Still Midnight

by Denise Mina

  Aamir sat in the haze of warmth from the car heater and looked at the socks as his feet thawed. Grey socks, red toes. They were thermal, the man said. Thermal.

  He was alone in the car. The man busied himself outside, packing up, folding a chair, pulling his fishing rod into bits and slipping them into socks of their own.

  You think about that and I’ll pack up, he had said.

  Aamir was to think. His job, set by the man, was to think: where do you want to go?

  It was off the motorway, on the edge of a large roundabout and would, she imagined, be a serious draw for people who cared about that sort of thing. In the window the luxury cars were polished to a wink, lined up on the diagonal against the glass wall so that the sun glinted off them, drawing the eye of covetous drivers.

  The building was a glass box, two storeys high, with a canary yellow Lamborghini hanging on a wired shelf, five feet off the ground, tilted towards the window like the display in a jeweller’s.

  The garage wasn’t suppose to open until ten o’clock but two cars were parked up around the back, a small blue-grey BMW sports car with sharky gills along the side next to a dirty, unloved shit car, like hers.

  Finding a plain door in the wall marked ‘Deliveries’ she knocked and waited an eternity. Again and again she knocked but no one answered. Finally she took out her mobile, thinking she should get the number and phone them, when a voice crackled over an intercom above her head.

  ‘Whit?’ A woman’s voice, rough and nasal.

  Morrow looked up at the source of the voice. A grey cone with a red ball on the end of it was attached to the wall above her head. A camera with an intercom system on it. She stepped back and looked up at it. ‘I’m a police officer,’ she said, finding her voice high and pleading. ‘I want the manager.’

  Another silence followed and a man’s voice came on the intercom, creamy smooth. ‘Hello, may I help you today?’

  Morrow got out her wallet, flipped it open and held it up to the camera. ‘DS Alex Morrow, Strathclyde CID.’

  She thought the voice said ‘For fucksa—’ and then the door buzzed and clicked and fell open. She pushed it, into a cold concrete corridor, took two steps and heard the door shut firmly behind her. She took another door ten feet away and stepped out into the plush showroom.

  The glass walls were smoked and lent the room an evening air, like a smart hotel in a foreign locale frequented by wealthy businessmen. The cars were even shinier inside, their lines beguiling and the colours bright, like perfect children lined up for adoption.

  An army of identical plug-in heaters littered the room, rumbling heat out into the ridiculous space, losing the battle against the faint smell of mouldering damp. In the distance, silhouetted against the window, a dumpy woman in tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt vacuumed the dark carpet under a car.

  A man her own age and height stepped in front of her, smiling politely. He wasn’t good-looking, wasn’t tall but was very carefully groomed. Even the grey fleck around the temples of his black hair looked like a deliberate design. His grey suit hung beautifully from his shoulders. He smiled, showing her an army of capped teeth. ‘May I see your warrant card again, please?’

  She got it out and gave it to him, noting that he knew a warrant card was called a warrant card and finding that interesting. He handed it back, letting off exactly the same smile. ‘Many thanks.’

  She couldn’t look at the row of enamels without imagining a dentist going at his real teeth with a hammer and chisel.

  ‘We have to be very careful,’ he explained, ‘because of the value of the merchandise. So, what can I do for you today?’

  ‘You had a car on order for a Mr Omar Anwar?’

  ‘Hm, what brand?’ He was smiling, not picking up on the air of menace she was trying to exude. Morrow felt a bit insulted.

  ‘Lamborghini.’

  ‘Ah, Lamborghini . . .’ He rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and she noticed that his bottom teeth were yellow and crooked, as if they were from a different mouth altogether. ‘The bad boy. The King.’

  ‘Aye, well you can cut the shite with me, I just want to see your records.’

  He faltered at that. She shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t just who she made Brian be, it was everyone. She was turning everyone she saw into an arsehole. It didn’t used to be like that. She thought of Brian in his mum’s old deckchair and her anger abated. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said . . . that was rude.’

  The man showed her his teeth again. ‘Yes, there’s no need for language.’

  She looked around the showroom again. ‘Damp?’

  He sighed. ‘Smells, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t mind but we actually own the building so we can’t threaten to move or anything. There’s a stream.’ He drew a line along the floor. ‘We’re suing the architect.’

  ‘Good,’ she said, trying to be friendly.

  ‘Listen, I can’t just show you someone’s records of purchase without a warrant or anything. I have to protect my clients. Would be bad for business if people thought they couldn’t trust us to be discreet.’

  ‘Purchaser is more than happy for us to have a look at your records. Could bring him here or you can call him.’

  ‘I think the latter would be more suitable.’ He beamed again, better this time, as if his face was warming up. ‘You have to appreciate, a lot of the people we sell to . . .’ He gave her a knowing nod, smiled and walked away.

  In Morrow’s head she asked him if his clients were crooks, drug dealers, buying his cars with stolen money. In her head she threatened to look at all his records, pull the fuckers in and say she’d got it from him, give them his photo and let slip his name and address but she shut up. Gerald had died. It was the first time she’d thought the words since they left the hospital. Gerald has died. She hadn’t said it to anyone because she couldn’t even think it. Gerald died, but this, the carnage afterwards, this was her creation.

  She followed him across the damp-smelling floor, blinking back small tears, wishing her hand was on Brian’s forearm, before he looked at her, the scratch of the soft wood on her wrist.

  The man’s office was really just a large circular desk in the corner of the room, big enough to look fancy but up close just four curved tables shoved next to each other. He took his jacket off and hung it on a hanger, sat down in a wheeled office chair and walked himself across to the computer monitor, flicking on the hard drive. He sat, with his eyes on the screen, hands poised above the keyboard, a concert pianist waiting for the maestro’s signal.

  It took a long time. Behind Morrow the vacuum hummed and the fan heaters grumbled to one another. She’d been turning away from Brian since they left the hospital, since the lift down in the hospital in fact, insisting that she would carry both the plastic bags of Gerald’s belongings, refusing to even let him take the SpongeBob doll from under her arm. She’d never felt it was a choice until now.

  The monitor flicked bright suddenly and made them both jump. He smiled up at her. ‘Oh,’ he stood up formally and held his hand out, ‘I’m Bill Prescott.’

  Morrow shook the hand, wondering why she hadn’t asked his name, worrying that she hadn’t.

  He sat back down, the smile lingering on his face, adding, ‘General manager.’

  Morrow nodded, shifted her weight, cleared her throat softly. It was suddenly getting warm in the showroom. She felt a prickle of sweat in her oxters.

  ‘Here we go.’ He used the mouse to choose a file, and picked up the phone next to him, dialling the number on the screen. Holding the receiver to his ear he smiled up at her, waiting and suddenly his face brightened. ‘Ah, hello, is this Mr Omar Anwar?’ He nodded. ‘This is Stark-McClure over on Rosevale, yeah, sure yeah uh, brilliant, OK, well listen, Mr Anwar, I have a police officer with—’ He listened, looked at Morrow as if she was being discussed, smiled the million dollar smile, ‘Great. That’s OK with you then? All and any documentation, Mr Anwar? Great.’ Looking suddenly worried he nodded and tried to in
terrupt, ‘I see. It is refundable. The full deposit isn’t refundable but that deposit is. OK, will - will do. Fine, as I said before, sir, that’s absolutely - OK, OK? Well, if you wanted to come in and look for any—OK, straight back to the account, OK. Great. Great. Bye. Bye.’

  Bowing obsequiously he leaned forward, following the receiver down to the port, and hung up. He sat up and managed a faltering smile and spread his hands. ‘Cancelled the order. Wants a refund. And he said you can have anything.’

  Alex sat in her car in the car park and looked at the photocopies. The deposit had been paid in the name of Aamir Anwar. Bill Prescott explained at length that it was a deposit to secure a place on the Lamborghini waiting list, not actually a deposit for the car. Omar had cancelled it and wanted a full refund into Aamir’s account.

  Two grand was hardly evidence of massive international fraud. He could have saved it up himself from a bar job.

  The receipts were confirmation of everything Omar had said the night before. It bothered her though. Three kids, a religious father and he was helping his unemployed youngest son to buy a Lamborghini. Not even the oldest son. And the father was frugal. He had a cheap white van parked in front of the house. That level of flash didn’t sound consistent. She looked at the receipt again.

  Aamir Anwar’s account details had been blanked out by Bill Prescott but his name was there. Omar said yesterday that he could empty these accounts to pay for his father’s return. He had access to those accounts. There was nothing to stop him paying for a car out of them as long as he repaid the money.

  She realised what it meant: Omar was a fantasist, he didn’t have money or a rich father, or a fraud scam. He was, at worst, optimistic about a bad business idea.

  They had nothing but Malki Tait’s fingerprints and the chances were they were from an old foil.

  33

  The office seemed unnaturally quiet when she got there. She went into her office, shed her bag and jacket and looked at Bannerman’s desk. His computer was turned off and there was no coffee cup. She looked out into the corridor. MacKechnie’s office was shut and dark too. They were off together somewhere. They were off to see the Fraud Squad. She should have phoned ahead about the garage.

  The incident room was busy, DCs following up on leads and scraps, making notes, phoning. She didn’t go in but turned and saw Harris sitting on his own in the small office, staring hard at a screen and looking even more pissed off than yesterday. She leaned into him. ‘Ye right?’

  He groaned. ‘Up half the night with a blinding headache from watching this shite.’

  ‘Poor you. Where’s Bannerman?’

  ‘Have you not heard?’ He leaned forward and pressed the pause button. ‘Bannerman’s taken compassionate. His mum’s got pneumonia apparently. She’s in hospital.’

  ‘Compassionate?’

  ‘Yeah, doesn’t know when he’ll be back.’

  She bit the dirtiest word she knew back, chewing on her inner lip until she got back into her office and closed the door. Morrow sat down. The cunt was ducking the cunting fucking case because he was a cunt and he was using his stinking fucking mother’s pneumonia to do it. Killer fucking instinct, right enough. Cunt.

  MacKechnie was fully aware of the situation Bannerman had put her in, but it was important for everyone to pull together and support him at this difficult time.

  ‘So,’ he said carefully, patting the desk in front of her chair, ‘it falls to you to take his place as the SIO.’

  Morrow sat back in the office chair by his desk and read his face. If he knew his protégé was dodging the job because it wasn’t panning out, MacKechnie wasn’t letting on. They looked at each other for a long while until MacKechnie broke off. ‘You called me a racist a few days ago. You wanted this case so much you actually said that to me.’

  She could see just how intensely he disliked her at that moment. Everything about her was wrong. It wasn’t just that she was a woman, wasn’t her habit of swearing or her brisk manner, her poor southsider accent, her lack of allies. What he disliked about her most was that she didn’t really give a fuck, because wherever she was, whatever was going on in the gentle heave and sway of office politics, all she really cared about in the world was gone. MacKechnie could sense that dark belligerent void and knew that he couldn’t touch her.

  ‘This case is a great opportunity for you—’

  ‘This case is big fat bollocks and you know it. The family are lying out of their arses. Thirty-six hours since he was taken and every minute that passes makes it less likely that we’ll find the man alive—’

  MacKechnie couldn’t take it any more. He stood up and hissed at her, ‘Do your job. Get out.’

  Harris pulled the car up carefully to the curb. He needn’t have been careful, there weren’t many other cars in the street and they were mostly tucked away in bricked-over gardens at the front of the houses, but he was delighted to be out of the office and away from the videos and enjoying kicking the facts of the briefing about.

  ‘Toryglen?’

  ‘Yeah, dropped him off at the main road, he said.’

  ‘Any Taits there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t you find anything on the shop’s CCTV tapes?’ she said.

  ‘Well, there are a couple of oddities but nothing major. I’ve highlighted them and asked Gobby to have a look at them, see if I was just going blind or what.’

  ‘Show them to me when we get back.’

  ‘Yeah. But boss, you know, even if it is VAT fraud it’s a bit irrelevant. Even if the family are screwing millions out of the VAT office that only tells us how they became targets, it doesn’t help us find the old man or get him out alive, does it?’

  Morrow nodded. ‘Yeah, but finding out how they were targeted’ll lead us to the kidnappers. And when it comes to trial any defence lawyer’s going to bring it up to discredit them. Makes the whole case harder.’

  ‘S’pose.’ Harris opened his door and stopped with one foot in the road. ‘D’you reckon Bannerman’s bunking off?’

  It would be breaking rank to say so. ‘DC Harris, whatever makes you say that?’ As they stood on either side of the car looking down the road, getting the measure of the place, she asked him: ‘Really, what makes you say that?’

  He shrugged, still unsure of her. ‘Rumour.’

  ‘Oh.’ He wasn’t prepared to go into it. She liked that.

  ‘What’s the rumours about me?’

  ‘There aren’t any rumours about you, boss.’

  She looked at him, worried they were skating close to sincerity and felt uncomfortable about it. ‘Shame. I started a couple of good ’uns.’

  ‘Except that you’re getting the squeeze.’

  She almost choked, she’d never expected sympathy and it touched her deeply. She looked away, hiding her face.

  They were poor houses. A long curving street of flat-fronted council houses with telephone and electrical wires slung across them, grey plaster facades that had blackened into the architectural equivalent of a skin complaint. A lot of the houses had been bought by the tenants though: incongruous wooden porches were built around a couple of doors. One of the houses had mock Tudor windows, all lead strips and flouncy nets behind. The gardens were well kept too, carefully organised gravel and flower baskets hanging from walls, garden pots too big to pick up and walk away with, and hedges carefully trimmed where they grew. She wouldn’t have chosen to live here but the people who did clearly liked it. Pink plastic toys littered the grass in one garden and a deflated football was resting by the curb in the street. Morrow noticed that the street was a dead end. It was a nice safe playground for kids. The street was empty though; all the children off at school, all the parents tending house or out working. At the end of the street a modern chapel loomed on a hillock like a village jail.

  Malki Tait’s address was number twelve. It looked like a pensioner’s house from the outside. Modest china ornaments were lined up along the window sill; an Alsatian dog,
a tiny China bouquet of flowers, a mouse holding a bit of cheese. The front step had just been washed, was damp but drying, the sweep of the wet handbrush lingering grey on the concrete.

  The door was council, flat panelled and painted a jaunty cornflower blue, not a bought house, no money here, but the door hadn’t been changed since the seventies. The tenant had been here since then. The council stripped out older fittings when new tenants moved in. They offered new doors and windows to existing tenants too but the older ones usually wanted to keep things the same, being members of a generation who liked what they liked and didn’t believe decor was subject to yearly fashions.

  ‘Old lady,’ guessed Morrow, pressing the doorbell.

  ‘A quid,’ bet Harris.

  Shuffling steps, a weak call of ‘hello’ in an old lady’s voice.

  Morrow smiled at the step. ‘Mrs Tait?’

  ‘Hello?’

  Harris and Morrow looked at each other. Either she hadn’t heard Morrow or she was working for time. Malcolm Tait could be walking out of the back door right now.

  Suddenly animated, Morrow raised her fist to bang on the door and Harris backed away to the street, looking for a lane to the back garden. The door opened suddenly and a thin woman looked out at them, tipping her head back to see them through the bottom portion of red plastic bifocal glasses.

  Annie Tait was wearing a pair of baggy red joggers and a white vest with bra straps showing. She had the arms of a much younger woman. She’d once had red hair like her son, but had dyed it blonde, two inch roots of red and grey mingled at her scalp. It was wild frizzy hair, the tips not helped by the drying effect of the hair dye. It looked like a rain-flattened afro. Embarrassed by her appearance she raised her hand to it. ‘Who are you?’