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aren’t they?” asked Maureen.
    “Yeah,” said Leslie.
    “How did ye get the women to stand for a picture?”
    “I just asked them if they wanted to be in it.” Leslie shrugged. “It’s Christmas Day. We try and keep it as normal as possible.”
    It was late. The meeting had run over and the other house managers had hurried home quickly to warm houses and hungry children, leaving Maureen and Leslie alone in the office. They were sitting on the edge of Maureen’s desk, listening as the wind whistled up the stairwell, tapping illegal fags on the floor and stepping their ash into the carpet. Leslie was in a different mood now, efficient and formal after her meeting, and she wouldn’t look at Maureen.
    “She wouldn’t leave these,” said Leslie, taking the photographs back from Maureen. “I know she wouldn’t.”
    “Were you quite close?” asked Maureen, trying to catch her eye.
    Leslie blew a brisk cloud of smoke at her. “No,” she said, rubbing her eye with the ball of her hand. “Not really.”
    “Well, how do you know she wouldn’t leave the photos?”
    Leslie dropped her fag end into a dry Radio Clyde mug. “I just know she wouldn’t. She’d only leave them if she thought she was coming back.”
    The mug oozed smoke like a beaker in a crazy professor’s lab. “Maybe she just forgot them,” said Maureen, reaching in and stubbing out the butt, getting the sticky smell on her fingers.
    “She wouldn’t forget pictures of her kids — she talked about them all the time.”
    “Maybe she wanted to start a new life,” said Maureen, “and she just got pissed, snapped and fucked off. Loads of people do that. It was Christmas, that’s bound to be an emotional time.”
    Leslie shook her head. “I think it was something to do with the card she got. It was delivered on the thirtieth of December and it freaked her out. She left an hour later.”
    “Do women get mail delivered to the shelter?”
    “Some women get application forms for jobs and things but hers didn’t look formal.”
    “Did you see it?”
    “I saw the envelope. Most of the mail we get is bills and stuff so it comes to me and I dish it out. She didn’t tell anyone what it was.”
    “How do you know it was a card, then?”
    Leslie thought about it. “The envelope was square and stiff and Christmassy. It was red.”
    “And she disappeared just afterwards?”
    Leslie nodded. “Hours afterwards,” she said, formal. “I’m worried about her. I’m worried something’s happened to her.”
    Maureen looked at Leslie. She had the distinct impression of being lied to, of Leslie giving her limited information and herding her into a corner. “Well, other women have left the shelter without saying anything and ye didn’t worry about them this much.”
    “But it’s not usually this sudden. There are usually signs that someone’s going to leave, like they drop hints or withdraw emotionally.” Leslie sounded as if she were giving a presentation. “Usually they leave the shelter for longer and longer periods, stay out an odd night, take some of their belongings, and then they just don’t come back. Ann didn’t do that. She was just there and then, suddenly, she wasn’t there.” She glanced sidelong at Maureen, gauging the impact of her speech, and went back to pretending to pore over the photographs.
    “But Ann was a steamer,” said Maureen, “and steamers do crazy things.”
    “How do you know she was a steamer?” said Leslie quickly.
    “Because”—Maureen pointed at the row of plastic chairs next to her desk—”she sat next to me. She was there for an hour on and off while they filled out her forms and set up the camera. I smelled her.”
    Leslie shrugged resentfully. “So, what does that mean?” she said. “We’re both steamers too.”
    “We’re not quite in Ann’s league, though, are we?” said Maureen, thinking that Leslie might have been. Maureen didn’t know how much she drank anymore. “Did Ann drink when