Head Shot

'Maybe not,' he agreed, 'but a lot of the traffic into Kuala Lumpur stops over at other airports in the region where consignments might be loaded.'

'I hadn't thought of that, I suppose.' The woman spoke with a pronounced Glasgow twang, a voice with muscles in it; her accent was not unlike Skinner's Lanarkshire dialect, but it was rawer, not dimmed as his had been by twenty years of East of Scotland life.

'I understand that,' he said. 'You've worked at the sharp end of the business until now, just as I did, once upon a time. Operating in Strathclyde you haven't had the bloody time to consider the global aspects of the trade; you've been too busy dealing with the problems on the streets. But believe me, it helps to have that broader understanding.

The supply chains are long, but always they're interlinked, from the poppy to the needle. The more of us who share our knowledge and experience, the better chance we have of tracing each one right back to source and shutting it down for good.'

'Is that why you brought me with you on this trip? Not to learn; just to tell tales about pinching pushers in Paisley?'

He looked at her, laughing at her boldness. 'Why I brought you? It's why I recruited you in the first place. Did you think I brought you through to Edinburgh just on Wil ie Haggerty's say-so? Hell, no. I've been watching you since well before he was appointed to our command corridor.'

'Is that so?' She looked surprised. 'I just assumed that ACC Haggerty had put a word in for me.'

'Oh, don't get me wrong,' said Skinner, quickly, 'he did. But only after I asked him about you.'

Chambers frowned. 'And it was as easy as that, was it?' she mused.

'What? You asking if Strathclyde were happy to let you go?'

'Well…'

'Not a bit of it, Mary, I promise you. Your chief was pissed off; make no mistake about that. But I'm not without clout, and I'm playing a long game just now.'

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'You'l find out, when it's time,' he answered, intriguingly. 'But not just yet.'

'Cabin crew, seats for landing.' The captain's instruction through the small loudspeaker above their heads seemed to emphasise that all discussion was at an end.

2

PC Charlie Johnston hated this sort of night-shift work; sure, his colleagues told him he was daft, complaining about the cushiest job of them all, but he couldn't help it. He knew his limitations as a copper, yet he was never happy unless he was in a position to explore them. In his case that meant crowd control at football matches; being on patrol in shopping malls to deter and when necessary pursue thieves, or to come down on the occasional wee toe-rags who thought it was funny to harass and alarm respectable folks.

What he did not like was being sat on his arse in a decrepit sub office like Oxgangs for hours on end, catching cal s, which in practice rarely came in, dealing with theoretical evil-doers who were, in practice, tucked up in bed. It was not unusual for night-watch guys to spend their entire shift reading the Evening News, and listening to the insomniacs' programmes on Radio Forth, envying the disc-jockeys for the fact that at least they had someone to talk to, envying the guys and girls in their panda cars, just for the fact that they were out there. No, what Charlie did not like was sheer bloody boredom.

Yet, when the phone rang, at first he failed to hear it. He was on the verge of solving a tricky clue in the Sunday Express crossword… or, at least, he thought he was. It sounded four times before it made its way through to his consciousness. He scowled, and picked it up. 'Oxgangs police office,' he barked.

'Hello there,' said a female voice. 'Sorry to wake you.'

'That's okay, dear,' he responded, his weariness in contrast with her chirpiness. 'I was away for a hit and a miss.'

'Lucky it wasn't a day and a night. Listen, this is Nicola Ford; I'm a paramedic, and I'm at the doctor's surgery just down the road from your station. There's a dead man here.'

Johnston frowned. 'Aye, wel, that happens. Doesn't it?'

'Not in places like this, in the middle of the night, it doesn't.

Surgeries are usual y closed at two in the morning. Our night time call-outs are either to houses, pub fights or road accidents. This man's had a heart attack, here at the doctor's.'

'So? What do you want us to do about it?'

'I want your lot to attend.'

'What for? Is there no' a doctor there?'

'Yes, but this is an unusual case. DrAmritraj says the man called him at home, bypassing the normal emergency service. He was complaining of mild chest pains. The doctor says that he offered to cal an ambulance right away, but the man refused. He wanted a home visit. Normal y, Dr Amritraj would have referred him to the night service, but he says that he knew him quite well, so he went round to see him.'

Charlie Johnston stifled a yawn. 'Aye, so? How did he get to the surgery?'

'I was getting to that. The doctor says he was a bit concerned by his symptoms. He wanted to take him to A amp;E at the Royal, but the patient became agitated at the suggestion. He said that he had a phobia about hospitals and he refused point-blank to go there. The doctor has an ECG machine in his surgery, so he decided that he would take him there for a proper check-up, and that if he was having a heart attack, he'd sedate him, put him under, like, then cal us.

'The patient agreed to that and they came here, but before Dr Amritraj even got him hooked up to the ECG, he took a cardiac arrest. The doctor tried to resuscitate him; he shocked him, gave him atropine, al the usual procedures, but it was no use. So he called us to take him to the mortuary.'

'That's fine, hen, but what do you need us for? There was a doctor in attendance when the man died, so we don't need to be informed.'

'That's what DrAmritraj said, but there's the next of kin,' the paramedic answered, a little less chirpily than before. 'The man lived alone. The surgery has no other family members on its books, and no clue as to where they might be. It's your job to trace them, not ours. We can't stay here all night; we've got to shift him.'

'Aye, all right,' said Charlie. 'I'l get a panda round as soon as I can.

Haud on a minute.' He laid the phone on the counter of the office, and turned to the radio transmitter. 'Any car in the Oxgangs area, come in please,' he said, into the microphone.

There was a crackling sound. 'Aye, Charlie?' a male voice answered.

'Need an attendance at the doctor's surgery in Oxgangs Road. There's a body there, and next-of-kin needin' advised.'

'Cannae do it, man. We've got a domestic here. Bloke's thumped his wife; we're having taste arrest him.'

'What about Jenny?'

'Her car's down the bypass at a road accident.'

'Aye, okay.' He flicked the mike off, and picked up the phone.

'Listen, hen,' he said. 'Al our cars are occupied, so I'll have to come myself. I can do that; I just have to put my phone on divert and let divisional HQ know why. I'll just be a couple of minutes.'

Excited at last by the prospect of escaping from his nocturnal prison, the clerk, dispatcher and occasional jailer made his arrangements, slipped on his uniform tunic, with its utility belt, and made ready to step out into the fresh night air. As an afterthought, he took the office's Polaroid camera from the desk where it was kept.

3

He liked the spring; 'the renewal of God's promise' he called it, even though he had never been devoutly Christian. Few things appalled him more, in fact, than his country's religious right, and their active involvement in the electoral process ensured that he was an ever-present at the pol s, voting the straight Democrat ticket whatever the personal failings of its candidates.

Indeed in the previous fal he had been proud to play his part in ensuring that party kept its grip on the New York State senatorial seat, beginning in the process a career which he hoped would lead the new incumbent to the White House in her own right. How the First Gentleman would take that would be something else again, but what the hell, he had had his eight years.