Denise Mina - Still Midnight

Billal was calling from a mobile so the line was less clear. In the background she could hear Sadiqa’s voice repeating one side of the conversation she had just listened to. Shock made Billal shout a series of exclamations: ‘Police! Police! And an ambulance!’

‘And what is your call concerning, sir?’

‘Two men! Two men!’

‘Two men what, sir?’

‘Two men came in our house! They took my daddy away!’

‘So, they’re not there now?’

‘They shot my wee sister. In her hand!’

‘ They shot her hand, sir?’

‘Yes! Yes! She’s bleeding really… God… badly! It’s all… blood-’

‘Did you see them shoot her?’

‘Yeah, with guns! Big guns, real guns.’

The female controller tried to get him to spell his name and the address but Billal could barely hear her he was so shocked.

‘Please come and help us, help us, please come.’

‘We are on our way, sir, right now, but-’

‘We’ve got a baby here, a new baby! They pointed the gun at a baby!’

‘Did they say what they wanted, sir?’

‘ Ob. ’

Billal had moved his face, his chin was slightly over the receiver, so it wasn’t very clear. Morrow had to use the mouse to listen to the portion of speech again.

‘… what they wanted, sir?’

‘Hob. Were after someone called Bob.’

It was clearer the second time he said it, the puff of air from his lips popping gently on the receiver as he said the ‘b’s.

Morrow wrote ‘Bob’ on the pad and put a question mark next to it.

‘Mum! She’s falling-’ He hung up. The conversation had lasted less than a minute.

The last call was from Meeshra, sobbing loudly, wailing about Aamir and Aleesha. She sounded calmer than the other two, even a little excited but much more upset, the way a distant acquaintance sobs at a funeral of a child while the family hold tight, afraid the force of grief will rip the earth from under their feet.

‘They’ve taken my dad-in-law, just lifted the poor man up and went off wi’ him-’

‘Could you tell me your-’

‘Lifted him off-’ She broke off to sob theatrically and ask Dear God to help them.

‘Could I have your name and address, please? Madam, are you there? Can I have your name, please?’

‘Meeshra Anwar. They’ve took ’im.’

They were talking at the same time, the controller and Meeshra, and their voices coiled around one another:

‘… wanted ’im…’

‘… spell that…’

‘… shouting, looking for…’

‘… out for me?’

‘… some bloke called…’

‘… spell that name?’

Both voices stopped dead for half a second of dead air, and then Meeshra spoke: ‘Aye, they was shouting for some bloke but they couldn’t find him and just took Aamir instead.’

Morrow looked at the pad. Meeshra was avoiding saying the name. She looked at her writing: small and regular, the word less than half a centimetre long but pressed so hard into the paper that the free edges at the bottom of the page curled up to meet it. Bob? She touched it tenderly with her fingertip. Bob?

Reluctantly she pulled the sheet of paper out of the pad and stood up, stopping by the door, nodding a congratulations to herself for being honourable and giving up the information so quickly. She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. Outside a uniformed copper was chatting lightly to a plain clothed DC showing him something in the paper. Night shift. Hard graft but there was a kindness about it. Everyone moaned about it but they missed it when they were promoted and went days only. There was a closeness in being sleepy together, in minding the drowsy city.

MacKechnie was still in, the light from his office spilling into the corridor. Morrow stood at the door and nodded politely. ‘Sir?’

‘Come!’ He always said that, not knowing it had another meaning and that they laughed at him. Morrow looked in and found him squinting at something on his computer. ‘Yes?’

‘Sir, I was listening to the 999 calls just now.’

MacKechnie frowned at her, one eyebrow arched accusingly. ‘Why?’

‘In case there was something on them.’

MacKechnie sighed at his clasped hands and sucked his teeth. ‘Sergeant Mor row.’ He had a way of pronouncing her name that made her flinch. ‘I have asked you to work with Bannerman on this.’

‘Bannerman told me to listen to the tapes, sir.’

‘ Bannerman told you to listen to the tapes?’

She stepped into his office and held up a hand to fend him off. ‘OK, that aside, they’ve all said the gunmen were asking for “Rob”. On the 999s they’re avoiding it but I think the son said “Bob”.’

‘OK.’ He looked confused.

‘He’s interviewing Omar now, shall I send him up a note? Get him to ask about it?’

Confusion gave way to certainty. ‘Yes.’

She withdrew and stood in the corridor a moment. She’d expected a bit more of a reaction. It was something concrete after all, and she’d discovered it. Disappointed, she went back to her office and wrote out the details, marked that the note was from her and caught a DC lingering by the board in the incident room.

‘DC…?’

‘Wilder.’ He stood to attention and she appreciated that he knew who she was.

‘Wilder, take this up to Bannerman in Three right away.’

He took it from her and set off quickly, leaving the door to slam shut behind him. At least someone was taking it seriously.

Deflated, she went back to her office, dragging her eye and her pen across incident forms. The warm glow of her discovery was fading, swamped with tiredness and the mundane job. She broke off from the admin task to listen to the section of Meeshra and Billal’s emergency calls several times, her certainty paling a little each time.

She was about to do it again when Bannerman opened the door and leaned against the door jamb like a louche lover coming back from the bathroom. ‘All right, Morrow?’

‘Fine.’

‘How are you getting on?’

Morrow blinked hard, her eyes were burning. ‘Just… paperwork. ’ He slouched into the room. ‘Did you get my note?’

He had to think about it. ‘The note? About Bob. Yeah, the note. God, great, thanks for that. Great.’ He dropped into his seat and unlocked his drawer, pulling out a grain bar and ripping the wrapper open with his teeth.

‘And?’

He shrugged without looking at her.

She wanted to get up and go over and kick his shins. ‘What did Omar say about it?’

‘Well, I’d actually finished interviewing him by that point, so we’ll ask him next time.’

They looked at each other across the office and Bannerman smiled. He hadn’t asked Omar about it because it came from her. He’d been unprofessional and she should let it go, win some, lose some, but the point wasn’t about her and Bannerman: a small man was sitting in a cold van somewhere, surrounded by armed malevolent strangers and the information could be material.

‘You didn’t ask?’

Bannerman refreshed his smile.

‘Look, come over here.’ She held up the headphones.

Bannerman looked wary, didn’t budge from his seat and instead swung his feet up on the edge of his desk, crossing them, stubbornly chewing his health bar. The interview had been a disappointment, viewed by the entire squad. She understood how foolish he would have felt if the only significant question was on a note from her but she was sure she was right. She called up the audio file of Meeshra’s phone call, a tiny box on her screen with a jagged visual of her speech. She pulled the earphones out of the hard drive, double clicked and Meeshra’s voice burst into the office, weaving through the crackle of switchboard operators.