Read Online Still Midnight by Denise Mina - Free Book Online Page B

laundered, ironed.
    She stopped in front of them. “Are you…?”
    For a moment neither spoke until the friend said, “I’m, eh, I’m Mo. This is Omar. He lives, eh, it’s his house.”
    “Right?”
    They sagged like sacks, brought their cigarettes to their mouths. Omar opened his mouth to speak but shut it again, stunned. He struggled to look up at her and seemed very young.
    “You’ve had quite a night,” she said.
    Mo told the tarmac, “Aye, then we got almost arrested for asking the police for help.”
    The hope that Bannerman had fucked up made her ask, “What happened?”
    “We drove off after the van,” said Omar, “and lost it and then when we saw a police car we stopped them and they arrested us.” His words were slurred, bizarrely languid, as if he was already stoned. Aftereffect of shock: massive slump in blood sugar after an adrenaline rush.
    “They arrested you?”
    “Yeah.” Omar smirked at Mo. “For a BB offense.”
    She didn’t understand. “You had a BB gun with you?”
    “No, BB offense: Being Brown.” Omar became embarrassed, as if he was growing out of the adolescent sentiment while he was saying it.
    “I’m very sorry,” she said formally, feeling defensive. “I sincerely hope you don’t feel that race has been an issue in the investigation. We really are trying our very best to help.”
    “No, sorry, no.” Mo looked shamefaced too. “Sorry, it’s just a daft thing they say, you know, see, they looked at our clothes and, you know, think stuff about you…”
    “Well,” she said softly, “if anyone here has given you the impression that race was any kind of an issue for them I do hope you’d feel free to tell us. We certainly wouldn’t want politics like that interfering with an investigation like this.”
    They were mortified now, caught out in an unsupportable myth between them, and Morrow leaned in and went kindly for the kill. “You know, you weren’t arrested. If you’d been arrested you wouldn’t be here now, you’d be in a station somewhere being questioned. It creates a lot of paperwork, they don’t just do it for a laugh.”
    “You know what?” Omar’s knee buckled and he looked at her. “We’re being stupid. It was my fault, we did an emergency stop, leapt out at them. I forgot, you know, what we’d look like to…” He scratched his head hard and sighed. “And I said a series of key words… that would alarm anyone really, I suppose.”
    “Like what?”
    “Guns. Van. Took my daddy.”
    “Afghanistan!” interjected Mo, as if it was a guessing game.
    “Why did you say Afghanistan?”
    “Well, they said it, the gunmen, as they were leaving: ‘This is for Afghanistan,’ but it didn’t sound right.”
    Mo nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t sound kosher.”
    “Sounded like some bullshit Steven Seagal tagline. Like someone who watches a lot of action movies and is in a fuckin’—sorry—is like in a dream or something.”
    They were talking to each other, not to her, and their speech speeded up, took on color and motion.
    “Aye, yeah, but shit action movies,” confirmed Mo and affected a Schwarzenegger accent: “This-is-pay-back,” but his joke was halfhearted, addressed to no one but the pavement.
    Omar smiled dutifully and echoed, “ Pay-back . Anyway, we jumped out and they were just asking questions and then I saw the van going under the bridge and I forgot and I ran off towards it. They must have got a fright and they grabbed me in a hold. Hurt my shoulder a bit, actually.”
    Mo reached out and patted his pal’s back. They were close, she liked that, and Omar had an insight and honesty rare in a young man.
    “You saw the van?”
    “We were on the bridge over the motorway and we saw it going underneath and I ran over to it but they stopped me.”
    “On the bridge?”
    “At Haggs Castle.”
    “Great.” She pulled out her notebook and wrote it down. “We can get the CCTV footage and trace it.”
    “They hurt my