Denise Mina - Resolution

"Does it really change everything for you if they know what they're coming over for?" asked Leslie.

"It does. It shouldn't, but it does. What about you?"

"D'ye want to drop it, then?"

"Fuck, no," said Maureen quickly. "It shouldn't make a difference."

"Just 'cause they've consented to be prostitutes doesn't mean that they haven't got any rights, does it?"

"No."

"And anyway," said Leslie, "how free is anyone to consent to that?"

"I don't know, Leslie – if it's a choice between juggling asbestos for thruppence a year or doing that and making money, ye can see why people would take that option. We shouldn't try to impose what we want on them."

The bus appeared on the horizon and they stood up, peering through the scratched Perspex until the number on the front came into focus. It was theirs.

"Maybe your problem," said Leslie, reaching over and patting Maureen on the stomach, "is that you've a Jesus-shaped hole inside ye."

"How would you know?" smiled Maureen. "You've never seen my hole."

They caught a bus into town and Leslie insisted they go for breakfast at the Equal because the fry-ups were great, weren't they? Really, though, weren't they? Maureen smiled back and wondered what she was up to.

The Equal cafe was a fifties throwback with black Formica tables flecked with gold, a red and chrome coffeemaker and airbrushed pictures of ice-cream dishes on the wall. It was used by flush art students and office workers and was always quiet on a Sunday. It was down the hill from Maureen's house and she had come here with Douglas for breakfast sometimes, when he got the chance to stay over. The food was cheap and the fry-ups magnificent, but the service was compromised by the sullen old waitress's perpetually sore leg and short-term memory loss. She rarely brought a complete order to the table. Decades of small orders had started to blend and merge in her mind so that lasagna could transform into a toastie or a Coke into a coffee cake in the ten-foot amble between the table and the kitchen hatch.

Maureen and Leslie sat at a table by the window. West Sauchiehall Street was full of pubs and casinos, and the now deserted road was littered with takeaway chip wrappers and bottles from the night before. Outside worshipful Sunday shoppers passed in ones or twos, making their way down to the malls, heading east towards the resurrecting midday sun, squinting at the blinding brightness of it. The waitress shuffled over to them. Her brand-new orthopedic shoes had crepe soles on them that shrieked against the lino. "What d'yees want?"

Maureen was pleased to see that the waitress's foot had healed. She had been wearing slippers with the toes cut out for months, apparently to get the air around some sort of fungal infection. Leslie ordered a fry-up, Maureen asked for a coffee, and the waitress screeched away from them over to the kitchen.

"What do you think about it, then?" said Leslie. "Is Mr. Goldfarb an evil flesh trader?"

"I don't know," said Maureen, lighting a cigarette she didn't want. "I can't see him as an unwitting partner in anything but he wouldn't have told us if he'd known. What I don't get, though, is why Poland? And why would McGee go to the trouble of getting Mr. Goldfarb to sort this out for him? The agency would be a traceable connection between McGee and those women. He's so careful, why would he take that chance?"

Leslie stared out of the window. "To be honest, Mauri, I thought you were off your head there. I didn't think there was anything in it at all."

Maureen sat back in her chair and smirked. "Is that you being honest? Ye hardly kept it a secret, did ye?"

"Didn't I?"

"Leslie, you told me you didn't believe me."

"Did I?" She looked surprised. "I don't remember." She took a cigarette and lit it slowly. "I've been worried."

"About me?"

"About you."

Maureen was irritated. "As is your close friend, Kilty?" she said sharply.

Leslie looked resigned and sat back, smoking and looking at her, chewing her tongue. "What do you weigh?"

"Are you weighing me in for a fight?"

"Mauri, if you could make eight stone with your shoes on I'd be surprised."

Maureen glanced at her and shifted her gaze to the window. The weight was always the giveaway. She couldn't hide it because it came off her face first. When things got bad she couldn't eat, couldn't bring herself to swallow properly, and she started smoking more and more so that her tongue got burned and she couldn't taste anything anyway. When she was first admitted to hospital she had been under seven stone. Leslie was watching her across the table and she felt suddenly aware of her body, profoundly conscious of the bones of her bum rubbing against the seat, of the deep dip between her sharp hips and the baggy waistband on her shorts. "I'm doing fine," she said. "Don't worry."

"We are worried," said Leslie softly. "I mean, okay, this was never going to be the time of your life, with the trial and the baby due and everything -"

"The baby's born." She was surprised she'd said it. She didn't even know she'd taken it in yet. She blinked hard at the table and breathed in deeply.

Leslie hesitated. "Born?"

"A girl."

During the twenty-minute taxi ride up to Drumchapel the driver tried to engage them in chat about the weather. Yes, they agreed, it was hot, very hot, most unusual for Glasgow. The driver told them authoritatively that it was because of global warming, like the floods all over England. The world was going to end soon, nothing surer. Leslie wasn't keen to go upstairs but they needed to get the crash helmets. When she unlocked the front door the stale air hit them and Maureen saw how much Cammy had wormed his way into Leslie's life. In the front room all the furniture had been moved around, as if he had been desperate to make his mark. The bedroom had been painted by a nonprofessional – the line between the white ceiling and the blue wall had been badly negotiated and the window frame had solid drips of gloss on it. Through the kitchen window she could see that Leslie's beloved veranda had been cleaned up and the carpet of dead plants cleared away. Even the stained deck chairs had been washed so that the white stripes were no longer an off-yellow.

Leslie came out of the bedroom with her leather trousers and jacket on, holding two crash helmets.

"He's done a lot of work in here, hasn't he?" said Maureen.

Leslie frowned. "He actually suggested I pay him for it because he wasn't working."

Maureen thought back on all the conversations they had ever had about the importance of wages for housework and looked at Leslie's big, miserable face. "What an arsehole," she said.

The motorbike was chained securely in the backyard of Leslie's close. Maureen watched the children playing on the dusty hillocks while Leslie undid the padlock. A group of small girls were watching them and messing about. Not one was over ten but they were dressed like mini pop stars, in tiny crop tops and leggings, their girlie tummies sticking roundly out in front of them. At the side of the group, two wee girls with wild, dusty hair pushed a smaller girl towards Maureen and Leslie. The big girls were sniggering nervously, the shovee resisting with flailing arms and a shy grin. They stopped pushing her and huddled together, giggling and hatching a plan, and Maureen saw a fifty-pence piece exchange hands. The small girl pocketed it and set her shoulders square for the bike, stomping towards them as if she was annoyed.

"We've got a visitor," said Maureen, smiling.

The child reached them and Leslie smiled up at her. "Hello, Kylie-May. How's your-"

"Your Cammy's been going with Lan Mclntyre's wee sister and he loves her and they're having a baby and he's chucked you."

She turned and bolted back to the girls who had sent her, running past them, gathering them in her wake. The crowd of girls ran away over the hill, squealing with panic and laughing hysterically. They ducked into an open close mouth, glancing back at Leslie.