus, kissed her stomach lining and sent a radiant wave rolling up her spine. The warm glow nestled in the nape of her neck. She put a tenner on the bar. "And again, please."

The barman made the simple drink with elaborate gestures. He put it down and asked what the drink was called.

"Whisky with lime in it," said Maureen, and moved to a table.

The interior of the DiPrano was original art nouveau, the decor was organic and slightly haphazard, the way art nouveau is supposed to be. The lighting was warm and the space snaked through the concave chrome-lipped bar, around a convex walnut reception desk and into a restaurant decorated with muted peach seashell frescoes.

Maureen was underdressed for the restaurant. The other customers in the oyster bar were in wools and linens. She had on the Anti Dynamos T-shirt and her black jeans. She picked up her drink and moved nearer to the ubiquitous German tourists, unabashed in their Day-Glo casual wear.

Carol Brady was two large whiskies late. She swept straight through the bar and walked into the restaurant. The greasy-haired man trotted at her heels. Brady walked up to an empty table, waited for her assistant to pull out the chair for her and sat down facing the bar. The maitre d' smiled at her from behind his desk and bowed slightly.

Brady's sniggery messenger was much shorter than Maureen had supposed. He was dressed in a cheap blue suit and slip-on brown shoes with white socks. He looked out at the bar and saw Maureen watching them expectantly. He motioned for her to join them.

"Hello," said Maureen, standing uncertainly at the edge of the table clutching what was left of her whisky.

Brady gazed up at her. "Yes," she said. "Hello." She looked Maureen over. Her displeased eye settled on Maureen's chest. She read the T-shirt. "Won't you sit down?" she said.

Maureen did.

Carol Brady didn't have an attractive face. She was very wrinkled but didn't look like she'd got that way having fun. Her eyelids were drooping, resting on her stubby eyelashes and pushing them down. Behind the little curtains of skin her eyes were raw with the shocked despair of a recent death in the family. Her brown hair was thinning and meshed together with hair spray like a lacy crash helmet.

The waiter brought them leather-bound menus and Mrs. Brady ordered a large bottle of mineral water. When he had gone, Brady said that Douglas had never spoken about Maureen. "How did you come to know him?" she asked.

"We met in a pub," said Maureen weakly, feeling that her presence here was enough of a blight on Douglas's character.

Brady pretended to read her menu. "Not through his work, then." She said it as if it were a statement of fact but waited, wanting Maureen to say no.

Maureen looked uncomfortably at her menu. Joe McEwan might tell her if Maureen didn't. "He wasn't my therapist," she said.

"He wasn't your therapist then? Or ever?"

"Never."

"I see," said Brady quickly, turning a page.

Maureen closed her menu and put it on the table. "Mrs. Brady," she said, "I'm so sorry about your son."

Carol Brady ground her teeth as her eyes turned a sudden shocking pink and filled up. She blinked quickly, trying not to cry. For a tense moment Maureen thought Brady was going to start sobbing uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry," said Maureen again. "I shouldn't have said I'd meet you here. You could have come to the house."

Brady inhaled unsteadily and her grief subsided. "I'm glad we met here," she said, dabbing her nose with a linen handkerchief. Maureen waited for her to say why she was glad or why this was better than an alternative venue but she didn't.

"Let's order some food," said Brady finally. "Why don't you have the langoustine? It's very good here."

"Okay," said Maureen, eager to please. She ordered langoustine and Brady chose the finnan haddie, and the mussels for her silent PA.

"I heard that you were in Brazil," said Maureen.

Brady made a nippy face and launched into a speech about the bad flight. Both the climate and the food were too hot for her. The conference was a waste of time. She talked about her trip, detailing dull events and characters all the way through the arrival of the food and most of the way through the meal. She didn't tell the stories very well and judging by the PA's glazed expression she had told them several times before. But the purpose of the speech was not to enthrall her audience, it was to calm Carol Brady. As she talked she managed to pull herself back from a chasm of grief and got lost in a series of petty annoyances.