‘Right,’ she said. ‘Sorry, OK, I’m DS Morrow, this is D- well, you’ve met. I don’t know if you know why you’re here, do you?’
Danny clenched his jaw at her and his eyes promised her that he would never forget this.
‘Basically,’ she continued, ‘a hostage has been taken by gunmen and we’re trying to find them. A car used in that crime was followed to the garage you were, um, apprehended in. Can you tell me how you came to be in there?’
‘Buying parts,’ said Danny.
‘Car parts?’
He blinked yes.
‘Who were you buying them from?’
‘Guys that was there.’
‘The two other men we apprehended in the garage itself?’
He shrugged.
‘What parts were you buying?’
‘Spark plugs.’ He sounded contemptuous.
‘Spark plugs?’
He sucked a hiss between his teeth. ‘Just says that, didn’t I?’
‘Why were you buying them there?’
He gave a careless one shoulder shrug. ‘Good as anywhere.’
‘They’re not an expensive item are they?’
He snorted and sat back.
‘Why buy them there if you can buy them just as cheaply elsewhere?’
He muttered something at the table.
‘Pardon?’
‘You’ve got some fucking cheek,’ he said quietly.
‘Have I?’
‘Making me fucking sit here and listen tae this shit.’ He was looking at Gobby but talking to her. He nodded towards her. ‘See her?’
Gobby looked at Morrow.
Danny grinned. His dimples were already sagging into slashes, she realised, his charm already going south, bitterness already setting in. ‘But, d’ye see her?’
The lawyer was looking at them, back and forth. Seeing the similarities. The dimpled cheeks, the high brow.
Danny and Morrow looked at each other for a moment, and for a moment she could see herself in him utterly, deep rooted fear making him angry, wanting to control the desperate, craven desire to belong.
‘I’d like to speak to you alone,’ he said smugly.
Morrow hesitated. ‘To me?’
‘To him.’ He reached into his pocket and took out a chewing gum packet, flipped two small white rectangles into his palm and threw them into his mouth like headache pills. He bit down on them, the crunch of the coating audible in the quiet room.
Gobby sat forward. ‘To me? Why?’
‘Got something to tell ye.’
He wouldn’t, she was sure he wouldn’t, but he was threatening her, letting her know it was possible, that he could.
‘Mr McGrath,’ Gobby leaned back, copying Danny’s posture, ‘we only ever talk to criminals when there is another police officer present. For the purposes of corroborating evidence.’
The lawyer butted in, ‘I’m afraid-’
Danny silenced him with a hand. ‘I’ve got information that would interest you.’
‘Oh.’ Gobby sounded surprised. ‘You want to be an informant?’
‘No.’
‘DCI MacKechnie,’ the lawyer sounded ridiculously well spoken, ‘I’m very much afraid that I don’t really know what my client is suggesting, could we have a moment alone?’
Gobby took charge. ‘No. Why did you come here? Are you willing to tell us about the cars?’
Danny seemed a lot less certain now. ‘Or what?’
‘Or nothing,’ said Morrow.
‘Or you’ll arrest me for buying a spark plug?’
‘Mr McGrath,’ she said, ‘why did you come in here voluntarily? Why are you paying to have your lawyer with you to be here?’
Danny sat back, threw both arms behind his chair back, baring his chest at her, his chin out. ‘How come, Alex, how come I know where you live? How come I know,’ he hesitated at the next threat, ‘where your wean goes to nursery?’
Morrow sat back and looked at him. He thought he knew her, had picked up details about her life from gossip but he didn’t know the big stuff. He didn’t know anything about Gerald and that was all that mattered. Danny was not her family. She looked at him for a long time and when she finally spoke she was calm. ‘Mr McGrath, you know nothing about me.’
Gobby stood up. ‘Come in here again,’ he said sternly to the lawyer, ‘and it’ll be wasting police time.’
The lawyer nodded at his briefcase and packed up. It was only then that Danny took the trouble to look up at the video camera and saw the wire and the jack dangling loose.
Morrow hurried downstairs ahead of all of them and met Routher in reception. ‘Ma’am, your husband’s outside in the yard. Wants to see you.’
Aleesha was on medication, that was true. Paracetamol. The operation had gone well, it was two days ago and they’d taken her off the morphine fourteen hours ago. But she pretended to be slightly out of it, walking as if she was a little unsteady, stepping slow, picking things up and putting them down again as if she’d forgotten they already had a tray on the rails at the self-service canteen, they already had a spoon, sugar portions. She was doing it for a reason. She was doing it as a test.
Roy seemed protective, stepped to the side when a trolley hurried past, shielding her. He gently put the second tray back, the sugar back, spoke softly to her. As he paid for the bottle of water for her and mug of tea for himself she watched his face. He was grieving, the sorrow so deep behind his eyes that it wasn’t shaken by superficial expressions like smiles to tea ladies and remembering the spoon.
When he took the change of his fiver she saw him glance at the charity box for the hospital, look at his change, knowing he should put some of it in and then decide not to. She saw the micro-expression on his face as he felt bad about it. She liked that.
He led her carefully over to a corner seat, away from the bustle near the corridor, sat her in the chair least likely to be jostled and took the opposite for himself. He sat down, put the bottle of water on the table in front of her, set the tea by his elbow and put the tray on the floor resting on the table leg. He looked up at her, his eyes starting at her chin, weaving up past her lips, the bridge of her nose, luxuriating over her eyebrows and finally meeting her eyes. She saw all the grief evaporate, the hurt lift from him and was aware that she was doing that.
‘Roy?’
‘Yeah, I’m Roy.’
‘Um, Roy, why are you sad?’
He shrugged, eyes slid to the side, sinking again into grief. ‘I’ve lost…’ He seemed to forget what he was saying.
Aleesha peeled the label off the water bottle with her good hand, struggling to keep the bottle upright. He was looking at her.
‘What’s your story?’
She smiled.
‘Seriously,’ he insisted. ‘What’s the deal with you?’
‘The deal?’
‘Why are you pretending to be off your tits?’
She squared up to him, picked up the water bottle, pointed the nozzle at him in a warning. But he was smiling. ‘I know what medicated looks like.’
She smiled back. ‘You really like me, don’t you?’
‘Yeah.’ He meant it so much he could hardly say it.
‘Why do you like me?’
She was expecting a compliment, a cheesy list of good points: nice eyes, good hair, fit figure. Roy leaned back in his chair, pinched the handle to the mug and dropped his hand to the table and said the only thing in the world that would make her trust him: ‘I’ve no idea. But I really, really do.’
Struggling to drink the water through a wide grin Aleesha looked at him. He sat watching her, eyes narrowed in appreciation, mapping her arms, her shoulders, loving her. Her heart rate was increasing, her breaths deepening, as she looked at him across the plastic bottle. She swallowed, felt the narrow nozzle suck on her lip as she took the bottle from her mouth.
‘Roy?’
He smiled just hearing her say the name.