‘DS Morrow.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m one of the police officers investigating your cousin’s kidnapping.’
He didn’t take her hand. ‘Yes,’ he said again, trying, she thought, to process the words she had said individually.
‘This is DS Bannerman.’ She gestured behind her. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Ahmed Johany.’ When he saw her confusion he added kindly, ‘John.’
‘John?’ She laughed.
‘You call me… John.’ But he wasn’t smiling now, at least his eyes weren’t smiling, they were sad, as if he was mourning Ahmed Johany and wished he had a place in the shop too.
Bannerman leaned over her shoulder. ‘Mr Johany?’ He pointed to a high corner behind the counter and they all looked up together. A video camera, a small red light next to it. ‘Is that…?’
‘Camera, yes.’
‘Do you keep the tapes?’
He shook his head. ‘For one, two weeks only…’
‘Then…?’
‘Tape over.’ Apologetic, he smiled, rolling one forearm over the other. ‘Save on tapes.’
‘Can we have the ones you’ve got from last week?’
He indicated that they could but was worried about leaving them while he went through to the back shop. Bannerman took out his warrant card and showed it to him but Ahmed shook his head, embarrassed at having doubted them. He scuttled off quickly though, glancing back a couple of times as he made it to a door at the back. He took barely twenty seconds to bring out a stack of dusty video cartridges out to them. He hurried back behind the counter, not happy until he got there, and found a thin blue plastic bag to put the tapes in. He tried to fit them all in one bag, but they wouldn’t go and he had to get another bag out from under the counter.
Morrow watched him put them in, careful as eggs, trying not to rip the thin skin of the bag. ‘Have you worked here long?’
‘Hmm.’ Worried at the question, he handed the bags to Bannerman by the handles. ‘I come here just… now.’ He added quickly, ‘Not Scotland. Here many years, but shop, I just come now.’
The distrust, the soft passive smile, all reflected poorly either on the neighbourhood they were in or else the one Johany had come from. Morrow felt ashamed, remembered racist graffiti on a shop front when she was small, thought of a shop in Partick that had a felt-tipped sign in the window: ‘This Shop is Run by Scottish People.’
The door opened behind them, a puff of noise and dust from the street, and an elderly woman with a severe white perm stood in the doorway. She looked from Bannerman to Johany. ‘Where’s he?’ she said indignantly.
‘Who?’ asked Morrow because Johany didn’t say anything.
‘The wee man.’ She pointed at the counter. ‘Is he sick or something?’
‘How?’ asked Morrow sharply.
The woman scowled at her. ‘Who are yous? Have you bought the shop or something?’
‘No. Who are you?’
‘Who am I?’ She couldn’t quite believe she was being asked. ‘I’m in here every day. I come in here every day. Where’s the wee man?’
‘Which wee man?’
‘The fella, the wee black fella.’
‘Mr Anwar?’ corrected Morrow.
‘Is that his name?’ The woman hung out of the door, looking down the road for her bus and ducked back in to ask, ‘Is he sick then? Is he in hospital?’
‘Mr Anwar isn’t able to come to work today. How long have you been coming in here?’
‘Twenty-odd year. How?’
‘And you don’t know his name?’
‘He doesn’t know mine either.’ She scowled at Morrow. ‘Tell him, anyway, say that the twenty Kensitas and four rolls lady hopes he feels better soon. And my granddaughter’s out of hospital. She’d a boy.’ She looked uncertain. ‘Just saying ’cause… eh… he’ll be wondering.’ And she left.
18
Omar Anwar was at home, sitting in the peach living room, frightened and watching the rain patter on the window when the phone rang out in the hall, a soft unfamiliar trilling. He heard Billal’s bedroom door fly open and a heavy gallop across the hall.
‘Omar! Get the fuck out here!’
Omar sprang to his feet and hurried out to the hall. The brothers stood away from each other, staring at the strange green phone. It wasn’t their phone. The police had given it to them. It was old and slightly dirty, the rubbery cord on the receiver coated with a layer of grey that came off under the nail. The receiver was so loud it had to be held away from the ear. When they spoke into it they could hear an echo of their own voice. The recording device was a tape recorder plugged into the back. They expected something more high tech and the rudimentary nature of the equipment made them feel dismissed, as if the police didn’t really care too much about their dad.
Billal bent down abruptly, pressed the record button on the tape, checked it was turning and lifted the receiver, carefully holding it to his ear as if he had never used a phone before and was uncertain of it. He listened for a moment, nodded and offered it to Omar, his arm straight, staring at the mouthpiece as if afraid.
Omar took it and listened.
‘Who is this?’ The voice was familiar from last night.
‘It’s eh, Omar. Who’s this? Are you the guy from last night?’
‘Put Bob on.’
Omar looked awkwardly at the recorder. ‘It’s, em, Omar.’
‘We’ve got your dad.’
‘Right? Look, mate, was it yourself who was here last night?’
‘We’ve got him. We want two mill, in used notes, we want it today.’
‘I know, mate, right, there’s no need for this to go on any longer, OK? How is my dad, is he OK?’ Omar was surprised at his own mannerliness, being so polite to a man who had threatened his family, shot his sister and kidnapped his dad, but Sadiqa had drummed social grace into him and, at a loss for protocol, he found it was his default position.
‘Listen, pal, your dad’s fine, fine. Don’t worry.’ He was being polite too. In the background Omar could hear a bus or a car pass: he was calling from a street. ‘Is your sister OK?’
‘My sister?’ asked Omar.
‘Aleesha, that got shot, is she OK?’
‘She’s fine, she’s in hospital.’
‘Is her hand OK?’
Bewildered, Omar looked up and found Billal glaring at him and he was suddenly tearful. ‘No, mate, it’s a mess, to be honest with ye.’ He stopped for breath. ‘She’s lost a thumb and her forefinger and a bit of the next one. They said they can sew her big toe on as a thumb. Mum thinks it’ll look weird. But you need opposable digits for your hand to be any use, y’know…?’
‘Aye, well, OK. Don’t worry.’
‘It’ll look weird though.’
‘Um… couldn’t she wear gloves?’
Omar frowned at the phone, it seemed an odd thing to say. ‘Maybe…’
‘Nice gloves, I mean, different colours on each hand…?’
‘Different colours?’
‘Just a thought, anyway, um, tell her… say we’re sorry about that.’
Billal saw Omar’s confusion and poked him in the arm, shaking his head at him, asking what was going on. Omar ignored him. ‘We’ll tell her,’ he said, ‘that you’re sorry.’
‘OK. OK then…’ The kidnapper’s voice sounded as if it was retreating from the phone and Omar had the feeling the conversation was coming to an end, as if he had forgotten about the ransom.
‘Mate, didn’t you want to ask us about something?’
‘Oh, aye, yeah, listen, right: we want two million in used notes by tonight.’
‘Look, mate, I want to do whatever you want, right? I want to help you, make this OK, get my dad back safe and sound. Thing is, yeah?’ He took a desperately needed breath. ‘Um, are you still there?’
‘Aye, I’m here.’
‘Thing is, we don’t have anything like that kind of money.’
‘You don’t have that…?’