McEwan snatched the fag out of his mouth, stood up and threw open the door, telling someone outside to bring tea. Now. He sat down. He was very annoyed. "We have to ask you questions," he said. "How are we going to find the person who did this if we don't ask any questions?"

"I know you have to," she said. "But I don't have to like it, do I?"

"I don't care whether you like it or not. I'm going to ask you questions and I want you to answer them honestly."

She nodded impatiently, rolling the ash off her cigarette against the inside of the pie-tin ashtray. McEwan looked her in the eye for too long. "Do you think your brother is a violent man?"

"No," she said.

"Well, we have evidence from a witness who said he beat her up two years ago." He sat back and watched Maureen's face fall.

"I don't believe you."

"You'd better believe me. She's downstairs now, I could bring her up if you like."

"Who?"

"A woman called Margaret Frampton. Do you know her?"

"Maggie?"

"Is she called Maggie?"

"Liam's girlfriend Maggie?"

"No, she may have been his girlfriend at one point but she isn't now, I don't think. Her nickname is Tonsa."

"Fucking Tonsa?" said Maureen, relieved and annoyed that it was the vacant crack courier. "You must know Tonsa, she's so wasted. Would you take her word against anyone's? She can't tell New York from New Year."

"She knows when she's being beaten up. She told us all about it."

"Yeah, and what did you tell her all about? The two years she'd get in Cornton Vale if she didn't say it?"

McEwan was genuinely insulted. McAskill had a curious look on his face, like a warning that she'd gone too far. It touched her, she respected him.

"All right," she conceded. "Look, Tonsa might have said that but there's no doubt in my mind that it isn't true. Ask her if she shot Kennedy, that's all I'm saying."

A knock on the door signaled the arrival of tea. A man in a startlingly white shirt came in, put down the tray and lifted the cups onto the table. Maureen took her tea weak and black without sugar. The young man had given her sugar and milk but she took it anyway, knowing that McEwan hadn't intended her to get a cup.

Still smarting from the insult, McEwan drew heavily on his super low-tar fag and stubbed it out.

"Did your brother know Douglas Brady?"

"He met him once."

"When?"

"Four months ago, I suppose. Liam came round to my house and Douglas was there."

"How long were they together for?"

"About fifteen minutes. Douglas was late for an appointment or something, he had to go."

"Was anyone else there?"

"No. Just the three of us."

"Right." McEwan wrote something down in his notebook. "Did you know Douglas was married when you got involved with him?"

"No."

"When did you find out?"

"Just recently."

"When?"

"I don't know. Recently." She picked up the cup of tea and took a sip. The milk in it left a cheesy coating on her tongue.

"We found this in your house." McEwan pushed a letter toward her. It was Douglas and Elsbeth's marriage certificate, the copy from the General Register, still inside the creamy envelope. "It's a copy of Douglas Brady and Elsbeth McGregor's marriage certificate ordered from the General Register," he said, for the benefit of the tape. "The envelope is postmarked two days before the murder. When did you receive it?"

"The day after it happened."

McEwan slapped his open hand hard on the table. "THAT WAS A STUPID LIE," he shouted. "DON'T LIE TO ME."

The letter had been addressed to her work. She had left it sitting in her handbag on the bedroom floor and McMummb had handed her the keys and wallet out of the bag. They knew she hadn't been in the bag since she found Douglas. It had to be before she found him. She sipped her cheesy tea. "Yes," she said. "It was a lie, I'm sorry."

She inhaled the last of her fag and put it out, wondering where the fuck Liam was and what they were saying to him and why.

McEwan wasn't questioning him. His boss might be questioning him, if he had a boss.

"When did you receive this letter?" asked McEwan.

"The day it happened. The day before I found him."

"Did you show it to your brother?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I didn't see him that day."

"So you've said."

"Ye didn't find his fingerprints on it, did ye?" she said triumphantly. "Did ye?"

"We haven't taken your brother's fingerprints yet. Why would you send off for a marriage certificate, I wonder?"

It was meant to be rhetorical. She decided to get in his face. "He told me he wasn't married. I thought he was lying so I sent off for a search on the Register. I'm sure the Registrar'll have a record of the request. I asked for a fifteen-year search."

"And that's how you found out he was married?"

"Yes."

"And what did Douglas say when you told him?"

"I didn't tell him. I never saw him alive again."

"That's right," said McEwan. "You didn't see him that day, did you?"

"No, I didn't."

"You've been consistent about that one point, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"As consistent as you were about not having been to the Rainbow for treatment." He turned the page on his notebook. "How did you feel when you found out he was married?"

"I kind of knew. That's why I wrote to the Registrar in the first place."

McEwan leaned over the table and repeated the question firmly. "How did you feel when you found out he was married?"

"Well, Joe," she said loudly, "I felt a bit stupid and then I felt tired and then I felt stupid again, all right?"

McEwan pointed at her. "Don't be cheeky," he said, his voice lowering an octave. He composed himself. "You didn't feel angry, at all?"

"Uff, if you get involved with men who are already spoken for, you deserve all you get, don't you?"

McEwan sat back and looked down his nose at her with a mean, lopsided smirk. "Is that right? And you weren't expecting him to leave his wife?"

"Look, I was four months out of psychiatric hospital when I met him, I was in a state. Even I knew I wasn't fit to pick a life partner."

"What do you mean? You didn't really like Douglas?"

Whatever she said sounded incriminating. She decided to come clean. "Look, Douglas was a sad middle-aged guy who couldn't keep his knickers on. I liked him and he was nice to me. I should never have got involved with him but I did because I was lonely and horny. I didn't want to see him anymore and the wedding certificate was the final straw. I wasn't upset about it. I wasn't pleased but I wasn't angry either."

McEwan was suddenly interested. "You intended to end the relationship?"

"Aye, but I wouldn't kill him or harm him in any way or have him harmed by anyone else. He was as nice to me as he knew how to be. That's all you can ask, isn't it?"

"Did you tell anyone you were going to finish the relationship?"

"Yeah, I told my pal Leslie and I told Liz at work."

"You didn't tell your brother?"

"No. Liam and I don't talk about things like that. He knew Douglas was living with someone else and he never asked much about him because he didn't take it seriously."

"Someone thought it was a serious relationship," he said pompously, folding his arms. "Serious enough to kill him in your house."

The conclusion didn't follow from the observation. Maureen told herself just to leave it. The sooner it was over the sooner she could see Liam.

McEwan raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "Here's what I think happened, Miss O'Donnell." This was what he had been building up to, this was his trump. "I think you were very upset when you received the letter telling you he was married. I think you threatened to tell his wife and he tried to pay you off but the money wasn't enough. You wanted him to leave her and come and live with you. I think you phoned your brother and told him."