Two blokes standing by the bandit – poking the buttons, making the wheels spin, the light flash, and the music ding – laughing about how Neil McRitchie just got this big consignment in from Amsterdam: a kilo of uncut heroin. How Grampian Police decide to raid his house, but McRitchie flushes the whole parcel down the toilet before they break down the door. A kilo of smack, right down the drain. And then they drag him off to the station.

Milne sits back in his seat, face creased in thought, trying to get his drug-addled mind to work. Neil McRitchie … A small-time dealer on the south side of the city – Kincorth, Nigg and Altens. Milne’s bought from him before: blow, smack, and a bit of speed. Always from the guy’s house.

A smile creeps onto Milne’s dirty face. McRitchie’s house is on the back road between Nigg and Charlestown, the end cottage in a row of four. Not so far off the beaten track that you can’t walk there, but far enough to need private drainage. And private drainage means a septic tank.

The police won’t have a bloody clue. They’ll think it’s gone for good, but McRitchie’s kilo of heroin isn’t wheeching its way out to the North Sea – it’s bobbing about in a vat of shite, buried at the bottom of the garden. That’s one good thing about being the son of a plumber: Milne knows his drainage. And that’s when the plan—

He’s hiding behind the Christmas tree, cowering down behind the sharp, dry needles, trying not to breathe, because he knows they’ll fall and spatter against the bare floorboards. And then his father will find him. A scream from the corridor and a thump – his mother hitting the floor, then a thud – his father hitting her. Other kids want GigaPets and Furbies for Christmas. He wants his father to die. Six years old and all he wants—

Milne spluttered, dragging his head back above the surface. Coughing. Shivering. He was burning up – cold, aching, feverish. It wasn’t just the DTs: it was the sewage. Oozing in through the open sores on his arms and legs. Spreading tendrils of septicaemia through his already battered system.

And it was all for nothing. He’d searched the tank from top to bottom and there was no heroin. No kilo of smack wrapped up in a nice plastic package, sealed off with parcel tape. They’d been stupid to ever think there was: how was it going to get through the pipes? The package wouldn’t have got round the toilet U-bend. They’d been stupid and now—