Alex Gray - Sleep like the dead

'Here,' the hotel manager's son motioned to Brogan as they stopped outside the back door of yet another shop. It looked like all the others save for the fact that its entry was not obscured by any garbage.

The lad knocked the door and they waited for what seemed like several minutes until a grating sound showed the door being opened. Brogan peered into the dim interior, his eyes trying to focus. Gradually he made out three steps below him and a figure who stood at their foot, waiting.

'Ticket office,' the young man encouraged him, smiling and waving his hands to usher Brogan forwards.

But in the split second that it took Brogan to sense that something was wrong here, the man below had leapt forwards, grasping Brogan's arm and dragging him into the darkness.

DCI Lorimer stood in the arrivals hall of Glasgow International Airport watching the automatic doors as the trickle of passengers became a steady stream. Young Jaffrey's flight had landed some time ago and many of his fellow passengers had already made their way from the baggage carousels to this inauspicious part of the airport. To one side was a small coffee shop, its chairs probably occupied by folk waiting for family and friends, their gaze shifting from the arrivals board to these frosted glass doors. An avenue of sorts had been created between rows of seating on one side and the bookshop on the other for the passengers to wheel their luggage out, families hovering as close as they dared to the doors that were now constantly opening and closing with a sibilant swish.

He saw Rashid Jaffrey the moment he stepped out into the brightly lit hall. The boy was dressed in wide-fitting jeans that had abandoned their hold on his waistline, sliding down well past the edge of a pair of black boxers and causing him to shuffle along, his trainers almost hidden by the ragged hems. It was the fashion still for some youths to wear their jeans like this, Lorimer knew, and looking at Jaffrey he suddenly felt not just old fashioned but simply old. With his fortieth birthday looming ever closer, the policeman could not help but reflect that he was nearer in age to Jaffrey's late father than to his son.

'Rashid?'

The boy stopped in his tracks, letting the handle of his pull along suitcase rest against the edge of a seat. `1DCI Lorimer. Strathclyde Police. Thought you might be able to spare us a few minutes before you go home,' he added gravely.

Rashid looked into Lorimer's blue gaze, his own dark eyes widening in a moment of panic but then he looked down at his feet and gave a shrug. The gesture seemed to say he wasn't bothered one way or the other but Lorimer, who knew how to read body language better than most, saw the sagging shoulders and guessed that the lad was bowing to the inevitable. He stepped alongside the boy, ushering him out into the Glasgow night and across to a waiting police car.

'We've got a family liaison officer with your mum,' Lorimer told him as they settled back for the drive into the city. Tut I'm sure she'll be glad to have you back home again as soon as we're finished.'

Rashid nodded mutely and turned his face away as though to reacquaint himself with the bustling motorway and the skyline over Paisley.

'Sorry about your dad,' Lorimer added, touching the boy's shoulder. Rashid flinched as though he had been stung but Lorimer affected not to notice, continuing in the same friendly tone as before.

'How was the flight?'

Rashid half turned back towards the man at his side and looked at him for a long moment as though he were reassessing this tall policeman.

'Okay, I suppose. The flight attendants were nice…' he broke off but not before Lorimer could hear the sound of a smothered sob in his voice. Being nice to the newly bereaved was almost guaranteed to bring their emotions to the surface. It was something he remembered from his own experience. He'd been younger than Rashid when his own dad had died and he could still recall the solicitude of various aunts and neighbours and his own useless efforts to remain tearless.

'Mallorca must be great this time of year,' Lorimer went on, deliberately making small talk to bore the lad into a semblance of calm. 'Gala Millor, wasn't it?'

'Aye,' Rashid nodded, stifling a yawn.

'Thought Gala d'Or might've been more up your street, young lad like you,' Lorimer joked. 'More nightlife, eh?' he smiled conspiratorially.

'How come you ended up in a quiet place like that, then?'

Rashid turned away once again, the shrug meaning that he wasn't going to answer that particular question.

'Of course, you've got family over there, haven't you?' Lorimer said, slapping his knee as if the thought had just come back into his head.

'Aye. My uncle's got a business and I've been giving him a hand over the summer,' Rashid replied with a sigh.

'Nice way to spend a gap year,' Lorimer continued. 'Lucky you, having family there. You'll be able to go whenever you fancy, I suppose?'

'S'pose,' Rashid echoed.

They were entering the approach to the city now, signs from the overhead gantries advising drivers to keep a safe distance from other vehicles, rows of red tail lights twinkling ahead out of the inky blue darkness.

'Funny running into Billy Brogan like that,' Lorimer mused.

Rashid gave him a sharp look but the policeman's face seemed so completely innocent of guile that the boy nodded. 'Aye, it was.

Could've knocked me down with a feather, like, when I saw him walking along the market. Know what I mean?'

Lorimer smiled but said nothing, giving the boy a chance to elaborate on his story. 'My dad had been trying to phone him for ages and getting no reply so I called him and told him I'd clocked Brogan on his holidays,' he added with just a hint of smugness.

'Funny how a chance encounter can have such far-reaching consequences,' Lorimer murmured.

'How d'you mean?' The boy's eyes were wary.

'Well, there you are minding your own… sorry, your uncle's… business and along comes the very person your father had been looking for.'

'Yeah, coincidence, yeah,' Rashid agreed.

'Then someone else decides that it wasn't such a good idea of your dad's to tell us where to find Brogan,' Lorimer said. His tone was light but there was a steeliness of authority in his voice that made Rashid shift uneasily in his seat.

'It wasn't my fault that happened!' the boy protested. 'I just wanted to tell Dad where he could find Brogan so's he could tell…' he stopped suddenly, mouth still open wide.

'So he could tell someone else?' Lorimer asked.

The boy nodded unhappily into his hands.

'I think we should carry on this conversation on a more official basis, Rashid,' Lorimer told him. 'There's quite a lot we'd like to know about what Brogan's been up to lately.'

The Hundi paced up and down, glancing from time to time at the large watch on his left wrist. The man was late in calling in and the Hundi was not used to being kept waiting, especially for those who were numbered (in his payroll. It wouldn't do, he told himself, turning his well-shod foot on the thick Persian carpet, it wouldn't do at all. Smith, or whatever his real name was, should have been in touch hours ago and his lack of contact was making the Hundi clench and unclench his fists as he made yet another circuit of the room.

Their friend, Amit, had become more and more nervous since the woman's disappearance, thinking no doubt that she had suffered a similar fate to that of Sahid Jaffrey. No amount of reassurances from Dhesi or indeed from the Hundi himself, had helped but perhaps the company of Dhesi's niece, newly arrived from Lahore, might help to distract the wealthy businessman. Amit was one of their own now, Dhesi had insisted, and it was important that he make a good marriage, settle down and become part of their growing community Nalini was just the tonic for a lonely man adrift in a strange land.