Dewar looked to see if he could see Karen when they passed a church hall with a Health Board mini-bus parked outside and people carrying equipment inside. She wasn’t among them.
‘Here we go,’ said Grant as they came to an open space and saw the police cars up ahead. They were blocking the road about two hundred metres from the start of the no-go area. ‘I just hope Cammy Tulloch isn’t slumming it with them or I’ll have some explaining to do.’
Grant slowed the vehicle right down, leaving twenty-five metres between them and the patrol cars in the road, hoping to avoid interview. He stopped at fifteen metres, letting the engine idle and their blue lights continue to flash silently in the dark. The gambit worked. The police, watched by the posse of journalists and cameramen who had moved into residence beside the barrier, moved their vehicles aside and waved the ambulance through. One officer steeped up to Dewar’s side as the eased their way past. Dewar opened the window.
‘You’ll be stopped up ahead. If they say you can’t go in, don’t argue and don’t try to. Just turn around and leave. It isn’t worth it.’
‘Understood,’ said Dewar.
They moved on slowly across no man’s land until a group of five men materialised out of the blackness. Two, wearing leather jackets and jeans, held up their hands.
‘Just like wood lice creeping out of a tree,’ murmured Grant.
‘Where d’you think you’re going?’ asked a thin youth with spiky black hair. He was carrying a baseball bat. He smacked the end of it in his palm as he spoke and smiled at the look on Grant’s face. Most of his front teeth were missing, leaving a dark gap when he parted his thin lips;
‘We’ve had an emergency call from Aberdour Court,’ said Grant. ‘A sick kid, sounds like appendicitis. Stand back please.’ He made to wind up the window.
‘Just a minute pal,’ threatened gap teeth. ‘You don’t go anywhere withoot oor say so.’
Dewar could sense Grant’s anger straining at the leash. He recognised Grant’s diplomacy threshold wasn’t ideal for the job in hand. He leaned across to intervene and said, ‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘Open up the back.’
‘Look a kid’s life is in danger,’ said Grant.
‘Open the fuckin’ back or
‘I’ll do it,’ said Dewar, putting a restraining arm on Grant. He got out, feeling suddenly very vulnerable as the night engulfed him and the men moved in closer. Three of them had baseball bats resting on their shoulders. All chewed gum. He had the ridiculous thought that they looked like dairy cows chewing the cud. He walked round the back of the vehicle and opened up the doors. Gap tooth climbed inside to inspect the interior. Dewar could see he was enjoying his moment. He didn’t look the part but he was behaving like a German officer looking for a suspected escape tunnel in an old war film. He tapped the walls and floor of the vehicle while Dewar stood by, outwardly respectful but inside thinking if the yob had a second brain it would rattle.
Having established that the ambulance was not a Trojan horse full of policemen, hiding in the wheel arches, the yob stepped out on to the road and asked. ‘What gear are you carryin’?
‘Gear?’
‘Drugs, ya bampot.’
‘Not much,’ shrugged Dewar.
‘See’s a look.’
Dewar opened up the scene of incident case and the yob had a rummage. He stuffed what he fancied into his pockets.
‘We might need that,’ said Dewar.
‘C’mon Durie, the guy’s right, the kid might need it,’ said one of the watching band.’
‘Shut yer hole!’ snapped gap tooth.
The speaker lapsed into sheepish silence while gap tooth finished taking what he wanted then got out. ‘Right, you,’ he said to Dewar. On you go. And don’t talk to any strangers’
He seemed to think this was enormously witty. He burst into laughter and turned, encouraging the others to join him. They all obliged.
Dewar smiled. He didn’t need a second invitation. He closed up the back and climbed in beside Grant.
‘Fifteen million years of human evolution and we reach that, said Grant with disgust as they moved off.
‘Maybe he had a deprived childhood,’ said Dewar, tongue in cheek.
‘I know what I’d like to deprive the little bastard of,’ said Grant, slowing the vehicle again to manoeuvre round a burnt out Ford that had been dragged off to the side but not quite off the road. ‘That’s Aberdour Court up ahead.’
Dewar looked at the huge tower block, standing tall against the night sky, its front elevation pock-marked with lights, many of its balconies still draped with washing that had been soaked earlier in the sudden heavy rain and which been allowed to remain there, as optimists looked to a drier tomorrow.
‘Seems quiet enough,’ said Dewar as they came to a halt on the broad tarmac apron outside the front entrance.
‘With a bit of luck it’s going to be, in, out and away,’ said Dewar.
‘Providing they leave the wheels,’ said Grant, as he locked the vehicle and pocketed the keys before joining Dewar. They took a stretcher with them to make their visit seem plausible to anyone watching.
‘Where you goin’ mister?’ asked a ten year old by the entrance. He held a lit cigarette in his hand, quite unselfconsciously. He could have been Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca..’
‘What aren’t you in bed?’ retorted Grant. ‘You’ve got school tomorrow.’
‘Nae school,’ replied the boy. ‘It’s closed.’
‘So it is,’ agreed Grant. ‘I forgot. If you want to make fifty pence, keep an eye on the ambulance, will you?’
‘Make it a quid and you’re on.’
‘All right, a quid it is.’
‘In advance.’
‘D’you think I came up the Clyde on roller-blades?’ exclaimed Grant. When we come back, providing you’re still standing beside it and it’s still got wheels and an engine, you’ll get your money.’
‘Nae problem. Any shit and I’ll get my brother to them.’
The boy ran off to stand by the ambulance. Grant and Dewar took the lift to the eighth floor and walked along the gangway to Kelly’s flat. Grant brought out a bunch of keys and said, ‘Just as well Kelly wasn’t a dealer. Some of these guys put on steel doors that withstand Cruise missiles.’
The door opened with the third key he tried. ‘We’re in business,’ said Grant.
TWENTY THREE
The electricity supply to the flat had been turned off — something they had anticipated; they were using torches they’d brought up from the ambulance. Grant stood by while Dewar knelt down in front of the kitchen sink and opened up the small cupboard below it. He emptied out the cupboard of various bottles of cleaning agents and accumulated a smelly pile of rags, scouring pads, dusters and old newspapers at his side. He stretched out and positioned himself on the floor to reach in and around the plastic trap in the sink drain to touch the plywood back board. It felt encouragingly loose.
He laid down his torch so that he could reach inside with both hands and begin manoeuvring it upwards with his palms. He did it a centimetre at a time in case it should suddenly give way and slip backwards. He didn’t want it breaking any glass vials that might be lying directly behind it.
‘How’s it going?’ asked Grant, who was becoming impatient at standing doing nothing in the cold darkness of the room as time ticked by.
‘Nearly there.’
Dewar felt the board suddenly become free of its improvised side channels. He tried unsuccessfully to turn it round to pull it out on the left side of the sink trap but it stuck fast. He tried again to the right and this time let out a
