The theatre manager — her name was Siobhan Reader — was soon wrestling with longer-term problems. Like finance. It seemed the theatre would have to recover its costs from the local authority, who in turn would have to get it back from central government, all retrospectively, and all within the provisions of something called the Bellwin scheme which covered emergencies like this.

And some of the residents here were actually asking for cash loans. With cash they could buy stuff from the local shops, which were still open, to tide them through the crisis. Many of them had left home with only electronic money, credit cards and Switch cards, which, when the telephone exchanges went down, had suddenly become useless.

So Reader had obtained some money, twenty thousand pounds, as a loan from the theatre’s own bankers in Musselburgh, and was now trying to figure a way of accounting for the small hand-outs she was making to the families.

But there were good things too. The Edinburgh Evening News was published every day, without a break, though Ted suspected it was being run up on a desktop publishing package on somebody’s home pc. It carried some news, mostly stale rehashes of the TV and radio bulletins, but it also ran long lists of personalized messages from the displaced people of the city. To Mary McClair from Vicky Norman. If you need a place to stay, please call… The mobile phones prevalent in the Centre were being used less for personal messages, and more as part of an informal communications network, spreading low-level news about the fate of people and places, even pets. One of the volunteer groups brought in printed T-shirts. NO WATER. NO FOOD. NO POWER. NO PROBLEM. They became a fashion accessory among the volunteers.

They had a VIP visit. It was Dave Holland, a London politician, the environment secretary, a fat English bastard whose accent seemed to disappear down his throat. Trailed by two camera crews with glaring lights and gigantic boom mikes, he strode through the theatre, shaking hands with photogenic kids and care workers and volunteers. Ted couldn’t believe how much time and resource was taken up by catering for Holland, the security and route planning and all the rest of it.

But it was good for morale, he was told.

Holland made one substantive announcement. “There’s a wave of sympathy around the world for what you’re going through,” he said. “Everyone’s eyes are on you. There will be a rock concert in Wembley Stadium to raise relief funds. And we’re flying out the Hibs and Hearts squads—” A ragged cheer; they were Edinburgh’s two principal soccer teams. “—to play an exhibition game.”

Rock music and soccer, Ted thought sourly.

He actually got to meet Holland. The man came along a row of volunteers, introduced by Siobhan Reader, shaking hands and sweating heavily. When it was his turn, Ted asked, “When are you going to start evacuating Glasgow?”