Denise Mina - Still Midnight

‘No.’

‘Lan Gallagher go’ married last month.’

Morrow smiled. ‘Who in the name of God’d marry her?’

‘Well, ye know,’ he shrugged, ‘for every ugly there’s a bugly.’

She smiled. Charm that sagged into gashes. That’s how the McGrath men got you.

Before the doors were open properly Danny nipped through them, stepped quickly across the lobby and through a side door marked ‘car park’. Alex went after him.

The door led into a bare concrete corridor radiating damp with cold, brutal strip lights. She turned the corner and found Danny standing still, waiting for her. He was pressed up tight into a corner at a turn in the corridor. ‘We’ve put up hundreds of cameras.’ He circled his finger to the ceiling. ‘Trouble in the halls. I know where they are so… never say nothing…’

Disappointed at having to acknowledge who Danny really was, Alex slumped her shoulders, but Danny ignored the reproach and reached for her, pinching the elbow of her coat and pulling her into the corner with him. He took the phone from her hand, called up the photo of Omar and examined it.

Alex found it strange, standing so close together but not touching. She could feel Danny’s breath on her neck. It was like being young together again, like when he tried to teach her how to smoke hash in a cupboard in Bosco Walker’s bedroom during a party and she vomited on his new trainers. She remembered being glad about it because the trainers had been nicked. Bosco and Lan and all of them inhabited a place in her life that was long ago, a network of memories she never accessed so that when she did it all seemed so crisp and immediate that it was more real than the grey now.

Danny held up her phone and handed it back. ‘This boy’s a southsider.’

‘I know. Is he… you know…’ To another policeman she’d say ‘dirty’ but she could hardly say that to Danny.

He helped her out. ‘Into anything?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Nut, good family, Daddy runs a twenty-four-hour shop. Two boys went to St Als, both done degrees I think.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘The young one did law.’

‘Right?’

Watching him make a mental note, she wished she hadn’t been so specific. Danny could retain information for decades before he used it. ‘How do you know him?’

‘Used tae run with the Young Shields when he was a wee guy. Got out of it, haven’t seen him about for years.’

Most Asian guys ran with a gang at some point in their lives, usually for protection from other gangs of Asian guys. It didn’t mean Omar was good or bad, all it confirmed was that he had once been young and frightened. From Alex’s recollection they were the same thing.

‘’Member his brother?’

Danny cast his mind back. ‘Bill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Big soft boy, never got in tow with anyone.’

They heard the door from the lobby open, steps and a trendy young guy turned the corner, started with surprise when he saw them standing so close together in an otherwise empty corridor. He averted his eyes and slipped past.

Alex scowled at Danny for scratching his nose as the guy came past. He was hiding, obscuring his face with his hand. He always did that when anyone looked at him. It was one of his many giveaways, like thinking before he admitted to being anywhere, or mapping the doors when he entered a room.

‘Does this make me an informant?’

‘Naw.’

When Morrow abandoned her family ties she did so completely. It was out of character for her to ask for anyone’s help, Danny’s help especially, and she knew it would excite his interest, that he would wonder about it until he understood why she had come to him. She didn’t understand it herself.

‘Da’s dying,’ he said abruptly.

‘Is he?’

‘Moved him from Gen Pop to the infirmary block. Cancer. Said it’ll be a couple of months.’

She nodded at her feet. ‘Right?’ she said, noticing how tight her lips had suddenly become. ‘Asking for us?’

‘No. Dunno.’ Danny was muttering too. ‘Why? Have ye heard he was asking for ye?’

She smirked. ‘No.’

Danny laughed too. ‘Well, why did ye ask then?’

‘Dunno, just something ye say, isn’t it?’

‘Suppose. If he’s only got a couple of months he won’t have time to see his kids.’

‘How many of us are there, do ye think?’

‘Dunno.’

‘D’you ever see people and wonder if they’re his?’

He smirked. ‘Nut. D’you?’

‘Nah.’ He knew she was lying too and they smiled warmly at each other.

‘You OK?’ He said it so fast it sounded like a burp, as if he couldn’t wait to get the concern out of him.

‘Fine!’ She sounded shocked when she’d meant to sound breezy, and corrected herself. ‘Fine.’

‘The boy.’ Her heart tightened until she saw him looking at her phone. ‘You asking…’

She shrugged and found she was breathless. ‘Just thought you could help, ’cause it’s near the old house… old stomping…’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, afraid he would see the spark of loss in her eye.

‘I need to go,’ he said, but stood still.

‘Me too,’ said Alex but she didn’t move either.

Finally, they couldn’t drag it out any longer. She stepped away from him. ‘Happy birthday, Danny.’

‘Aye.’ Danny stayed where he was, watching her walk away until she was out of sight around the concrete corner. His voice came after her. ‘Phone me.’

‘Nah,’ she wrinkled her nose and reached for the handle on the lobby door, ‘haven’t anything to say to ye.’

‘Phone and tell me what happens with Bob.’

Alex dropped her hand and backed up to the corner. Danny was still pressed into the cramped corner where she had left him. ‘Bob?’

‘Bob.’ Dan flicked a finger at the phone in her hand. ‘The wee guy…’

‘Omar?’

‘Aye, Bob’s his street name.’

It was daytime. Aamir could tell that for certain. Bright day outside.

The previous night had been so frightening, his muscles so tense for so long that he fell asleep mid-thought, exhausted, holding his mother’s hand. When he awoke he was drooling into the pillowcase and it was stuck to his face. He sat up, straightened the pillowcase, and realised that he could no longer remember the night very clearly.

They had driven for a very long time, changed from the van to a car, driven a long way again and he knew that home was hours away. He could be in the highlands or Manchester or even London. And out there, somewhere beyond the cheap weave of the pillowcase over his head, were his children and his wife, his brand new grandson and Aleesha, bleeding, dead for all he knew.

Aleesha. A bad daughter: rotten, opinionated, disobedient. He adored her. She got all that from Sadiqa, all of that anger and energy was why he had fallen in love with her mother. His mouth said a prayer that she was well but his heart was shut to God.

Omar had betrayed him. A second son himself, Aamir had always loved Omar best. Aamir sighed, turned to his mother and asked her: why would Omar do this to him?

Maybe he was on drugs. Of all his three children Aamir could imagine Omar as a junkie. A lot of junkies came in his shop, looking for things to steal, buying sweeties. They loved their sugar. He had decided long ago that there were as many nice junkies as there were people, most were pleasant unless they were withdrawing or desperate, but you could say that about all people. Anyway, there was an off-sales on the next side and a supermarket up the road. Much easier to steal from. Aamir liked the junkies better than the alkis.

Omar stood by and let them take his father in his place. Only Billal stood firm. The one child he didn’t really like. Aamir wasn’t just making excuses for Omar the way he always did, he genuinely understood. He had done the same to his mother, let them take her as payment for his safe passage and, like Aamir now, she did not mind. Aamir did not mind.