Resolution

Chapter 27

The Sheriff Court was a huge building facing the river with modernist columns in gray granite and windows set well back, giving it a solemn, unwelcoming air. Maureen had been fresh and clean when she left the market but during the short walk across the bridge the hot sun made her legs damp and her skirt ride up, the thin inner lining gathering around her waist. She kept expecting McGee's hand on her shoulder as she came off the bridge and followed the path to the imposing front steps. The doorway was four stories high, a smoked-glass window leading into a vast lobby and the hollow heart of the courts. Inside the door, security staff were gathered around a high-arched metal detector. Two large signs, one on each wall, ordered people to leave their knives, swords and guns outside. Maureen walked through the metal detector without setting it off and approached a reception desk. "I'm looking for the small-claims court," she said, and noticed that her voice sounded shaky.

The man behind the counter nodded her to a spiral staircase in the center of the lobby. "Court three," he said. "Up to the top."

Her knees were trembling as she climbed the stairs but she thought of Ella lying on the cold metal trolley in the makeshift chapel and took hold of the handrail firmly, pulling herself up. The door to the court was locked and the claimants had to wait on soft chairs in the corridor, facing one another, watching for their adversaries to come and sit next to them. An old man across from Maureen, dressed in his best cheap suit, scraped the sweat from his palms with the edge of an underground ticket. A woman next to him was twitching and being comforted by her tarty daughter in a pink plastic skirt and white vest top. Everyone had their papers with them, held in folders or envelopes, some with crumpled letters from the court, folded to fit into a pocket. Maureen sat down and watched the stairs. At exactly two thirty a small man in a blue uniform unlocked the door from the inside, pinning it open into the corridor.

The court was partitioned off into concentric circles by low wooden walls. In the center of the room stood a large, highly polished table with wigged and gowned lawyers sitting around it, speaking quietly to one another and looking through papers. The lawyers' strange outfits made them look like the perpetrators of a bizarre practical joke. Below the judge's bench, sitting alone, was a young woman with silver-rimmed glasses and a dark, sleek bob showing beneath her white wig. Surrounding the table was a low wooden partition wall with areas for hemming in the public, the jury and, farthest away and higher than everyone else, the judge's big fancy chair.

The man in the blue uniform told the public to sit down in the two rows of benches near the door. Maureen tried to get in first in case Si turned up and she had to sit near him, but everyone wanted to sit there. She had to settle for a seat next to the aisle. When they were all sitting down the bobbed woman lawyer explained that she was the clerk of the court. As their cases were called, she said, they were to stand up and come through the little partition gate to the big table and wait to be asked about the details.

"Only answer questions from the sheriff and only speak through the sheriff. Do not speak to each other while the sheriff is dealing with your case, is that clear?"

They nodded dumbly, and the blue man went off through a side door. The tarty girl giggled about something and her mother huffed in dismay. Maureen was watching them when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall, slim woman slip in from the corridor and sit three benches back. She was wearing a smart gray trouser suit with a pale slate scarf. She settled her expensive leather handbag on her knee, her gaze focused on air. It was Tonsa. She didn't look around, didn't try to find anyone among the crowd, but Maureen knew that Tonsa was there to warn her.

The usher came back out of the side door, told them all to stand up and the sheriff came in. He walked along the back row and sat down. The usher told them all they could sit down now, and they did.

Maureen looked around at the public benches. Everyone was frightened and apprehensive, not knowing what was going to happen next or what was expected of them. The sheriff called the first case and they relaxed back into their chairs as they realized it wasn't them. Two of the lawyers in the central pen stood up and told the sheriff that they were representing the respective parties to the case. They all muttered to one another and the sheriff read for a bit and told them to come back later. The bobbed clerk read through her papers and gave them a date. After a short read the sheriff called another case. The nervous mother with the tarty daughter leaped to her feet and turned this way and that, looking terrified. The usher beckoned her through the little partition and she stood at the table with the lawyers and waited expectantly while the sheriff read through the notes. The woman was shaking. Even the skin on her back seemed to be trembling under her nylon blouse. Behind Maureen the woman's tarty daughter giggled unhelpfully and told the man next to her to look, look at the state of her. When the sheriff finally asked her a question the nervous woman looked as if she might go into spasm. The sheriff asked if the other party was represented. One of the lawyers said he was there on behalf of someone or other. The sheriff told them to come back later and the clerk gave them a date.

This long and tedious process continued. Maureen was getting increasingly anxious. Tonsa wasn't looking at her: she was staring blindly ahead, not fidgeting like the other members of the public, sitting still like a snake laying a trap. Maureen looked her over. Her face was blank. She blinked, making Maureen jump and turn back to the court, afraid she had been spotted.

As she watched it became obvious that the sheriff hadn't read any of the papers and was so disinterested that all he could do was put the cases off for two weeks. Another set of disappointed people came back to their seats in the public benches, and she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. Kilty was standing behind her, nudging along the bench to sit down. "Hiya," said Maureen, unreasonably excited in the circumstances.

"I skived off my work," whispered Kilty.

"I'm glad," said Maureen, happily looking around now that her pal was with her.

Ella's case was called. Maureen looked at Tonsa, expecting her to stand up and go to the table. Tonsa didn't move. The case was called again and Maureen stood up, trembling, and made her way through the partition to the table, embarrassed because Tonsa was watching her. One of the lawyers sidled up next to her with an impressive bundle of papers and leaned on the table with his fingertips, turning the knuckles white. The sheriff looked up at Maureen over his glasses and through force of habit she smiled at him. He did not smile back. He went back to reading the papers. "Are you representing Mr. Simon McGee?" he asked eventually.

The lawyer next to her nodded. "Yes, Your Honor."

"And you," – he looked at Maureen again – "are you Mrs. Ella McGee?"

"No," said Maureen, and found her voice ridiculously nervous and squeaky. "I'm a friend of Mrs. McGee. I've come to tell you that Mrs. McGee-"

"Wait, "interrupted the sheriff, "until! ask you."

"But she can't be here because-"

"You will wait until I ask you, "said the sheriff.

Maureen shook her head in frustration and looked at the lawyer next to her. "She's dead," she whispered to him. "What's the point in him reading the papers?"

The lawyer gestured for her to wait. After pointedly reading the notes for an inordinately long time, the sheriff looked up at Maureen as if it were she who had kept him waiting.

"I'm afraid Mrs. McGee's dead," said Maureen. "She died earlier this week."

"You cannot bring an action if Mrs. McGee has died," said the sheriff, with forced patience. "The action falls with her death."

"I don't want to bring the case," said Maureen, angry at his patronizing manner. "I just came here as a courtesy to tell you that she was dead."

The lawyers around the table smiled. The sheriff smirked at them, then turned sternly back at Maureen. He nodded back to the public benches. "Sit down."

"There's no need to be rude," snapped Maureen.

At this the sheriff sat up straight and glared at her. He was, Maureen suspected, not a man used to being challenged by members of the plebiscite.

"Out," he said, and the blue-uniformed man stood up and approached her, as if he'd physically eject her if she didn't do his master's bidding.

Kilty stood up behind her. "Come on, dolly," she said, her voice rich and fond.

"DOESN'T EXACTLY BODE well for the trial on Monday, does it?" said Maureen. "I've only ever met one judge and he chucked me out of his court."

She handed Kilty the burning cigarette. They were on the sloping bank outside the court, looking onto the river. Maureen hadn't told Kilty that Tonsa was there. She was too afraid to say it, but she thought they would be safer sitting on the grass in full view of the security guards than skulking around in a dark tunnel in Paddy's. She heard people walking behind her, to and from the court, and every single one might have been Tonsa.

"Still," said Kilty, "I think they have to be cheeky or no one'll do what they say."

"Yeah," said Maureen. "That level of rudeness does my tits in."

Kilty took a puff of the cigarette, and exhaled immediately. Maureen often wondered why Kilty bothered smoking cigarettes at all. All she did with them was make her teeth dirty. Kilty rolled nearer to her. "I've been thinking about McGee, Mauri," she said quietly. "He's a member of the Polish Club – I asked my dad about it, and the fees there are about six hundred a year. If he can afford that he'd hardly kill his mum over seven hundred, would he?"

Short, sharp footsteps approached them from behind, clipping across the concrete, coming straight for them. They didn't sound like high heels but Maureen couldn't be sure.

"Think about it," said Kilty. "Doesn't make any sense for him to do that, does it, really?"

The person was ten yards away and closing. Maureen cringed, rounding her back, and turned to see a suited body. The man walked straight past her and sat down heavily on the grass next to Kilty. "You were great in there," he said to Maureen. It was Si McGee's lawyer.

"But I got chucked out."

"I know," he said, grinning as he took out a packet of cigarettes, "but you fundamentally undermined his authority. It was a bit of a shambles after you left."

He offered them a cigarette each and Kilty took one, even though she was sharing with Maureen. He was the same age as them with fat red lips and a single dark eyebrow that dipped to a widow's peak in the middle of his nose, setting his face in a perpetual frown. He would be amazing looking when he got older and filled out, when his lips lost some of their luster and his eyebrow bushed up and turned gray.

"Kilty Goldfarb." Kilty held out her tiny hand, and as he took it Maureen understood why he had approached them.

"Josh Menzies."

Josh and Kilty grinned at each other, got embarrassed by what they were both thinking, and looked away sharply. Maureen couldn't handle the tension of sitting on the grass waiting for Tonsa to attack her for a minute longer. "It's an interesting building, the Sheriff Court," she said.

"Yes," Josh nodded, "it is interesting."

Kilty and Josh smoked in silence.

"Maybe you could show us around it," said Maureen.

"Yes!" Josh exclaimed. "I could show you around the building. There's a cafe, we could have a coffee together."

"Oh. My. God," said Kilty, as if he were offering unlimited access to Jesus, Tom Jones and the Crown Jewels. "That would be brilliant."

Josh and Kilty simultaneously threw away their barely touched cigarettes and got up, brushing themselves down and grinning widely at the river. Maureen hadn't finished her cigarette but felt it would be churlish to insist. She already felt superfluous as they walked back to the Sheriff Court and up the steps. Josh and Kilty weren't talking to each other but they were smiling coyly, weaving back and forth towards each other as they walked up to the door.

Josh took them on a dull tour of the building, which consisted mostly of him pointing at different doors and saying that there was a court in there. Throughout the tour Kilty simpered and Josh basked. When their interest in each other got too blatant or they got stuck looking into each other's eyes, Maureen asked a question. Josh was a lawyer and he came from Edinburgh. His dad was a bus driver and his mum ran a newsagent's. He lived in Glasgow now, in the West End.

"Just like me!" squealed Kilty.

"So, do you know Si McGee, then?" said Maureen, keen to change the subject before Kilty had a public orgasm.

"No," said Josh. "We just get the papers for small claims, we don't get briefed."

"His sister was in there, did you see her?"

"No, was she? I don't know either of them."

He took them to the cafeteria. It was a large room, running the full length of one side of the building. Only the lawyers and court staff were allowed to use it. Suits and gowns and uniforms clustered around tables, keeping with their own kind. Because it was late on a Friday afternoon the cafe had run out of sandwiches. There were only crisps and biscuits left. They ordered three tasteless coffees in orange plastic cups. Josh insisted on paying for them, winking flashily as he took out a twenty and waved it at Kilty, who giggled.

They were sitting down at a long table, sipping coffee, when Maureen became aware of someone standing just behind her at the limit of her line of vision, like Michael. The person was looking at her and, sure it was Tonsa, Maureen spun round to catch her. Benny Gardner was staring at her.

Benny Gardner had been Liam and Maureen's mutual best friend at school. As stamp collectors find one another at church fetes, as pedophiles meet at bus stops, the children of alcoholic families know the signals and find their own. Benny had been expelled from school for being pissed in class and setting fire to a toilet. At the tail end of his drinking, Benny was blacking out so much that his stories started to sound like other people's dreams. One day he woke up in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and miraculously, against all bets, got sober, went to university and did a law degree.

He had changed in the year since she had seen him. He was dressed in a conservative suit, a white shirt and a dark tie. He was balder and had two long parallel white scars on his jawline below his ear. His shoes were highly polished. He looked at her helplessly, opened his limp hands towards her, pleading.

"Hey, Benny," said Josh, "come here."

Benny approached the table, circling Maureen as if he was afraid of her. Josh tried to start some showy banter with him, teasing him about his team, but Benny didn't respond. He was looking at Maureen. "Can I speak to you?" said Benny quietly, his teeth clenched tightly.

"I've got nothing to say to you," said Maureen, looking at her coffee.

Maureen and Liam didn't see Benny anymore, not since Angus Farrell had blackmailed him, threatening his golden future, using him to inveigle his way into Maureen's house and plant evidence. Liam beat up Benny so badly he spent two weeks in hospital. They lied to each other now and said they didn't miss Benny, didn't wonder what he was up to or think about him. There was some suggestion that Winnie had met him at AA but Maureen was afraid to ask Liam about it.

"I need to talk," said Benny. "It's about Monday."

Maureen looked at him. Benny had grown up. He had dips in his cheeks, under his eyes, Al Pacino pouches that made him look old. The last time she had seen Benny was after Liam beat him up: he had been lying in a bed at the Albert, his eyes purple and swollen like tennis balls, his wrist broken and his jaw wired together. She'd poked him in the eye and walked away. Had it been any other time, even a couple of days ago, she'd have snubbed him but now everything was coming to an end and Benny felt like part of a happier past. He knew Angus, had fucked her over for him before, and as far as she knew he was probably the source of the video and the pictures, but she wanted to talk to him. She wondered if Liam would see it that way. He probably missed Benny just as much as she did but he'd never admit it. She stood up slowly, and followed him to a nearby empty table, clutching her coffee and sitting down opposite him, waiting for him to speak.

"How have ye been?" he asked.

"Okay."

Benny looked around the tabletop. "I heard about Farrell's case coming up on Monday, I saw you in the papers."

"You've got scars." She gestured to his jaw and he raised his hand, touched the ridges of skin on his face.

"Aye," he said sadly. "Long-term reminder of the fact that I'm a skank." He tried to smile at her but she wasn't having it. He put his hands on the table, sitting one on top of the other. "Mauri, I'm so sorry. I know ye can never forgive me." He looked up to see how he was doing but she glared back and he dropped his eyes to his hands again. "I can't defend what I did. I didn't think Farrell was that smart, I didn't think he'd get away with what he did. He threatened to make my record public if I didn't help him. I'm sorry I hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me, Benny, ye put me in terrible danger-ye discussed aspects of my psychiatric history with a man so he wouldn't spoil your chances of a good job. Do you know why he killed Douglas?"

Benny looked at her. "I thought they fell out."

"Angus was raping catatonic patients in a psychiatric unit and Douglas found out. He killed him to cover up. That's what you were participating in, that's who you were helping."

Benny cringed, rubbing hard at his eyes, digging his fingers deep into the sockets.

"And you claim to be sober and leading a good life?" she said.

"I don't claim that," he said, sitting up to face her, looking like the Benny she used to know. "I just claim to be doing my best. At that time I didn't know what the consequences of my actions were. I lied to myself about what I was doing and why I was doing it. I thought ye'd be okay-I was lying to myself. I don't have an excuse but I'm sorry and I'm trying not to lie to myself now."

He sat back and dropped his head, showing her his crown as he rubbed his hand over the cropped hair. It wasn't a very satisfying explanation but it was honest and he wasn't pretending not to be responsible. She heard his hand rasp across his head and wondered if he was still in the same flat in Maryhill, how his sister was and whether he'd seen Winnie, what films he was into just now and why he was in court today. But he'd fucked her over for Angus before. He could have run up the road to her house in his lunch hour, dropped the video and been back here without anyone noticing.

"What videos are ye watching these days?" she said, watching his face carefully.

"Oh, man" – his face lit up, eager and enthusiastic – "Takeshi Kitano. Have ye seen anything by him?"

She shook her head.

"You should. Violent Cop, it's fucking brilliant. And Hana Bi. Get it out."

There was nothing in his face or manner to suggest that he knew what she was hinting at so she tried again. "You enjoy watching videos, don't you?" she said solemnly.

Benny looked at her dumbly.

"And looking at photographs."

His face twitched and he sat back, staring at her, baffled. "Wha'?"

She leaned in, watching him carefully. "Do I like to look at photographs, do you think?"

Benny laughed, puzzled. "Are you trying to find out if I'm a mason or something?"

Maureen realized that she sounded like a cold-war cliché. She snorted, trying not to catch his eye or guffaw at the preposterous-ness of it all.

"How's the big man these days?" he said.

It was an old joke. Liam was half a foot shorter than Benny. She didn't like him sounding so familiar. "Liam's studying," she said formally, claiming ownership.

"I heard he got into uni."

"He's making films."

"I see Winnie sometimes. She tells me you two aren't speaking."

"Well, she's lying out of her arse, I'm not speaking. She won't stop speaking."

They looked each other in the eye but it was too much too soon and they looked away to opposite sides of the room.

"See this Monday?" said Benny.

"Aye."

"This has to be in confidence. I heard this from someone in his lawyer's office. If it gets out they'll know it's come from me. Promise ye won't repeat it?"

She didn't trust him. "I won't repeat it," she said, uncertain that she was telling the truth.

"He's pleading automatism. D'you know what that is?"

"Sounds like a sci-fi disease from the thirties," she said, imagining a giant tin robot doing Angus's bidding.

Benny smiled. "It kind of is." He glanced cautiously up at her. "Automatism means he didn't have the mental intent to do it. He's bringing evidence that he was given drugs without his consent or knowledge and that the drugs made him do it."

Maureen was startled. "But that's crap," she said. She had fed him the acid long after he had killed Douglas and a good few days after he had killed Martin.

"They don't have much physical evidence against him for Douglas. They'd probably need to bring evidence of the rapes to get a conviction for killing him. I don't know who drugged him. I think it was you but-" Benny looked at her for a prompt but she didn't give him one. "They're going to make a big thing about you having a copy of Douglas's marriage certificate in your house as well, try to build on it, say you were jealous and stuff like that. Be careful what you say. You could find yourself on an assault charge."

Maureen had stopped listening. She was sitting upright, staring across the room, smiling to herself. She could get Ella McGee's death certificate from the registrar's office, just as she had got a copy of Douglas's marriage certificate. She noticed that Benny was watching her.

"They can't force me into giving evidence against myself, can they?"

"Yeah," said Benny. "Of course they can."

"Can't I plead the Fifth Amendment?"

Benny smiled. "That's American law, not Scots," he said.

She blushed. She was so out of her depth. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

"They'll think I'm a fucking idiot if I come out with something like that, won't they?"

"Naw. They'll think you're a well-disguised pensioner. People used to plead the Fifth all the time during Jimmy Cagney's heyday."

"Will they convict me of attacking him?"

"No," said Benny slowly. "Listen, this is a case against him. If they were going to bring a case against you for drugging him that would be a separate case."

"Can they suggest things like this when I haven't had a case against me?"

"All the prosecution need to do is prove it enough to raise a reasonable doubt in the jury's mind about his guilt. Did you give him the drugs?"

She looked at him skeptically. "Yeah, Gardner, I really trust you now."

He rasped his hand over his head. "I think they'll lead evidence that you got it off Liam."

Maureen's eyes filled up. "I think that too," she said, swallowing hard. "And I have to answer the questions or I'll go to jail."

"To consider your position."

"To consider my position." She looked up at him, their faces two inches apart, as if they were going to kiss. She could smell his breath – tea and chocolate with a hint of smoke. Slowly they pulled away from each other.

"Don't tell anyone I told you that," he said.

"I don't remember anyone telling me that. How's Winnie doing?" she asked softly.

"She's in and out, to be honest."

"Drinking?"

"Sometimes. I think she'll make it, though. Eventually. She keeps coming back. She says she's going to be a granny."

"She is a granny," said Maureen.

"Right?" said Benny. He didn't know what questions to ask. "Urn," he said, "is it a heavy one?"

"It's a girl," she said, saving him the bother of working it out. "Una's healthy and so's she."

"Thanks. I'll pretend I don't know when I meet Winnie."

Maureen smiled at her cup, pleased in some way that Winnie was still drinking sometimes. If she met her mother again, at least she'd recognize her.

"Your dad coming back to Glasgow's been hard on her," he said. "I think she's had to face a whole load of stuff she wasn't ready to look at."

"Like what?" said Maureen, resentful that Benny knew more about what was going on with her mother than she did.

"Her part in everything. The stuff she's responsible for." He sat back. "I shouldn't be discussing this with you – it's not my place to tell you what she's feeling."

"But you are."

"I am," Benny nodded, "because I'm evil."

As they walked back across the bridge to Paddy's, Maureen felt Benny's business card in her pocket and rubbed a finger across the embossed lettering. She wished she trusted him, wished that they could go back to evenings in Benny's house, watching videos and eating sweeties together. He'd worked for Angus before. In fact, there was no one in the city she could trust less than Benny right now, but he was funny and that always scrambled her instincts.

"Josh asked me out tonight and I said Sunday afternoon," said Kilty. "I didn't want to seem too eager."

"Good for you."

"I really fucking fancy him," said Kilty ardently.

"I'd never have guessed," said Maureen.