Denise Mina - Resolution

"Why do you put so many chairs out?" asked Maureen, to be sociable.

"Faith," said Jack, and they all smiled as if they were in on the secret.

"You should try it," said a woman with rolls of fat where her neck should have been. "It works wonders."

They all smiled again. Maureen tried to eat a scone to kill the time but couldn't work through the parched starch. Squeaky bicarbonate clung to the back of her teeth.

Finally Maddie was ready to leave and waved off her holy pals with a promise to meet them at a prayer meeting later in the week. The neckless woman made a great show of hugging her warmly and told her to live in Jesus in the meantime.

"I thought she lived in Springburn," muttered Leslie as they crossed the gravel to the street, and it seemed like the funniest crack in history because everything else was so alien and dreary. Hands on her belly, Maureen bent back and guffawed at a clear blue sky. Maddie spun round and glared at her distrustfully.

Maddie never really got back into pliable Jesus-loving mode again. She didn't want to take them to her house and there wasn't a cafe open so they bought cans of juice and stood in the freezer-center car park next to three bell-shaped bottle banks. It was midday and the tar was soft beneath their feet. Shimmering heat rose from the ground, melting the high-rise flats and wetting Maddie's vest. They lit cigarettes and offered one to Maddie. She took it guiltily and enjoyed it.

"Can't afford these anymore," she said, and giggled, a little excited. "No harm in a wee treat."

Leslie stood back, rolling her cold can on her forehead, and let Maureen do the talking.

"Maddie," said Maureen, wishing they were somewhere more private, "I respect your new life and what you're doing for yourself-"

"Aye, get on with it," said Maddie. Her skin was hard and tough: she looked less as if she was aging than desiccating.

"We knew Ella," said Maureen. "She's dead now-"

"Ella's dead?"

"Aye."

Maddie took a sip of her fizzy orange and a trickle of sweat rolled down the side of her face, dripping from her sharp chin. She must have been boiling in her vest. "D'ye know her son, then?" she said.

"That's what I want to talk to you about." Maureen decided not to mince her words. "I think Ella tried to warn me about him, tell me what he was up to, about the health club at Kelvingrove, but she died before she told me straight and I think he killed her."

Maddie nodded.

"I liked Ella," said Maureen.

"That's 'cause ye didn't know her." Maddie took a long drink and finished her can. "She was an evil cow. God forgive me, but she was. Cruel."

"How was she cruel?"

Maddie put the can down on the Tarmac. She shut her eyes and Maureen could see her lips moving in prayer. Her hair was wet around the nape of her neck. Maureen let her finish and Maddie looked up again.

"Are there Polish women in there?" asked Maureen.

Maddie coughed, agitated and angry.

"Look, Leslie and I both used to work at the Place of Safety Shelters," said Maureen quickly. "We're concerned about that place. No one knows that Si McGee's involved in it, apart from folk like you, folk who've been there-"

"I don't know nothing about him," said Maddie, her voice high, her eyes wide.

"Maddie," Maureen said, "I sat outside and watched that place and someone came out and told me to move on. That's not normal, even for a sauna. Ella told me that he was involved there-"

"She told ye?"

"She got me to submit a small-claims form to the Sheriff Court with the health club as his place of work."

Maddie snorted and looked away to the high flats, then back at Maureen, her mouth open, tongue moving, glistening as she thought of things to say but stopped herself. She opened her eyes wider. "Did ye send the forms in?" she said.

"Yeah, but Ella died just before the case came up."

Maddie snorted again. " 'S a bit suspect, innit?"

"Look, Mauri," said Leslie suddenly, "I'm fucking dying here. Can we go and get a cup of tea at least?"

Maddie turned away, her blouse stuck to her back, articulating a knobbled spine and razor-sharp shoulder blades. "Come to mine," she said, and led them up the hill to the high flats.

A crowd of young neds were hanging about in the shadow of the tall block. Dressed in tracksuit bottoms and vests, they lay around on the bald grass lethargically, cursing one another and smoking rollies made to look like spliffs. They called to Maddie, shouting that Jesus loved her and so had everyone else in Spring-burn. One boy ran over and tried to pull up her skirt. Maddie skipped out of his way, muttered at him to fuck off and pulled open the door into the lobby.

It was cool in the lift and they pulled at their damp clothes, getting air to their suffocating skin. The flat was a small studio – a bathroom off the hall on the way in, a living room with a sofa bed in it and a galley kitchen off to the side.

The front room looked out onto another set of high flats and the sharp sunlight glinted off the windows across the way, glaring into Maddie's flat like a searchlight. The window was open, letting fresh cool air filter in. There was no television in the room, just a lone shelf on the wall with a few books sitting on it: a Bible, a prayer book and a couple of Scott Pecks. Maddie called from the kitchen over the noise of the gurgling kettle, "D'yees want tea?"

"Please," said Leslie.

She brought in a tray with three mugs, a fourth with milk in it and a stack of paper sugar sachets on the side. "I haven't stolen them," said Maddie, indicating the sugar. "I only take them when I've bought a tea in a shop. I've paid for them."

Maureen smiled at her concern and Maddie grinned back, the yellow light softening her face. They sat down, Maddie and Leslie on the sofa and Maureen on the floor in front of them, sipping their tea and enjoying the breeze. Maureen lit up and offered the packet around. Maddie took a pie tin down from the window ledge so that they could use it as an ashtray.

"What can ye tell me about the health club?" said Maureen finally.

Reluctantly Maddie shrugged her shoulders. "I was there for a year and a bit. Then they chucked us all out. How's Alison with the bunches?"

"She's okay," said Maureen.

"I tried talking to her," said Maddie, "but what can I say?" She gestured around her bare room. "Ye sleep better?"

"Are there Polish women in the club?"

"I don't know where they're from. They're foreign. They only know a few words in English." Maddie looked at her cigarette. "They're not always there. They move them on."

"Are the women brought into this country by Si McGee?"

"Dunno," said Maddie unsteadily, her faint voice fading. "They move them to a different city every couple of weeks so the punters don't get to know them. They chuck the Glasgow girls out when they're coming, don't want us there at the same time. I think they come from Newcastle. I don't know where they go."

"Why don't they want the punters to get to know them?"

Maddie looked out of the window, a haunted, guilty shadow in her eyes. " 'Cause they'll try to help them," she said.

"Help them how? Get them out of prostitution?"

Maddie looked from Maureen to Leslie. "Ye don't know anything about this, do ye?"

Not knowing how they'd given themselves away, they couldn't bullshit their way out of it. Maureen shook her head. "Actually, no. All we know is that he's got an employment agency in Poland, that Ella got beaten up and died after she'd submitted the small claim and you used to work there."

Maddie drew on her cigarette, sucking her thin cheeks into her mouth. She looked as if she'd just been tickled. "That's it?" fraid so.

"No," said Leslie defensively. "Everyone knows that young women from Eastern Europe are being tricked into coming here, thinking they're waitresses and au pairs and being forced into prostitution."