The Red Road by Denise Mina Page B

very upset.’
    The dark-haired cop was busy studying her. She didn’t look the part, she knew that. She dressed like a middle-class graduate: good quality jeans, big belt, baggy cashmere jumper. They were all things that Francine had bought her or replacements for worn out things she had bought her. And she had that ease and arrogance that confused people, the steady eye of someone who knew exactly who she was but who spoke with a low-class accent.
    ‘We need to fill out the forms.’
    He took her name, her age: twenty-nine; her address: here; and her job. She was a nanny, had an HNC in Early Education and Childcare from Langside College.
    He pretended to be pleased. ‘Did you do your HNC when you were in prison?’
    ‘After. Francine and Robert were expecting their first baby, Hamish. They offered me the job before he was even born.’
    ‘That’s very community minded.’ He looked to his partner to see if he would concur in the lie. ‘We don’t always hear stories like that, you know?’
    Rose smiled politely. ‘I know. They’re good, Christian people.’
    ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘They’re religious .’
    She smiled but didn’t confirm or deny it. They both seemed satisfied with that as an explanation of why a professional couple would hand over their firstborn to someone convicted of murder. The truth was that Francine was the one who wanted her. Rose and Robert liked each other, felt very close in many ways, but it was at Francine’s insistence that Rose got the job. She trusted her. You know how to look after people, she said to Rose, in secret, because Robert didn’t know yet. I’m going to need you. Can you keep a secret? They were all consumed by the need to protect Robert.
    So, could she tell them when she last saw Robert McMillan?
    Rose told them it was the night before last. She told them he seemed fine.
    And, they asked, how did Robert seem, recently?
    She told them that Robert had been calm when his father died. He spent time at the private hospital and was there with his father when he died after the operation to reinflate his lungs.
    Did she get on with Robert?
    She said she didn’t really see that much of him. He worked for a big law firm and spent most of his time at work. He rarely managed to get home for family dinners and she was always busy with the kids. When he was around her job was to attend to the kids and let Robert and Francine spend a little time alone together.
    It was true in a way; she didn’t know what films he liked or watched or enjoyed. She didn’t even see him eating that often. But she and Robert had known each other since they were children, herself only four years younger than him. Two sides of a coin, Julius called them. She’d loved that when she was younger.
    Suddenly, she found herself back in remand, in the dark, a fourteen-year-old, her skin dry from the dusting of blood. She kept scratching her head and finding red dust under her fingernails. Her scalp was raw by the time Mr McMillan came to see her. Though she was fourteen and looked sixteen she was still small, too small for the clothes they gave her to change into. She sat across the table from him in the interview room, a small, flattened thing at the end of her life.
    Not here. That memory did not belong in this house but she couldn’t shake it and knew that she was frozen at the table, staring, exciting interest.
    With a furious energy, she managed to make the memory ebb, kicking it down through the kitchen floor. She looked up at the cops.
    ‘Sorry,’ she whispered, hoarse. ‘It’s been quite a shock, really, all of it. Everyone’s been very upset. We knew he wasn’t healthy but it was still an awful shock. Awful.’
    The coppers nodded, as if they knew anything. ‘You said you became very close?’
    ‘Mr McMillan visited me in prison. I wasn’t going to appeal the sentence. It was five years for culpable homicide, he did a great job, the court was very kind to me. He visited me though and