Resolution

Chapter 51

It didn't feel like the last day of her life. She had the immediate problem of a searing hangover to deal with. It was never usually this bad when she'd thrown up the night before. As she washed her face in the sink of cold water she began to remember Mr. Padda's shop and hung her head in shame.

She took painkillers and watched the phone as she drank her coffee. She watched it and knew she'd have to do it sometime, if she didn't want to end up in a hospital bed with everyone taking the piss out of her. She stood up and dialed Benny's mobile number. He wasn't answering and she was pleased. She left a message asking him to contact her, please. She thought she'd better do something about her drinking.

She got dressed with her shades on. Kilty would think it was strange that she was wearing shades in the house, so she put on her coat as well, hoping that she'd just look as if she were ready to go.

When she opened the door Kilty looked her up and down. "Are you hungover again?"

Maureen sighed. "The shades are the giveaway, aren't they?"

"No, not really," said Kilty, pushing past her. "It's the body, the face and the hair."

"Shit." She followed Kilty into the living room. "Hungover on a Monday, they'll think I'm a fucked-up waster."

"Maureen, you need to address the-"

Maureen held up her hand and took a painfully deep breath. "Please, Kilty, help me today," she said. "Please, I'm going to a meeting tomorrow."

"Promise?"

"I do, I promise, I promise."

"Okay, then."

Kilty sat her down on the floor and took out a tiny makeup bag. She used concealer and blusher to draw features onto Maureen's face and put some eyeliner on her top lid to make her eyes look open, explaining that she wouldn't put it on the inside because her watery eyes would just make it run. By the time Leslie arrived the painkillers were kicking in, the blusher was doing its job and Maureen looked as if she were just having a slightly off day.

"Maureen's going to a meeting tomorrow," said Kilty, as she let her in.

"Good," said Leslie. "Who're ye going with?"

"I phoned Benny," said Maureen, wishing to fuck she hadn't told Kilty. She was bound to change her mind by the next day but knew they'd hold her to it.

"Right?" said Kilty. "Let's go."

A sharp wind hurled through the town, tugging the edges of their coats. They arrived at the court by eleven, which was ridiculously early because the jury would hardly have had time to sit down. Kilty chatted up the guard at the door and he told her to sit just outside and listen for a Tannoy announcement that Court One was coming back. They spent the next hour standing on the windy steps, smoking and waiting to hear. Kilty went down the road to a shop and brought back three takeaway coffees.

Forty minutes into their wait Liam arrived, with a broad smile for Maureen and a nod for the other two. Angus's family turned up, dressed up for the photographs, and scuttled past them on the steps, knowing who they were now that Maureen had given evidence.

At twelve twenty a white van pulled up at the gates, followed by a black taxi. The side door on the van slid back and three men got out: a man in a slick suit, another guy with a furry microphone on a long stick and a cameraman. They hovered in the door of the van, fixing a large light to the top of the camera, while the smartly dressed man smoothed his hair. Whoever was in the black cab was talking to the driver. The door opened. It was Joe McEwan, wearing casual jeans, a leather jacket and a baseball cap. He glanced at the cameraman and walked past, coming straight for Maureen. He acknowledged Liam and looked at Maureen, nodding her over to one side. "How are ye, Joe?" she said.

"The word is Farrell's getting out," he said, "and if he does, we think he'll be coming for you."

"Oh?" she said, feeling as if he was being silly because the dark days were past now and this was just a tie-up, just a small detail that needed finishing off.

"I expect you've heard about your dad?"

"Michael? Aye."

"He's a vicious bastard." Joe reached out and squeezed her upper arm in a soldierly gesture of solidarity. "I'm sorry."

She was astonished. "It's okay, Joe."

"If Farrell gets out it won't be for long. The Fiscal's applying for an arrest warrant for the rapes right now."

She nodded, wanting to get away from him and back to her friends, back to pretending that things were fine. The Tannoy warbled through the revolving door and Kilty called for Maureen to come. "Ye coming in?" she said.

Joe shook his head. "Look, we'll be rearresting him as soon as we can."

She smiled. "He might not get off."

"If he does we'll meet you at your house, okay?"

"Okay."

Joe pressed his lips together, and backed off down the steps to the waiting taxi.

"Come on, Mauri," said Liam. "It's time."

They got good seats at the front, near the jury, and Maureen noticed that neither Carol Brady nor Elsbeth was there. The lawyers gathered around the central table, tense and nervous. Angus's lawyer was sucking a sweet. The ratchet noise of a lock being pulled back heralded footsteps on stone stairs, and Angus Farrell came up from the cells, escorted on either side by two guards. He was wearing a smart sports jacket in a small brown check and his demeanor gave nothing away. The bow-tied man came through a side door calling, "Court," and carrying a big metal mace with a little crown on top. Everyone in the room scrambled to their feet. Angus's lawyer crunched his sweetie into little bits and swallowed it. Then the judge came in and they were allowed to sit down again.

The bow-tied man disappeared through a side door and the members of the jury filed back into the court. The giggling man and woman had grown tired of each other's company or had fallen out. They weren't sitting together or looking at each other. The judge asked something and the foreman stood up and unfolded a bit of paper. The case against Angus Farrell for the murder of Douglas Brady was found not proven, a verdict particular to Scots law, which meant that they thought he had probably done it but that there wasn't enough evidence. He was found not guilty of murdering Martin Donegan on the grounds of automatism.

The court was empty long before they moved. Too early. Maureen wasn't fit for this. She'd peaked too early. She couldn't find a shred of anger in herself. She was disappointed and irritated but she wasn't angry and she needed to be. She fell forwards, muttering, "Fuck," and banging her aching head off the back of the bench in front, landing exactly on the bruise from the toilet seat.

"Let's get you out of here," said Liam, taking her arm, and they all four stood up and inched along the bench to the door.

The foyer was busy. They had to struggle to get through the crowd of bodies to the door. They were almost there when Maureen began to see flashing lights and looked up. Angus Farrell and his lawyer were coming through the lobby, trailed by his shabby family. They were walking among a crowd of journalists barking questions and holding Dictaphones up to Angus's modestly smiling face. The lawyer was talking and Maureen's legs went slack as they came past her. Angus was inches from her. He turned, quite casually, and spoke in a normal tone. "I'll see you later," he said to her, his fixed smile making the statement sound snide and lascivious. Maureen saw the lawyer hear him say it, she noticed that the journalists heard him say it, and her brother, Liam, heard him say it. But Angus didn't give a shit because Angus had a plan.

They had driven up to Balloch, fifteen miles away on the banks of Loch Lomond, in case they had been followed. Liam turned the car round and drove back to Glasgow, taking back roads to Garnet-hill. Leslie and Kilty had gone straight to Maureen's flat to let the police in. Liam dropped Maureen near the house, waiting to see if she got into the close and watching for Leslie waving at the window before he drove off to park the car discreetly. Hugh and Something McMummb had already arrived and were waiting for her upstairs. She wished it had been anyone else. Hugh had gone off her, big-time.

Liam parked half a mile away and arrived back at the house with some bread and crisps, beer and whiskey so that they wouldn't have to leave before morning. They sat in melancholy silence in the front room, sighing occasionally, getting up and looking out of the window.

Quite sniffily, Hugh asked Maureen to show him the back way into the house and she took him into the close and explained that the back court could only be accessed through a space between the buildings opposite. Liam thought maybe someone should sit and watch the alleyway, but Hugh pointed out that there were other ways into the back court.

Maureen's head was thumping; she had a rushing in her ears and couldn't break her mind from the circle of thoughts that Angus was out and Angus was coming. He had a plan, a clear plan of what he was going to do, and she couldn't fathom what it was. Her head was aching at the back, her jaw was sore and the skin on her forehead began to tingle with prolonged tension. She crossed her arms and pressed the sore skin on her arms to wake herself up. She looked up and found Kilty holding out a lit cigarette and a glass of whiskey. Maureen took the cigarette.

"Don't you want this?" said Kilty, holding out the whiskey.

"So fucking much you wouldn't believe it," said Maureen, and turned to look out of the window.

Suddenly she heard a hard wheeze behind her back and spun round to find Kilty's eyes wide in shock. She was breathing out widemouthed. Maureen caught her breath. Kilty's lips were glistening, an amber, oily slick on one side of the glass. "I don't know how you can drink that straight," she said, looking sick, and wandered off into the kitchen, leaving Maureen taking deep breaths and trying to slow her heart.

Hugh came into the room and leaned against the wall.

"How long do I have to stay here?" asked Maureen, and he shrugged. "Hugh, why are you in a huff with me?"

Hugh smiled a little and came over to her. "That makes it sound very petty," he said quietly.

"Isn't it petty?"

"No," he said seriously, "not to me. I've tried my hardest to help you. I've stuck my neck out and you've gone ahead and done whatever you wanted. I'd have to be stupid not to feel insulted."

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, apologizing because she wanted Hugh to approve of her, but she wasn't sorry at all. His tone brought her back to school again and the tyranny of the piteous.

In the street far below, black cabs nudged up behind one another at the taxi rank like fat beetles, and lunchtime pedestrians hurried by to get sandwiches or get back to work. It began to rain heavily, fat teardrops falling fast past the window. Outside, a mum stopped to zip up her child's coat, going back to push the empty buggy and letting the child splash along the pavement.

Maureen finished her cigarette, feeling sick and anxious, her heart racing. When she reached for the packet to take another she realized that she had one cigarette left. "Liam?"

He was in the kitchen with Leslie, sitting at the table.

"I'm running out of fags, have ye got any?" He didn't, and Leslie only had three left.

"I'll nip home and get a couple of cartons," he said.

"Don't drive," said Kilty. "He could pick you up at your house and follow you back here."

The three watched as Liam got into a cab downstairs. He looked up and they could see him muttering curses at them as he waved them away from the window. Leslie and Kilty went back to the kitchen to watch for intruders.

Maureen lit the last of her cigarettes and looked out over the south side. Angus had a plan. He was smarter than any of them. Everything she'd done felt as if he had orchestrated it, giving him the acid, meeting Mark Doyle, being here now. She stood up. Being here now. He had planned this. He had written to her and threatened her and talked about her in hospital. He'd threatened her in front of journalists, on camera. He wanted her to know he was coming after her, to think he was coming after her, wanted her to stay in the house and hide, and wanted the police to protect her. She was on her feet, falling into the hallway.

"Leslie!" she shouted, grabbing her jacket and opening the door. "Get the bike."

Kilty and Leslie ran out of the kitchen. Hugh lurched to shut the front door but Maureen blocked it with her body. "We'll take the bike." She pointed at Hugh. "Phone the police. Kilty, phone Liam. It's Siobhain. He's going to kill her. He's going to kill Siobhain."

Angus Farrell had had a pleasant meal. He liked plain food, nothing that would repeat too much in the afternoon. After shaking off his ecstatic mother and Auntie Mima with promises to come straight over after lunch, he had taken Alan Grace to the DiPrano seafood restaurant. He ordered steamed cod with noodles and a fruit salad to finish. Grace ate quickly, Angus noticed, and asked for the bill before Angus had finished his coffee.

They parted on the pavement, pulling up their collars against the heavy rain, agreeing to see each other again soon. And well done, by the way. Grace's face withered into an uncomfortable smile. "Go and see your family," said Grace.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do now," said Angus.

He stepped out into the road and hailed a taxi.

The bike was skidding on the wet road and Leslie managed to slice through two imminent red lights without getting them killed. She took the motorway to avoid going down Duke Street. The splashback from the fast cars was blinding. Maureen wondered how the hell she could see where she was going. Leslie ducked from lane to lane, skipping between the fast cars until she came to a large lorry and sat in the calm, dry vacuum behind it. Maureen held on tight, straining her head over Leslie's shoulder, as if that would get them there any faster. She thought of Mark Doyle and Pauline, thought of the state Siobhain was in when they first met her, thought of Michael and anything else that might make her really fucking angry, but all she felt was scared and weary.

The taxi dropped him outside a pub in Duke Street. It was raining heavily and no one was looking up at anyone else. For the first time Angus was glad of his broken nose, smirked as he thought how well it made him fit in with the hardmen and the bums coming out of the pubs and bookies'. He kept his head down and took a side street, wishing he had worn a mac, hoping he wouldn't get anything on his jacket. It had cost three hundred quid, over three hundred, actually, three fifty or something, and he'd only worn it four times. He took his black leather gloves out of his inside pocket and slid them onto his hands, crossing his fingers over one another, pressing the soft calfskin into his knuckles.

Dennistoun from the motorway was a warren of one-way streets, designed to stop boy-racers from careering off the slip road and taking the small back roads at seventy. Leslie did her best but ended up going the wrong way down a long one-way street for three blocks. She almost overturned the bike when they got to Siobhain's corner. They stopped, taking off their helmets as they sprinted up to the close door, leaving the motorbike unchained in a rough area.

The two concrete steps to the unsecured door were wet with footprints. Maureen ran at the door with both hands out, shoving it open. The damp footprints led upstairs, drying out on the turn to Siobhain's landing. Maureen dropped her helmet and bolted after them. The front door was lying open, a gray metal pick hanging in the Yale lock, still light spilling into the hall from the open living-room door. She listened for a second, knowing she'd hear him if he was there. Somewhere in the house Siobhain exhaled, ending with a tiny, despairing call from deep inside her.

Maureen ran down the hall, tripping over the doorstep, losing her footing and scampering on all fours. Her shoulder smashed into the door frame. She pulled herself up and looked into the living room. Empty. She turned to the kitchen. Empty. She threw herself across the hall against the bedroom door and stopped. The facing wall was splattered with flecks of deep red. On the floor at her feet lay Angus Farrell, face down, staring under the bed, his broken nose in perfect profile against the beige carpet. The back of his head was a flattened, filthy red mess. Under the skin and blood, beyond the splintered brilliant-white skull, peeked a doleful blue. It was watery blue like the baby's eyes. Angus had lived long enough to touch his brain. His bloody hands lay by his ears, desperate handprints smeared on the carpet, grabbing red trails from retracting fingers.

Downstairs, the close door crashed open against the wall and Liam came running, screaming over and over for his Siobhain. The bedroom door next to Maureen quivered, making her stagger backwards in fright, and Siobhain peered around the edge holding a cast-iron frying pan, her hands and face speckled with red freckles.

They sat on the close stairs and waited for twenty minutes for the police to come. Liam held Siobhain on his knee, their foreheads pressed tightly together, their hands intertwined. "I thought I was being burgled," whispered Siobhain.

Liam looked up at Maureen and Leslie, sitting close together, smoking the last of Leslie's fags. "I didn't tell her the verdict was due today," said Liam. "I didn't want to upset her. Is he dead?"

"I don't really know," said Siobhain.

"I think he is, actually," said Maureen, and Leslie agreed, wrapping her arms around her tummy and rocking gently.

"Are you okay?" Maureen asked Leslie.

Leslie nodded over and over.

It took the police twenty minutes to get there because Kilty didn't know where Siobhain lived and couldn't remember her second name. Hugh had to call the police station and get someone to find the address in the files on Farrell's investigation. When they arrived the police made them all get out of the close and cautioned Siobhain.

Leslie waited until they were in the back of the police car and on their way to the station to give statements before she spoke. "Is Siobhain gonnae be charged with murder?" she said.

Hugh turned to look at her. "I doubt that," he said gently.

Leslie sighed. "I'm never gonnae be cheeky to Siobhain again," she said, and looked out of the window. "Never, ever, ever."