The houses screamed by and there was the roundabout with Anderson Drive. Anderson Drive the dual carriageway. The dual carriageway that was packed with traffic. Traffic like the dirty big articulated lorry just pulling onto the roundabout right now!
And Steel wasn’t slowing down.
‘No, no, no, no, no!’ Tufty grabbed at the dashboard.
It was going to hit them, going to hit them, going to hit them!
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
Steel accelerated. ‘WHEEEEEE!’
The pool car roared onto the roundabout and everything slowed to a crawl. The shrubs growing in the middle of it, in vibrant shades of emerald and olive. The blue of the sky. The massive enormous lorry with its black cab — the driver’s face pale, eyes wide, mouth open — big chunks of oil-industry machinery strapped to the back. The terrifying evil grin on Steel’s face. The pebbly surface of the dashboard as Tufty braced himself...
And then it was back to full speed again.
There was a brief crunching noise, swallowed by the lorry’s outraged horn, and the pool car flashed across the roundabout. Drivers on the north-bound carriageways hammered on their brakes, screeching to a halt halfway across the outside lane.
Oh God... They were still alive!
Seafield Road was a blur after that, the siren’s wail barely making it through the pounding surge of blood in Tufty’s ears.
Steel poked the ‘999’ button again and the siren fell silent. Slowed to a more modest thirty miles an hour.
She turned to him and put a finger to her lips. ‘Be vewy quiet, we’re hunting dwug deawers...’
He peeled his fingers off the dashboard. ‘You’re completely and utterly insane!’
‘Aye? Well you look as if you’ve just crapped yourself.’
‘WE COULD’VE DIED!’
‘But we didn’t. So stop moaning.’ She drifted across the junction with Springfield Road, right beside Airyhall Library. ‘Where are you Tommy? Where are you...’
The pool car pulled into the library car park.
A neon-orange Peugeot sat beneath a tree, parked nose to tail with a lime-green Honda Civic — the drivers’ windows level with one another. Both had stupidly huge spoilers and racing skirts, oversized exhausts poking out the back.
Tufty tried a few deep breaths. Wiped a hand across his damp forehead. ‘Going to need fresh underwear after that one.’
‘Here we go.’ The pool car did a sweeping turn, coming to a halt right across the front/back of the two cars, blocking them in. ‘Now, do you think you can act like a big boy, or does Aunty Roberta have to kiss it all better for you? No? Good.’ She climbed out into the morning and thumped the door shut.
Horror. She was a cast-iron three-hundred-and-sixty-degree Horror, with a capital ‘H’.
He reached for the passenger door handle, but there was no way he could actually open the thing — she’d parked too close to the other cars.
Great.
Tufty clambered back over the gearstick and handbrake again.
Complete and utter Horror.
Roberta sauntered around to the Peugeot’s passenger window and knocked on it. A wee pause, then Tommy Shand peered out at her. Buzzed the window down.
‘Hoy, shift your car, Granny.’ He was wearing a baseball cap — the wrong way around — a pair of sunglasses perched across the top like a black plastic tiara. Tracksuit top, black polo-shirt, and jeans. A couple of gold chains glinting around his neck.
‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Tommy Shand.’ She flashed her warrant card. ‘Keys. Take them out of the ignition and hand them over.’
‘We wasn’t doing nothing!’ Voice getting higher and squeakier with every word. No’ very gangsta.
‘Give me the keys and get out of the car.’ She snapped her fingers at Tufty as he finally struggled his way into the sunshine. ‘You: search the other one.’
Tommy handed over his keys. ‘This isn’t fair!’
Tufty marched around to the Honda and banged on the roof. ‘Out of the car.’
‘Come on, man, this is harassment!’ A pause. ‘What happened to your face?’
‘Out — now!’
The two cars were parked too close together to open the drivers’ doors, so Tufty’s idiot had to clamber out the passenger side.
Roberta grinned. Didn’t matter how often she made people do it, it was still great. Especially the look on their faces when the gearstick nearly went up their bums.
What emerged from the Honda Civic was another rap-star wannabe. One of those stupid bowl haircuts that were shaved at the sides; a Manchester United football shirt — number seven with ‘RONALDO’ across the back; gold chains; and sunglasses.
She gave the Peugeot another knock. ‘You too, Tommy: out you come.’
‘But we haven’t done anything.’
‘I have reason to believe that you’re currently engaged in a criminal offence, Tommy boy. Now get your backside out of the car.’
‘Man...’
Ronaldo flounced in place as Tufty searched him. ‘Wasn’t doing no criminal offences.’
‘Sure you weren’t.’ Roberta snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. Stretched the rubbery skin down between her fingers. ‘You got anything sharp in your pockets I should know about, Tommy? Any knives or needles or kittens?’
A pout. ‘We wasn’t doing nothing!’
‘Hands on the car roof. Assume the position.’ She gave her gloves one last proctologist-style snap then started in on his jeans pockets. ‘You know how long you can get for drug dealing, Tommy?’
‘We wasn’t dealing no drugs. We was just, you know... talking and that.’
‘Aye, right.’ Nothing in the pockets or turn-ups of the jeans. Nothing around the inside of the belt either.
‘We was!’
‘In the car park, round the back of the library? At half nine in the morning? Aye, and all hours of the day and night too. You’ve been spotted, Tommy boy.’
Time to give the tracksuit top a rummage.
‘Wasn’t like that.’
No drugs, in there, just a wallet, a lucky rabbit’s foot, and a big flat chunk of smartphone with a leather cover. No’ the stolen Nokia with the scratched case and dirty pictures of an underage girl. Roberta gave the wallet a quick look through — about thirty quid in cash and some bank cards. A photo of Josie Stephenson grinning out from a laminated window. No drugs.
She kept the phone.
Tufty waved at her. ‘This one’s clean.’
‘So search his car!’
Honestly, did she have to think of everything?
Roberta held up the smartphone. ‘What’s this, Tommy, more porn?’
‘Eh?’ He pulled his chin in a bit. Frowned. ‘Porn?’
‘Right, let’s check the vehicle, shall we?’
II
Ronaldo huffed and puffed, making a big show of straightening his Man United top as Tufty shut the Honda Civic’s boot.
Roberta had a wee peek in through the back window. ‘Anything?’
‘Not so much as an aspirin.’
‘Told you we wasn’t doing nothing.’ He was probably aiming for righteous indignation, but being a bowl-haircutted wee nyaff all he managed was ‘sulky child’.
Tufty gave him a loom. ‘Bit of advice? People who deal drugs get caught. Doesn’t matter how careful you are, we’ll get you. And you’ll go to prison for a very long time.’ Then a smile and a cheery wave. ‘Drive carefully.’
Ronaldo clambered back into his car, through the passenger side, over the intimate prodding of the gearstick, thumping into the driver’s side. Cranked the Civic’s engine over and sat there with his oversized exhaust growling. Scowling out through the windscreen.