‘Sir, I’d like to drive Morrow to meet Ibrahim,’ said Bannerman, quietly. ‘I can brief her on the way.’

‘I need to speak to Ibby alone though,’ she said, reluctant to spend longer with Bannerman than she needed to.

‘Yeah, but I’d like to see him in the flesh. Just for future…’

For future what he didn’t say. It wasn’t an efficient use of two DSs but MacKechnie nodded. ‘Bonding. Good. DCs busy?’

‘Sir.’ Bannerman handed him a duty sheet. ‘We’re checking the CCTV from the M8 for cars going to and from the van site. Lab reports on the way. Fingerprints on their way. Researching all family members for Afghani visas. Two DCs are doing door to door around the house and processing the witness statements. Morrow and I could go to the hospital for a follow up and take a look at the shop as well.’

‘OK,’ said MacKechnie, and turned to Morrow. ‘Check your emails from now on.’

She nodded, hoping she looked sorry.

He stood with his back to the door, addressing the troops: ‘If this is right then it’s not the wrong address. The gunmen were after the Anwars, Omar specifically. What we need to know is why anyone thought they had two million to hand over.’ He put his hand on the door to the corridor and stopped. ‘Well done, Morrow,’ he said, opened it and left.

Grant was a little red in his cheeks. ‘Yeah, well done,’ he said, with more grace than she would have.

Shugie was in the living room, sitting defiantly on the piss-damp settee, casually reading a newspaper from July.

In the kitchen Eddy sat on a stool, Pat crouching on a rickety wooden box with ‘FRAGILE’ stamped on the side. They sat away from each other, each marooned like boats lost on a dead sea. Dumb with tiredness they were both struggling to keep awake. Someone, not Shugie, had put down laminate flooring but a long-ago flood had warped the boards. They were curving up at the sides making the floor choppy and uneven. Under the dirt Pat could see that each board was a photograph of the next, the same knot in the wood repeating like a greasy dinner.

Eddy held a loaf in a waxy wrapper, opened out like a bag of sweeties. He had been eating dry bread all night because that was the only foodstuff Shugie had remembered to buy with the forty quid Eddy had given him in advance. He’d invested the rest of it in superlager.

Pat breathed heavily through his nose as a precursor to speaking but Eddy looked away. ‘Man,’ said Pat regardless. ‘We need to move.’

‘Leave it,’ Eddy warned through his teeth.

‘We need to move him.’

Eddy didn’t answer. He held out the bread wrapper as if it was a solution. Pat shook his head. He couldn’t eat in here. He felt as if particles of Shugie’s piss would be getting in his mouth and into his stomach when he ate. Had to be. That’s what smell was, particles.

He brought his elbows and knees in, shuddered a little, thinking about dead skin. Then he remembered the girl and wondered how she was. But Shugie didn’t have a radio, never mind a telly. They didn’t know if they were in the news or not. If it was in the paper there might be a photo of her. The chances were that she’d been taken to the Victoria Infirmary. Less than a mile away, in a clean bed.

Desperate to relive the warm glow he felt when he first saw her, Pat imagined her lying in a hospital bed with her hair fanned out over the pillow, smelling nice, peachy or flowery, clean, thinking about him perhaps. Pat shook his head softly. No. He had shot her fucking hand off: if she was thinking about him it wasn’t fondly. A girl like that wouldn’t go with someone like him. The father was annoyed that the door was chapped at night. The house was clean and pink, nice. She was from a good family. Even if he hadn’t shot her by accident she’d never go with him. Her father wouldn’t allow it.

He imagined himself walking into the ward with a big bunch of flowers, dressed smart, looking sharp, but her face was horrified when she saw him again. Disappointed with the fantasy he took himself back to the hallway to see her there. Her waist was tiny, the waistband of her denims hanging off her hip bones. He realised suddenly that the bridge of his nose felt hot when he was in the hall. Looking at her waist he could see the black woollen edge of the eyeholes. He had a balaclava on. She didn’t know what he looked like.

Pat sat upright, smiled, almost laughed. She had no idea what he looked like.

Back at the Victoria Infirmary Pat walked into a ward that didn’t exist and smiled at a girl who didn’t remember him. Shy, she looked away but he gave her an impossibly glorious bunch of flowers and she suddenly loved him back.

He had been in the Vicky once, to see someone, he thought, a niece with tonsils or someone. Smiling at the dirty laminate he walked through the lobby, took a lift, sauntered into the ward. He could pretend to visit someone else and just look at her. It would be reckless, stupid.

If he did go, which he wouldn’t, he’d sit far away and just look at her. Then he’d go over and say something nice, you’ve got beautiful eyes or something, something to make her feel good even though she was missing a hand.

Surrounded by swirling particles of Shugie’s urine, Pat’s thoughts went off on their own, to a romantic, wordless conversation between himself and Aleesha at her bedside, to cups of tea in the hospital cafe, shortbread, smiles. He picked her up in a car he didn’t own, went to places he’d never been, places in the country, sunny places.

A girl like that, a girl who smelled of toast and warm, she wouldn’t go with someone like him. Her father would never allow it. She’d only go with him if she wasn’t living with her father, like if he was dead or something.

A rap on the glass above the sink made them both sit up. Malki’s skinny face looked back at them, smiling and Pat grinned back. Malki disappeared and then the door opened. He stood in the doorway, wearing a new white tracksuit with twin blue strips up the leg and a matching cap.

‘Been shoplifting?’ Eddy thought buying clothes was womanly.

Malki didn’t answer but curled his lip at the bin bags piled up by the door. ‘’Kin hell.’ He held the knees of his pristine trackies away from the bags as he sidled by. ‘Been in some dives, man…’

Pat was on his feet, unreasonably happy to see Malki. ‘Thanks for coming.’

Malki held out a thin blue polythene bag. ‘Call me with offers o’ money and I’m there, man.’ He gave the rubbish a sidelong look. ‘Only, eh, the job doesn’t involve touching stuff in here, does it?’

Pat looked into the bag of lager cans. ‘Four’s not enough to keep Shugie in all day.’

Eddy stood up and looked into it. ‘It’ll need to be.’

‘He’ll go out for more. And he’ll be pissed when he goes. He could tell someone.’

Eddy looked at him. ‘So what ye saying, tie him up or something?’

Pat and Malki looked at each other. ‘Hm,’ Malki smirked, played it as if he was thinking really hard. ‘There may be another way…’

But Eddy was in at him. ‘Don’t you take the piss out of me, you junkie fuck.’

Malki fell back. ‘Yous are on steroids.’

‘Eddy, I think Malki means we can just buy Shugie more bev.’ Pat the peacemaker.

‘OK.’

Malki was embarrassed. ‘Anyway, it’s Mr Junkie Fuck to you.’

No one laughed. It was an old joke. Feeling he had the high ground again Eddy handed Malki a gun. ‘Take this and stand outside the door of the bedroom.’

Malki held the gun between his forefinger and thumb, looking at it as if it was a used condom. ‘Eh… Eddy, man, no guns, man.’

‘How are ye going to threaten him if he tries to get away?’

Malki held the gun out to Pat. ‘Is it the old guy from last night?’

Eddy took the gun back. ‘Aye.’

‘Well, he’s not gonnae try to get away though, is he?’