“So, you’re a changed man then, are you?”

Cowan held his hands out as if presenting himself as evidence, like the detective just had to look at him to see the answer to that question for himself.

Logan wasn’t buying it. Shuggie might have mellowed a bit with age, but this was not a man who would ever slip quietly into his twilight years. He’d earned a fearsome reputation as a teenager while clawing his way free of a broken home, junkie parents, and a speech impediment that had earned him the nickname ‘BaBam.’ This—the word ‘Bam’ with a suggestion of a stutter at the start—was what had passed for clever wordplay among some of Glasgow’s finest hardmen and headcases at the time.

The name didn’t stick for long. It turned out that Shuggie was sensitive about his stammer, and reacted swiftly and violently should he suspect anyone of taking the piss out of him for it.

Within a year of its first use, nobody called Shuggie ‘BaBam.’ Instead, they mostly addressed him as ‘Mr Cowan,’ or ‘Sir,’ or ‘Please, no’ the face!’

The man had a list of charges that would fill a phone book. Only two had ever led to convictions, and he’d been in and out of the jail in less than six months each time. He knew people. And, to those people he didn’t know, he was good at making it clear that he could get to know things about them quickly, like how many kids they had, and where they went to school.

There was a myth about old Glasgow gangsters. Old gangsters the world over, in fact. It went something like this:

They were a different sort, back then. Treated people with respect. Never harmed the old folks or the weans, only people who were asking for it. The streets were safer with them around, if anything. Kept the scallywags away.

There was a nugget of truth in it somewhere, but it was predominantly a load of old shite. Just because crime was organised didn’t mean it wasn’t crime. When drugs started flooding into cities, crime rates went up. More grannies got mugged, more houses got burgled, more shops got turned over. Funnily enough, firing a load of smack into the veins of a city like Glasgow didn’t turn it into some crime-free Utopia. Far bloody from it.

“You’re looking old, Jack,” said Cowan. “I thought all that mountain air was meant to do you good?”

“It was that lunch I just ate. Aged me ten years,” Logan retorted.

“I’ll be sure to pass your compliments to the microwave.”

Logan sniffed. “You’ve been keeping track, then?”