Still Midnight

15

Morrow sat in the slowly cooling car, staring at the blank wall in the yard at London Road. She couldn’t cite Danny as a source. She couldn’t let it be known that he was her half-brother. Police liked the absolute value of ‘them and us’ and she and Danny looked so alike, the slightest suspicion would prove the relationship. But Bannerman was determined to ignore the lead and, even if it did pan out, he wouldn’t credit her with it. She had to tell MacKechnie without looking underhand.

Stepping out of the car she locked it and walked up the ramp to the security door, feeling her heart rate slow as she reached for the security pad. She always felt calm before she entered the station, the balm of order. Behind the door she knew which desks would be manned, who was responsible for which job, who to look up to, who to piss down on. Sometimes when she was lying awake in bed at home she put herself here, outside the door.

She punched the code in, the door buzzed in front of her and fell open. Through the processing bar and the lobby she reminded herself Danny had given her important information and ambition wasn’t met by giving leg-ups to rivals. She needed to stop, make a plan.

The disabled toilet in the lobby was empty and she sloped in and locked it, lowering the toilet lid and sitting down. She needed to give the information at a time and in such a way that she would be acknowledged as the source. Couldn’t mention Danny but needed to give the information in front of MacKechnie, while Bannerman was there. She needed them together.

Shutting her eyes she saw the Blair Avenue red front door again. She snapped her eyes open and stood up, stepped over to the low sink and glared at herself in the mirror. Red eyes, blue shadows under them, bitterness twitching around her mouth. She was starting to look as sour as her mother.

Avoiding eye contact with the mirror she made herself tidy, smoothed her hair back. Now wash your hands. Turning the tap on she was ambushed by the image of chubby fingers under clear running water, fingers flexing curiously, savouring the new feel of it. She shut her eyes, threw her head back, opened them. Scrawled in biro, in tiny writing at the side of the mirror, someone had graffitied ‘TJF’.

Morrow snorted furiously, scooped water from the running tap and threw it at the wall. She snatched green paper towels from the dispenser, spilling them on the floor, and scrubbed at the writing. The fury passed and she took her hand away. The letters were slightly fainter, not by much. TJF. A catchphrase officers used to denote the death of morale, an excuse for shoddy work and buck-passing, the death of order. TJF: The Job is Fucked.

She squeezed hand soap from the dispenser and rubbed it on the letters, scrubbing again, using wet towels this time. Even fainter. She wiped the blue soap off the wall and ran her hands under the water to get the residue off, keeping her eyes on the letters, directing all her anger and focus on them.

Picking up the scattered green paper towels, she dried her hands, unlocked the door and threw it open so it bounced off the wall, striding across the lobby to the front bar. She pressed the doorbell strapped to the desk, staring at herself in the mirrored wall, knowing they were back there looking at her.

The duty sergeant must have sent him: a young copper came out with a pained expression on his face. She pointed back to the toilet. ‘Have you been in there recently?’

He had been relaxed back there, and it took him a moment to adjust his mood. ‘Sorry?’

Morrow glared at him.

‘Sorry, ma’am, been in where?’

‘Disabled toilet. On the wall.’

He frowned over at the toilet. ‘The wall?’

‘In the toilet. Graffiti on the wall. Was it you?’

He looked picked on, and Morrow felt that this was the problem with the job now, not that it was fucked, but that no one wanted to take shit from anyone else, as if it was any other job, as if it was selling computer equipment or something and everyone had rights and no responsibilities. The job was all she had. If it was fucked, so was she.

‘Why would I?’ he said simply.

She had no answer for that. Of course he didn’t do it, he might be dumb and new and young but he wasn’t going to vandalise a toilet when he was the first person they’d ask about it.

‘Ridiculous,’ she said, looking him up and down, knowing she was being unreasonable. She turned on her heels and stabbed at the security pad on the CID door, turning, opening the door with her back so she turned back to the desk. She pointed at the toilet. ‘Get it cleaned off.’

The desk copper nodded, muttering after her, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

The door slammed behind her and she found herself looking down the CID corridor. MacKechnie’s office was dark at the far end, door shut. He wasn’t in his office, might not even be in the building. To her right she saw that her own office lights were on, the door hanging open. Shit. She put her head down and walked over to it.

There he was at his desk, hair carefully waxed and tousled, suited, looking tired but professional. His Elvis mug was sitting on the desk, by his elbow lay an empty health bar wrapper: Apples!Apples!Apples!

‘Bannerman,’ she said, notifying him of her presence.

His eyes narrowed with spite when he saw her. ‘Morrow. You missed my briefing.’

‘Um, well,’ she said uncertainly, ‘I had-’

‘You will not miss briefings under my command. We’ve got a million calls to make this morning. You cannot swan in and out.’

It was an order, a call to tow the line, inappropriate coming from someone of equal rank. ‘Bannerman, it’s supposed to be my day off.’

He held up a hand to stop her, shutting his eyes and turning his head away. ‘MacKechnie suspended days off. You got the email.’

Stunned, she watched him stand up and walk out to the incident room, keeping the staying hand up at her. It was always the soft ones who came down hard, she thought, the bastards who left the chain of command vague to make themselves feel like one of the troops. Then they had to enforce it by humiliating people. TJF.

The incident room desks had been arranged in a horseshoe. Five DCs were sitting, working phones, reading files and every single one of them had laptops. Three of them weren’t even part of this division; they must have been called in from somewhere else, which meant the case was having resources thrown at it. High profile, well resourced, every DS’s dream.

It took her a minute to spot MacKechnie. He was standing at the side of the room, glaring at her. Morrow brightened at the sight of him but he didn’t smile back. He kept his head down as he came over, as if he was walking through driving hail, across the lobby and into the office, Grant following in his wake.

Grant shut the door carefully behind himself. She could imagine the giggle of excitement in the briefing room, the looks passing between the DCs, mouthing her name to anyone whose view of her had been blocked, all speculating as to why MacKechnie, Mr Inclusivity, needed the door shut to speak to her.

Bannerman stayed out of his chair, leaving it to MacKechnie to sit. They were moving as a single animal, they had talked about her, the two of them, wound each other up over her absence, reading things into it that weren’t there. MacKechnie sat down heavily in Bannerman’s chair, pursing his lips, letting off a martyred sigh. It must be a struggle, she imagined, to blend his vegetarian management style with honest aggression. She stood at ease in front of the desk, her head tilted insolently.

‘DS Morrow, I am aware that you are unhappy with my choice of lead on this case,’ MacKechnie narrowed his eyes for emphasis, ‘but I never expected you to usurp the management of his investigation.’

‘Sir, I’ve-’

‘If you compromise these proceedings through sheer bloody-mindedness because you feel picked on…’

He caught her off guard. She expected them to say she was an arse, an idiot, malevolent but not that, not to accuse her of claiming to be a victim. ‘Sir-’

‘I will remind you that a man’s life is at stake here.’

‘I’m cooperating,’ she said. ‘I’ve done nothing that I know of. I didn’t mean to miss the brief this morning.’

MacKechnie shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was too old to be up all night, she thought, too old to do anything other than desk work. He should fuck off to admin and leave the real coppers in peace. These small insults, never uttered, were what kept her head up and her gaze steady.

‘Sir, I didn’t receive the email about time off, or if I did-’

‘Bannerman,’ he cut across her. ‘DS Bannerman has done his utmost to make you feel welcome here, hasn’t he?’

She kept her face neutral.

‘Hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she hissed slightly. ‘He has.’

‘Can we agree that you will work with him to resolve this case as a matter of the utmost urgency? Let’s remember – a member of our community has been taken hostage.’

She kept her face straight, not even blinking at the emphasis that signalled the lie. When she looked at him his mouth twitched at the corner, a micro-expression, saying what he was really thinking: how kind he was to include a small Asian man with a beard in his definition of community.

‘Sir,’ she said to the back wall, ‘I haven’t been in my kip. I’ve been up all night, talking to informal contacts and I’ve uncovered information that materially affects our investigations.’

MacKechnie cleared his throat and dropped his voice as if he was disappointed. ‘Go on.’

‘The family lied about the gunmen asking for Rob. On the 999 calls Billal said ‘Bob’, Meeshra fluffed the question from the operator and Omar said Bob in Grant’s interview. It’s on the DVD. Harris spotted it as well.’

‘Harris?’

‘Yes, sir, Harris. And this morning an informant told me that Omar Anwar was in the Young Shields and his street name was Bob.’

In the pause that followed she could feel each calculating the likelihood of her having fabricated information like that. Would she make up a mystery informant to confirm the Bob allegation, just so she could be right? Was she mad enough to make a play that wild? Someone laughed loudly at the far end of the corridor and a door slammed. She was asking MacKechnie to referee between them and she knew that even if she won the argument he would hate her for it.

MacKechnie tried to claw back the high ground. ‘And Bannerman, what did Omar say about this?’

Bannerman became flustered. ‘We, um, I didn’t get the note…’

MacKechnie looked at him. When he spoke his voice was horribly quiet: ‘Do you mean Wilder didn’t give you the note?’

Wilder would get his books if Bannerman suggested he’d wandered off with her note. ‘No, sir.’ Bannerman’s mouth sounded dry. ‘Wilder did give me the note-’

‘It was a matter of minutes,’ Morrow burst in, appearing magnanimous, while winning the competition and not competing. ‘Between Wilder getting there and the interview ending, sir. We didn’t get the question in…’

United front. MacKechnie couldn’t afford to discipline both of them in the middle of an investigation. He cleared his throat. ‘Can we confirm that he uses the name Bob? Is this informant on the books?’

‘No, it’s an informal contact.’

It sounded weak. MacKechnie blinked and asked her straight, ‘How far are you prepared to go with this?’

‘Sir, I can play you the audio files right now to confirm that they said Bob. The other part I can’t confirm right here and now.’

MacKechnie looked accusingly at Bannerman. ‘When did you get the note from Wilder? Bear in mind that I can check the DVD.’

Bannerman cleared his throat. ‘I got the note but didn’t ask.’

‘Why?’

Bannerman looked trapped. Morrow pitched in, ‘There was a lot going on last night but it’s better this way because we can blindside him with it.’

‘Yeah,’ nodded Bannerman, ‘do our research.’

‘Yeah, research it properly.’

In a dizzying switch of loyalties MacKechnie was suddenly furious with both of them. ‘You two – Bannerman, leaving aside what made you think that the best use of a DS in a major case was listening to emergency calls-’

Bannerman blushed. ‘Sir, I genuinely thought there might be something important on the tapes.’ He looked at Morrow pleadingly.

‘Yes, sir, Bannerman was right,’ she said. ‘His instincts were right; there was something important.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘The inconsistency in the names, if they agreed to say Rob and not Bob, it must have been after the calls. Aleesha was unconscious. We should interview her this morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Morrow, struggling not to smile. ‘Yes, we should.’

MacKechnie looked away. ‘DS Morrow, how do you explain your absence this morning?’

Morrow stole a look at Grant. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t check my email before I left.’

‘You must check your emails.’

‘I will, sir, sorry, sir. Are the family dodgy, then?’

‘Don’t know.’ Bannerman was eager to move the conversation on. ‘If they have that kind of money or anything approaching that kind of money, where is it going? Who do we know in the community we could ask about the family?’

‘Mahmood Khan?’ suggested MacKechnie.

‘Nah,’ said Morrow, ‘he’ll just give us the party line.’

‘Yeah,’ said Bannerman, ‘he’ll be checking party contributions before he tells you anything about the family.’

She had kept her distance for twenty years, but now, like asking Danny, she was surprised to find herself willing to reach back for help, ‘Ibby Ibrahim.’

They both looked at her curiously.

‘Ibby Ibrahim?’ repeated MacKechnie. ‘What on earth makes you think he’ll talk to us?’

She cleared her throat. ‘I know… Ibby. But I’d need to talk to him alone.’

They were both impressed, glanced at each other, back at her. ‘How do you know him?’ asked MacKechnie.

She saw Ibby, ten years old, sobbing in a playground and the bad children standing around watching him in an awed circle, herself among them. ‘From a case,’ she lied. ‘A few years back.’

‘What case?’ MacKechnie was impressed.

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘kind of hard to say…’

If they had any kind of connection to her, any level of intimacy, they would have pressed her to unofficially tell. They’d have gathered around, pressed and teased, guessed until they had some idea. Instead, they slid glances across the desktop to each other, referencing a conversation had elsewhere, away from her.

‘Right.’ MacKechnie moved the conversation back to a safe area and stood up, coming around the desk to her, forgetting how angry he had been only a moment before. ‘Get the background before we ask him about it. We’ve got officers assigned to the door to doors but I want you two to take a look at the shop and the shop helper, find out if there’s anything going on there, betting, drugs, anything that would generate big revenue. Bannerman, make the Rob/Bob thing the focus now, yes?’

‘Sir, I’d like to drive Morrow to meet Ibrahim,’ said Bannerman, quietly. ‘I can brief her on the way.’

‘I need to speak to Ibby alone though,’ she said, reluctant to spend longer with Bannerman than she needed to.

‘Yeah, but I’d like to see him in the flesh. Just for future…’

For future what he didn’t say. It wasn’t an efficient use of two DSs but MacKechnie nodded. ‘Bonding. Good. DCs busy?’

‘Sir.’ Bannerman handed him a duty sheet. ‘We’re checking the CCTV from the M8 for cars going to and from the van site. Lab reports on the way. Fingerprints on their way. Researching all family members for Afghani visas. Two DCs are doing door to door around the house and processing the witness statements. Morrow and I could go to the hospital for a follow up and take a look at the shop as well.’

‘OK,’ said MacKechnie, and turned to Morrow. ‘Check your emails from now on.’

She nodded, hoping she looked sorry.

He stood with his back to the door, addressing the troops: ‘If this is right then it’s not the wrong address. The gunmen were after the Anwars, Omar specifically. What we need to know is why anyone thought they had two million to hand over.’ He put his hand on the door to the corridor and stopped. ‘Well done, Morrow,’ he said, opened it and left.

Grant was a little red in his cheeks. ‘Yeah, well done,’ he said, with more grace than she would have.