Free Still Midnight by Denise Mina

shoulder…”
    “Well, I can only apologize for that.”
    “Yeah and we were shitting ourselves anyway, buzzing because of the blood and Aleesha and that anyway.”
    “She’s been taken to hospital.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m sure she’s fine.” She didn’t actually know how Aleesha was doing, she’d heard someone else say it but hadn’t spoken to the hospital herself. “In the right place…” She was slipping into hollow clichés as a barrier to empathizing. Bitter night streamed down the road, chilling their ankles. “Were you in the hall when the men came in?”
    “No.”
    “Where were you?”
    “In the car outside.”
    “Where?”
    They pointed up to the evidence markers for the cigarette butts. She looked and saw that the cigarettes they had in their hands now were brand matches for the stubs she had seen in the road and she was pleased, found she wanted to trust them, whatever the story.
    “What sort of car?”
    “This car.” Omar pointed to a blue Vauxhall parked behind him. “The Vauxhall. His Vauxhall.”
    “What were you doing out there?”
    “Chatting.”
    “Where had you been?”
    “Mosque.”
    Morrow read Omar’s face. What she had taken for guilt could have been shock and tiredness. He looked drained and spent, but there was something else there too, a reticence. “Did you see the van waiting in the road?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Were around the corner. Couldn’t see it.”
    “It’s a one-way street. You must have passed it when you drove up.”
    “We’d been there for twenty minutes. Must have arrived after us.”
    “What were you doing there for twenty minutes?”
    Omar drew himself up, straightening his back, looking at her properly for the first time. She felt plain. The suit made her look tidy but not attractive. No elegant details, no statement stitching or anything that would draw the eye, make a casual viewer wonder about her as a person. Bland was the look she was going for.
    “Shouldn’t you wait until there’s another officer here before we speak to you?”
    Morrow was surprised. “Why—what makes you say that?”
    “For corroboration, for if the case comes to court.”
    She gave an unconvincing half laugh. “What would you know about that?”
    “I’m a law graduate,” he said, looking unaccountably sad about it.
    “Oh.” She nodded for a minute, only vaguely aware of the car drawing up behind the boys. “Oh. When was your… when did you…?”
    “Graduated in June,” he said.
    “Morrow!” Bannerman was out of the car almost before it stopped. The bigger brother climbed out of the back and strode over to them, almost overtaking Bannerman in his eagerness to get to his brother’s side. They’d been on their way to the station for a formal interview, she realized, and both wanted to break up the conversation she was having, for different reasons.
    “Morrow?” asked Omar.
    “I’m Morrow,” she said. “Who’s the big guy?”
    “My brother, Billal.” Omar dropped his chin to his chest and when she looked back she found the brother was glaring at him.
    “Morrow,” scowled Bannerman, “could I have a word?”
    She blushed high on her cheeks, and turned away, stepping over to him with her head down.
    Bannerman turned her away from the boys and muttered reprovingly, “What are you doing?”
    “Just talking to the boys…” She sounded flat, as if she’d done a bad thing herself. She looked for something to attach the feeling of guilt to: “Any word from the hospital?”
    “Yeah.” Bannerman took her elbow and moved her out of earshot of the boys. “Fine. Going in for emergency surgery but should be OK. Hand’s mangled. She’s only sixteen.”
    “Her mother with her?”
    “Yeah, we’ve left some cops there. We’ll get a proper statement off her when she comes out of it.”
    “Something funny about the family,” she murmured. “I grew up on the South Side. I know dead religious families and this one isn’t