She got to the coffee shop at twenty to eight, just as the sun was setting. It was in a prime location near the town hall, in a narrow stone building squashed between a bank and an estate agent. Maggie had painted the door and window a fashionable pale grey and done her best with red and white gingham to make it look bonnie.
The place closed at four, but they did the stocktake and paperwork every second Thursday evening, and it was all lit up. Pam and Liam were at the table in the window with sheets of paper spread between them. Liam seemed to have even more gel in his spiky blond hair than usual, like a character out The Broons.
‘Hi there!’ Maggie breezed in, and the two of them looked up with big grins that made her feel ten feet tall.
‘Maggie!’ whooped Pam, coming over to hug her.
‘Have you left Duncan minding the baby?’ went Liam.
Maggie clapped her hands to her face. ‘Oh my God! The baby!’ And as Liam’s eyes widened: ‘Of course he’s minding her, you wee bampot.’
She had to admit it – she’d got to like Liam. The boy had a good heart, and he made her laugh, although not always intentionally. As Pam bustled about getting Maggie a coffee and a slice of carrot cake, and top-ups for herself and Liam, out of badness Maggie got out her wee album of Isla photos and made Liam look through it.
‘Aye, and that’s her in the blue sleepsuit. Dead gorgeous with her blue eyes, eh? Why should girl babies not wear blue, is what I say.’
‘Uh,’ went Liam.
Pam grabbed the album off him and pored over it. Maggie was going on about how they were tempting Isla to feed when the phone behind the counter trilled. Maggie went and answered it.
‘Hello, Maggie’s?’
‘Is that Maggie Clyde?’ said a crabby voice. ‘Duncan Clyde’s missus?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Door’s standing open at the Borstal place.’
‘You mean The Phoenix Centre?’
‘Aye, whatever. God knows what those wee bastards are up to now.’
‘Oh. Right. Thanks very much for letting us know, Mr . . .’
But the guy had rung off. Probably one of the pissed-off neighbours who’d had to put up with all kinds of crap from the young offenders over the years. Maggie better get her arse over there pronto. It was only five minutes’ walk, and she carried keys to The Phoenix Centre in her bag.
Liam offered to go with her, but she shook her head. ‘Probably just that airhead Jemma left the door open.’
She was half expecting to meet some of the kids on her way there. You sometimes saw them in wee groups, hanging around the streets trying to bring the tone down, mouthing off to passers-by and trying to get drug deals going, but nine times out of ten some busybody like Maggie would send them off with a flea in their ear. It was a culture shock for the wee bastards, used as they were to decent folk showing them the respect they thought they deserved and looking the other way. But Langholm wasn’t that kind of a place.
The Phoenix Centre was in an old building that used to be a school, set back from the road behind a low wall and the car park, and a bit of grass where the kids played football. In the gloom, Maggie could see that the heavy old front door, a big Victorian effort in two halves, was indeed standing open. She walked inside, giving it, ‘Hello? Anyone in here?’
Silence.
The smell of the place took her back – sweaty shoes and polish and disinfectant. The walls were painted in the institutional favourite of dark green below waist height, light green above. Her shoes clopped on the vinyl floor as she walked down the long corridor, opening doors to check inside rooms as she went, clicking lights on and off again. The meeting room, the kitchen, the classrooms, the sports hall – all empty.
She’d never been in here on her own in the evening.
It felt weird.
She had a bad feeling, like someone was in here with her.
She stopped and listened, turning a slow three-sixty, looking back down the empty corridor, squinting in the glare of the fluorescent lights. She couldn’t hear anything. No footsteps, no sounds of breathing . . .
‘Pull yourself together, Maggie,’ she said out loud, and carried on down the corridor.
The door at the end, the door to Duncan’s office, was, unlike all the others, standing open.
‘Hello?’ she tried again.
She walked into the room.
It was a cramped wee office with a window looking over trees at the back of the building. In it there was just a filing cabinet, a table, a desk and three chairs.
And Dean Reid, lying on the floor, a knife sticking out his chest.
His wee rodent mouth open in a snarl.
The blood was still shining wet.
This had just happened.
Maggie recognised that knife. She recognised the worn wooden handle. It was the kitchen knife that had belonged to Duncan’s ma, bought before the War and, Duncan never tired of reminding everyone, still a better slicer than any of the new ones. They made things to last in those days.
Nick had got her to handle it. So her fingerprints would be on it.
And that must have been him on the phone, his voice disguised.
Nick had done this.
The fucking psycho had killed Dean Reid and set her up for it.
And off down the corridor, she could hear voices. Footsteps.
‘Police! If there’s anyone in here, show yourself!’
And then he’d called the cops.
It was like an out-of-body experience. Maggie got a baby wipe from her pocket and wiped the handle of the knife. Then she was up on the filing cabinet and out that window.
Keeping low, she ran from the building to the trees and clambered over a wall, onto a path that ran behind the back gardens of a row of houses. Lucky they all had high fences. She could hear sounds of people, a kid laughing, the smell of a barbeque.
She took a second to calm down. Then she put up the hood of her jacket and made her way back to the coffee shop, where Pam and Liam were now in the kitchen checking the stock.
Pam stared at her. ‘Maggie, what’s up?’
Catching her breath, she told them what had happened. What Nick must have done.
‘Oh my God,’ said Pam.