Still Midnight

37

The heavy metal doors opened with a clang and the passengers poured onto the car deck, snaking their way between the vans and cars lined up neatly in rows, facing the green ramp wall of the ferry. An overhead announcement ordered them in prissy estuary English not to start their engines before the ferry docked and the ramp was lowered. And to not even think of lighting a cigarette on the car deck.

An unexceptional white-haired man in a navy golfing jersey, belly like a plain-clothed Santa, made his way past cars of families going or coming from holidays or visits to family, past vans heading for work in Glasgow or London, to a green Peugeot estate car. He unlocked it, climbed in, did his seat belt up, slid the keys in but did not turn them and waited patiently, keeping his eyes down, remaining unremarkable. The ferrymen, in dayglo yellow jackets and big wellies, stood by the doors, staring at the passengers insolently, waiting.

The roar of the ferry engines suddenly changed gear, churning backwards, slowing the ferry’s approach to the pier and the boat lurched sideways, coming to a stop. The prow was lowered slowly in front of them, letting the bright grey day into the bowel of the ship.

The first row of cars fired up their engines and the ferrymen signalled to them to drive on, herding them over the ramp and into Scotland.

Even in his maddest dreams of blood-soaked glory Eddy had never imagined himself sitting in a car with an actual ex-paramilitary terrorist, cruising along the streets of Glasgow after a roast beef dinner at a Beefeater all-you-can-eat buffet. Eddy was, in short, creaming it. He was trying to act cool but observe as much as he possibly could about the guy. He liked the calm manner, and the shoulder swagger when he walked. Liked the way the guy seemed to be watching all the time, never really making eye contact with him much but watching over his shoulder. And he loved that when they went to the Beefeater, after the man had piled a small plate with meat and gravy and a single potato, that he had chosen a seat in the corner, away from the door and windows. Careful. A pro.

Looking out of the passenger window of the Peugeot Eddy reflected that this would have gone very differently if the Irishman had been there all along, that he must have been very high up when he was in the Provos because he had such natural authority, and that Eddy would have followed him into battle.

‘There.’ The white-haired man, who had asked Eddy just to call him T, pulled the car over to the pavement and nodded at a phone box in the street up ahead.

‘But,’ Eddy didn’t know whether to say it or not, ‘place is polluted with cameras.’

The man looked out through the windscreen at the grey box attached to a street light. ‘Not a problem,’ he drawled in his throaty accent. ‘Ye know just to keep your cap on and chin down, don’t ye, boy?’

Eddy didn’t know that but noted it for future escapades. ‘Um, I haven’t got my cap with me, but-’ T reached over the back of his chair into the footwell behind him and pulled out two identical England Cricket Team navy-blue skip caps, handing one to Eddy.

Eddy chanced a little camaraderie, pointing at the logo. ‘I hope that’s a fucking joke,’ he said.

‘What do you think yourself, son?’ He had a twinkle in his eye. Eddy was starting to think T liked him.

‘T, man, what’s to stop them picking us up at the drop? What if they have phoned the polis?’

T smirked at him, keeping his mouth shut tight. ‘Done this a hundred times, son, don’t you worry about that.’ He pulled his cap low over his face and Eddy copied him.

Caps donned, they exited the vehicle and walked over to the phone box in sharp formation. Both getting into the box was a squeeze though because the Irish was a bit fat around the middle and Eddy was none too slender himself, having done a lot of work on himself in the gym. They managed to get the door almost shut behind them though, blocking out the background sounds of traffic and high beep of the pedestrian crossing a hundred yards away.

The Irish had one latex glove on and picked up the receiver, holding it between his shoulder and chin as he pulled a pound coin out of his pocket and dropped it into the phone. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you dial then, son.’

Eddy nodded, pulled out the Tesco’s receipt with the Anwars’ home number scribbled on it in pencil and started to stab it into the keypad, using his knuckles in a manner he hoped looked professional and finger print savvy.

‘You’ve got it written on a scrap of paper in your pocket? What if ye get picked up? That’s the case against ye right there.’

Eddy flinched. ‘Aye, but just, my mate was calling them and so I didn’t know it off by heart and then, well,’ he could see the dismay in the man’s face, ‘I’m going to… eat it after we call now.’

‘Right?’ T’s disappointment turned to surprise. ‘You’re going to eat a Tesco’s receipt?’

‘To get rid, like.’ Embarrassed at his gaffe, Eddy stabbed in the final numbers on the receipt and put it in his mouth, wishing it wasn’t such a long receipt because it tasted of ink and newspapers.

T watched him, curious and a little disgusted. ‘Ye should maybe have waited until we were sure it was the right number before ye-’ His attention was suddenly drawn by someone on the other end. ‘Anwar?’

Eddy couldn’t hear the answer on the other end but the ambivalence was gone from T’s face. ‘I’ve a matter of business to discuss with you,’ he said firmly, his brow coming down over his eyes.

Carefully, T reached over and opened the door to the phone box, gently but firmly shoving Eddy out into the street and closing the door behind him. Eddy stood in the street, chewing the paper dutifully as the rain flecked the lenses of his Reactalite glasses until he couldn’t see any more.

Sadiqa, Omar and Billal stared at the phone as it rang, jittery as flies. Apologetically Omar reached for the receiver. The voice on the other end claimed he had a matter of business to discuss. It was a different voice, Northern Irish, more nasal, deeper.

‘Who is this?’ asked Omar.

‘The Boss. Who’s this?’

‘Omar.’

‘Anwar?’

‘Anwar’s the family name, my first name’s Omar.’

‘But that’s not what they call ye, is it?’

Omar sighed, saw Billal glaring at him and shut his eyes so he didn’t have to look at him.

‘You’ve a nickname, haven’t ye?’ The man was smiling on the other end of the phone. He could hear the crocodile mouth, open wide, ready to snap him in half. ‘They call ye Bill, don’t they?’

‘Bob.’

‘Eh?’

‘They call me Bob.’

‘Nah,’ he laughed humourlessly. ‘Nah, don’t try games wi’ me, son. Bill, they call ye.’

Omar opened his eyes. Billal had heard it too. He looked at Omar, looked at the phone.

‘Well, Bill, we happen to know a wee bit about what you’re up to-’

Shocked, Billal crouched suddenly, punching at the tape recorder as if it was a spider on his dinner, switching it off.

‘With the old VAT fraud and that, so you’d better cough up pronto or your wee daddy’s getting it, understand?’

Billal stayed where he was, crouched down in front of the telephone table, his head slumped forward.

‘Where and when?’

‘In an hour. Drop the bag on the A1 at the first emergency phone box past the services. Understand?’

‘Yes. I can’t get what you asked for, I’ve got forty grand.’

‘That’ll have to do.’

‘Then will you release my dad?’

‘Soon as they pick-up he’ll be let go in the city with money for a taxi home. Clear?’

‘First emergency phone box past the services. Got it.’

‘And if it’s not a Paki driving that car I’ll know you’ve called the police. You know what’ll happen then, don’t ye?’

Omar could hardly speak, the threat and the racial slur together were too much.

‘In fact,’ said the voice, ‘in fact, can your mammy drive?’

‘Uh, aye.’

‘Send her with the bag. Send her alone.’

Omar managed three words. ‘In an hour.’

‘In one hour.’

He was holding the receiver so tight to his ear that the hang-up click hurt his ear drum. Slowly, with shallow breath, Omar took the receiver away, raised it above his head and clubbed Billal as hard as he could on the back of the head.

Harris looked up at the Anwars’ house. The low garden wall was still staved in but all the evidence cards and tape were gone from the garden and the bungalow looked as unremarkable as any of its neighbours.

‘Wouldn’t look twice,’ he said. ‘Much do you think he’s got stashed away?’

‘Companies House has a trail of failed companies going back eighteen months. VAT can pull in millions a month. Must have storage somewhere.’

‘And he’s living in one bedroom with his new missus?’

‘He’ll be spending a fortune on Lady and Master Nutkins though.’

‘Much do ye reckon? Thousands a month?’

Morrow shrugged. ‘He’s still got boxes and boxes of cash somewhere.’ She could see someone moving through the mottled glass on the Anwars’ front door, a mad lurch from one side of the hall to the other. She was imagining scenarios that would make sense of it: a leap for a phone, a jumping game among family members, someone falling forwards to catch a falling vase, when a giant body crashed into the glass pane, making it shudder outwards.

Harris and Morrow were out of the car and up the path, just as the body got up and fell away from the door. Harris tried the door, shouted, ‘Police! Police! Let us in!’

The door was flung open by Sadiqa. She gestured down the hall like a frightened magician’s assistant.

Omar was sitting on his brother’s chest, trying to club him with the weighted base of the phone. Billal was bloodied, held both arms over his face and cycled, kneeing his wee brother in the back with each of his knees alternately. Omar’s face didn’t register the blows to his kidneys. Omar didn’t even hear Harris coming across the hall towards him. Intent on what he was doing he brought the weighted receiver of the phone down and up, down and up on his brother, an angry child breaking a toy he had come to hate.

Harris grabbed the phone from his hand, put a throttle hold on Omar, yanking him off his brother, pulling him to his feet.

Suddenly free, Billal looked up, his nose was a bloody mess but he saw Morrow looking at him and waited a beat pause before he started shouting, ‘Oh god, my god!’ He rolled away from her, his eyes still trained on her, willing her to come and look to make sure he was OK. That’s what made her look away.

Dead-eyed with shock, Meeshra was in the bedroom doorway, her hands out, holding either side of the door jamb. Morrow took a step towards her and was surprised to see her jump a little. ‘Meeshra?’ Behind her the baby gave a squeak but Meeshra’s eye didn’t waver. She wasn’t blocking the doorway to protect the baby. Meeshra was protecting something else.

Keeping eye contact, Morrow walked towards her, took the woman’s right hand from the frame and saw the horror on her face as she realised she’d given them away. Morrow walked over to the only piece of furniture in the room large enough. She allowed herself a lick of the lips, bent down and took the edge of the divan bed in both hands. The mattress slid to the ground on the far side and the wooden frame lifted easily. She held it over her head and looked down.

Shrink-wrapped blocks of pink and purple bank notes, solid as bricks, so many she had to estimate in feet: five feet by four feet, one yard high.

Aware of the hush in the hall she looked out. Beyond Meeshra, Sadiqa, Harris and Omar saw the money and stopped, stunned, until Sadiqa fell forward from the waist, picked up the telephone from the floor and, with remarkable grace for a woman of her size, smashed her eldest son in the bollocks with it.

Here was the nurse, back to ask him if he wanted to go down to the cafeteria for a cup of tea; she could change his auntie and have her nice and ready for the doctors’ round. He could come back then and speak to them.

Pat sat up, looking at Minnie’s hand, finding her middle knuckle white from the pressure of his forehead. Carefully, he placed the hand back on top of the covers and sat up. His back was aching. His face was wet, his eyes puffed from crying and being bent over double for so long. He suddenly felt very foolish.

‘Aye, I mibbi will now,’ Pat stood up slowly, hiding his face from the nurse. She handed him a clutch of tissues. He dried his face.

‘Just you take your time,’ she said softly, and left again.

Pat went out into the corridor and locked himself in the toilet. He turned on the tap and leaned over the basin, cupping cold water in his hands and throwing it at his face. He tried to look at himself in the mirror, to check that he looked OK, but he couldn’t find the courage to do it. He dabbed his face dry with rough green paper and left.

A different nurse watched him walking down the corridor towards her, an older woman, navy uniform and trousers. Seeing his red eyes she smiled, head tilted in sympathy. ‘Mr Welbeck?’

Pat tried to skirt past her. ‘Just going for a cup of tea,’ he mumbled.

‘Well, the doctors won’t be down to see your auntie for at least half an hour, so just you take your time, there’s no hurry.’

He tried to get past but she stepped towards him and touched his elbow, dipping at the knees to get him to look up at her. He stopped, caught her eye, found he hadn’t the strength to resist.

‘She has been very comfortable,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t worry about that.’

He nodded, dragged a breath into his chest to quell more tears and, in doing so, tipped his head back.

She was a small woman. Beyond her, over her shoulder, was a wire mesh window into a room, the glass marked with the yellowed flaking residue of old sellotape. Yellow curtains with pink triangles on them. And there she was, sitting up in bed, an oil slick of hair pulled over one shoulder, hands on the bed sheets in front of her, the light behind her. She was looking at him.

‘… Although she does have some bedsores, they are very clean and the saline baths seem to be helping.’

Pat could not rip his gaze from Aleesha, nor she from him. He thought he saw her eyes widen, as if in recognition, but then wondered if maybe it was his own eyes that had opened wider, as if he was trying to take in more of her.

The woman in front of him talked on about bedsores, about the home Minnie had come from, about a report and a test for something but he couldn’t hear her properly, just disjointed words swimming towards him, over him, by his ears.

Without breaking eye contact, without seeming even to move her head, Aleesha threw the covers back, swung her feet in perfect point to the floor and stood up. One of her hands was bandaged, white padded. She kept it high and held his eye as she walked to him. Even at the door frame, even when they couldn’t see each other for the woodchip wall, they held one another’s gaze. She lingered at the door, waiting for the nurse to go.

‘Sorry,’ the nurse touched her chest, ‘I’m Staff Nurse Sarah, what’s your name?’

Aleesha stepped back so that one of her eyes was hidden behind the door frame, she seemed to be unsure that coming to talk to the stranger was a good idea, bottled it a bit and looked at her bandaged hand, back curved as if she was going to step back into the room, as if a force in there was sucking her backwards.

‘ Roy.’ He stepped to the side, past the nurse and reached out to Aleesha with a flat hand, palm outwards, not offering a shake but gesturing to take her hand, lead her away. ‘Hello.’

Aleesha looked at his hand, raised an eyebrow at the impertinence, looked at him, read the desperate need the man had for her.

He was gorgeous. Tall. Dirty blond hair so thick it stood up, not, like, with gel, not uniform spikes that made boys look as if they cared so much they’d spent hours styling it. A jaw speckled with stubble of a hundred different colours, a flat nose, like he’d been in a car accident, and shoulders broader than the door almost. He raised his eyebrows at her, sad smiling eyes, pale blue.

She didn’t take the hand. She sloped back into her room, turning so that her face was hidden from him.

‘Sorry,’ the nurse said, looking slightly resentfully at Aleesha’s foot, ‘do you two know each other?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pat, ‘I’m pretty sure we do, but I can’t think where from.’

Aleesha swung back at the door. ‘You go to St Al’s?’

Pat snorted a tired laugh. ‘I’m twenty-eight, it’s a long time since I was at school and I never went there, no.’

‘I thought you went to St Al’s,’ she said. Her voice was higher than he had thought it would be, sweeter.

He looked at her and saw a girl, not the goddess of his imagination. He liked the girl better. ‘My, um,’ he looked back down the corridor to the toilets, ‘my auntie’s getting ready for the doctors’ round. I was, um…’ He looked at the ward doors and was struck by the impossibility of this happening. ‘I’m going for a cuppa…’

She saw how tired he was and how sad and how handsome. ‘You’ve been crying.’ He nodded. ‘Why?’

The nurse tutted at the girl and crossed her arms, siding with him against her. Pat pulled one of his ears, gulped, tried hard not to cry again. ‘Sad,’ he whispered and thumbed behind him.

They looked each other in the eye again, stuck again for too long, inappropriate. He saw her feel it, saw her eyes melt into his mood. With her good hand she held out the bundle of bandages and dressings to show him. ‘I’m acting weird,’ she said, ‘’cause I’m on shit loads of painkillers.’

He pointed at the hand with a limp index finger, wanted to ask what happened, act surprised, but he couldn’t bring himself to start the thing with a lie. They both watched as Aleesha fingered a fray on the bandage.

The nurse was cross at finding herself a spectator. She stepped between them but, with superhuman grace, Aleesha stepped to the side, back into Pat’s line of vision.

‘If my mum phones,’ she said, ‘tell her I’ll be back in twenty minutes.’