The Red Road (24 page)

He sat with the bottle of pills in his left hand, a finger under the bottle, another over the open top, as if he found her so disgusting he couldn’t bear to touch the bottle where she had touched it.

She nodded him on and he lifted the pills, holding her eye, and tipped them into his mouth, chewing them like tic tacs. They were bitter. He grued at the taste and undid his bottle lid, again the sharp metallic grind. The sound took her back to the Red Road flats, to the wind and the sensation of a knife grinding through skin. She’d been sick, almost passed out over Aziz’s body. She’d held onto a girder to stop herself falling.

Now she felt sick again. She wanted to run forward and slap them out of his mouth. She felt the breath go out of her but she didn’t move. This was different. This was harder. This wasn’t business.

Atholl held her eye and lifted the vodka bottle, drinking down a solid swallow of jagged little pills, his eyes rolled back and she felt the scratch at her own throat. Keeping his eyes shut he lifted the bottle of pills and took another mouthful, chewing less purposefully this time, mechanically. He dropped the empty pill bottle and drank again from the vodka.

He opened his eyes and seemed suddenly calm and restful. He glanced at the second bottle of pills and Rose nodded. He took the lid off, holding it as before and, baulking but persisting, chewed another mouthful, washing it down.

He smacked his lips and looked at her. ‘You know, I’m getting quite drunk here. I might go to hospital, have my stomach pumped if I’m alone. Will you stay with me this evening? Stop me from changing my mind?’

Rose shook her head. She didn’t think he would change his mind. Part of him wanted this too. She looked at the pill bottle in his hand and realised that she was feeling better, cleaner. She thought she could face going home now.

She realised suddenly that he wasn’t sorrowful any more. The alcohol had hit his mood and shifted it sideways. His eyes narrowed slowly and she saw a flash of the mean man who would fuck a terrified fourteen-year-old in front of other men. She was glad she had stayed for this.

‘Rose; what is hell?’ He took another mouthful of pills and raised his eyebrows in a question. She waited for him to finish chewing, expecting a cracker joke.

‘Hell, my dear,’ he paused to grimace, ‘is unanswered questions.’

He rolled his snow-coated tongue to the front of his mouth, scraping the powdery white onto his teeth in a paracetamol snowdrift. Then he lifted the bottle and washed it down.

‘Do you believe in an afterlife, Atholl?’

He shrugged, struggling to keep it down. ‘D’you?’

‘Used to.’

He smacked his lips and grinned at her. ‘When I called you earlier, it wasn’t about Robert. I called to warn you that the police have found ...’

They stared at each other. In the street below a man shouted for a dog. They stared at each other for a full minute, Atholl smiling gently. Rose realised that she had stopped breathing.

She was the first to snap. ‘Found
what
?’

Atholl took a breath, grinned and burst out laughing. He dropped the second paracetamol bottle onto the carpet. It rolled towards her.

‘The police found
what
?’

Atholl laughed again, then flinched suddenly at the realisation of what he was doing. Panic in his eyes, horror, and his eyes bulged as if he might throw up, but he didn’t. She held onto the doorway to stop herself storming over, hitting him. One hard jostle might make him sick it all up.

Atholl smiled and his eyes shut for a long time.

She wouldn’t beg him. She wouldn’t burn the photograph either.

‘If you’re not dead in three days’ time I’ll kill you.’

He didn’t answer.

Deciding to leave, she pushed herself off the wall. Atholl looked up at her. A white froth was forming at the corner of his mouth.

She was facing the door when she heard him muttering behind her. She reached for the door handle, stepped out and shut it behind her. She was in the hall before the words Anton Atholl had said assembled in her ear.

See you down there.

22

The street was dark outside the glass-walled office where people sat working at computers in grey cubicles. The investment firm seemed to have a late-night culture, because it was almost eight o’clock and fewer than half the desks were empty.

Mina Balfour was in charge of this floor. Reception must have warned her that they were coming because she stood to meet Morrow and DC Daniel at the door to in her prestigious glass cubicle. She looked more than seven months pregnant, but that was because she was so slim and tall. When she stood her thin frame bulged out at a ridiculous angle, like a Hollywood actress with a pregnancy prosthetic. She wore a sharp business suit jacket, not a maternity one, and a pencil skirt. She had long, impossibly sleek black hair, reaching almost to her thighs, glinting under the bright ceiling lights.

She stepped across the room to open the door for them, graceful in impressive heels that were three inches high and thin as a string.

Up closer Morrow could see that Mina was pretty, not beautiful, and wore an extraordinary amount of make-up. Red slashes of blusher, a deep solid foundation, glossy purple lipstick and black eyeliner that might have been applied with crayon. She held the door as she introduced herself and shook their hands, serious, listening carefully as they introduced themselves, nodding formally, and inviting them to her desk.

‘I’ve really only got about twenty minutes and then I need to be on a conference call to New York,’ she said, almost for the benefit of the plebs around her who didn’t have a glass office of their own. ‘So if we could keep this short ...’

She let the door fall shut and retook her seat, waving them to chairs that backed onto the workers. Her own chair, Morrow noticed, faced out into the office like a warder’s.

Morrow started by saying, ‘Mina, I’m amazed you’re still at work, after all you’ve been through.’

‘I like to keep going.’ Mina’s eyes flicked to the floor outside.

‘I’m so sorry about your husband.’

She ground her teeth at that, licked her tight top lip and then looked hard at Morrow. ‘It’s very nice of you to come here to tell me that.’ She was clearly furious.

‘The reason I’m here is that I can’t get any sense of what Aziz was like from the file—’

‘Sorry, no sorry.’ Mina pointed a fast finger from one to the other. ‘Who are you two? I met a guy called Wainwright and he told me he was investigating Aziz’s death.’

Daniel looked at Morrow.

‘He is,’ said Morrow carefully. ‘But fingerprints that we picked up from the scene have also come up in a case I’m investigating—’

‘Are you Wainwright’s subordinate?’

‘No.’

‘His boss?’

‘No. I have equal rank with DI Wainwright but I work in another division.’

That seemed to please her. ‘So, there’s two DI’s working on it?’

‘Yes. And two divisions.’

She nodded for a moment, taking it in, her tongue flicking behind her teeth.

‘What sort of work do you do here, Mina?’

‘Pensions fund management.’

‘Financial services?’

‘We’re the Scottish division of a big company down south.’

‘Is that what you’ve always done?’

‘Since I left uni, yes. I studied accountancy but didn’t fancy it for a career.’

‘What’s your maiden name?’

‘Ibrahim.’

‘Of the Queen’s Park Ibrahims?’

‘No.’ Mina was firm but smirked a little. ‘The
Lenzie
Ibrahims.’

Lenzie: nice area, middle class, quiet. Morrow gave her a little smile back. ‘Quite different.’

Mina seemed a little surprised that Morrow understood the difference. The Queen’s Park Ibrahims were rascals. Morrow had never heard of the Ibrahims from Lenzie so it was a safe bet that they were good-living people; lawyers, accountants, keepers of lawns and washers of cars, attendees at private school parent councils.

‘Yes,’ Mina gave her the full smile, ‘
quite
different.’ Her teeth had been straightened and capped. Morrow saw Mina then as the Glasgow princess that she was. Morrow had been at school on the south side, with boys who dreamed of girls like Mina but settled for girls like her.

‘How did you meet Aziz?’

Mina circled her right shoulder in a shrug that was anything but a shrug. ‘Family.’

‘He knew your family?’

She rolled her eyes in a fond reproach. ‘Ziz knew
everyone.
’ But she remembered him then, and her chest jolted forward as though she had been slapped on the back, and she froze, blinking hard, struggling to breathe in.

Morrow realised why Mina had so much make-up on: she had been repairing it over and over during the day. When she spoke again her voice was hoarse. ‘He was a nice guy, know what I mean? Real one-off. Funny guy ...’

Then the weight of sorrow came over her and she sat exhausted, hands limp on the table. Morrow tried to move her mind on. ‘Can you tell me about his work?’

‘Yeah, he was doing good work, raising money, event organising in the community, big-money events. He knew everybody and everybody loved him. Very gregarious ...’ She broke off, slumping again.

‘What was the charity for?’

‘Uh, raising money for the people made homeless by the earthquakes, ’05 and ’08. They’re still living in tents, a lot of them. No water, stuff like that, you know. People were happy to give it to him. They’d already given a lot of money but Ziz knew none of it was getting there. It’s so corrupt over there but Ziz had ways of getting the money into the country without going through the formal channels. Government creams off half of it. People knew the money they were giving would actually get there, and not be financing blocks of luxury flats in Dubai for the military.’

Mina had clearly said this before, possibly to Wainwright, and didn’t expect it to attract any interest. She stopped, lifted a bottle of sparkling water from her desk.

‘What
ways
?’

Mina swallowed, keeping her eyes on the office. ‘Auch, you know, networks, family, safe ways. People trusted him.’

‘Did he use hundi men?’

Mina stopped still. Eyes flicking about the office floor outside. ‘Well, I mean, I don’t know ...’

‘You don’t know what hundi is or who the men are?’

‘I don’t know any of that ...’

Morrow cleared her throat and wriggled forward on her chair a little. ‘I understand,’ she said confidentially, ‘why people would do that. I know the banks aren’t safe and the exchange rate ... well, but you have to understand, Mina, that these are heavy people. The amount of cash they deal in, it makes them vulnerable and they can’t afford to be vulnerable so they buy guns and charities aren’t the only people who use them—’

‘
I know that.
’

‘No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you do know how hundi men make money or who they’re involved with. I think Aziz did know, or he found out, and maybe that’s why he was killed.’

Mina broke eye contact and tipped slowly back in the chair, chin to the ceiling, tipping back in the chair as if her pregnant stomach was rising out of her. Thinking she was having an attack or a stroke, Morrow and Daniel were on their feet, standing over her. But she was crying, tears running down her temples. She looked up at Morrow, rolled her fingers over her face. ‘Mascara,’ she whispered, taking a tissue from her sleeve and dabbing watery black from her hairline. It took a while to stop.

Morrow stood over her like a benign dentist. ‘Mina, I am awful sorry.’

‘Will you please stop saying my bloody name,’ whispered Mina. ‘You’re doing my fucking head in.’

‘Sorry,’ said Morrow and then realised that was probably pretty annoying as well. ‘I’ll sit down.’

Mina managed to sit up, cupping her stomach. ‘You got kids?’

Morrow nodded. ‘Twins.’

Mina was impressed and stroked her belly. ‘’Kin’ hell. You must have felt like a monster.’

‘I actually was a monster,’ said Morrow. ‘Towards the end I was as wide as I was tall.’

Mina snorted a smile and with a spark of terror in her eyes added, ‘They OK?’

‘They’re brilliant.’

‘I worry, you know, because, it’s not good.’ She pointed at her tear-stained face, almost crying again.

If she had been another woman Morrow would have squeezed her hand and told a sugary lie, said everything would be all right and having a baby was nothing. Instead she said what she knew to be true.

‘We see a lot of hair-raising stuff in this job. You’re a nice woman from a good family. That baby’s luckier than most.’

Mina nodded at her computer. ‘Not living in a tent ...’

‘Can’t you get some more time off?’

‘Not in this economic climate,’ whispered Mina. ‘I don’t dare. You’ve got no idea what the private sector’s like, and I’m going to be a single parent. I’m due maternity off this company and I’m getting it at this level. Give them any excuse ...’

Morrow nodded. ‘Tell me about the hundi men Aziz dealt with. I’m not going to leave you vulnerable. We’re just after the men that killed him.’

‘You’ll keep my name out of it?’

‘Your name wouldn’t come into it. We’re investigating a murder.’

Mina hesitated. ‘A wee lawyer called Julius McMillan handled all the money. I’m only telling you because he died.’

‘I know he did.’

‘Like, a week ago, of natural causes.’

‘I know, I know Julius McMillan died.’

‘I always knew when Ziz had been there because he came home stinking of fags and I was like “you’re
stinking
!”’

‘When did he last see McMillan?’

Mina slumped in her chair. ‘The night before he died. He had three big bags of money when he went out. Came home without them.
Stinking
.’ She stared at her desk top, lost in it for a minute. ‘Stinking. Upset. He’d seen someone there ... Outside. He had a fight with McMillan about it ... He was upset. His hand was hurt ... said he banged it off the desk but I didn’t believe that. Ziz don’t mind confrontation. Something else had happened.’