Resolution

by Denise Mina

  ‘No,’ Candy II was certain,‘he went to St Aloysius. He’s a businessman.’ She smiled slowly. ‘He used to sit next to me in assembly. D’ye know his sister?’

  ‘Tonsa?’ said Maureen.

  ‘Aye. She’s mental.’

  And then a strange thing happened. The inside of a Kinder-egg, an orange and white plastic capsule, dropped from nowhere and rolled on the ground. It was wet and glistening. The sun trickled down the lane, lighting up the egg and shining through it. Inside, a little rectangle of something settled against the side. They all stared at it, apart from Candy II.

  ‘You’ve dropped your . . .’ Kilty trailed off, not knowing what to call it, and Candy looked to where Leslie’s reluctant finger was pointing.

  ‘Oh, aye.’ She fell forward from the waist like a rag doll, picked up the wet thing and wiped it clean on her leg. She opened her knees, lifted her bum off the wall, pulled the crotch of her pants aside and fitted the thing back into her vagina. She sat down again and looked at them expectantly.

  ‘I can’t think of anything else to ask ye,’ said Maureen.

  ‘Excuse me for that,’ said Candy II, knowing she had breached the formal rules of etiquette.

  Maureen had to ask:‘You’re not using that as birth control, are ye?’

  Candy II laughed a high happy laugh, wrinkling her nose and squeezing her eyes tight. She looked like she’d be a good laugh if she was at herself. She held her hands up. ‘No pockets,’ she said, looking down at her bra. ‘They’d steal this if it was their size.’

  ‘Why would they steal from ye?’ asked Kilty, smiling.

  ‘They must have money to come to ye in the first place.’

  ‘Oh, they love ye till they shoot it. Then they fucking hate ye, like ye made them come looking for ye. They want tae hurt ye, a lot of them.’ ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Shamed,’ said Candy II nodding sadly. ‘They’re all ashamed.’ She stood up abruptly and Maureen took an extra tenner out of her pocket and handed it to her. ‘Ye haven’t asked me why I do it,’ said Candy, suddenly coherent. ‘Do what?’ asked Maureen.

  ‘This,’ she said, pointing at the ground. ‘That’s what everyone wants to know. How did we get started, why we do it.’

  Maureen shrugged. ‘I’m not bothered about that, Candy, everyone’s got their reasons.’

  ‘I do it for my weans,’ said Candy II, talking to the far wall, her eyes wetting, her mouth drooping at the corners, ‘because I love them. I never wanted this. I want them to have all the things I never had.’

  The line sounded heavy and hollow, like the words from an old song. Maureen and Leslie looked at the ground, embarrassed. Kilty watched Candy, enjoying the performance.

  ‘I love my weans.’ She looked at the two tenners in her hand and wept.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Maureen. ‘I heard a lot of cars there, I think you might be missing trade.’

  Candy II made a sad clown face. ‘I really love them,’ she whispered, and followed Maureen out of the lane.

  ‘Thanks for talking to us, Candy, that was nice of ye,’ said Maureen, when they were back in the bright street.

  ‘Why did ye want to know about Si McGee?’ asked Candy, no longer sad at all.

  ‘Uch, his mum died and I was just wondering about her.’ Candy II had stopped walking. ‘Ella the Flash is dead?’ ‘Aye, she died on Saturday. I went up to the hospital to visit her and she was dead.’

  ‘Aw, that’s a sin.’ Candy II’s whole body had changed. She stood upright, and crossed her arms, head dipped to the side like a woman passing on local news in a supermarket. ‘She was a gamey old dame. She was a pro an’ all.’

  ‘Aye, I know,’ said Maureen. ‘She’d retired. She’d been working at Paddy’s selling tapes, that’s how I knew her. I saw her laid out in the hospital and she hadn’t her eyebrows on—’

  Candy smiled. ‘They big mad eyebrows she used to draw on her head?’

  ‘Aye. Anyway, I drew them for her and brushed her hair up a bit.’

  ‘Aw, that’s nice. That was from the flicks, the eyebrows. From Greta Garbo or someone.’ Candy started walking again. ‘She never took no shit from no one, Ella. Always dressed nice. Got him an education. He lives in Bearsden now. Good on her, eh?’

  ‘Aye, good on her,’ said Maureen, suddenly choked. Her eyes began to prickle. Maureen wouldn’t have credited her with the wherewithal but Candy II saw she was upset and rubbed her back briskly.

  ‘’S about all ye can ask, innit?’ said Candy II.

  The smallest woman was back at the corner, tugging her skirt down and looking pissed off. Maureen was slightly annoyed to see her there. No one knew anything about Si McGee and she didn’t want to lose another twenty quid.

  ‘Go wi’ her,’ said Candy II to the woman. ‘She’ll give ye money for talking. And she’ll not ask why ye do it either.’ Candy II stepped away and over to the kerb, watching the occasional cars pass, looking in at the drivers. The small woman followed Maureen round the corner. ‘Is your name Candy?’ asked Maureen. ‘Naw, Alison.’

  She was younger than the other women and clearly hoping to cash in on it. Her bunches looked grotesque and she had drawn rosy cheeks on her face.

  ‘I’m Maureen.’ She held out her hand and Alison pulled a face.

  ‘You don’t want to touch my hand,’ she said apologetically, wiping her palm hard on her skirt.

  Alison was terrifyingly young, hardly sixteen, and her body had the unformed look of someone still developing. Her wee breasts were smashed into a tight orange bra, pushing them up to make them look like something. Maureen pointed back to the corner. ‘How many kids has she got?’

  Alison looked back at Candy II and frowned. ‘She hasn’t got kids.’

  They walked on.

  ‘Alison,’ said Maureen carefully,‘I know ye probably get asked this all the time, but how old are you?’

  ‘Is that what you’re paying to ask me?’ said Alison curtly, turning the corner into the alley. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, fuck off, then.’

  They settled on the wall. Alison took a cigarette from Leslie and a tenner from Kilty.

  ‘We want to know if you’ve ever heard of a guy called Si McGee,’ said Maureen.

  Alison thought about it, repeating the name under her breath. ‘Naw. Don’t think so.’

  ‘What about the Park Circus Health Club?’

  ‘Oh, aye, I know that, yeah. Up by the park?’ Maureen nodded.

  ‘I knew a lassie worked up there,’ said Alison,‘but she’s chucked it now. Don’t know where she is.’ ‘Why did she leave?’

  ‘She got Jesus,’ said Alison, waving her hand dismissively, as if she herself had something altogether better. ‘Heard she was doing voluntary work up at the Wayfarers’ Club.’ ‘Is that the soup kitchen by the river?’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, making fists and grimacing. ‘“Breed and jam, breed and jam.”’ She saw that they didn’t understand and added quietly,‘That’s what they say in the queue.’

  ‘Your pal who worked there,’ said Maureen. ‘What’s her name?’

  Alison took a draw on her fag. ‘Candy.’

  30

  Charlie Adams

  The man pressed the buzzer and waited on the dark stairs. He saw a glint of light from the spy-hole and smiled at it automatically, as if for a photograph. The door opened and Kevin welcomed him in. The man had been here many times, so often that now he almost got hard at the sight of green wallpaper or a blue carpet. He smiled to Cindy behind the desk but she looked away, knowing what he was here for. Kevin was standing at the top of the stairs to the basement, wearing the same cheap evening suit he always wore.

  ‘All right, Kev? said the man, handing over his three hundred quid in fresh twenties.

  ‘No bad,’ said Kevin, holding the banister, bulky and ungain
ly on the shallow steps. ‘How are ye yoursel’?’ ‘No bad, no bad.’

  The décor stopped at the bottom of the steps. The basement walls were a glossy grey, the floor bare concrete, adding a frisson of solemnity. Kevin led the man along the long corridor to a room at the end. ‘Oh,’ said the man nervously, ‘I’ve not been in this room before.’

  Kevin smiled as he took out his keys and looked through them. A lot of the punters liked to make small-talk before they went in, to chat and make it all seem normal. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice room. Soundproof.’ The man was tense but attempted a tight smile. ‘Good,’ he said, and wiped his damp lips. ‘Good.’

  Kevin swung open the door. She was skinny as fuck, dressed in cheap knickers and a bra with a see-through dress pulled over it, sitting on a double bed with a nylon flowery cover. She looked surly. The man looked in at her. ‘Hello. Speak English?’

  She didn’t answer. The man walked into the centre of the room, nodding and pulling off his belt. He called out as Kevin shut the door,‘It’s okay, isn’t it?’

  Kevin glanced back at the sulking Polish bitch on the bed. ‘Anything,’ he said, knowing she couldn’t understand. ‘Anything at all.’

  In the six months since they had started the business, Si McGee had never seen his sister so worried. She was flicking the ash from a pink cocktail fag with a gold tip over and over into the bin, kept going over the same details and wouldn’t go home even though she had nothing to do here. For Margaret, emotional behaviour of any kind constituted a full-blown panic attack.

  ‘I’m telling ye,’ she said. ‘I’m telling ye, she was there and she was noising up the Sheriff. We don’t need this. We don’t need this now. Charlie’ll go fucking spastic. He’ll make his move if there’s a squeak of trouble.’

  ‘There won’t be trouble,’ said Si. ‘Calm down. There won’t be trouble.’

  Margaret squashed out the cigarette against the side of the metal waste-bin and took out her handbag, clipping it open and lifting out the black and gold fag packet.

  ‘Why did you put it out if you’re going to light another one?’ he said, trying to get her off the subject.

  Margaret flicked back the gold paper and selected a green cigarette this time. ‘The bit near the filters gives ye cancer.’ She lit up and began flicking it into the bin interminably. ‘You don’t know the Adams family like I do. You’ve never met them. Nothing stops business. A bit of trouble and they’ll wipe us.’

  ‘They’ll move on us soon anyway,’ Si pointed out. ‘You said so yourself. As soon as we’re up and running, they’ll wait for us to move on them, and if we don’t they’ll move on us.’

  ‘It’s the worst time for this shit to fucking happen, I’m telling ye.’ She was frightened, and Si knew from his management course at university that now was the time to take charge, show leadership. ‘Look.’ He lifted her bag off his desk and handed it to her. ‘Put that on the floor.’ On the desk between them was a copy of a newspaper, open at a picture of Maureen. ‘We’ve got her picture,’ he said. ‘We both know what she looks like. We took care of Ella and we can sort her out too. It’s a problem, I grant you, but it’s a fixable problem. Tell me it’s a fixable problem.’ Margaret glared at him resentfully.

  ‘Tell me it’s a fixable problem,’ he repeated slowly, trying not to smile.

  She didn’t smile back at him, but that didn’t mean she didn’t get it. Margaret rarely smiled. She swallowed and puffed her cigarette.

  ‘It’s a fixable problem,’ she said obediently. ‘But I cannae fix it. And you cannae. The court case’ll finger us both.’

  ‘We’ll just have to delegate, then,’ he said patiently. ‘What about Kevin?’

  Margaret tutted under her breath. ‘Fuck off. He’s fucking useless. Charlie Adams’ll go fucking mad if anything happens here. He’ll say he was coming in tae get his dough back and wipe us out, take the whole fucking thing over.’

  ‘You think I don’t want rid of her too? She shouted at me in front of my schoolfriends.’ He blushed at the memory. The kind regard of the St Al’s old boys was all he had left now the estate agent’s business was closing up and Maureen O’Donnell had tried to humiliate him, to take even that away from him. He took a deep breath. ‘We’ll take care of it. Stop worrying.’

  Margaret stubbed her cigarette, sending a cloud of orange flecks into the bin. ‘Will we ever be big enough to fuck Charlie Adams over?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Si said, lifting the edges of the file and slapping it shut. ‘Soon. And the minute we’re big enough to pay him off and clean our own money, he’ll try and fuck us.’

  ‘Just keep him sweet,’ she said, nodding to the fire exit.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Charlie sets a lot of store by him.’

  ‘I will,’ Si repeated. ‘I will.’

  He had to stop and catch his breath. He wasn’t young any more. The combination of everything, the woman, the warm room and the flecks of blood, it was too much. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, put his feet flat on the floor, and hung over his knees, breathing in deeply. Behind him he heard her panting and moaning. ‘D’ye like that, do ye?’ he said, wiping the sweat from his face with an open hand. ‘Yeah? You fucking like it, don’t ye?’ ‘I’m love you,’ she said.

  He thought he had misheard her, thought the heat and the exertion were making him imagine words but she said it again. ‘I’m love you.’

  He laughed, disbelievingly, and looked up at her. She was tied to the wall, her hands together above her head, her feet chained to the bedposts. Her naked back and buttocks were swollen with red welts from his belt and bloody scratches where the buckle had cut her. ‘You love me, do ye?’

  She twisted on her shackles, bending her head over her shoulder so she could see him out of the corner of her eye. Her eyes were dark and open wide, looking around at such a sharp angle that she resembled a frightened cow. ‘I live your home?’ she said. ‘You’ll leave my home?’

  ‘I live you? You out me, I live you?’ He understood what she meant. ‘You wantae come and live with me?’ he said, climbing on to the bed. ‘I live you,’ she said, turning back to face the wall. He took hold of her ankles and yanked her legs further apart on the bed. ‘You wantae live wi’ me? Is that it?’ He stood up behind her, resting his chin on her skinny shoulder, running a fingernail across her ripped back. ‘What makes ye think I’d have a cheap cunt like you in ma fucking house?’

  Kevin was at the door. ‘Mr G?’ he said softly, nodding to Si. ‘Spot of bother. Complaint from a punter.’

  Si beckoned him to come in. ‘What sort of complaint?’ ‘One of them’s speaking English, asking him to get her out of here.’

  Margaret picked up her handbag and pulled out her Swiss Army knife. ‘Show me,’ she said.

  Kevin led her down the corridor to the far room, fumbling to find the key. Kevin didn’t like being alone with Margaret and she knew it. He had seen too much of her to think she was harmless.

  ‘Are ye a bit nervous, Kevin?’

  He pressed his lips together and pushed open the door.

  The woman was still on the wall, slumped and hanging from her wrists, her legs buckled beneath her, bent at the knees, the tops of her feet flat on the pillow. Margaret ordered Kevin to bring her down off there and he held the woman up by the waist as he undid the straps, trying not to hold her so close that he got blood on his suit. He put the woman down on the bed, not roughly but not gently either. Her exhausted arms rose of their own accord, settling by her ears, folding over the top of her head. She had been punched on the nose and it looked fat and broken. Her eyes were swelling up. She tried to look up and see who was there.

  ‘Awake?’ said Margaret softly. The battered woman nodded.

  Margaret pointed to the door. ‘Get out?’ she said. The woman looked around, tried to work out who was there and what was going on. She
tried to sit up but couldn’t bring her arms to her sides. She cringed and lay back on the bed, folding her arms over her head again, letting the fingers of one hand flop over her eyes.

  Margaret leaned forward and took the hand in her own. She yanked it away, making the woman cry out. ‘Out?’ she said loudly. Kevin saw a glint of silver and a sudden spill of blood coming from the back of the woman’s hand. ‘Ye want out?’ Margaret held the tip of the knife in the open wound, twisting, letting the weight of the penknife press down into the open flesh. The woman was crying like a child, and coughing, her skinny back arching off the bed. Margaret lifted her hand and, just before she brought it down on the woman’s sore face, Kevin saw an expression on it. Her eyes were open a little wider than usual. He didn’t know what it meant. He’d never seen any expression on her face at all. For the first three months here he’d wondered whether she had Parkinson’s.

  As he was locking the door he asked her about using the knife. ‘Why’s it always on the hands?’ ‘We don’t need their hands.’

  At exactly eight o’clock they heard a single, soft rap at the fire door. Si McGee checked the grey CCTV monitor on top of the filing cabinet and saw who it was. He flicked off the fire alarm and stepped across the room, pressing the bar down and opening the door.

  Mark Doyle swung the bag in front of him, sitting it on the desk as Si shut the door behind him. He sat down, clicking his knuckles before zipping open the bag and taking out a wedge of laundered twenties. ‘Is it all here?’ Si said, his greedy little eyes lighting up.

  ‘Ye say that every time,’ said Doyle. ‘D’ye think Charlie Adams is ripping ye off?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Si, staring into the bag. He knew a single remark out of place would be reported back to Charlie Adams. Doyle was his eyes and ears, the sole protector of Adams’ investment. ‘I don’t mean that at all.’

  Doyle’s glance fell to the table and the open newspaper. ‘What’s this?’ he said, tapping the picture of Maureen O’Donnell with a finger.

  Bewildered, Si looked up. ‘Oh, her.’ He saw Doyle looking at it intently. ‘Do you know her?’