Denise Mina - Resolution

Leslie didn't say anything for a while, didn't move or twitch. She stood still, open-mouthed, holding the chain and the padlock, her eyes watching the space where the children had been until finally her chin dropped to her chest. "No."

Back upstairs, Maureen poured them both a glass of vodka in the kitchen, drinking hers and filling it again before she took them through to the living room. Leslie was sitting on the settee, crying quietly with her face in her hands. "Drink this," said Maureen, handing her the vodka.

Leslie pushed away the glass.

"Doesn't mean it's true," said Maureen, "just 'cause a wee girl out the back said it."

"It is true," said Leslie, rubbing her red face. "I fucking knew something was going on. He stayed out a couple of nights without phoning and he's never at his mum's when I phone so I knew he wasn't staying there. I fucking knew." She threw herself across the settee and grabbed the phone, pulling it towards her as she sat up.

"Don't phone him, Leslie," said Maureen, as she dialed. "Wait till ye calm down a bit."

Leslie shot her a filthy look and carried on dialing. "Mum?" she said, gesturing to Maureen to sit down next to her. "Aye. Yeah. Listen, that Katie McIntyre, is she pregnant?" She glanced at Maureen. "How far gone?" She looked at Maureen again. "Four months? Aye, yeah, I will, yeah. Good-bye."

Maureen could hear Isa's distant voice still wittering through the receiver as Leslie hung up.

Leslie stood up and lurched into the kitchen. The sudden sound of crockery smashing was accompanied by screams and curses. Maureen knew she should go in and calm her down but she thought Leslie probably didn't want to be calmed down and, anyway, Maureen was afraid of getting hurt. Having run out of crockery, Leslie swerved out of the kitchen and ran into the bathroom. Maureen could see her back as she ripped a new toilet-roll holder from the wall and turned her attention to a matching towel rail, pulling off a big lump of plaster. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bath, sobbing and holding her face, her fingers digging into her scalp. Maureen went over and put her arms around her but Leslie shook her off. "Don't fucking cuddle me," she spluttered. "I'm too fucking angry to get touched by fucking anyone." And she went back to sobbing.

They had been back in the house for an hour, Leslie sobbing and periodically getting up to break things, Maureen sipping vodka and trying not to become alarmed. She went into the kitchen and cleared up all the broken plates. She had been giving Leslie a Barbie crockery set, piece by piece, for years, and it was all shattered on the floor among the plain plates and glasses. Leslie had opened the cupboards and swept everything out of them, even the pots. She stormed back in and found Maureen cleaning. She stamped on an almost intact serving bowl, smashing it to small bits.

Maureen could see Leslie was either calming down or tiring herself out. They smoked a cigarette while sitting in the same room and Leslie stood up. "We should go," she said.

"Leslie, are you all right to drive?"

"I need to drive."

"No, ye don't. We could get a cab."

"I'm fine," said Leslie, picking her helmet off the floor. "We need the bike. How else are we going to watch Michael?"

MAUREEN PHONED KILTY from her house. Kilty had spent the day searching the Net for information about students coming from Poland to brothels in Britain. She had canceled Josh at the last minute and arranged a rematch for Tuesday night but was afraid he wouldn't turn up because she couldn't think of a decent excuse and he'd probably just think she was a head-do. She didn't really care. Did Maureen know that a lot of these women thought they were coming over to work as waitresses and chambermaids?

"I don't think that matters," said Maureen. "What else did ye turn up?"

Kilty said that the gangs who recruited them didn't always keep the women. Sometimes they sold them to another gang and the women had to work for nothing to pay off the debt. It took years sometimes and the going rate was fifteen thousand pounds. If the police caught the women they treated it as a local matter and just deported them back to their country of origin. Deporting the women meant there was no witness against the gangs and no case. "And guess what? Remember ye couldn't work out why McGee is so attached to Poland? I'll tell ye: trafficking isn't an offense in Poland."

"Fucking bastard."

They had to kill a couple of hours before meeting Kilty. Leslie used the time to mope and smoke, looking wistfully out of windows and periodically locking herself in the toilet to cry. Maureen saw her glaring at the phone a couple of times, as if it were a direct line to Cammy.

They were sitting side by side like the three wise monkeys, watching the door and not knowing what to do. They had been there for a while and the cold stone step was numbing Maureen's bum. Across the square the Park Circus Health Club was busy. Punters arrived and left. They were middle-aged men, out for their Sunday-night fuck. Mostly they were alone but a couple of twosomes arrived, smiling hard as they jogged up to the door. A fat man with thin legs arrived in a car and paused on the top step before pressing the bell, wringing his hands with his elbows bowed to the sides.

"What's he doing?" asked Kilty.

"Taking his wedding ring off," said Maureen.

Leslie sighed heavily.

"You all right, Leslie?" said Kilty.

"No," she said.

Kilty took Leslie's hand, squeezing it hard and holding on to it. Maureen could see it made Leslie uncomfortable but she didn't want to yank her hand away so she left it, glancing at it a couple of times, wishing Kilty would get off her. Eventually she had to offer her a fag to make her let go.

They watched the man press the bell. The door opened and they saw the bodybuilder inside, leaning against the wall, smiling and greeting the man with an outstretched hand.

"My stupid fucking father," whispered Kilty.

"He didn't know, Kilty," said Maureen. "He wouldn't have told us if he knew."

"Yeah." Leslie rubbed her back. "He didn't know."

"Piss off," said Kilty gently, knowing they were trying to be kind. "All it takes is a glance at the fucking newspapers. These poor women think they're coming here to study-"

"I think they know what they're coming here for," said Maureen.

Kilty seemed disappointed. "Why do you think that?"

"That's what Candy III said, really. She said they get their passports taken away and made to work for nothing."

Maureen could tell that Kilty had a problem with it. "But why would Ella fall out with her son about that, then?"

"Ella was a pro herself," said Maureen. "We might have trouble seeing how wrong that is but Ella wouldn't."

It was dark now and the grassy hills in the park had turned a velvet blue. The rusting iron gates leading into the park hung idly from their struts. Maureen thought of Ella's bitter son Si, furious at what his mother did for money, never thinking what she was giving up for him, never wondering at the resourcefulness it took to do that. Candy II wasn't bitter, and look at her life. She thought of bitter Una, sitting in her big house with a healthy baby and a brand-new car at her door. And she thought of herself and her past, of all the golden moments that had passed unappreciated because she was bitter too. The one thing they had in common was their victimhood, and that mantle was a negation of all the wonder in life, a license to brutalize without compunction. She wondered if she was using it to kill Michael, if it seemed inevitable simply because she wanted to do it so much. Back across the road, the light in the doorway flickered, and as Maureen looked up she imagined a school assembly lineup, with Si McGee and dead-eyed Tonsa sitting on a parquet floor next to Candy II, gleefully spitting mucus-covered Kinder-eggs over the floor towards a row of angry teachers.