She avoided looking at the photos from that time because they reminded her so sharply of the aftermath of the breakdown, when she had had to keep smiling and telling people she was all right, when she struggled to assimilate all the things that had happened to her in the recent and the distant past. She had left the bundle of holiday photographs facedown in a box at Winnie's house.

"Who gave it to them?" asked Leslie.

"My mad cunt of a mother."

"Oh, okay," said Leslie, arching an eyebrow at the carpet.

"You look a bit less tired," said Maureen, trying to get off the subject.

"Yeah, I got a sleep last night."

Liam took the paper from Leslie and excused himself.

Maureen grinned up at Leslie and Leslie grinned back. "You ready to talk to me now?" asked Leslie.

"I am, pal. How'd the appeal go?"

"Bad." She frowned, put her crash helmet down on the settee and took off her leather jacket. "They won't make their decision until next week but I think we're fucked. I talked to the CAB lawyer and we've missed out loads of stuff."

Liam came back and threw the newspaper down on the coffee table. He dropped heavily onto the settee and waited for someone to acknowledge his dirty mood. Leslie caught Maureen's eye.

"I could do with a shower," said Maureen, and stood up.

"I'll make ye a cup of tea," said Leslie innocently. "D'ye want one, Liam?"

"Huh." He snorted. "Actually, no. Tea happens to be the last thing on my mind at the moment."

MAUREEN WAS STANDING UNDER the shower, washing the shampoo out of her hair, when she felt a familiar shiver. The ghost of her father was in the bathroom. She was very small and was standing in the bath, waiting to get out. He bent down and put his face level to hers. She rinsed her hair quickly and opened her eyes but he was still there with her, she could almost smell him. She turned on the cold water and stood underneath it, sweating. Change the ending, Angus had told her. Change the ending. Keeping her eyes on her father, she reached purposefully into the bath water and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun. She aimed it at him and squeezed the trigger. His head blew off. His blood was all over the bathroom. Just like Douglas.

"You look fucking terrible," said Leslie, as Maureen came into the living room.

"Yeah."

"Benny and Liam have gone out for a pint, fancy it?"

"Liam's being a prick. Have you got your bike with you?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Can we go to yours? I want to get away from him."

Leslie gave her the spare crash helmet from the carrier box and Maureen climbed onto the pillion, wrapping her arms around her friend's waist, and nuzzled her face into her shoulder. Leslie sat back a little as she kick-started the bike, pressing into Maureen, letting her know she was all right. The cold rain nibbled Maureen's legs numb as they rode to the northern outskirts of the city, to the Drum, the scheme where Leslie lived.

As they hit the lip of the hill overlooking the scheme a sudden burst of sunshine from the west lit the rain as it fell. In the deep valley below, the high-rise blocks stood like giants paddling in a shallow sea of bungalows.

Leslie lived on the fourth floor of an old-fashioned block of six flats. She was lucky: her neighbors were good-natured and elderly; they were at home most of the day and asleep most of the night. They put net curtains, plants and bits of carpet in the close to give it a homely atmosphere.

She pulled up outside the close, dragged the bike through to the back court and chained it to a large metal ring attached to a block of concrete. Three tiny girls were playing at skipping ropes out the back. They stopped and stared at Maureen. The weeest girl had a square head too big for her body and thin, wispy baby hair, pulled up into a pony tail at the top of her head. She was dressed in a pale pink skirt and a red woolly jersey with bleach scars on the sleeve. Her mouth was stained with orange juice. Maureen made a silly face at her. She blushed, giggled and pulled her skirt up to cover her juice-stained face.

"That's wee Magsie," said Leslie. "She's three and a half. Aren't ye, wee teuchie?"

Wee Magsie kept her skirt over her face and giggled shyly, rocking from side to side.

"Yes," said the biggest girl, who could only have been seven. "I'm her big sister and I've to look after her today."

Wee Magsie ran away.

"Don't be fuckin' stupid, wee Magsie," shouted her big sister, running after her and dragging her back. She spat into a tissue and wiped at the orange stains on wee Magsie's face. Magsie held on to her sister's jersey with both hands and grinned as her face was roughly scrubbed.

"See that?" said Leslie. "They're wee mammies before they stop being kids."

Leslie made some coffee and listened as Maureen told her everything that had happened.

Two hours had passed and they were both tired. Leslie poured them a glass of beer each and heated up a pot of stew made with slices of onion and fifty-pence-shaped carrots.

"It's not like you to cook, Leslie," said Maureen, buttering four slices of bread and putting them on a plate.

"Mrs. Gallagher across the close made it."

"And how did you get it? Did ye steal it from her?"

"No," said Leslie, "she brought it across. She always does that, makes too much and gives ye some."

"Una does that sometimes, when she bakes."

"How is Una? Up the duff yet?"

"No, it's a sin. She was over the other day. Mum's telling everyone I'm crazy. She said I might have killed Douglas and not remembered."

Leslie ladled the stew into bowls. "I think you should stay the fuck away from her. No offense, I know she's your mum and everything, but she's-"

"I know, Leslie, you don't have to say it out loud."

"You should, though."

"I know, but she's the only parent I've got and you need at least one."

It was a fine night and Leslie liked eating hot food in the open air so they put their jackets on and took the stew out onto the veranda, sitting in the dark on old stained deck chairs, knee-deep in a forest of dead plants. The stew was thick and salty. The veranda overlooked a patch of waste ground with irregularly undulating hillocks, bald and strewn with litter. Children were shouting and chasing each other around, apparently without purpose, as a flamingo pink sunset bled into the navy blue night.

Maureen finished her stew. The waste ground was emptying, most of the children going home to their tea. Three or four hung around, silhouetted against the dying light, kicking at the ground and talking to each other. She huddled inside her big overcoat, wrapping her hands around the glass of beer as though it would warm her, and lit a cigarette. "What are you going to do about the shelter, then, if the appeal fails?"

Leslie dunked a folded slice of buttered bread in the hot gravy in her bowl. "I have not one fucking clue," she said. "We've got a meeting with the subcommittee next week. We should've got a lawyer in the first place but the action committee were against it, said we'd save a week's running money if we did it ourselves. What are you going to do about Douglas?"

"I dunno either," said Maureen. "The police don't seem very sharp. They totally missed Suicide Tanya and the photograph in the paper. They must have missed other stuff too, things I didn't stumble across."

"Yeah," said Leslie, combing through the thick gravy with her fork, looking for the meat. "I bet they did."

Maureen sipped her beer and watched Leslie biting a lump of meat off her fork. "Do you think I should leave it to the police?"