pyre. At first it was just the petrol that leapt high and violently in dark, furious flames. But as they subsided it was clear to see the bricks breaking and burning and a wispy, creamy smoke snaking across the square and into the city beyond, seeking bloodstreams to invade.
The reaction among the crowd was a loud, excited chatter but that was silenced when another bullet suddenly rang out, the sound hitting them a split-second after it drove straight through the fuel tank of the white van, exploding it and wiping out the potential forensic evidence inside. The transit roared into an orange fireball and blazed away in support of the cocaine.
Begley seemed transfixed, staring at the flames with his mouth open. Narey wasn’t though. She’d seen the impact on the canisters and how they’d moved towards them as they exploded.
‘The north of the square,’ she told him, part explanation, part order. ‘The shots are coming from beyond the City Chambers. Get your men over there, sir.’
Begley looked at her as if he wanted to reprimand her but settled for spinning on his heels and barking orders at the nearest uniforms.
Narey’s attention was caught by the blare of a car horn coming from North Frederick. She saw a car bulldozing its way through traffic and ploughing through the crowds. It was a wonder that they didn’t run someone over because everyone that they were pushing past was gawping at the scene on the square. The car doors opened and as people emerged, Narey realized with a snort and a shake of her head that it was Tony, Addison, Colin Monteith and Iain Williamson. She took in the looks of disbelief on their faces and saw Tony pull a camera out of the bag over his shoulder. Christ, this will be right up his street, she thought. It was undeniably an amazing sight and she found herself wishing she had his gift of seeing the beauty in it.
George Square like you’d never seen it before, snowing as if it were Christmas and bonfires as if it were Guy Fawkes Night. The air was thick with smokes and smells: one the familiar pungent tang of petrol and the other a sweet, rubbery whiff that reminded her of caramel.
The cops could hold the crowd back as best they could but they could do nothing about the air. It and the burning coke went where it pleased, like rumours disappearing into the night. Luckily for those in the city centre, or maybe unluckily for some, the burning cocaine didn’t give anywhere near the hit that it would have if it had been snorted or smoked. One of the forensics later told her that when you burn powdered cocaine you lose about half of the potency. It still burns and smokes, just very inefficiently. It was still enough to put a smile on a few faces for half an hour. Some of the locals were sniffing at the air like rabbits twitching for signs of a fox, taking as much of the free hit as possible.
She saw Tony walking between the crowds, photographing as many as he could. Inevitably some of the fuckwits thought he was getting evidence of them taking drugs and a few of them covered their faces while others looked like they were threatening to rearrange his. Any risk was worth it for Tony, though, she knew.
She saw him capture two teenagers grinning at each other like idiots while sticking their tongues out as if they were catching snowflakes. They’d probably never had any more than bottles of Buckfast or White Lightning, so graduating to cocaine was a big step for a Wednesday afternoon when they should have been in Double Maths.
A wee old wifie with blue-rinsed hair obviously thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen, giggling away to herself and pointing at the sideshow even though no one was paying her much attention. Maybe it was the nose candy in the wind, maybe it was the lunchtime sherry or maybe she was just a bit crazy to start with but the old girl was in fits. Tony captured her weather-beaten face as she screwed her eyes up and howled with laughter.
A pink-faced bank manager type in an overstuffed overcoat and a peppered beard looked horrified at the events around him and seemed desperate to avoid breathing in even a whiff of the coke. He had pulled out a white handkerchief and held it over his mouth as if he’d been bombarded with tear gas. He’d clearly never taken drugs in his life, as long as you didn’t count nicotine or industrial quantities of whisky, and wasn’t about to start now.
Other bampots were just welcoming the wind with open arms, quite literally, wafting it towards themselves with as much gusto as they could muster. Fuck the polis, fuck the CCTV cameras. Breathe it in, man, pure magic. They were even fighting for their share of the air, elbowing each other out of the way to snort a bigger nostril-full of next to nothing. These eejits didn’t need much encouragement to be off their heads and their stake in twenty-odd kilos of cocaine floating over George Square would certainly do the job.
Addison and Monteith were by Narey’s side now and for that moment there was little for them to do but watch and wonder what was going on, a state of affairs they were all well used to. None of them could take their eyes off the cocaine snowstorm; it was as if someone had turned the city upside down and shaken it hard.
‘Burn,’ Monteith was muttering angrily. ‘Go on, burn, you fucker. Burn. Better off with that stuff up in flames than up someone’s nose.’
Addison turned to look at the DS, seemingly amused at Monteith’s rage.
‘Moral righteousness, Colin? It’s not Sunday, is it?’
Monteith’s eyes darkened but never left the free show that was falling over the square. ‘I just don’t find it funny, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’m fed up having to clean up the mess this stuff makes.’
‘Well you’ve got to laugh sometimes, Col. Otherwise it will eat you up.’
‘Thanks for the advice.’
‘No problem, sergeant. Oh aye, what have we got here then?’
A burly PC in high-vis yellow was leading a terrified-looking young guy towards them by his arm.
‘DI Addison. This is Douglas Charlton. He says he drove the car onto the square.’
Dressed in faded denims and a blue waxed jacket, Charlton was in his mid-twenties and looked like he was near to shitting himself and was shaking like a leaf. Surely this guy didn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger or hold it steady long enough to hit a barn door. He was attempting to blurt something out and Addison was trying to calm him down so he could get some sense out of him.
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ he was stammering. ‘No choice.’
His eyes were nervously darting left and right, he was moving from one foot to the other and it was a safe bet that his arse was going like a threepenny sponge.
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he said again.
‘Aye, we get that,’ said Addison with his usual diplomacy. ‘What didn’t you have any choice about?’
‘He made me drive that van to George Square. Said he would shoot me. Made me drive it the wrong way down the one-way street. Said he would kill me if I didn’t.’
‘Okay, calm down and talk us through it from the top. Where was he? Tell us everything that happened.’
‘I was in Livingstone Tower. You know, the Strathclyde Uni building?’ The student pointed back up George Street where the corner of a high-rise structure could just be seen in the distance.
‘Okay, hang on a second. Was that the last place you saw him?’
‘Yes. He said he’d be watching me from there. Said he’d see.’
‘Inspector Begley!’ Addison roared above the chaos. ‘Livingstone Tower. Get everyone you’ve got there now! Rachel, go with them and make sure they don’t fuck things up.’
The remark got him a sharp look from both Narey – who doubly made up her mind not to tell him about her conversation in the Criterion – and Begley, but their reaction clearly didn’t bother Addison in the slightest.
‘Okay, Mr Charlton, as quickly as you like, tell me the rest of it,’ he said hurriedly.
‘He said he’d see all the way down the street and would know if I stopped,’ the young man continued, almost babbling. ‘Said he could hit anything between there and George Square. I’d been going up to the fifth floor and someone stepped out from the stairwell behind me. I didn’t see him at all. First I knew, what felt awfy like a gun was pushed into my neck and he asked me if I could drive. I said yes and the barrel of this rifle slipped past my ear so I could see it. He dropped keys in front of me, told me there was a white transit parked out front and that I was to get in and drive it to George Square. The one thing I wasn’t to do was look round.
‘I didn’t have any choice, man. He said if I tried to turn off the road or get out then he’d put a bullet through the fuel tank. He was making me go the wrong way on the one-way, said I was to go at full speed with my horn to clear cars out of the way. I was shitting myself. Had to do it.’
‘Aye, okay. Whatever,’ interrupted Addison, turning to the cop that had brought Charlton over. ‘Take him somewhere quiet and get every detail you can. What height did the voice come from, what angle was the rifle barrel at, did he have an accent? Everything. Tony, come with me. We start on the fifth floor and work our way up. That fucker must have left something behind that we can use.’
