Still Midnight (7 page)

Morrow picked her steps through the hall to the door shadowed by the woman officer who had been taking notes. Outside the darkness was deeper, turning bitter. They took the path down to the gate, faces closed against the chill, and Morrow made her way across the road to the witnesses behind the tape.

The neighbors had gone back indoors, leaving just two of the three Asian boys clustered together, the younger, thinner ones.

They were silent now, smoking, standing as if they were in a lineup, shifty and shocked. The passive weight of guilt.

She was surprised, doubted her impression, but she knew that her first thought was often her best and she recognized the stance, the head hanging, the exhausted slope of the shoulders, eyes flicking about the floor. They weren’t just running through the night, she felt; it was deeper, they were mapping the shift in their world. CID saw it all the time, the aftermath of lives taking violent turns and the turmoil of victims reengaging with a changed world: I was a wife, now a widow; I was a child, now an orphan. The young were better at it, their identities not yet fixed, but she saw the boys struggling hard and sensed that there was more to it than lucky or unlucky. The shift in their worldview was more fundamental.

She stopped and looked again: the boys looked straight, they seemed to be from good, moderate homes. Haircuts, straight teeth, well nourished, no big flashy cars or clothes. And yet they were standing as if they had done something very bad indeed. She found herself salivating with the desire to know.

Turning to the officer who had been taking notes during her questioning with Meeshra, Morrow spoke quietly, asking her opinion about Meeshra but not listening to the response, using the opportunity to examine the two boys. Not brothers, but very alike. They must be friends, close friends, shared values. They were smoking. The one bearing a family resemblance was wearing Nikes. The other: same age, same dress, more traditional, though. The son held his cigarette between forefinger and thumb, cupped against the wind like an outdoor worker. It didn’t look like an affectation either, it looked working-class even though his family wasn’t.

She watched him bring his cigarette to his lips and draw hard, puffing out his chest to hold the breath. Blow. Definitely. She guessed blow was forbidden by Islam. It wasn’t exactly a gin or a ham sandwich but Islam didn’t encourage people to use mood-altering chemicals. She looked at their beards and salwar kameez and smiled to herself. Ostentatious show of faith but they were Glasgow boys underneath.

Taking out her mobile phone, she pretended to fumble for a number, calling up the camera and taking a picture of each of the boys over the officer’s shoulder.

“Could you get yourself back to the station?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Absentmindedly she said, “Thanks very much.” She didn’t mean it and the uniform looked puzzled. “For the notes.” Morrow thumbed back to the house but she hadn’t even seen the fucking notes, they might be crap.

“Sure.” The officer still seemed unsure but turned and left.

Morrow felt foolish as she looked around. Bannerman and MacKechnie were off somewhere, probably scheming Bannerman’s golden future.

But she was here, on the ground, fitting facts and impressions together to draw her own picture, making sense of the fractured night, godlike, forming order from chaos. She loved the process, but tonight, with the dread of home weighing on her, it felt more like a compulsion.

The first taste of a hard winter was in the air. She pulled her jacket tight around her. The moment Bannerman knew the boys were involved he wouldn’t let her near them. As conscious of the threat of interception as a gazelle on a grassy plain, Morrow stepped across the empty road towards them.

SEVEN

Pat could hear nothing but his own shallow breath as he stepped back along the path to the field. His skin was anxious-clammy, his face veiled in a thin layer of greasy sweat. They had battered guys, hurt women sometimes, but always for a reason, never just so they could have a turn at shooting a gun. The shit-smelling wind chilled his skin, the electric blue moonlight illuminated the shards of frost crunching under his every step. At the end of the path he turned into the field and chanced a glance back at the Lexus.

Eddy had his back to him, his head dropped forward, looking at his gun. Pat broke into a trot, stumbling over the lumpy ground, running from him.

It was age that had brought them to this. Age and coke.

Seven good years sharing doors all over the city. They were liberal with their hands, known for it, good at the job, until Eddy’s missus left. Then came the fights and restraining orders and the drinking. He was drinking that night, now that Pat thought about it.

It must have been cut with something, the coke. The boy was thin, too young for that bar, really, granny grabbing, but his pupils were pins and he was twitching when he stumbled out and into Eddy, his mouth staggering to keep up with the words drenching his chin—fucking old fuck fat fucking old.

Afterwards, Eddy said he was off balance, the boy was lucky, the night was wrong. He was probably right; on another night, at a different angle, the boy’s first punch wouldn’t have got him down. The boy never went for Pat, just Eddy, the one who had nothing left to be but hard. He kicked Eddy’s face in.

Pat rallied when Eddy’s wife left, when they lost jobs over arguments with managers, but the bruises of that fight never left Eddy. Pat didn’t know what was wrong with him. A bird, Eddy said he needed a bird, so Pat set him up but she wasn’t right and he gave her a slap and her brother came over and it got messy. New job, so Pat got them an indoor, but Eddy said the money was shit and they weren’t allowed to drink. Now he needed money, if only Eddy had money. One big job. Pat was losing faith, wouldn’t use his contacts, so Eddy’d done it himself, set it up and got the guns, the van, the address. And now what was wrong was an old toast-smelling man who didn’t have a hole in his head.

Walking along the sea of frozen mud Pat realized that soon he would be what was wrong with Eddy.

Up ahead, in among the trees, Pat saw an orange eye widen in welcome. Malki was smoking a fag, casual, standing next to the two large white plastic drums of petrol. Pat bolted over to him, slapping the cigarette from his mouth, scattering flecks of red all over the ground and stamping on them.

Malki had been enjoying that cigarette. He looked down at it sadly. “Aw, man!” he droned. “I havenae opened the petrol, calm the fuck down.”

Pat grabbed him by the hoodie zip, held him up on his tiptoes, and spat in his face. “You calm
fucking
down, Malki.
You
fucking calm down.”

Drops of Pat’s spit freckled Malki’s forehead. It was so obvious neither of them said it: Malki was medically, chemically, technically perfectly calm. Despite the freezing cold of the night, despite smoking a fag next to two giant cans of petrol while being threatened by a man twice his weight, even then Malki’s physiology couldn’t summon up enough adrenaline to redden his cheeks.

A bead of sweat trickled down Pat’s forehead and Malki watched as the urgent trail disappeared into his eyebrow and dripped from his slightly overhanging brow.

“Not being funny, Pat, man, but have yous twos been doing steroids or something?”

Pat let his wee cousin drop back onto his feet. “Malki—”

“Yees are awful fucking jumpy.”

“Just shut it, Malki.”

Indignant, Malki straightened the front of his hoodie and, unseen, the tiny ball of foil tumbled gracefully out, bouncing on the grass, falling between the blades. Malki muttered, “… need tae be fucking rude, man.”

Sulking, they took a petrol can each and unscrewed the caps, Malki in charge now because he had been burning out stolen cars since he was twelve and knew what he was about. It was surprisingly easy to get it wrong.

While Pat soaked the seats, Malki opened up the tank and threaded in a line of tubing, sucking the petrol out. They didn’t want an explosion or a fireball drawing anyone’s attention; just a good, thorough job. The longer it took the police to find the van, the longer they had to muddy their trail.

By the time Pat had finished, the fumes were prickling at the skin inside his nose, making him dizzy. His mind was on the Lexus, listening, the hairs on his neck on standby, alert for the muffled pop of the gun.

He found Malki round the back, blowing into the petrol tank through the tube.

“Disperse the fumes, man,” explained Malki between puffs. He smiled as he blew, eyes wide, excited.

Pat watched. Malki came from a family of arseholes but he himself was a good wee guy. He smiled again, puffing his cheeks out like a trumpeter. How did that happen? Pat wondered. A good guy from that family, a moral guy, with standards.

“Eddy’s lost it a bit,” he said quietly.

Malki puffed and raised his eyebrows.

Pat kicked at the ground, looking away because he felt disloyal. “His wife…,” he said, backtracking, excusing.

Malki took the tube from his mouth. “Three nice wee kids.” He pulled the tube out carefully. “She’s well out of it. Did the right thing fucking off to Manchester.”

Pat couldn’t look at him because Malki was right.

He pulled the tube out and laid it flat on the ground, pointing away from the van and into the dark woods. He motioned to Pat to drop the cans underneath the van and stepped back, guiding Pat away, checking the ground they were stepping away from for oily smears of petrol.

Malki was taking no chances. He made Pat stand a good distance away along the tire tracks because he’d been in the van and would be all fumed up. Malki went back himself, crouching at the end of the tube, his lighter sparking twice before the flame caught. He held it to the end of the tube and got up quickly, backing off to Pat’s side.

A warm glow shot along the tubing, spilling a sudden sheet of light into the grass. The flames took, licking up at the surrounding air, racing into the petrol tank until a thwump and a spluttered belch of fire spilled onto the grass, lighting every drip and smear of petrol. The inside of the van was on fire, the back windows bright. The fire spread to the front seats and a wave of warm and smoke hit their faces. Pat blanched at the heat but Malki didn’t even blink. His mouth had fallen open a little, his small teeth white against the dark.

“ ’Mon,” said Pat, anxious to get back. He hurried out of the trees, following his path to the Lexus. Eddy’s head was no longer visible over the scraggy hedge around the field. Pat sped up, keeping his eyes on the place where Eddy had been standing, imagining him crouched over the old man’s body, rolling him into the ditch. Malki trotted after him, almost bumping into him at the mouth of the field when Pat stopped in his tracks.

Eddy was gone.

Pat ran towards the car, looking over the roof, in the ditch by the car, but Eddy was gone.

“Where the fuck…?”

Malki was behind him, staring hard at him, worried. With a limp hand he pointed at the car, at the driver’s seat. Eddy was sitting in it.

“Oh,” said Pat.

“… in the fucking car,” mumbled Malki, shaking his head.

Pat looked at Malki. The harsh moonlight cut lines deep into his face, he looked forty and he was only twenty-three. And yet he was looking pityingly at Pat.

“Fucking junkie twat,” said Pat.

Malki turned square to him and raised a warning finger. “Patrick, my friend, I have to say: you’re being a bit ignorant there.”

“Get in the fucking motor.”

“No need for rudeness, my friend. We’ve all got our troubles.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “Malki—”

Malki raised both hands. “
Polite
. That’s all I’m saying…. Us and the animals, man.” He opened the back door and slipped his skinny hips in next to the pillowcase, shutting the door before Pat had the chance to tell him off again.

Heavily, his head throbbing slightly from the fumes, Pat made his way around to the other rear door and got in. The pillowcase was slight as well as small: Pat’s hips didn’t even touch him. It was like sitting next to a child.

Eddy started the engine and his eyes met Pat’s in the rearview mirror. Pat blinked and looked away.

When they hit the motorway, Pat looked back to where the van was burning. A calm smoke plume drifted up into the clear night. It could pass for insignificant, unless a local was going by and knew there was no house over the shoulder of the hill.

They drove on in silence as before but now Malki was content, having had the release of setting fire to something, on his way to a midnight assignation with his beloved scag. And Eddy was happy at the wheel of the Lexus, imagining a future where he owned such a car and could look at himself in the mirror.

But the pillowcase was rigid with fright and Pat looked out at the dark fields and wished himself someone else, somewhere else. He should have refused to get out of the van.

EIGHT

Rain fell softly in the dark street, regular and rhythmic, like a comforting pat on the back. Beyond the tape the boys watched Morrow’s feet as she came towards them. Their cigarettes were polka-dotted with drizzle. Neither could bring their eyes up farther than her knees.

Young, slim, and handsome, their clothes were expensive and well laundered, ironed.

She stopped in front of them. “Are you…?”

For a moment neither spoke until the friend said, “I’m, eh, I’m Mo. This is Omar. He lives, eh, it’s his house.”

“Right?”

They sagged like sacks, brought their cigarettes to their mouths. Omar opened his mouth to speak but shut it again, stunned. He struggled to look up at her and seemed very young.

“You’ve had quite a night,” she said.

Mo told the tarmac, “Aye, then we got almost arrested for asking the police for help.”

The hope that Bannerman had fucked up made her ask, “What happened?”

“We drove off after the van,” said Omar, “and lost it and then when we saw a police car we stopped them and they arrested us.” His words were slurred, bizarrely languid, as if he was already stoned. Aftereffect of shock: massive slump in blood sugar after an adrenaline rush.