Still Midnight by Denise Mina Page A

The door was open behind him. Saw my wee sister, Aleesha”—his throat caught when he said her name—“standing to the left, with her hand up.” He raised his left hand, twisting the wrist like the Statue of Liberty. “Everyone was looking at her hand…” His chin buckled at the memory and he lost his breath.
    “What about the men?” said Bannerman briskly. He was busy looking at his notes, he was missing all of it.
    “The men.” Omar shook himself. “The men were standing in the hall, yes. One with my folks, between me and my folks, the other in front of Aleesha, looking at her. His gun was down there.” Omar slung his hand down, at ninety degrees to his thigh.
    Morrow sat forward.
    Omar was pointing two fingers at the floor, his hand wide, out of kilter to his body. “The gun had smoke on it. I looked at his face and I thought he had a really long jaw because he was wearing a balaclava and I only saw him from the side. But then he shut his mouth…”
    “There were two men?”
    “Two men—”
    “What did the other one do?”
    Bannerman was missing it. Morrow wanted to jump into the screen and make him look at the angle of Omar’s hand, at the gestures of his jaw. The gunman’s mouth had been hanging open in surprise; the recoil from the shot had thrown his hand to the side. He hadn’t been ready for it, didn’t have his elbow at the proper angle or his muscles relaxed. He’d been shocked by the force of the recoil, which meant either the gun had gone off by accident, or he had never fired a shot before.
    Anxiously she looked at the officers sitting next to her and noted which were straining towards the screen along with her, who was willing Bannerman to shut up. Three out of eight. Sitting two seats down in the front row, Harris was one of them: he caught her eye, the “O” of his mouth tightened.
    Back on the television Omar carried on. “He shouts, ‘ Rob , w here is Rob? ’ He came running up to Mo and goes, ‘You’re Rob,’ and then they grabbed my dad and took him away.”
    “Did they ask if you were Rob?”
    “Me?” Omar touched his chest and looked surprised. “Me? Well, he sort of looked around and said, ‘Who is Rob? One of you is Rob.’ ”
    “But did he ever say, ‘ You are Rob’?”
    “To me?” His eyebrows rose indignantly to his hairline.
    “Yeah, to you.”
    “Um, yeah, I suppose he did but my mum said, ‘Oh no, not my Omar,’ and then he just sort of backed off because, obviously, then, he knew I was Omar, that I wasn’t Bob.”
    Bannerman, looking at his notes, failed to see the twitch on Omar’s neck, head flicking back a little, but Morrow noted it. Something had happened there but Morrow didn’t know what. She looked at Harris. He was straining forward on his chair, alert, looking for clues like she was.
    They both watched as Omar leaned across the table, his hand under Bannerman’s eye, drawing him back up. “And then, and then, the other one, the fat one, he grabbed my dad, like around the neck with his hand.” Then Omar did a strange thing: he wrapped his own hands around his neck to illustrate the hold but somehow he pressed a little too tight, too adamant about it, as if he was actually trying to hurt himself. “And I thought he was going to kill him!” He let go and stopped for breath. “I did! And then he said he wanted two million quid by tomorrow night and not to call the police or he’d kill my dad. And then he’s, like: ‘This is payback for Afghanistan.’ ”
    He stopped talking, watching Bannerman to see if the dissemble had worked.
    Bannerman had noted the change in tone, the excitement. He spoke calmly, “Do you know anyone in Afghanistan?”
    Omar was bewildered. “No!”
    “Have you ever been there?”
    “Never.”
    “Does your dad have any dealings with Afghanistan, any family there or anything?”
    A hand swept the tabletop. “No connection with Afghanistan whatsoever.”
    “OK. And then what?”
    “Then he grabbed dad