Most Asian guys ran with a gang at some point in their lives, usually for protection from other gangs of Asian guys. It didn’t mean Omar was good or bad, all it confirmed was that he had once been young and frightened. From Alex’s recollection they were the same thing.

‘’Member his brother?’

Danny cast his mind back. ‘Bill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Big soft boy, never got in tow with anyone.’

They heard the door from the lobby open, steps and a trendy young guy turned the corner, started with surprise when he saw them standing so close together in an otherwise empty corridor. He averted his eyes and slipped past.

Alex scowled at Danny for scratching his nose as the guy came past. He was hiding, obscuring his face with his hand. He always did that when anyone looked at him. It was one of his many giveaways, like thinking before he admitted to being anywhere, or mapping the doors when he entered a room.

‘Does this make me an informant?’

‘Naw.’

When Morrow abandoned her family ties she did so completely. It was out of character for her to ask for anyone’s help, Danny’s help especially, and she knew it would excite his interest, that he would wonder about it until he understood why she had come to him. She didn’t understand it herself.

‘Da’s dying,’ he said abruptly.

‘Is he?’

‘Moved him from Gen Pop to the infirmary block. Cancer. Said it’ll be a couple of months.’

She nodded at her feet. ‘Right?’ she said, noticing how tight her lips had suddenly become. ‘Asking for us?’

‘No. Dunno.’ Danny was muttering too. ‘Why? Have ye heard he was asking for ye?’

She smirked. ‘No.’

Danny laughed too. ‘Well, why did ye ask then?’

‘Dunno, just something ye say, isn’t it?’

‘Suppose. If he’s only got a couple of months he won’t have time to see his kids.’

‘How many of us are there, do ye think?’

‘Dunno.’

‘D’you ever see people and wonder if they’re his?’

He smirked. ‘Nut. D’you?’

‘Nah.’ He knew she was lying too and they smiled warmly at each other.

‘You OK?’ He said it so fast it sounded like a burp, as if he couldn’t wait to get the concern out of him.

‘Fine!’ She sounded shocked when she’d meant to sound breezy, and corrected herself. ‘Fine.’

‘The boy.’ Her heart tightened until she saw him looking at her phone. ‘You asking…’

She shrugged and found she was breathless. ‘Just thought you could help, ’cause it’s near the old house… old stomping…’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, afraid he would see the spark of loss in her eye.

‘I need to go,’ he said, but stood still.

‘Me too,’ said Alex but she didn’t move either.

Finally, they couldn’t drag it out any longer. She stepped away from him. ‘Happy birthday, Danny.’

‘Aye.’ Danny stayed where he was, watching her walk away until she was out of sight around the concrete corner. His voice came after her. ‘Phone me.’

‘Nah,’ she wrinkled her nose and reached for the handle on the lobby door, ‘haven’t anything to say to ye.’

‘Phone and tell me what happens with Bob.’

Alex dropped her hand and backed up to the corner. Danny was still pressed into the cramped corner where she had left him. ‘Bob?’

‘Bob.’ Dan flicked a finger at the phone in her hand. ‘The wee guy…’

‘Omar?’

‘Aye, Bob’s his street name.’

It was daytime. Aamir could tell that for certain. Bright day outside.

The previous night had been so frightening, his muscles so tense for so long that he fell asleep mid-thought, exhausted, holding his mother’s hand. When he awoke he was drooling into the pillowcase and it was stuck to his face. He sat up, straightened the pillowcase, and realised that he could no longer remember the night very clearly.

They had driven for a very long time, changed from the van to a car, driven a long way again and he knew that home was hours away. He could be in the highlands or Manchester or even London. And out there, somewhere beyond the cheap weave of the pillowcase over his head, were his children and his wife, his brand new grandson and Aleesha, bleeding, dead for all he knew.

Aleesha. A bad daughter: rotten, opinionated, disobedient. He adored her. She got all that from Sadiqa, all of that anger and energy was why he had fallen in love with her mother. His mouth said a prayer that she was well but his heart was shut to God.

Omar had betrayed him. A second son himself, Aamir had always loved Omar best. Aamir sighed, turned to his mother and asked her: why would Omar do this to him?

Maybe he was on drugs. Of all his three children Aamir could imagine Omar as a junkie. A lot of junkies came in his shop, looking for things to steal, buying sweeties. They loved their sugar. He had decided long ago that there were as many nice junkies as there were people, most were pleasant unless they were withdrawing or desperate, but you could say that about all people. Anyway, there was an off-sales on the next side and a supermarket up the road. Much easier to steal from. Aamir liked the junkies better than the alkis.

Omar stood by and let them take his father in his place. Only Billal stood firm. The one child he didn’t really like. Aamir wasn’t just making excuses for Omar the way he always did, he genuinely understood. He had done the same to his mother, let them take her as payment for his safe passage and, like Aamir now, she did not mind. Aamir did not mind.

She was frightened too. He clutched his mother’s finger for courage and told her not to worry. He understood her now, giving herself for his safety. As a young man he thought she should have fought to the death, but he understood now.

Aamir did not find family life comfortable. He held resentments against his children, but all the day to day animosity of normal family life had evaporated in the night. At a distance, with an impassable sea of longing between them, he could see that they were good, that the values he was trying to drum into them by checking up, shepherding, shouting, those values were there already. If he could see them right now, just once more in his life, he’d kiss his grandson’s head, rub his nose in the baby’s downy hair and tell Omar he wasn’t really angry, smile at Aleesha and tell her that her wildness was beautiful. He would lie in the dark next to Sadiqa and not think about how fat she was, how she was bending the bed to herself and smelled of cooking oil. He would lie there in peace and enjoy the peaceful dark, the sheets, savour the pulsing green light from the radio alarm smeared across the ceiling.

The thought of his own bed raised a sob to his throat, but the bruising on his ribs choked it.

There were two men, one whose voice was strangled with rage. The other one was less interested, kind sometimes when his friend was out of the room. Strangle voice had come back into the room last night and punched a vicious jab in his side, sniggering malevolently as Aamir struggled to breathe. He had ordered Aamir to stay on the bed, like a childhood game of crocodiles, and not to take the pillowcase off. Aamir did as he was ordered. He had a CCTV camera in the shop and knew how cheap they were: they might have one in here.

He imagined himself seen from up high: a small grey man, cross-legged on a vast grey bed. A pillowcase over his head, neat, tidy, and next to him a fat woman with a blood bloom flowering at her seat, holding her sari to her face to dry her tears on, sobbing, but only out of habit, not because she was sad.

He saw her looking around, far, far into the distance, as if they were on an open-top bus and she was anxious to see the sights. His mother reached over to his hand and squeezed it tight, not with fear, not that, no soldiers with rifles and an eye for a British passport here, but squeezed it with excitement because they were seeing things together, finally. He had taken her hand, finally. She pointed at the window, smiled a grey smile and the CCTV cut out.