Denise Mina - Resolution

"Is that out of the question? Filing a report doesn't mean you go to court."

"I've had trouble with the police," said Maureen.

Sheila looked at the tip of her cigarette and Maureen could tell she was wondering whether to say it.

"I know Hugh's a policeman," said Maureen. "I've been interviewed by the police and it was fucking horrible. You know how hard it is to talk about it. The very last thing I ever want to do is to try and explain it all to them."

Sheila nodded. "Maureen," she said, "think about this. You're more than the sum of his actions, much more. Look, you haven't been in the group that long but we do make progress. We can recover. He's already stolen your childhood, don't give him your adulthood as well."

Maureen was dismayed that Sheila didn't understand. "Sheila, he's got my adulthood. I see him everywhere, I feel him everywhere. I can't have a relationship with a man because of it, I can't hold down a job. I don't know why my friends stay with me, I can't even look at myself in a normal mirror. D'ye understand? I have to use a magnifying mirror because I can't stand looking at more than a wee fragment of my face at a time."

Sheila waited for her to calm down. "You know," she said softly, "people who haven't been abused have trouble with those things too. They're bloody hard, probably the hardest things there are in life."

She smiled and Maureen smiled back. Sheila's eyes were creamy brown and her voice was kind. "Think of the life you could have if you used all this energy to get over it. But if you do this thing, you'll be making him the most important event in your life, ever. Whether you go to jail or not, he'll define every aspect of your life. Every time you look in the mirror you'll see him."

Spitefully, Maureen thought about pointing out the irony of an anorexic with a fridge full of low-cal jelly giving motivational speeches. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. "Sometimes it's right to put yourself aside," she said. "It's not always about a lack of self-esteem or destructive patterns of behavior. Someone needs to be responsible."

Sheila sat back in her chair and looked at her. "Yes, but it doesn't need to be you, Maureen. It doesn't always need to be you."

Maureen got Sheila to drop her around the corner from her house. Her flat was at the top of Garnethill, the highest hill in the city. The views were spectacular but the possibility of subsidence kept the property prices low and the steep hill meant that few outsiders wandered into it. It was an island state in the heart of the city. She waved back to Sheila as she walked up Rose Street, heading for Mr. Padda's licensed grocery around the corner. She heard the dread clatter of metal shutters being pulled down and ran faster. Mr. Padda saw her sprinting towards him and smiled.

Inside the shop Mr. Padda Junior was playing behind the counter, stroking the kittenish bum-fluff on his cheeks and chin. He had recently graduated from watching telly in the cupboard at the back of the shop to working behind the counter but he found it dull. As Maureen approached he spun round, narrowly stopping himself from falling over by catching the counter, one shoulder up, the other hand raised in surprise as if he were in a Bollywood musical.

"Very good," Maureen said.

"The usual?" he asked, pointing at her and pulling the trigger.

Maureen nodded. Padda Junior did a demi-spin, singing under his breath, caught a bottle of cheap whiskey off the shelf, spun back into place and stabbed at the till buttons like Liberace on a camp day. Delighted with the overall effect, he grinned to himself. "You fairly knock it back, don't ye?"

She made a mental note to use another offy in the future.

As she climbed the stairs to her front door she promised herself that if there was no message on her machine about the baby she wasn't going to think about it or Sheila or Michael tonight. She'd have a long, calm evening alone. She should savor the time while she had it.

"Well, buongiorno , Maureen."

Her creepy neighbor, Jim Maliano, was standing on the landing above her, a large red suitcase on the landing in front of him, his tan deep and flush. He was a small man with a little round belly that he accentuated by tucking his jumpers into his jeans. He did something odd with his hair so that it changed texture and quality over his crown. It was as if he were trying to hide a bald patch but Maureen had seen his crown and it wasn't bald. It looked like a tiny yarmulke-toupee.

"Jim." Maureen climbed the last few stairs. "You're back."

"Aye." Jim was dressed like an Italian spiv in a cream and salmon striped shirt, gray slip-on loafers and beige slacks held up with a white plastic belt. He went to see his extended family every year for a month and every year he came back more Italian, less able to articulate in English, more hand-wavy, more punchable. He was always pleased to see her and Maureen didn't know why. She was never very nice to him. "I had a marvelous time, as usual." He took a step towards her. "It really is so beautiful over there. You should go. The heat makes you relax and the food is fabulous-"

"And how's the family?" interrupted Maureen, sliding her key into the lock and opening the door.

"Aye, the family's all well," he said, smiling and nodding as if she knew them and cared. "I brought you some amaretti biscuits."

"Ah, great, I'll get them from ye later. Welcome home," she said, and shut the door on his hopeful face.

There were no messages on the machine. The baby might come tomorrow and tonight would be her final happy night. It was to be a night of drunkenness and a long look over the city.

She lit a cigarette and looked at the chrome lighter. It was Vik's lighter, Vik the almost-boyfriend. It was a birthday gift from the guys in his band with "Let's Get the Rock out of Here" inscribed on it in sentimental italics. He had left it in her house the last time he came to see her, when they'd had the big fight. For months afterwards she told herself that he had left it deliberately, that he meant to come back and get it. He never had. He had left her because she wasn't very nice to him; she didn't know how to be. She wondered if Sheila was right, if it could be her petulance and selfishness that made the relationship seem impossible. She'd always assumed it was the abuse. And then she thought about what Sheila had said about her motives and Michael and the baby. She stopped herself. Not tonight. Tonight she was alone and none of it had happened yet. Flicking back to the previous thought but one, she remembered Vik. She remembered his shoulders, the musty smell of his chest and his dark eyelashes. The memory made her skin bristle for him, but she did what she had been doing for three months and turned it round. She was glad she'd known him. He was a nice man.

Someone knocked on the door, not a polite knock but a slow, aggressive rapping. Knowing it would be Jim Maliano, angry and holding a packet of unwelcome broken biscuits, Maureen tiptoed out to the hall. She leaned into the spy hole from the side, so that if he pushed the packet of biscuits through the postbox he wouldn't be looking at her feet.

It wasn't Jim. It was an unfamiliar woman with cropped blond hair and a waistcoat over a T-shirt. She looked tired and utterly pissed off. She sighed and reeled round to the stairs, walking down them heavily, speeding up as she got farther away from the door as if she was glad no one had been in. The corner of a business card was sticking in the hinged postbox. Maureen waited until she heard the close door slam shut and pulled the card out. Her name was Aggie Grey and she was a journalist for a sleazy Sunday tabloid. She'd written "call me re ££s" on the back of the card. Maureen threw it on the floor.