Grant shut the door carefully behind himself. She could imagine the giggle of excitement in the briefing room, the looks passing between the DCs, mouthing her name to anyone whose view of her had been blocked, all speculating as to why MacKechnie, Mr Inclusivity, needed the door shut to speak to her.

Bannerman stayed out of his chair, leaving it to MacKechnie to sit. They were moving as a single animal, they had talked about her, the two of them, wound each other up over her absence, reading things into it that weren’t there. MacKechnie sat down heavily in Bannerman’s chair, pursing his lips, letting off a martyred sigh. It must be a struggle, she imagined, to blend his vegetarian management style with honest aggression. She stood at ease in front of the desk, her head tilted insolently.

‘DS Morrow, I am aware that you are unhappy with my choice of lead on this case,’ MacKechnie narrowed his eyes for emphasis, ‘but I never expected you to usurp the management of his investigation.’

‘Sir, I’ve-’

‘If you compromise these proceedings through sheer bloody-mindedness because you feel picked on…’

He caught her off guard. She expected them to say she was an arse, an idiot, malevolent but not that, not to accuse her of claiming to be a victim. ‘Sir-’

‘I will remind you that a man’s life is at stake here.’

‘I’m cooperating,’ she said. ‘I’ve done nothing that I know of. I didn’t mean to miss the brief this morning.’

MacKechnie shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was too old to be up all night, she thought, too old to do anything other than desk work. He should fuck off to admin and leave the real coppers in peace. These small insults, never uttered, were what kept her head up and her gaze steady.

‘Sir, I didn’t receive the email about time off, or if I did-’

‘Bannerman,’ he cut across her. ‘DS Bannerman has done his utmost to make you feel welcome here, hasn’t he?’

She kept her face neutral.

‘Hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she hissed slightly. ‘He has.’

‘Can we agree that you will work with him to resolve this case as a matter of the utmost urgency? Let’s remember – a member of our community has been taken hostage.’

She kept her face straight, not even blinking at the emphasis that signalled the lie. When she looked at him his mouth twitched at the corner, a micro-expression, saying what he was really thinking: how kind he was to include a small Asian man with a beard in his definition of community.

‘Sir,’ she said to the back wall, ‘I haven’t been in my kip. I’ve been up all night, talking to informal contacts and I’ve uncovered information that materially affects our investigations.’

MacKechnie cleared his throat and dropped his voice as if he was disappointed. ‘Go on.’

‘The family lied about the gunmen asking for Rob. On the 999 calls Billal said ‘Bob’, Meeshra fluffed the question from the operator and Omar said Bob in Grant’s interview. It’s on the DVD. Harris spotted it as well.’

‘Harris?’

‘Yes, sir, Harris. And this morning an informant told me that Omar Anwar was in the Young Shields and his street name was Bob.’

In the pause that followed she could feel each calculating the likelihood of her having fabricated information like that. Would she make up a mystery informant to confirm the Bob allegation, just so she could be right? Was she mad enough to make a play that wild? Someone laughed loudly at the far end of the corridor and a door slammed. She was asking MacKechnie to referee between them and she knew that even if she won the argument he would hate her for it.

MacKechnie tried to claw back the high ground. ‘And Bannerman, what did Omar say about this?’

Bannerman became flustered. ‘We, um, I didn’t get the note…’

MacKechnie looked at him. When he spoke his voice was horribly quiet: ‘Do you mean Wilder didn’t give you the note?’

Wilder would get his books if Bannerman suggested he’d wandered off with her note. ‘No, sir.’ Bannerman’s mouth sounded dry. ‘Wilder did give me the note-’

‘It was a matter of minutes,’ Morrow burst in, appearing magnanimous, while winning the competition and not competing. ‘Between Wilder getting there and the interview ending, sir. We didn’t get the question in…’

United front. MacKechnie couldn’t afford to discipline both of them in the middle of an investigation. He cleared his throat. ‘Can we confirm that he uses the name Bob? Is this informant on the books?’

‘No, it’s an informal contact.’

It sounded weak. MacKechnie blinked and asked her straight, ‘How far are you prepared to go with this?’

‘Sir, I can play you the audio files right now to confirm that they said Bob. The other part I can’t confirm right here and now.’

MacKechnie looked accusingly at Bannerman. ‘When did you get the note from Wilder? Bear in mind that I can check the DVD.’

Bannerman cleared his throat. ‘I got the note but didn’t ask.’

‘Why?’

Bannerman looked trapped. Morrow pitched in, ‘There was a lot going on last night but it’s better this way because we can blindside him with it.’

‘Yeah,’ nodded Bannerman, ‘do our research.’

‘Yeah, research it properly.’

In a dizzying switch of loyalties MacKechnie was suddenly furious with both of them. ‘You two – Bannerman, leaving aside what made you think that the best use of a DS in a major case was listening to emergency calls-’

Bannerman blushed. ‘Sir, I genuinely thought there might be something important on the tapes.’ He looked at Morrow pleadingly.

‘Yes, sir, Bannerman was right,’ she said. ‘His instincts were right; there was something important.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘The inconsistency in the names, if they agreed to say Rob and not Bob, it must have been after the calls. Aleesha was unconscious. We should interview her this morning.’

‘Yes,’ said Morrow, struggling not to smile. ‘Yes, we should.’

MacKechnie looked away. ‘DS Morrow, how do you explain your absence this morning?’

Morrow stole a look at Grant. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t check my email before I left.’

‘You must check your emails.’

‘I will, sir, sorry, sir. Are the family dodgy, then?’

‘Don’t know.’ Bannerman was eager to move the conversation on. ‘If they have that kind of money or anything approaching that kind of money, where is it going? Who do we know in the community we could ask about the family?’

‘Mahmood Khan?’ suggested MacKechnie.

‘Nah,’ said Morrow, ‘he’ll just give us the party line.’

‘Yeah,’ said Bannerman, ‘he’ll be checking party contributions before he tells you anything about the family.’

She had kept her distance for twenty years, but now, like asking Danny, she was surprised to find herself willing to reach back for help, ‘Ibby Ibrahim.’

They both looked at her curiously.

‘Ibby Ibrahim?’ repeated MacKechnie. ‘What on earth makes you think he’ll talk to us?’

She cleared her throat. ‘I know… Ibby. But I’d need to talk to him alone.’

They were both impressed, glanced at each other, back at her. ‘How do you know him?’ asked MacKechnie.

She saw Ibby, ten years old, sobbing in a playground and the bad children standing around watching him in an awed circle, herself among them. ‘From a case,’ she lied. ‘A few years back.’

‘What case?’ MacKechnie was impressed.

‘Ah,’ she said, ‘kind of hard to say…’

If they had any kind of connection to her, any level of intimacy, they would have pressed her to unofficially tell. They’d have gathered around, pressed and teased, guessed until they had some idea. Instead, they slid glances across the desktop to each other, referencing a conversation had elsewhere, away from her.

‘Right.’ MacKechnie moved the conversation back to a safe area and stood up, coming around the desk to her, forgetting how angry he had been only a moment before. ‘Get the background before we ask him about it. We’ve got officers assigned to the door to doors but I want you two to take a look at the shop and the shop helper, find out if there’s anything going on there, betting, drugs, anything that would generate big revenue. Bannerman, make the Rob/Bob thing the focus now, yes?’