Leslie chewed a space in her mouth. "No, I don't. They'll charge you and if they don't get you they'll get Liam."

"That's what I think."

Leslie swallowed. "The police don't have an infinite amount of time to spend on anything. They just go with the most obvious answer. You're both so dodgy-looking. Think about it, the two people who could get into the house. You've got a psychiatric history which you've already lied about, you were his mistress-"

"I wasn't his mistress"

"That's what they'll call it and they probably can't conceive of a woman who doesn't want to get her man and keep him. And Liam, heavy guy, dealer, public enemy number one, wee sister seeing married older guy. Gets protective and kills him."

Maureen slumped in her deck chair. "They'd planted footprints with my slippers and they did something in a cupboard. It's the cupboard Liam found me in before he took me to hospital."

"In the same cupboard?"

"Yeah, same one."

"Who the fuck knew that? I didn't even know that."

"No one did. Just me and Liam."

"Which means one of you told someone else. Did Douglas know? Could he have told someone?"

"Not that I remember. Christ, I'm really fucked. Whoever did this really knew how to pick a winner."

Leslie wiped her bowl clean with a slice of bread. "He's not daft, is he? You need to find him in case he finds you first. You should carry something in your bag to protect yourself."

"What, like a knife?"

"Oh, for Christ sakes, no. The police could arrest you if they found it." She lit a cigarette. "Hair spray, you can spray it in his eyes, or one of those metal combs, you know, the ones with the pointed ends. I've got one."

She collected the dirty bowls and clambered over Maureen's legs to get into the house. When she came back she had the comb with her. She handed it to Maureen. It was stainless steel, with a long tapered handle ending in a rounded point. "Once you've sharpened that end rub it with oil to make all the metal the same color."

Maureen took it. "I think I'd freeze."

"No, you won't," said Leslie. "Just remember what he did to Douglas. He's a vicious bastard so don't flinch and don't wait for him to hurt you first." She climbed back over Maureen's legs, the tip of her cigarette leaving a glowing crimson trace against the dark sky, and sat down in her deck chair.

"I don't understand why they'd plant footsteps with my shoes and maybe even fix the timer but do it while I was at work."

"Yeah. Maybe it was just a mistake."

"It's a bit of a big mistake."

"Yeah, that doesn't mean it isn't one. Remember Benny told us that story about the gangsters who killed the guy in the woods? They burnt the face off to stop him being identified, cut off his hands and took a hammer to his teeth. When the police found him the guy had his rent book in his back pocket. Remember that?"

The night and the punch line floated through Maureen's memory like a warm breeze. It was Benny's first AA birthday and they didn't know how to help him celebrate. They couldn't take him to a bar. It was in the height of the sticky summer and they drove up to Loch Lomond with the roof down on Liam's Herald. The sun was setting and Leslie built a fire by the water as the sharp night came on. They ate Marks and Spencer's sandwiches, drank ginger and told their best stories as giant, glistening dragonflies hummed and swooped between them.

"I was thinking about the three phone calls to my work. Liz doesn't know Douglas's voice particularly well. It might've been them trying to see if I was there."

"And she said you weren't there?"

"Yeah. But, then, just because I wasn't there doesn't mean I wasn't anywhere that would give me an alibi."

"Yeah." Leslie drew on her fag and looked out over the waste ground, surveying her land. "Like I said, the guy could have made a number of daft mistakes. Why do they all think he was giving you money?"

"Some money's gone missing, I think, and they're assuming he gave it to me."

Maureen sat forward in the deck chair and drew deeply on her fag, flicking the ash over the edge of the veranda. Leslie leaned over and pulled her back into the chair.

"Don't do that," she said. "Sometimes the weans hide under here."

"Why?"

" 'Cause they can't go home."

"Sorry."

" 'S all right. So why's your mum talking about Michael?"

"Fuck," said Maureen slowly, scratching her scalp hard enough to hurt. "I don't know, I don't want to think about what Winnie's been up to. That makes me more nervous than the fucking murder."

"Fair enough, doll," said Leslie, patting her on the knee. "We'll not talk about that. I'm freezing."

Maureen stood up, eager to change the conversation. "I'll get the whisky out, then, yeah?"

"Aye."

She went into the kitchen and took the bottle from under the sink. None of Leslie's glasses matched. Maureen lifted a stolen half-pint glass and a plastic Barbie doll tumbler from the draining board. She poured four fingers into the half-pint and swallowed it in two gulps, the warm whisky aftershock floating up her nose. Back out on the veranda she gave Leslie the Barbie glass and poured a generous measure. "There you are, in your favorite glass as well."

"Great, Mauri. I hope you'll be getting me another one for my birthday this year."

"By the time ye retire I promise you'll have the whole dinner set."

They settled down in the deck chairs, sipping their whisky and smoking cigarettes. "I'm drinking all the time," said Maureen.

"I don't think alcohol abuse is a bad way to cope with short-term traumas."

Maureen laughed with surprise. "That's the worst advice you've ever given me."

Leslie thought about it. "Oh, well, fuck it, then."

The kitchen gulp hit Maureen's head and she felt a wave of purposeful clarity coming on. "I don't want to sit about holding a comb and waiting for them to come for me. How would you go about finding the person who did this?"

Leslie puffed the last of her fag and thought about it.

"You're doing all right so far," she said. "It's just a logic problem."

"But suppose their behavior isn't logical. If the murderer's mental it isn't a logic problem, is it?"

Leslie dropped her cigarette into a space between the dead plants and stepped on it, twisting it with her foot, scattering fiery red sparkles among the plant pots. "He can't be a maniac, it's all too carefully organized. He brought the rope and the cagoul, he got in and out of the flat without being seen, all that stuff. It's not the work of a crazed mind, is it?"

"No, I suppose, but that might mean they're really crazy."

"Uff." Leslie sat forward. "People talk about murder as if it's nothing to do with anything else that happens in the world. It's just part of the big picture. Sometimes killing someone is rational, sometimes it's the most rational thing to do. What about all the crazy people you've met, were they all capable of murder?"

Maureen thought her way around her ward mates in the George III beds in the Northern. "Naw," she said. "Most of them weren't capable of anything very much."

"I've met more sane people who were capable of murder than nutters." Leslie downed the whisky in her glass and poured herself some more. "Doing a shitty thing doesn't make you mental, it just makes you a shit, and Douglas wouldn't have opened the door to a psychotic nutter, would he?"

"Well, I can't see Douglas answering my door and letting anyone in. He shouldn't have been there in the first place. He wouldn't even answer my phone when he was alone in the house." Maureen sat forward, deeply glad to be sure of something. "I bet you that's what happened. They came in together. They must have."

"So who would he bring to your house?"

Maureen thought about it. "Uh, no one, actually."