It hit Pat like a slap on the back of the head. The Big Man knew. He knew about the van, the guns, and the pillowcase, and he thought Pat understood or he’d have dragged it out, made him guess.
He handed Pat a glass, and lifted the other to his mouth. “How’s it going?”
“Going?”
“The thing. With Eddy, how’s it going?”
Pat held the glass to his mouth and breathed in a cloud of bitter whisky.
“Aye,” said the Big Man. “Ye can see me after—square up then.”
They owed him money. Eddy owed the Big Man money. That’s how they got the van, the guns, the brand-new clothes, the fucking face paint Eddy had asked him to put on in the bedsit before. Pat had struggled to stay out of all this and it turned out now that Eddy had gone to the Big Man for capital and betrayed him from the off.
“Still attending to your devotions?” He was frowning up at Pat, serious, nodding, as if this was what really mattered to him.
Pat downed the whisky in a oner, gasping, “No. I’m not religious.”
The Big Man held his glass but didn’t drink. “That’s a shame,” he said into the glass. “That’s a shame. Our faith is what holds us together. Used to be a culture, a family, what kept us together. Now folk go sometimes, don’t do confession, only pray sometimes. It’s not a finger buffet. Ye can’t just pick and choose bits of it to please yourself.”
Pat put the glass down on the sideboard. “I better get going.”
“Aye, tell Eddy I’ll expect him.”
Gordon let him out and leaned in for a silent order from his boss, trotted after Pat down the stairs, into the barn-sized living room, and overtook him, whispering to Parki. Parki nodded and put down his paper on the Victorian card table. It was open at a picture of a topless bird. She looked very pleased with herself. He stood up slowly and made his way over to the window, peering out into the street. Pat hoped he didn’t spot the police.
“The Kia’s a bird’s car but it’s reliable.”
It was a kind offer and Pat appreciated it. “That’s good of ye, Parki.”
But Parki brushed it aside. “What the Big Man says, goes.” He reached into an antique wall cupboard sitting on the floor and pulled out a set of keys. “Go out the back. Round to the lockups, third door in.”
Pat blinked hard as he took the car key. “Thanks, man.”
“How ye keeping anyway?”
Pat shrugged.
Parki pulled a wad of notes out of his back pocket, peeled ten one-hundred notes off, and handed them to Pat. “How’s your Malki? Never seen him for ages.”
Pat took the keys out of his pocket, the pen torch and Eddy’s house keys were on it, and handed them to Parki, backing away across the room.
“Ye off now?” said Parki, still trying to work out what was going on.
“Have tae, man,” said Pat quietly. “Got somewhere I have to be.”
Morrow was sitting in the car outside Annie Tait’s house with Harris when the call came. The registration was bogus, belonged to another make, another year, another car altogether.
She picked up the radio mike and gave her first order on the case: two squads to come and follow the car, see where it went when it left here. It was a long shot but they didn’t have any short shots so it would have to do.
They waited until they knew the unmarked cars were in position, marking both entrances to the scheme before Harris started the engine and pulled out.
Gobby had looked through them as well and agreed with Harris that there was something to see. They left the tapes for Morrow in her office but it was hard for her to concentrate on the screen. Resentful thoughts about Bannerman kept piercing her concentration. Phrases she would like to say to him if it came to a fight, which it never would, pointless articulations of the exact nature of his wrongs: selfish, careerist, self-important, coward, twat, arse, fucking arse. She knew from long past experience that rehearsing a fight that would never happen was a short-lived luxury. Initially intoxicating, it didn’t help any, just wound her up even more.
She forced her eyes to the screen but couldn’t focus because the image was blurry anyway. Mr. Anwar’s videos had been used over and over again and the magnetic tapes had been stretched at the top sometimes, cutting out important bits of the picture with hyperactive diagonal lines. Intermittent waves of snow descended across the image as well and she found herself leaning this way and that, as if she could see past the obstacle. In the faded gray colors of the shop nothing seemed interesting except the extent of Mr. Anwar’s concern with tidying up the sweet shelves.
Every time someone bought a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps he’d wait until they had left and then guiltily skirt around the counter to straighten the shelves. Johnny Lander was there a lot, sitting silently on the stool next to him, and when he was there he’d nip around and straighten the shelves without being asked.
Twat.
Another snow-front shimmied down the screen and she stood up quickly, almost toppling her chair, stepping over to the door and flinging it open. “Harris!” she shouted out into the corridor. “Come in here and tell me what I’m supposed to be looking at. My head’s bursting looking at this.”
Harris appeared at the door, pleased finally to have his pain acknowledged, and pulled over a chair. She sat down next to him and mumbled a clumsy apology. He ignored it and she appreciated it.
“Right.” He held a hand out to her chair and together they shuffled back ten feet from the screen and watched. “Sit back from the screen or you’ll get a migraine and shut your eyes a bit.”
He sped the tape on a little, reeling through hours of Lander and Anwar’s relationship in minutes. The two old men hurried around the shop Keystone style, Johnny Lander energetic, disappearing from view often, stacking shelves, bringing tea, Aamir still. The men had a curious intimacy, rarely speaking but sitting a little closer to each other than most men would, never really looking at each other, preferring to face the counter when they were sitting.
A series of customers shifted in and out, commuters, absent as they bought fags or snacks or papers, hardly noticing the shop or the men as they daydreamed their way to work.
“Here,” said Harris, changing the speed and shuffling his chair towards the screen.
The woman caught the attention because of how present she was. Tall, she definitely looked tall, and slim. Middle-class hair, no flashes of color or inappropriate blond streaks but shiny brown hair, long and brushed. She wore white trousers with brown boots underneath and a shirt that was waisted to show off her figure. As soon as the door opened and the top of her head appeared in the frame Aamir Anwar warmed and stepped off his stool to greet her. Johnny Lander dropped off his chair and disappeared towards the back door.
The woman at the door was bent down as she came to the counter, holding a child’s hand. A small brown-haired boy, a toddler turning into a child. He pulled his hand away and ran over to the break at the side of the counter, chubby arms pumping at his sides, head down.
“Watch this,” said Harris, licking his lips.
Aamir Anwar bent towards the child, hands on his knees, craning indulgently towards the child who gave him a reluctant kiss on the beard. Anwar stood up, holding his hand over the kiss, delighted with the boy, and then with a flick of his fingers waved the boy to the sweetie rack.
The mother was facing the camera now and didn’t look too pleased about it. Her arms were crossed but she didn’t interfere as the boy grabbed two packets of Skittles, a Milky Way, small packets of jelly sweeties, cradling them in his arms, looking at the old man to check that it was OK. Aamir raised his hands in mock shock, said something the child didn’t understand, and then chortled happily to himself.
And then the visit was over. The woman took the sweets from the child, put them on the counter where he couldn’t see them, edited the pile by pushing some of the packets over to the side, and spoke briefly but seriously to Aamir before unwrapping and giving the boy the Milky Way bar and putting the rest in her handbag. Nice bag, thought Morrow, plain beige leather, big shoulder bag, lots of pockets.
“Now watch this,” said Harris.
Aamir kissed the child’s head and followed them to the door of the shop, standing in the opened doorway to wave them off, smiling to himself when he got back behind the counter and climbed back onto his chair. Johnny Lander returned and they sat silently, the smile lingering on Aamir’s face.
“Is he not allowed friends?” asked Morrow.
Harris looked at her. “They never paid for the sweeties.”
She scratched her chin. Harris was right. The woman pocketed the sweets and left. “So…?”
“Boss, d’ye know the profit margins these shops work on?
They never paid for the sweeties
. If that’s not his grand wean, it’s his wean.”
Johnny Lander assumed his customary position at the top of the stairs, leaning over the banister to watch them coming up. He was dressed as before but noted the rush in their steps and waited for them in the close, stiff, as if awaiting news. He looked anxiously from Morrow to Harris. “You’ve not found him?”
“No,” said Morrow.
Lander held his chest and slumped. “For Pete’s sake, the way ye came bombing up the stairs there…”
“No, Mr. Lander, we haven’t found Mr. Anwar.”
“What are you thinking, then…?”
“No, we’ve every reason to believe he’s alive and well.”
“Thank God for that, anyway.” Relief seemed to have made him forget his manners and they stood for a moment looking blankly at each other in the cold close.
Morrow stepped towards the door. “Can we come in for a minute?”
“Oh, aye, sorry.” He jumped in front of her, holding the door open for her to come into the hallway. “ ’Scuse me.”
She stepped in and walked into the orderly living room. Lander had been reading the local paper when the door buzzed, drinking a mug of tea and eating three biscuits set out on a side plate, everything orderly and arranged around his armchair. The electric fire had a bar on as well and the room was cozy.
He shut the front door behind them. “This is a hell of a thing, this waiting, isn’t it?” he said.
Morrow reached into her bag and brought out the clumsy video camera that belonged to the department. “Mr. Lander, can you tell me who this is?”
He stood close to her as she played the video of the woman in the shop. To save time Harris had just filmed the tape from the TV screen and the definition was even worse than before. Lander watched to the end.
“Who is this woman?”
“Lily. That’s Lily.”
Morrow looked at him. “Who is Lily to Mr. Anwar?”
She could see it was awkward for him. He wanted to help in any way he could but his loyalty was in the way. He looked out of the window and hummed for a moment before taking a sharp breath. The conflict made him cringe. “Can I give you her address and you can ask her yourself?”
“Sure.”
He gave them the address, knew it off the top of his head, and he gave them good directions too. It wasn’t five minutes away by car, he said.
As they were leaving, as an afterthought before she put her notebook away, Morrow asked for Lily’s surname.
“Tait,” said Lander. “Lily Tait.”
The house was less than half a mile from the shop, straight along the road headed away from the city. Morrow noted that almost any journey to the town would have meant driving past the shop.
They pulled up in the street behind a black and silver Range Rover with stick-on window shades and a Baby on Board sign hanging in the back window, and looked up a steep path to a grand, semidetached house. In front of it, the garden was carefully planted with seasonal flowers and shrubs.
Morrow and Harris took the path up to the front door. Though the house was elegant blond sandstone someone had added a wooden porch that had worn badly. Brown paint was weathered and peeling, the door on the outside flimsy glass. They could see shoes inside and a child’s blue and red trike. Lined up along the rotting windowsills herbs were growing, and small bedding trays were set out on a trestle table near the back, making use of the sunlight.
Harris couldn’t find a bell so he tried the door and found it open. They walked up to the front door proper, a grand Victorian window with the outline of an urn etched on the glass.
Lily Tait opened the door. Both Morrow and Harris knew the Taits. No one in Glasgow could fail to know the father; he was pictured in the local papers every time a gangster was found murdered, but Lily didn’t look like one of them at all. She was tall and slender, dressed in a huge mustard jumper with moth holes on the arm, and cut-off denim shorts. She looked gorgeous. Morrow could see Harris ogling her spectacular brown legs and painted toenails. And yet there, in the roundness of the eyes, in the square set of the shoulders, she could see some small echo of Lily’s background. It was the curse of aspiration: the next generation were better fed, educated beyond the grasp of their own parents.
Behind Lily in the pale gray hall a sulky three-year-old peered out at them, hanging off the waxed balustrade of the staircase. Beyond him the hallway led through to a bright, cheerful kitchen.
“Lily?”
She smiled out at them. “Yeah, can I help you?”
The child, seeing their dark suits and formal stance, lost interest and ran off into the kitchen.
Morrow introduced herself and Harris. “We’re investigating the kidnap of Mr. Aamir Anwar. Can we come in and talk to you?”
“Oh, gosh, yes of course.” She swung the door open and welcomed them into the house. “Have you heard anything about Aamir? Is he home?”
“Not yet, I’m afraid.”
“Come in, come in.” She led them through to the kitchen and offered them seats at a pine table littered with cups and children’s drawings and bills. “Bit chaotic before the cleaner gets here,” she said, sweeping the rubble over to one end. The boy was sitting in a miniature red armchair in the corner, drinking from a sipper cup, watching them and looking cross.
Lily slipped into a kitchen chair across from them. “So, how can I help?”