Denise Mina - Resolution

They watched as Winnie struggled to lift her hand, straining hard, letting out exasperated sighs. Finally she managed to get the oxygen mask off, pulling it to the side so that it cupped her chin. "You've…" She stopped to breathe, shutting her eyes to concentrate. She opened them again. "You've… you've been a lovely audience."

And Winnie coughed a laugh and fell back on the bed.

In a typical Winnie-esque fuckup, despite having used her final words and written her epitaph, the doctors assured them that she would recover. They wouldn't be able to assess the extent of her liver damage until later or vouch for her future health if she carried on drinking. They could come in tomorrow to visit if they wanted but now they should go home and rest.

Una insisted that she drive George home in her big car and they all set off for the car park together. It was three in the morning and a yellow dawn was threatening on the horizon. It was very cold.

"Is anyone ever going to tell me about Michael?" said Maureen.

George put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "We didn't want you to worry," he said, and squeezed again. "Your dad killed a man in the hospital. He's never coming out."

"George O'Donnell, you re my dad," she said, responding to the wrong bit of information. Liam turned and looked back at her. George squeezed her shoulder hard and let his hand fall.

Liam started the engine and pulled out of the car park. "Who did Michael kill?" asked Maureen. Liam clucked his tongue. "A guy. Just a guy." She lit cigarettes for them and handed Liam his, watching the city slide past the window, enjoying the orange lights and huge navy blue sky. When she looked back Liam was watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"It wasn't just a guy, Mauri. It was Pauline Doyle's brother."

She let it go.

"He was twice Michael's size," said Liam, "and he was young as well. He had a video camera with him but no tape in it."

She wanted to tell him about the rush of blinding fury when she had seen the camera and knew, suddenly and completely, that Doyle was the other brother all along. She wanted to tell him about throwing herself through the window, her shoulder hitting Doyle as he hurried to stand. How, wrong-footed, he had toppled over into the bush and how she had used the knife without hesitating. She stood over him, watching the fountain of blood jet from his jugular like an early death in a slasher movie, heard him gurgle and, behind her, Michael trying to say something. She pressed his hand to Doyle's knife, took the tape from the video and left through the window. Doyle must have met Angus when he went to visit Pauline in the Northern and Angus would have given him the address for the pictures and the video. It was all so pat and clear she could hardly believe it hadn't occurred to her before. She wanted to tell Liam everything but she knew it wouldn't be fair.

"See Tuesday night?" Liam spoke again. "When I phoned and Leslie answered?"

"Yeah."

He took a draw on his cigarette and exhaled, the stream of smoke rolling across the inside of the windscreen. "Were you asleep?"

"Yeah." She wasn't lying very well, she knew she wasn't. Liam scratched his forehead, sucking his teeth and nodding.

"I got into a situation, Liam," she said softly. "I just got into a situation."

He pulled the car over to the pavement abruptly. "How did ye get Doyle to go up there with ye?"

If she told him Doyle was helping, if she told him she'd found out at the last minute and killed Doyle instead, he'd know what she'd been planning for Michael. "Told him I had the tape and I could see his hands in it."

Liam smiled. He liked that. "And he came to get the tape off ye?"

"Aye," said Maureen. "He came to get it off me."

Liam restarted the car after three tries and drove on, nodding sometimes, shedding the extra years as he took it all in.

Maureen woke feeling happy but then remembered that she had no right to be. She had done unconscionable things that would change her life forever. She made a coffee and sat in the kitchen by the window. It was gray and raining outside, small rain, getting into everything, making pedestrians grimace and hunch. No one knew she was up here feeling happy, no one could reproach her for it. She made another coffee and lit a cigarette, shut her eyes and imagined herself in St. Petersburg, in a bland hotel drinking sour coffee and drying her face with scratchy towels. Walking along by the canal or river or whatever they had there, wearing a big coat. She saw herself going into the Hermitage, not seeing anything, just anticipating seeing things, and she opened her eyes. "Shit."

She went out into the hall and dialed the number for the hospital, got transferred to Winnie's ward and asked after her. She was stable, liver damaged, but sitting up and talking to them all. Maureen could come in at half two if she wanted. The nurse had a Belfast lilt in her voice and Maureen could tell that Winnie was charming them all. In the bedroom, she was dressing slowly and paused, looking around the floor at all the clothes. Taking three bin bags from the kitchen drawer she bagged up all the clothes from the drawers and wardrobe that she hadn't worn for a year. She put all the extra bed linen in a separate bag and leaned it against the wall. She checked her pockets for keys and money and took the bin bags downstairs.

She had meant to carry them the two blocks to a charity-shop doorway but they were too heavy. She left them sitting in the rain at the foot of a lamppost, pretending that she might take them round later, blaming the charity shop for not making it easier somehow to do the right thing.

Mr. Padda Senior was working the shop today. He flashed her a smile and a "Hello, dear" as she came in through the door. He had his gas fire on full and the damp shop was filled with a dry grain-store smell, making her wish for winter and the disinfecting cold.

Aggie Grey had been as good as her word. Billed under a headline as a major investigation, Si McGee was on the front cover of the paper, looking startled and guilty and sleazy, standing on the steps of the house in Bearsden. She could tell that his neck was shaking. There were action shots of the raids on the health club, the open door leading down the steps, men with their faces covered and a shot of a barred window. Even Mr. Goldfarb couldn't miss it. She bought two copies of the paper for no good reason, a small packet of butter, two rolls and an overpriced packet of bacon. While Mr. Padda was tilling it up she asked for a quarter of midget gems as well.

Back upstairs she read the article. Aggie's prose was emotionally flat and factual, as befitted the paper's style. The health club had been raided and the women were being detained prior to deportation. The paper even had a picture of the job agency in Warsaw. Tonsa and Si had been granted bail on Friday for a tiny amount. There was nothing much the court could charge them with, and Aggie's paper was calling for a change in the law. Maureen left the paper on the floor and went into the kitchen, turned the grill on and opened the packet of bacon. She felt fantastically happy. She was buttering the roll when it occurred to her that she shouldn't be feeling this good, that Angus's trial was finishing tomorrow and he might even get out, but she couldn't stop herself. It wasn't today and no one knew how good she felt. Maureen grinned at the rolls, thinking over and over to herself that she had got away with it, she had fucking got away with it, and even if everything turned to shit now, even if she got done for Doyle, even if Michael had to come and live with her for the rest of her life, well, fuck it. She was going to enjoy today.

She ran a bath and went to put some music on, remembered she'd given all her records to Vik and had to settle for the radio. She lay back in the bath, washing her hair as she listened to back-to-back disco tunes. When she got out and dried herself she used up the last of the handmade lavender body lotion that had cost twenty quid and brushed her wet hair back. Her forearms were healing nicely. She pulled on her favorite-ever dress, a cream cotton shift with big roses printed on it, and a pale blue cardigan to cover her arms. She sat cross-legged on the living-room floor and put on makeup, looking into a normal mirror, smiling when she caught her own eye.