Still Midnight

4

It was as a punishment that MacKechnie made her come in here, sitting on a hard chair in the soporific light of the bedroom, interviewing the bed-bound daughter-in-law who was little more than a bystander.

Morrow could hear them behind the door, out there, behind her in the hall, a happy gang, muttering, looking at details, gathering important scraps of information that would flesh out the story while she was in here, being kept busy and out of the way.

Meeshra looked rough, black fuzz grew down the sides of her face and her hair was wild, knotted at the back where she had been sleeping on it.

The door was shut behind them, for the sake of modesty, while Meeshra threatened the baby with her engorged nipple. The two-week-old child bucked and struggled, his gummy, desperate mouth clamping to skin and fingers but failing to meet the breast. It was too full, Alex knew, so heavy with milk that the baby couldn’t get his mouth around it. But the advice stuck in her throat. It seemed improper and intimate. It wasn’t her job, it was for a health visitor to tell her.

‘They were waving the gun and shouting. Looking for a guy called Rob. “Robbie”. A right Scottish name, in’t it?’

Lancaster lingered in Meeshra’s accent but it was fading to Scottish. She had been here for less than a year, she said, moving in with her in-laws after her wedding. They were a happy family, and here she blinked, a prosperous, hard-working family, and she blinked again.

A female officer was standing behind Alex, jotting the lies down, allowing Alex to simply watch. Every individual had a tic that signalled a lie, and the best way to find it was ask them about their family.

Morrow was sure that Meeshra wasn’t lying deliberately. Family myths and fables were more than conscious fibs; they were a form of self-protection, conversational habits, beliefs too embedded to challenge: she loves me, we are happy, he will change. But there was always a tic. It amazed Alex, the craven need of people to tell the truth. During questioning, when inconsistencies started to show in a story, people often broke down, sobbed with the desire to be honest, as if getting caught lying was the very worst that could happen. She’d seen men carve fingernails into the palms of their hands, breaking the skin to relieve the pressure to tell. Adamance was the most common giveaway. She’d never again trust anyone who began a sentence, ‘Honestly’, or, ‘To tell the truth’. These were flags raised high above a statement, drawing the casual viewer’s attention; here be dragons.

Professional liars thought out excuses beforehand and stuck to them, but synthetic memories were unwieldy; ask for a colour or a detail and they were too slow to answer. Fluent liars were dangerous, either because they were so malevolent or suggestible.

The skill of spotting lies had given Morrow a jaundiced view of the world. The worst of it was that it denied her the luxury of lying to herself. The cold light of day was no place to live.

So she envied Meeshra’s insistence that they were all happy together. Sure, there were tensions but her mother-in-law was basically a good person, a bit educated but still good, and she knew how she wanted the house run and where the furniture should go and she had her own ways of cooking, eh? That was natural, right? And the baby was such a blessing, a son, first grandchild. She blinked at that and Alex noted it, filed it away. We will be happy, Meeshra said, stopping, surprised to find herself using the future tense.

She pressed the baby towards her tit again. He rolled his bald head back and gave out a dry, thin squeal. Frustrated, Meeshra squeezed her nipple between her fingers and a powerful arc of watery milk jetted across the bed and soaked into the sheet. Tearful with embarrassment, she cursed herself in a language Alex didn’t recognise.

‘Try again now you’ve emptied it a bit,’ said Alex.

Unsure, Meeshra held the baby to the deflated nipple.

‘Nose to nipple,’ said Alex. ‘He’ll find it himself.’

Meeshra touched the baby’s milk-spotted nose with her black nipple and he arched his back, finding it with his mouth, clamping on awkwardly, furiously working his tiny jaw, drawing from her so hard she gave a little gasp. The tension left her shoulders as the baby relieved her of the press of milk and she looked gratefully at Alex.

‘You’ve done this, have ya?’

Alex faked a friendly smile. ‘Could you tell me what you remember of this evening? Starting from the beginning.’

‘Oh.’ Meeshra was surprised by the shift of topic but keen to please. ‘Um, well, I was lying in bed, with baby. Billal was sitting on the side of the bed, where your knees are,’ eyes flicked anxiously to the side, ‘helping me. We was having a bit of an argument actually,’ she smirked, awkward, ‘about feeding and that. We hear shouting in the hall and think Omar’s back.’

‘Why would there be shouting when Omar’s back?’

Meeshra rolled her eyes. ‘Well, him and his daddy don’t always get on, so, sometimes they do shout at each other, like, but we wasn’t listening.’

‘What sort of things do they fight about?’

‘I dunno, ask him.’ She shrugged, not quite of the family but still reluctant to betray. ‘Anyway, we wasn’t listening, yeah?’

‘You were talking to Billal?’

‘Yeah, about feeding. So there’s shouting and then we realise. Billal’s like: “That’s not Omar’s voice.” ’

‘How would you describe the voice?’

‘Scotch. A right Scotch voice. Rrrob,’ she rolled her tongue, ‘where’s Rrrrobbie?’

She paused there, which Morrow found interesting, and needed prompting. ‘What then?’

‘Billal went out to see what was going on, because the shouting was getting, well, we knowed it wasn’t Omar shouting. So, he opened the door and popped out, keeping it closed because of me, you know.’ She looked down at the baby at her breast. ‘Me mam-in-law wants the bed here, opposite the door. I want it there.’ She looked up over to a private corner. ‘Anyway, ne’er mind. So, I hear Billal outside, speaking, saying, like, “No, man,” and then suddenly the door’s kicked wide open and me with my nightie all open and the baby here.’ She blushed at the memory, running her fingers over the baby’s down hair.

‘What could you see through the door?’

‘Little man, well not little, but he was standing next to Billal, who’s about six foot three and wide.’

‘How far up Billal did he come?’

‘Top of his head come up to Billal’s jaw, little bit past his jaw.’

‘So he was about…?’

‘About five eight, ten, summat like that.’

‘And build?’

‘’Bout, dunno, wide, a bit fat. Had them shoulders, you know, where the neck’s gone slopey and the shoulders just go straight up to their ears?’

‘Like a weightlifter?’

‘Exactly. A weightlifter. But fat belly, like.’

‘And you didn’t see his face?’

‘He had a woolly mask on with eyeholes.’

‘A balaclava?’

‘Yeah. And he says, like, “You come out here,” or summat, and I’m like, “I can’t, I’ve just had a baby,” ’cause ye know how you’re not meant to get up, yeah?’ Alex remembered quite the opposite. She also remembered envying the gall of women who treated having a baby like full body polio, making visitors get them this, hand them that, though they usually staged miraculous recoveries the minute visiting was over. ‘So he’s like, “Get up,” right? I’m like, “No.” And then Billal stepped in front of us and says, “Come on, mate, that’s enough,” but then the gun fella says to the other bloke who’s wi’ him, shouts at him, really angry, “Lift your gun, Pat.”’

‘Pat?’

‘Yeah, that were his name, Pat, and they both froze then, like they’d shit themselves ’cause he’d said it.’

Alex had heard Billal’s accent as she came through the hall. Unless she missed her guess he had been educated at St Al’s, the private Catholic school in the city centre, an expensive highly academic institution. He had that confident public school charm and a particular turn in his ‘r’s. Meeshra was common, used swear words without a thought, had bad grammar, reported speech as if she was telling another girl on a street corner about a fight at school.

‘Just out of interest, how did you meet Billal?’

‘Come up with my family.’

‘To live in Glasgow?’

‘Nah, nah, it were a set-up. Arranged marriage. We only met four times before we got married.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Defensive, Meeshra turned back to the baby. ‘Yous don’t understand about it, think it’s all forced and that-’

Alex cut her off. ‘I don’t.’

Meeshra looked at her.

‘I’m all for it. Especially if you’re moving in with the in-laws. You’re not just picking a husband, are you?’ Alex had thought about it often, who her mother would have picked for her, how differently her life would have gone. That was the thing about arranged marriages, she thought, no one got the right to choose an unexpected future for themselves.

Meeshra gave her a soft smile. ‘Exactly.’

‘You’re picking the whole family. You need to know you’re compatible in lots of ways.’

She nodded. ‘Exactly, exactly,’ and tipped her head at Alex, wondering if she was being played. She seemed to realise Alex was genuine and smiled softly, almost grateful.

Alex blinked, resuming her questions. ‘Back to before, so the gunman says “Pat” and they both freeze. Then what?’

‘Yeah, so, he’s like “Pat” and they both freeze and then, suddenly, me mam-in-law’s like, “What’s doing out here?” and the fat one run down the hall, I seen him skip past my door here,’ she pointed past the door to the back of the house, ‘and he brung me mam-in-law and Dada back up. Then they was quiet for a bit. And then Pat shot Aleesha’s hand off.’

‘Just out of the blue?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No threats or demands?’

‘Nah.’

‘Did you see him shoot the gun?’

‘Naw. I heard a, like, a big ‘whump’ noise and seen a light and then Aleesha says, like, “You’ve shot me fucking hand off!” ’

‘How did you know it was Pat who did it?’

‘’Cause the other one was there at the door and I could see him.’

‘You heard the shot?’

‘Yeah. And light, like white light, a flash and everyone looked over there and I seen blood on the wall and I thought Aleesha had been shot but then I heard her go, “You’ve shot me fucking hand off.”’ Meeshra didn’t seem very sad that Aleesha had been shot. She actually smiled a little.

‘She swore?’

‘Aleesha’s…’ Meeshra looked away quickly, snorted a joyless laugh. ‘Well, a teenager.’ Received opinion, repeated comments. Meeshra wasn’t far off her teens herself.

‘Were you like that?’

That hollow laugh again. ‘Me dad would have battered me.’

‘Is Aamir not like that?’

She shook her head. ‘Even if he were I don’t think she’d be any better. Jeans and T-shirts. Nail varnish. Won’t observe religious practice at all.’

‘A rebel?’

‘No. Stubborn.’ She was angry about it but not really with Aleesha, seemed slightly removed from it, as if her belonging to family was contingent on her joining in a campaign against the girl.

‘Did she stop wearing traditional clothing?’

Meeshra became embarrassed. ‘Never done. Dunno. I just… Dunno.’

‘She hasn’t ever worn them?’

‘Nah. I dunno.’ She wouldn’t look at Morrow.

‘Are the family converts?’

‘Naw, just not always that, ye know, religious.’

‘Oh, I see, just recently become more observant?’

‘Aye, yeah.’

Morrow noted it but let it pass. ‘What happened after the shot?’

‘Then, well, then, Mo and Omar come in the front door.’

‘At the sound of the shot?’

‘Yeah, I heard them come past outside the window there,’ she pointed to the window at the side of the bed, ‘running there, round.’ Her finger traced their passage along the blank wall. ‘And then they burst in through the door. The fat one, not Pat, the other one, he started shouting at them, “You’re Robbie, no, you’re Robbie,” and then he grabbed Dada and went. I’s in the bed the whole time, so I only seen little bits.’

The baby’s head slumped drowsily on his tiny neck. Meeshra looked down at him, calmer now, her fingers curling around the perfect sphere of his skull.

‘So,’ Morrow prompted, ‘Omar and Mo had been waiting outside in the car?’

‘Is it?’ Meeshra looked up.

‘Well,’ said Morrow, ‘they’re unlikely to have just pulled up at that moment, are they?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What did he say as he left, the fat one?’

‘Two million quid by tomorrow night. Did he not see the house? Two million? He’s mad.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Not to call police and it were payback for Afghanistan. Mental case.’ She nodded out to the hall. ‘They’re from Uganda and I’m from bloody Lancaster. You wouldn’t believe the shit we have to put up with now, ’cause of all them fucking Arabs.’

‘D’you think that’s what it was? Just a case of misplaced bigotry?’

‘Well, what else could it be? ’S like kidnapping a African because of the slave trade.’

Alex wrestled with the analogy for a moment before realising that it didn’t quite fit. ‘Right.’ She stood up. ‘Thanks very much for your help, Meeshra, I’m sure we’ll need to talk to you again later but now we’ll leave you and the baby to get a sleep.’

Meeshra leaned back on the pillows, pleased with herself. ‘Robbie, he says. Rrrobbie, right Scotch, like.’

It was a final statement, a goodbye, not requiring a response, but Alex couldn’t resist showing her cards. ‘Is that right?’ she said pointedly.

Disconcerted by the steely edge to her voice, Meeshra blinked.