Free Still Midnight by Denise Mina Page B

first names. When they weren’t getting lifted they were calling cops in to resolve family arguments. Morrow dismissed that option, though: they’d have heard of them if that was the case.
    Bannerman sighed heavily. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry about this, just… MacKechnie’s idea. I’ll be working for you next time.”
    Morrow froze slightly. The skin on her finger was throbbing. “Yeah, well it looks complicated. Time-consuming. I know your mum’s not well.”
    “Oh, no, no, no,” he said quickly. “She’ll be fine.” Bannerman’s mother had pneumonia, both lungs, not good when a woman was in her late seventies. He’d been milking it for sympathy in the office for a week but now he squinted at her, guessing at her motive for bringing it up. “You’ll cooperate on this, won’t you?”
    “I’m not a child, Grant,” she said coldly.
    He flinched at that and she regretted saying it. His mother wasn’t well and she was being mean.
    “Sorry.” She said the word so quietly she saw him glance at her mouth for confirmation.
    He brightened. “Yeah, can’t get a handle on this at all.” His bewilderment seemed feigned. “They seem as straight as anything, no crims in the family, no enemies, nothing. They haven’t even got a big telly.”
    He was at it. She’d seen Bannerman do his wide-eyed fishing act before, letting people explain and damn themselves.
    “Could be a wrong address…?” she said weakly.
    Bannerman looked angry, knowing she had more than that. “Oh, thanks for that, Morrow. Really insightful. You want me to chisel it out of you?”
    Morrow bit the corner of her mouth hard, watching Billal. Fury tinged with shame. Her emotional staples. “What do you want me for when we get back?”
    He looked at her, his mouth twitching down at the corners. “What do you want to do?”
    “I could talk to the young guys…”
    “You think they’re it?”
    “Dunno. They were hanging about outside…”
    He read her face. She could feel him realizing that she did think they were it. He wouldn’t let her near them.
    “No, I think I’ll talk to them. Could you do me a favor and listen to the tapes of the emergency calls? See what you can get off them?” He smiled, pleased to have thought of a punishment job that was out of the way, time-consuming, and menial. “That would be really helpful, Morrow, thanks.”
    He pressed his lips together to stop himself smiling and sloped off to the car.

NINE
    Pat watched the Lexus headlights sweep across Malki’s face, bleaching him. It was a narrow road and Malki had to stand flat against the chapel wall to let the car turn in the street.
    Pat could see the quiet content on Malki’s face, a soft smile. He had a pocket full of dough, rare enough, and he was going home excited, off to his bedroom to see his powdery white darling. She never failed Malki, never bored or annoyed him. Malki’s only problem was getting enough of her. True love, thought Pat, and he envied Malki that certainty. He had never gone out with a woman he didn’t have reservations about. He thought about the girl in the hall, jeans and T-shirt and everyone else in Muslim gear, and found himself warm at the thought of her.
    Eddy drove on, sticking to the big roads. A car as smart as a Lexus would only ever pass through streets like these, never stop. It would draw the eye of anyone who saw it, stick in the mind.
    Back on the motorway they took a cutoff for Cambuslang and drove along empty roads, through green light after green light, straight through sleepy Rutherglen to the broad, winding road that cut straight through the south.
    Eddy pulled off unexpectedly, took two turns into increasingly dilapidated streets. He slowed and cut the headlights as they drew up into a dead end of boarded-up houses. Bushes grew wild over the pavements and roads. Not a single other car was parked anywhere and all of the windows were dark.
    Pat’d assumed he’d know the hideout when they got to it