Denise Mina - Resolution

Kilty had brought a crisp white shirt with an open neck and short sleeves for her to wear but her bloody arms would have showed. Maureen said she had already decided to wear a yellow top with long sleeves and the words "porn star" printed on the chest. Leslie was ironing her skirt in the kitchen and shouted through that it was much better than the clean white shirt. Kilty watched them both curiously. Maureen changed in the bathroom. The tissue had dried on the blood, sticking to the wounds, but she didn't want to change the dressing herself. She put the clothes on and made an attempt with some makeup, using the last of the Dior mascara she had bought when she was flush, rubbing Touche Eclat into every crevice.

They left the house early, tripping down the stairs. The sun was splitting the pavement, filling the city with an unearthly white light. They walked in unison, barely talking, following the quieter streets down to the river. It was half past nine and the traffic was thinning after the rush hour. Harassed-looking women in estate cars drove home after the school run and bus drivers, pissed off after the early shift, jammed the road on their way back to the station. Maureen was so tired she could hardly feel her feet on the ground, hardly see a hundred yards in front of her through the scalding light.

They walked along by the river, sweating gently, picking up the breeze as they passed the Sheriff Court on the far bank and followed the road round to the tail end of Paddy's. The settee was still under the bridge but the men weren't there. Maureen half raised a thoughtless hand, waving to where they might have been. Down the lane Gordon Go-a-Bike thought she was greeting him and waved in response, pedaling slowly, going nowhere.

The High Court of Justiciary looked out over Glasgow Green, where junkie prostitutes, too down on their luck to look for drivers, relied on drunken pedestrians for their trade. Flanked by the city mortuary, the front of the building was a neoclassical string of ionic columns surmounting a set of stairs, topped off by a long pediment. Gathered outside on the stairs, four or five clumps of smokers made the most of the opportunity, puffing away and chatting to one another. One group was composed of lawyers, obvious in their expensive suits and easy manner. Another crowd wore cheaper suits and nylon skirts, smiling nervously and inhaling deeply.

Inside, through a revolving door, was a white lobby with a sparkling mosaic floor that ended abruptly in a set of plain, modern fire doors. At the side of the stairs a court official in a gray uniform was standing behind a black marble desk and police officers were dotted around, as if they were expecting trouble. The hall was full of people looking lost, wearing somber outfits. At each side of the hallway, suspended from the ceiling, were television monitors, stuck on vibrant blue screen and Maureen saw the name: HMA v. Farrell . She approached the reception desk.

"Can I help you?" said the uniformed man pleasantly.

"I don't know where to go," said Maureen. "I'm a witness."

"Do you know which case it is?"

Maureen pointed up at the monitor. "That one," she said, and showed him her citation paper.

A black-haired policeman in a short-sleeved shirt stepped forward from the back wall. The police had been watching Reception, waiting for her to check in, and now they were coming to arrest her for what she had done. Sweet relief washed over her. It was finished. She could tell someone what had happened, every detail, and hope for absolution. "Maureen O'Donnell," he said, pulling out a clipboard and ticking off her name. "If you'd just like to come with me."

Maureen smiled a consolation to Leslie, who looked worried, and followed the officer through a wood-paneled room off Reception and to the door of a waiting room. "We need you to stay here," he said, "and give us notice if you have to go to the toilet or anything."

It seemed like pretty lax security for a murder suspect but Maureen wasn't going anywhere. The police officer read the "porn star" motif on her T-shirt and looked alarmed.

"Not really," Maureen reassured him, smiling weakly.

He ushered her in and shut the door behind her. It was a small room. Cushioned metal seats were pushed up against the walls and sunshine poured in through a small, high window. He was in shadow at the far end of the room, his skinny ass taking up half of a chair, wearing a wide-necked T-shirt that slid off a shoulder, showing enough skin to be obscene on a woman.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" said Maureen, and Paulsa winced.

"Same as you," he said, moving his mouth too much for the words, as if his lips were numb.

Maureen sat down heavily next to him, wondering why he had been arrested. "What have you done?"

Paulsa laughed, high and fast, like a chimp in distress, and shot to his feet, moving across the room towards the door just as it opened again. The uniformed man stood aside to reveal Shirley, the blond receptionist from the Rainbow Clinic, clutching a tiny handbag in front of her like a shield. When she saw Maureen, dismay shimmered across her face. The officer stood aside, holding the door open over her head, ushering Shirley into the room. She smiled a polite thank-you, ducked under his arm and sat down on one of the chairs. Maureen hadn't been arrested after all. She was there as a defense witness in Angus's trial and so were Paulsa and Shirley.

Paulsa and Maureen watched Shirley take a small crossword book out of her handbag, a pencil and a roll of mints. She opened the book, pressed the pages apart and began to consider an important clue.

Shirley had been friendly when Maureen went to the Rainbow Clinic. They chatted during her visits there and when Maureen went back after Douglas died Shirley had talked to her about it. Something had happened in the interim. Something had happened that made Shirley now think that Maureen was frightening and disgusting. Paulsa, assuming he was spotting an ally in Shirley, went to sit three seats down from her. Too polite to get up and move, Shirley glanced distastefully at Paulsa's dirty tennis shoes and shifted the angle of her crossed legs away from him in a small, symbolic rejection.

Maureen's knees felt watery. She sat down, watching the door, and hoped the nausea would pass. Shirley would tell the jury that Maureen had been back to the clinic after Douglas died, asking questions about him, that she'd gone to see Angus. Paulsa would tell them that Maureen got the acid from Liam. Of all the people gathered in the witnesses' waiting room one thing was abundantly clear: Maureen was the bad guy and everyone knew it.

Nothing happened all morning. No one came to get them. They were allowed to go to the loo, as long as they told someone where they were off to. There were no-smoking signs all over the building but the toilet smelled of stale cigarettes and Maureen waved her lit fags around to disseminate the smoke in case there were hidden alarms.

All morning they sat, trying to find a place for their gaze that wasn't someone else's face, chest or groin. The room got smaller as the hours ticked by and Paulsa became increasingly agitated. He kept going to the loo and coming back, sitting down heavily and flicking the heel of a tennis shoe on and off. Shirley finished her crossword and moved on to another one.

Maureen felt sick with exhaustion. Tiny air bubbles made their way up her throat, popping in her mouth. The heat and sunlight in the room created optimum sleeping conditions and suddenly she stopped believing in last night or Michael or even the existence of Gartnavel. She was in the Hermitage wearing a warm fur coat, sitting in front of Matisse's Arab Coffeehouse , watching the goldfish turn and swirl. Bright colors fanned from their tails, falling through the frame to the floor and ceiling like sparks from a Catherine wheel. Every drop of color sanctified what it touched. She was smiling, smelling sweet cardamom and watching the world being cleansed with color, when she turned her head and saw a flash. Mark Doyle was next to her, the pointed black tip of his tongue emerged from between red lips, turning into a roaring black cyclone, rushing, growing, opening wide to engulf her.