She huddled into the shelter and spoke to the waiting lady. "I couldn't see right," she shouted, "because my glasses got rain on them."

The lady realized that Tanya was a bit mental – it wouldn't have taken a hardened professional to spot it: she had a booming voice and the concentration span of a spliffed goldfish. The lady turned away and walked, as if casually, out of the shelter to stand in the drizzling rain.

"Did you see that?" shouted Suicide, pointing at the nervous woman through the glass. "Snobby!"

"Just leave it, Suicide," said Maureen.

"You rude cunt!"

"Don't shout at her, she might be very shy."

Tanya processed the idea for a minute. "Hello. Are you very shy?"

Maureen tugged at her sleeve. "Don't, now, Tanya. Leave it, eh?"

"It's a shame if she is shy. She'll get lonely. You have to wake your own fun, ya fat mug, ye."

The bus into town pulled up out of nowhere. Tanya got on and showed her pass to the driver, explaining that she got a pass because she didn't keep well. The driver said he could see that and she was to go and sit down. The lady from the bus stop declined the offer when Maureen stepped back to let her on first. She waited until they were seated and chose a place as far away from Tanya as possible.

Tanya spotted the lady as the bus pulled away. "She's her from the bus stop."

"Aye, right enough, Suicide."

"Hello!"

"Aye, leave it now, Tanya. You've already said hello."

"Have I?"

"Aye."

"Sorry!"

The lady looked out of the window, her neck stiff with alarm. Tanya arranged herself next to Maureen, straightening the rumples out of the gold lame top, pulling it over her flat breastbone and down over the large breasts sitting on the roll of her belly. She scratched at some food stuck on the front.

"I like your top, Suicide. Where did you get it?"

"In a shop. Douglas is dead," she said.

"I know."

"His mum is an MP."

"MEP."

"Yes, and I couldn't see him."

"When you went for your appointment?"

"Yes. He was gone."

"What time is your appointment?"

"Tuesday at eleven, Tuesday at eleven, new time, try to remember"

"What time was it last week?"

"It's always the same because I can't remember."

"Yeah, I know, but what was the old time, before the new time?"

"Wednesday at one, Wednesday at one"

"So you didn't get to see him last week, then?"

"Yes. The police said it was because he was dead. I was there for ages because Douglas didn't come."

"That's a shame, Tanya."

"My neighbors banged on the wall all weekend and I needed to tell him that."

"That's a shame. Did you get to tell someone?"

"I told the police. They don't listen. They asked me about Douglas but they don't listen."

"How don't they listen?"

"They just don't. They think I'm daft. He said thank you but I saw him laughing at me. He had a mustache."

"I know that policeman. He was rude to me too."

"Yes. I don't like him… My pal seen him."

"Your pal saw the man with the mustache?"

"No. She seen him. She seen him when he was dead."

"She saw Douglas?"

Tanya nodded frantically.

"When he was dead?"

"Aye," said Tanya. "Then."

"Was he a ghost?"

Tanya looked at her askance. "There's no such thing as ghosts."

"No, sorry, you're right. There's no such thing."

"There's no ghosts. Only on the telly."

"How did she see him when he was dead, then?"

"Eh?"

"Your friend who saw him, how did she see him?"

Tanya looked at her as if she was daft. "With her eyes."

"He was standing in front of her?"

Tanya opened her eyes wide and stuck out her lower jaw at Maureen, angry at being asked so many pointless questions. "He was standing in front of her."

"When he was dead?"

"Aye, when he was dead."

Maureen was still confused. "I'm sorry, Tanya, I don't understand."

"He was dead and she seen him."

"When?"

"When they asked me about-"

"No, when did she see him?"

"When he couldn't see me because he was dead."

"Wednesday at one?"

"Wednesday at one"

"What's the name of your friend, Tanya, the friend who saw Douglas?"

"Siobhain. I meet her at the day center. She's fat now too."

"What's her surname?"

"Why are you asking me that?"

"I thought I knew her."

"Oh."

"Do you know Siobhain's surname?"

"McCloud."

Maureen wrote the name on the back of her bus ticket. "Is that the day center in Dennistoun?"

"Yes."

"Does Siobhain go there a lot?"

Suicide snorted. "She practically lives there!"

On the way into the town Tanya made rash comments about the other passengers at the top of her voice. Not a soul looked back at her. She told Maureen a complicated story about an Alsatian on top of her telly that smashed. Maureen thought she was describing a hallucination until she realized that the Alsatian was a china ornament. When they got off the bus Maureen took her to a fancy-goods shop and bought her a replacement. "That's a better one," bawled Tanya at a frightened man in the shop. "That's got a chain on it."

Tanya wanted to go with Maureen. Maureen had to explain several times that she was going to the university library and she needed to have a ticket to get in.

"I can't get in because I don't have a ticket."

"That's it, Tanya. You need a ticket."

"Buy me one."

"You can't buy them."

"No?"

"No, they have to give them to you."

"Will they give me one?"

"No."

"Why?"

"You're too tall."

Tanya insisted on waiting with Maureen until the bus came. Maureen got on the bus and waved eagerly through the window but Suicide ignored her.

In the library basement she asked an assistant for some help finding the salary scales for clinical psychologists. The assistant gave her a professional publication from behind the desk. He would have been on about forty-five K. She thanked the woman and caught the lift up to the top floor.

She pulled out the past papers and skimmed through them for news of the ecology conference in Brazil. It had been opened officially on Wednesday morning by the president. The story was accompanied by a picture of Carol Brady and some other people in expensive clothes.

Glasgow University library is eight stories high and built at the top of Gilmorehill. The walls are floor-to-ceiling smoke-tinted glass, giving the sprawled city below an unreal quality. She sat down at a table and looked out over the neo-Gothic university building, down to the river, past Govan to the airport, looking for the lightbulb factory far to the west, next to the motorway. It's possibly the most beautiful building in Glasgow. She couldn't see it.

Angus was the only therapist she had ever felt understood her properly, the only one she had ever connected with, and he thought she'd killed Douglas. He wasn't even angry with her. He must think she was very mental. She folded the newspapers carefully and shoved them back in the pile. She left the library and caught the bus back to Benny's house, hungry for the sight of him and his casual kindness.