‘Here and there,’ she said. ‘Move about.’
He smirked. ‘Might come and visit you at your work one day.’ He wasn’t really talking to her, just showing off to his pals.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Do that.’
‘Tell Dimples hello from me.’
Morrow stopped. She hadn’t noticed the first time he mentioned Danny because she’d been distracted by Bannerman outside but Ibby had name dropped Dimples twice now and each time he did the fat boy next to him pushed his chin out, proud. A protective familial reflex made her notice, wonder if they’d battered Danny or bettered him somehow. Instinct made her square up to the henchman, but she forced her eyes to the floor. She was being sucked back in, she should leave.
‘Take care, Ibby,’ she said. ‘Try not to have any more accidents.’
She turned to the door when Ibby spoke again, under his breath, ‘Hey, anyway, your da… Sorry he’s no well. In the infirmary…?’
Morrow read his face. The old man was such a has-been no one would have bothered to pass on the information. Danny must have told him. ‘Aye,’ she said gently. ‘Fuck him, anyway.’ She walked away.
King Bo stepped aside when she came to the door, lifting his arm away from her, as if being in the police was something you could catch from social contact.
‘Bye bye,’ she said pleasantly, and the big gangster sneered to show how hard he was.
She crossed the street back to the car. As she opened the door she looked through the window of Kasha’s again. King Bo had a mean face on, arms crossed, looking down the road for invading hordes. Inside Ibby was stuffing bread into his face. She could see under the table that his belly was heavy. He was getting fat. They were all heading for old. She climbed into the car and Bannerman started the engine.
‘Well, it wasn’t the Shields,’ she said.
‘We knew that.’
‘No. We suspected that. Now we know it definitely wasn’t them.’
‘You believe the word of a crim?’
‘I believe Ibby Ibrahim,’ she said as Bannerman pulled out into the road. ‘He’s too proud to lie.’
He smirked. ‘If he’s too proud to lie we should get him in for questioning. Clear up half the batterings that went down on the Southside last year.’
‘Well, he’s honest off the record. On the record he might just be willing to lower himself.’
They drove down Alison Street. Alex watching out of the window, glancing up every crumbling close but not seeing, wondering about Danny and Ibby. Thinking about family prompted her to ask: ‘How’s your mum?’
‘Bad.’
She left it hanging for a moment. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, she’s on the mend, she’ll be fine really. She’s going to be fine. She’s on oxygen and massive doses of antibiotics but she’s sitting up and everything.’
‘Eating?’
‘Eating a bit, yeah.’
‘So you don’t need compassionate leave?’
‘No.’
Morrow slapped her leg. ‘Damn!’
Bannerman grinned at the joke. ‘You are as much of a bitch as they say you are.’
It stung a bit but she hid her hurt and took it in good part. ‘Well, you know what they say, it’s iceberg bitchiness with me: only ten per cent visible.’
They drove on, smiling away from each other, glad to have what lay between them acknowledged: he got her big case and she wasn’t popular. Having ripped their plasters off they sat quietly, letting the air dry the wounds.
Bannerman suddenly veered the car, twitched his hips as if responding to a sudden itch. He pulled his crappy work phone out of his pocket and gave it to her. It was vibrating. Morrow pressed the green button and held it to her ear.
‘Bannerman?’ It was MacKechnie.
‘No, sir, it’s Morrow; Bannerman’s driving.’
‘We’ve found footage of the car at Harthill. It’s a silver Lexus. Hired under a fictitious name. We’re looking for it now.’
‘Great-’
‘The kidnappers called the Anwar house ten minutes ago. Go over on the pretext of picking up the tape, get another look at Bob.’
22
Even from inside the boot Aamir knew that where they were going was worse. The texture of the road beneath became rough. First they were bumping across broken asphalt then on grit, the wheels crunching over small stones, not factory-ground gravel but wild irregular stones.
The driver slowed, saving the car paint from being chipped. Aamir remembered it was a new car, he had smelled it last night. They crawled along the road for more than a mile until Aamir couldn’t hear the sounds of any other cars, just the wind buffeting the side and the faint swish of grass, birds.
The car stopped. The engine died. The men in the cabin spoke in short sentences. They got out and opened the boot to the blinding daylight. Someone prodded him to get out, yanked him up by the neck and Aamir scrambled to his feet, felt the wind on his hands and neck, chill and damp on his legs and hands.
A British passport.
They couldn’t read, those soldiers, just saw the navy blue cover and knew that they had official sanction to steal, to do whatever they wanted. It was on the way to the airport, one day before the ninety days ran out. His older brother had stayed behind to guard the house. They never saw or heard from him again. Aamir saw his mother sobbing by the roadside, the contents of their suitcase strewn across the red dust of the road, green shirts, photos of ancestors, her meagre jewellery taken.
They all disappeared behind the van and Aamir heard them: her sobbing and the men laughing awkwardly, the way men do when they see a stripper or talk about sex, a different quality laugh, deep, embarrassed. And he knew before they came around to the road, adjusting their flies, before he saw the blood, that they had fucked his maman. Aamir sat very still in the taxi, staring forward, straight through the soldier sitting on the taxi bonnet smoking a cigarillo, knowing they would be killed.
She fell back into the taxi next to Aamir, sari pressed tight over her mouth and didn’t look at him. One of the soldiers shut the door after her, hung in the window and touched her hair because he could, running it between his thumb and finger as if it was material he was thinking about buying for his wife.
Aamir felt the cold Scottish wind buffet him again and braced himself, cowering, his chin on his chest. Men like these men did not drive to the countryside for no reason. They were going to kill him. He shut his eyes to pray and, from a deep dark place, a small bubble of honest emotion rose to his chest, an old feeling, a puff of African dust and the smell of cigarillos. The feeling was urgent and fresh, unadulterated by memory. He had been running from this small bubble for thirty years, suppressing it with prayers and work and worry, with children and home improvements and food. A puff of dust from the November road to Entebbe airport. Under the pillowcase Aamir opened his eyes in shock. Facing death his last thought was honest and pure. It was relief.
In Scotland a hand pulled him roughly by the arm, so that he staggered wildly over the uneven road of shattered concrete, he tumbled forwards, over and over, around a big building that blocked the wind, through a high open door into shadows. Inside smelled damp and stale, of cold and mud and wet on the walls. It sounded like a tall wide room.
They walked Aamir through the hall, deeper and deeper into the gathering darkness, away from the door and the sound of the wind. Leading him calmly now, across metal pathways with a pattern on it, nonslip, he could feel it through his slipper soles. Silent, they took him over wooden planks that were not fixed into the ground, rocking under his weight. Up a steep set of clanging metal steps, they kicked the back of his heels, making him lift his feet and step through a lipped doorway.