G03 - Resolution Read Free Page A

didn’t know them at all. “That daft cow,” she said. “She was trying to pull the plug out of the wall and she fell over. Did ye see her, Magret? Split her skirt right up her arse, so she did.”
    Margaret ignored her and looked at her brother. He sighed at the desk. “Look, Mum,” he said heavily, “ye can’t work here anymore.”
    Ella was stunned. “How no?” ‘Cause you’re a fucking trouble-causer,” sneered Margaret. She’d a nasty, coarse manner about her sometimes.
    Si touched his sister’s arm, telling her to shut up. “Mum, ye can’t get on with any of them, you’re always doing things we ask you not to do.” He had a nicer voice, a cultured voice.
    “Like what do I do?” said Ella.
    Si pointed up to the ceiling. “Like hoovering when there are men in —
    “That carpet was a state.” She nodded adamantly. “Ye want the place to have a bit of class, don’t ye?”
    “You don’t listen,” he said, shutting his eyes. “You don’t listen to me.”
    “Simon,” Ella laughed indignantly, “I don’t need you to tell me when a carpet needs cleaned —”
    “Get out now,” said Margaret flatly.
    “I will not get out,” said Ella, looking to her son for support. Si blinked, cutting her off, and when he opened his eyes again, he was looking at the paper. Ella poked a finger at him. “You owe me my wages.”
    “Don’t fucking pay her,” said Margaret, and turned back to her mother. “Get out.”
    “I won’t leave till yees give me what I’m owed.”
    “Don’t fucking pay her, she’s a waste of money.”
    Margaret and her brother looked at each other, smiling a little, enjoying humiliating their old mother, even now, in their thirties, savoring the power shift.
    “I’ll tell the polis about ye,” said Ella, casting up a familiar threat they had used against her when they were children.
    Si and his sister sniggered at her impotence. “They know about us,” he said. “We’ve got a license for this place. D’ye think they really believe we’re giving saunas until three in the morning?”
    “They don’t know about they foreign women, do they?” said Ella, and their smug faces fell. “They don’t know ye keep them locked up through the wall there, do they?” She had expected them to react, maybe shout at her, but when she saw Margaret’s hand coming out and the overhead light glint on the shaft of metal she knew she’d overplayed her hand by a mile. She lifted her hand to defend herself and the knife caught on her palm, sliding easily through the bridge of skin between her thumb and forefinger.
    It was a deep cut, right through the flesh on her hand. Margaret laughed and watched Ella’s hand bleeding onto the desk. Si pulled the newspaper under it, protecting the desk. Without saying sorry or even offering Ella her money, Si took down the first-aid box, covered the cut in cotton wool and wrapped a bandage round it. When he had finished he told her it would be best if she went home.
    Cindy smirked at the appointments book as Ella walked past the desk. She had a red miniskirt on now, with zips up the side, and looked as cheap as the rest of them. She’d put the Hoover away and the carpet was still filthy. Kevin muttered that he was sorry as he opened the door for her. She kept it together until she got out into the dark street, and then Ella McGee cried all the way home.

Chapter 4
HOT
    Outside the kitchen window the morning sky was as clear as a baby’s conscience. Below, at the base of Garnethill, the slip road to the motorway was clogging up and the heat began to rise from the dawning city. Maureen sipped her coffee and shuddered compulsively, remembering the sleepy vagueness in her limbs just before the alarm. She looked out at the blackened silhouette on the horizon. It was the jagged tower of an old fever hospital, built a mile away from the city. Around it, peering over the shoulder of the hill, she saw the smashed onion domes on the smaller buildings, looking