‘So?’
‘Well, if they were only cutting it with a single substance the quantities needed would attract attention. Usually it’s lots of different things.’
‘Is he a cutter then?’
She shrugged. ‘Unlikely because those guys are very undercover, paid for discretion, and they lose their job if they use. More likely he’s got a long habit and gets a custom deal from someone-’
‘I said that. Long term habit, I said that before…’ He seemed desperate to have got something right so she let him have it.
‘Maybe he lives with a dealer? Has a supply or gets it wholesale. Either way he’s well in with dealers.’
‘Cuts it himself?’
‘For himself.’
He looked hopeful. ‘Could this be traceable then?’
Morrow shrugged. ‘Worth a try.’
At half past one Eddy and Pat were still cruising in the car, listening to the radio. Pat turned it up so loud that Eddy couldn’t talk over it. A high-pitched alert signalled from Eddy’s pocket and he pulled over to the side to read it.
Pat could see the text. It was from Eddy’s ex-missus in Manchester. Their youngest daughter was six today. Phone or she’d cut his balls off.
Eddy’s colour changed as he read it and Pat knew if he didn’t get out of the car he’d get the brunt of it.
‘I’ll jump out here,’ he said, throwing the door open to the street.
‘She’s fuckin’-’ Eddy leaned over the seat. ‘Pat, get back in.’
‘No, no.’ Pat backed away from the car, holding the edge of the door. ‘Give ye privacy to call. Pick me up in half an hour.’ And he slammed the door shut, instantly regretting that he’d left the paper with her picture inside. He looked in at Eddy. A nothing in Reactalite glasses. Small, fat, furious.
Eddy pointed straight down to the ground and mouthed angrily, ‘Here?’
‘In half an hour.’ Pat turned away so that Eddy couldn’t argue, walking quickly away down the road. He kept moving at the same pace until he saw the silver car draw past him, down the road and disappear around a corner.
Pat breathed out and looked up, actually excited at the prospect of a half-hour holiday from Eddy. When he saw where he was he almost choked. He was just around the corner from the Vicky. She was just around the corner.
He hurried up, breaking into a jog until he reached the junction and stopped. A low row of newsagents and chip shops on his right but to his left, across the road, loomed the Vicky Infirmary. He struggled to breathe in. He searched his conscience to see if it was true, if he really hadn’t known where he was. He hadn’t: it was as if it was meant.
Outside smokers were huddled in their coats, standing singly or in twos, gazing aimlessly out into the street. Pat stood with his toes over the edge of the pavement, straining, face first towards the passing traffic. He wanted to be there, just a little closer.
Suddenly aware that he might be acting strangely and attract attention, he veered right and went into a newsagent’s shop. He bought the paper again, smiling to himself as he picked a can of juice out of a fridge, and found himself asking for ten Marlboro reds, imagining that it was what she might smoke, if she smoked.
The man behind the counter tried to chat, asking if he had finished his work for the day, but Pat couldn’t hear him. He nodded and paid and left the shop, hurried off across the road, dodging buses and cars, snaking between parked cars. He was grinning as he walked over to the Infirmary and took his place among the line-up under the smokers’ shelter.
An old man in a green bunnet and tweed coat was standing next to him, watching Pat as he took out his packet of ten from his pocket and unwrapped the clear cellophane.
‘You just starting again?’ The old man’s voice was low and rough, his nose a blistered mess of skin, but he stood upright.
‘No.’ Pat looked down at his packet and pulled out the silver foil, crumpling it into his palm and pulling a cigarette out. ‘Just… sometimes. When I’m stressed. Have ye a light, faither?’
The old man reached into his pocket and brought out a dun tin lighter, flicked the wheel and held the flame to the tip.
Pat puffed, superficially, not really inhaling but getting a wild buzz off it none the less. He felt dizzy and reached back to steady himself against the building, smiling when the stone hit his palm. She was in there, on the other side of this wall, and he was touching it.
‘Well, son, ye look pretty happy for someone under stress. Are ye visiting?’
‘Aye, but she’s getting out.’
‘Oh, lucky, aye.’ The man looked away. ‘You’re lucky.’
He wanted to be asked about the person he was visiting, a wife or a son maybe, but Pat didn’t want to talk. He opened his paper and pretended to read the front page, leaning his back on the wall, feeling cold from the smooth stone chill at his back. He forgot to smoke his cigarette. He let it burn out in his fingers as he looked at the picture and thought of her upstairs and him down here, just about to visit her with yet more flowers, with women’s magazines and sweeties.
And she would sit up in the bed when she saw him walking towards her, and her face would open towards him and her hands would slide from the blanket over her knees to her sides, and he would walk, faster and faster, until he was inches from her face and he would hold her face in his big warm hands and he would kiss her.
It was counter-intuitive to trust Kevin Niven. He had greasy hair, wore trackies, had the bad skin and vague speech patterns of a junkie. In fact he was a decorated officer with years of undercover experience. He sat alone in the canteen though, nibbling a poor homemade sandwich, looking shifty and attracting sidelong looks from the officers who didn’t know him.
Morrow could imagine how uncomfortable he made them, like someone dressed in a Nazi uniform hanging about a synagogue: you might know he was dressed like that for some higher purpose but in absent-minded moments you’d still feel the urge to punch him.
‘That’s, like, no easy, like, to say…’ He trailed off, head jerking to the side. ‘Know?’
One question in, he already had Bannerman’s hackles up. ‘Where could we find out?’
‘Dunno…’ He seemed to suddenly absorb the information. ‘That’s not that usual, though, eh?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘Someone with a supply or bulk-buying and moderating it, know? Using like a medicine.’
‘What would normally happen if someone had a supply?’
He opened his arms wide and grinned. ‘Gorge.’
Morrow laughed but Bannerman was staring at him intently. ‘Can you think of another reason for this then, this chemical profile of the residue?’
Niven looked at the lab report, considered it, tipped his head one way at one possibility, the other way at another. ‘Here.’ He drew a meaningless mind map on the table, tapping with four fingers to the left. ‘New supply from someone with a lot of milk powder.’ His hand traced a long line. ‘Pattern emerges later.’
Morrow smiled, getting it, but Bannerman looked angrily at the table.
‘Here…’ Kevin tapped another portion of the table. ‘One off, bad mixing, milk powder clustered in one part of a mix.’
‘Hm.’ Morrow was disappointed. ‘So it could mean nothing?’
‘Or,’ Kevin opened his eyes wide, ‘holiday supply, bought elsewhere, used here.’
Morrow nodded. ‘In short, fuck all use then?’
‘Aye.’
‘Means nothing?’
‘Nah, s’not evidence. Well, he mibbi knows someone, early stages. When ye find him he’ll mibbi be someone’s pal.’
‘Part of a crew?’
‘Nah. Unreliable.’
‘So we can only use the connection for confirmation?’
‘Yeah.’
Bannerman looked sadly at the table.
Kevin sucked his teeth noisily. ‘Check for prints, but?’