Denise Mina - Still Midnight

‘Sir, I can play you the audio files right now to confirm that they said Bob. The other part I can’t confirm right here and now.’

MacKechnie looked accusingly at Bannerman. ‘When did you get the note from Wilder? Bear in mind that I can check the DVD.’

Bannerman cleared his throat. ‘I got the note but didn’t ask.’

‘Why?’

Bannerman looked trapped. Morrow pitched in, ‘There was a lot going on last night but it’s better this way because we can blindside him with it.’

‘Yeah,’ nodded Bannerman, ‘do our research.’

‘Yeah, research it properly.’

In a dizzying switch of loyalties MacKechnie was suddenly furious with both of them. ‘You two – Bannerman, leaving aside what made you think that the best use of a DS in a major case was listening to emergency calls-’

Bannerman blushed. ‘Sir, I genuinely thought there might be something important on the tapes.’ He looked at Morrow pleadingly.

‘Yes, sir, Bannerman was right,’ she said. ‘His instincts were right; there was something important.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘The inconsistency in the names, if they agreed to say Rob and not Bob, it must have been after the calls. Aleesha was unconscious. We should interview her this morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Morrow, struggling not to smile. ‘Yes, we should.’

MacKechnie looked away. ‘DS Morrow, how do you explain your absence this morning?’

Morrow stole a look at Grant. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t check my email before I left.’

‘You must check your emails.’

‘I will, sir, sorry, sir. Are the family dodgy, then?’

‘Don’t know.’ Bannerman was eager to move the conversation on. ‘If they have that kind of money or anything approaching that kind of money, where is it going? Who do we know in the community we could ask about the family?’

‘Mahmood Khan?’ suggested MacKechnie.

‘Nah,’ said Morrow, ‘he’ll just give us the party line.’

‘Yeah,’ said Bannerman, ‘he’ll be checking party contributions before he tells you anything about the family.’

She had kept her distance for twenty years, but now, like asking Danny, she was surprised to find herself willing to reach back for help, ‘Ibby Ibrahim.’

They both looked at her curiously.

‘Ibby Ibrahim?’ repeated MacKechnie. ‘What on earth makes you think he’ll talk to us?’

She cleared her throat. ‘I know… Ibby. But I’d need to talk to him alone.’

They were both impressed, glanced at each other, back at her. ‘How do you know him?’ asked MacKechnie.

She saw Ibby, ten years old, sobbing in a playground and the bad children standing around watching him in an awed circle, herself among them. ‘From a case,’ she lied. ‘A few years back.’

‘What case?’ MacKechnie was impressed.

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘kind of hard to say…’

If they had any kind of connection to her, any level of intimacy, they would have pressed her to unofficially tell. They’d have gathered around, pressed and teased, guessed until they had some idea. Instead, they slid glances across the desktop to each other, referencing a conversation had elsewhere, away from her.

‘Right.’ MacKechnie moved the conversation back to a safe area and stood up, coming around the desk to her, forgetting how angry he had been only a moment before. ‘Get the background before we ask him about it. We’ve got officers assigned to the door to doors but I want you two to take a look at the shop and the shop helper, find out if there’s anything going on there, betting, drugs, anything that would generate big revenue. Bannerman, make the Rob/Bob thing the focus now, yes?’

‘Sir, I’d like to drive Morrow to meet Ibrahim,’ said Bannerman, quietly. ‘I can brief her on the way.’

‘I need to speak to Ibby alone though,’ she said, reluctant to spend longer with Bannerman than she needed to.

‘Yeah, but I’d like to see him in the flesh. Just for future…’

For future what he didn’t say. It wasn’t an efficient use of two DSs but MacKechnie nodded. ‘Bonding. Good. DCs busy?’

‘Sir.’ Bannerman handed him a duty sheet. ‘We’re checking the CCTV from the M8 for cars going to and from the van site. Lab reports on the way. Fingerprints on their way. Researching all family members for Afghani visas. Two DCs are doing door to door around the house and processing the witness statements. Morrow and I could go to the hospital for a follow up and take a look at the shop as well.’

‘OK,’ said MacKechnie, and turned to Morrow. ‘Check your emails from now on.’

She nodded, hoping she looked sorry.

He stood with his back to the door, addressing the troops: ‘If this is right then it’s not the wrong address. The gunmen were after the Anwars, Omar specifically. What we need to know is why anyone thought they had two million to hand over.’ He put his hand on the door to the corridor and stopped. ‘Well done, Morrow,’ he said, opened it and left.

Grant was a little red in his cheeks. ‘Yeah, well done,’ he said, with more grace than she would have.

Shugie was in the living room, sitting defiantly on the piss-damp settee, casually reading a newspaper from July.

In the kitchen Eddy sat on a stool, Pat crouching on a rickety wooden box with ‘FRAGILE’ stamped on the side. They sat away from each other, each marooned like boats lost on a dead sea. Dumb with tiredness they were both struggling to keep awake. Someone, not Shugie, had put down laminate flooring but a long-ago flood had warped the boards. They were curving up at the sides making the floor choppy and uneven. Under the dirt Pat could see that each board was a photograph of the next, the same knot in the wood repeating like a greasy dinner.

Eddy held a loaf in a waxy wrapper, opened out like a bag of sweeties. He had been eating dry bread all night because that was the only foodstuff Shugie had remembered to buy with the forty quid Eddy had given him in advance. He’d invested the rest of it in superlager.

Pat breathed heavily through his nose as a precursor to speaking but Eddy looked away. ‘Man,’ said Pat regardless. ‘We need to move.’

‘Leave it,’ Eddy warned through his teeth.

‘We need to move him.’

Eddy didn’t answer. He held out the bread wrapper as if it was a solution. Pat shook his head. He couldn’t eat in here. He felt as if particles of Shugie’s piss would be getting in his mouth and into his stomach when he ate. Had to be. That’s what smell was, particles.

He brought his elbows and knees in, shuddered a little, thinking about dead skin. Then he remembered the girl and wondered how she was. But Shugie didn’t have a radio, never mind a telly. They didn’t know if they were in the news or not. If it was in the paper there might be a photo of her. The chances were that she’d been taken to the Victoria Infirmary. Less than a mile away, in a clean bed.

Desperate to relive the warm glow he felt when he first saw her, Pat imagined her lying in a hospital bed with her hair fanned out over the pillow, smelling nice, peachy or flowery, clean, thinking about him perhaps. Pat shook his head softly. No. He had shot her fucking hand off: if she was thinking about him it wasn’t fondly. A girl like that wouldn’t go with someone like him. The father was annoyed that the door was chapped at night. The house was clean and pink, nice. She was from a good family. Even if he hadn’t shot her by accident she’d never go with him. Her father wouldn’t allow it.

He imagined himself walking into the ward with a big bunch of flowers, dressed smart, looking sharp, but her face was horrified when she saw him again. Disappointed with the fantasy he took himself back to the hallway to see her there. Her waist was tiny, the waistband of her denims hanging off her hip bones. He realised suddenly that the bridge of his nose felt hot when he was in the hall. Looking at her waist he could see the black woollen edge of the eyeholes. He had a balaclava on. She didn’t know what he looked like.