Denise Mina - Resolution

Doyle wasn't drunk and he wasn't stoned. Wherever he had spent the evening it hadn't been at a party. Maureen suspected that he gambled and lost but she didn't know what he did with his time. He traveled a lot and she had noticed only recently that his shoes were expensive but badly looked after, with dusty black uppers and pale leather soles. It made her smile when she thought about it. He might be an eccentric millionaire for all she knew, jet-setting around the world, and leaving his conservatory of rare orchids to come to Paddy's and nag her. He looked tired today. "You should look after yourself better," she said.

Doyle seemed a little bewildered by her concern. "How?" he said.

"Well," she said, "get sleep and eat better."

He scratched his head, covering his face and his embarrassment at being fussed over. "I eat fine," he said sulkily.

"I only ever see you when there's no one else here," she said, and smiled.

He didn't smile back. She could tell she had offended him by talking about his diet. He thought she was blaming him for the eczema, as if fruit would have stopped his skin trying to fall away from him. His thick dark hair was always clotted with white lumps lifting from his scalp. Maureen saw Mary and Lara stealing sneaky glances. As if he could feel their eyes on him, he turned away and sat at a table, gesturing for Maureen to join him.

Mark Doyle had met Maureen at his sister's cremation. Pauline's funeral had been a grim, harrowing affair, as suicide endings always are. Pauline's father stood next to his unknowing wife in the pew, squeezing her shoulder and keeping his eyes down. Her two brothers stood side by side and hurried outside as the coffin slid away, missing the lineup by the door in their eagerness to have a fag. When they followed the other mourners over the motorway bridge to a dark pub they spoke to no one but each other and even then said little. They were both tall and broad across the shoulders, drank fast and smoked without pleasure.

It was years later when she saw Doyle again. They were in a grimy pub, looking for a friend of Leslie's, and he approached them, asking where he knew Maureen from. His skin had got a lot worse since the funeral. He had a brutalized aura about him, war-veteran eyes and scars on his knuckles. He drawled his words like a hard man and when he looked at Maureen, his gaze fell short, settling on her cheek, her nose, her chin, but never meeting her eyes. As she looked at him in the pub she firmly believed he'd been the brother who'd raped Pauline, maybe even wanked onto her back as she lay dying. She'd wanted to hurt him for Pauline and run away from the scarred eyes and the raw skin.

It wasn't until she was in London, being dragged down Brixton High Street by a man with fists like mallets, that she began to doubt it. Doyle came out of nowhere, knocked the guy down and picked her up, carrying her through the fruit market and taking her to safety in his attic bedsit. As they sat and talked in the bare room Doyle told her that his father and brother were dead. He wouldn't talk about what had happened to them, wouldn't openly admit that he had killed them, but Maureen knew. He said it brought him no peace.

She'd tried to be a friend to him but Doyle didn't want a friend. He never wanted to talk about himself or what he did or how he lived. His sole purpose in seeing Maureen was to dissuade her from doing anything to Michael. It was all he ever talked about. He was adamant about it. Maureen tried to imagine how it must have been for him, growing up in a house with two men raping and assaulting his twelve-year-old wee sister, but she couldn't. She couldn't imagine the recrimination or the self-loathing but she knew he was trying to avert another disaster, trying to stop her killing Michael and becoming like him. Sheila said it was easier to save other people. Maureen looked at him, hunched over the far table, his back to the crowd, hiding himself, and she felt for him. He was half dead already.

"Three roll, two 'n' sausage," said Lara, handing over the cans and a brown paper bag, one corner already clear with grease.

Maureen paid and walked over to the table, reaching into the bag for Doyle's roll. "Here ye are."

Doyle took the roll and bit it automatically, keeping his eye on the door as if he was watching for someone.

"I'll need to go," said Maureen, holding up the bag. "I've got my pal's roll."

Doyle looked at her as if remembering she was there. He nodded her closer to him. "What's happening?" he muttered.

"About Michael?"

Doyle nodded. The oil from the bag was burning Maureen's hand but she held on to it tightly. "Baby's due any day," she said, and thought of Sheila.

Doyle picked up a plastic sauce bottle and squeezed watery red juice onto his roll, pressing the bottle too hard with his big hand, causing a little hiss from beneath the lid. "Promise," he said, "you'll tell me before you do anything." He ate and watched her, waiting for her to nod assent. He reached into his overcoat pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. Awkwardly, he handed it to her. It had a long number written on it, pressed twice into the paper where the Biro had dried out and been replaced. "Phone me before."

Maureen folded her arms and looked at him reproachfully. "Mark" – he almost flinched at her use of his name, as if he couldn't bear to hear it-"we've talked about this. If I'm gonnae do it, I'm gonnae do it."

Doyle finished his roll and slipped his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. "Just phone me, okay?"

"Once I make my mind up, you're not going to convince me otherwise," she said quietly.

Doyle rubbed his forehead with his open hand. It sounded like sandpaper over parchment. He looked terribly sad for her. "Please phone." He stood up and ducked through the low doorway without looking back at her.

She watched him go, the hot oil nibbling her skin. The baby seemed suddenly very real and imminent. The hairs on the back of her neck shimmered awake. She shut her eyes, lifting her face to the sagging silver ceiling and, rolling her head from side to side, bullied the hairs back into place. The baby wasn't born yet, not just yet. She turned round to face the tunnel and put it out of her mind.

Back at the stall Leslie was still slumped on her stool, blinking hard to stay awake. Peter's eyes lit up when he spied the greasy parcel Maureen was carrying. "Is that rolls and sausage?"

Leslie took the bag from Maureen and held it away from Peter as if he might pounce at it. "Away and eat a pear, sick boy," she said. "You want to be careful."

"I've ruined myself already," said Peter, watching Leslie take out the roll and bite into it. A trickle of salty oil escaped from the side of her mouth and she grinned at him as she licked it back. "It's you who should be careful," he said. "Hear about the A-level results? The girls getting better results than the boys?"

Peter had discovered through no particular intellectual effort that Leslie was a feminist and he liked to wind her up. Maureen could tell that he liked Leslie and meant to flirt and tease her. Leslie could not.

"It's not right, is it?" he said, smiling to himself. "What's the point in letting them do exams? They're just going to sit at home eating Milk Tray and watching the telly."

"You know, Peter" – Leslie raised her voice and her tired eyes flushed red at the rims, and Maureen could tell she was getting disproportionately angry-"I doubt whether you've ever satisfied a full grown woman."

Peter frowned. "I've never had any complaints," he muttered.

"But do ye have an effective complaints procedure?" said Maureen, trying to lighten the tone.

"Do ye hate women?" said Leslie aggressively.

"No," said Peter, disconcerted. "No, I love women."

"Is that right?" said Leslie. "D'ye love everything about us, or d'ye just like us when we're sitting about in our knickers waiting for a shag?"