‘Deek’ll get you there,’ the tour manager had told him yesterday, cocky and smooth through the warped line from some Highland payphone somewhere. ‘He’s a good boy.’

As the car strained and whined under the bald giant’s foot, Neil imagined his own obituary, a tiny paragraph in the back of the paper he had not been working at long enough to merit much more in.

The scheme Neil grew up on had been full of Deeks, lumpy boulders of self-satisfaction, utterly impermeable to reason. Until this point, Neil’s tried and tested method of dealing with them had been to keep his head down and duck away: it was perhaps the only great benefit of being small. Nowhere to duck to today, though. Deek fumbled in the tiny glove compartment with fingers the size of sausages, the old ink of a faded eagle seeping into the skin of his wrist, chucked out a road atlas greying and tatty, not quite held together with ring binders and Sellotape.

‘Here. We get lost, it’s on you, eh.’

‘So. Are you working on this tour then?’

‘What tour?’

‘The singer. Clio Campbell. Touring the Highlands. Are you a roadie on it or something?’

‘Fuck naw. I know the boy Danny cos I’ve done security at a couple of his club nights, eh. He asked me if I’d drive a wee journalist up somewhere. Probably could’ve charged him more if I’d known you’d keep me waiting around, eh?’

‘Aye. Ha ha. So, is that what you do, then? You’re a bouncer?’

‘Only in the evenings, pal. I do removals. House moves. Ken?’

‘Oh aye. So, have you got a van?’

‘We can get a van.’

This was painful, Neil thought. Painful and due to continue for another four and a half hours. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, trying to discourage Deek from turning his head to engage him.

‘So, you said you knew Danny, aye? What’s he like?’

Deek smirked. ‘Danny’s a good boy.’

‘Funny, he said that about you.’

‘Did he, aye? Cheeky cunt.’

‘Known him long?’

‘Bout five year. He keeps the work coming, aye. Good about paying cash in hand, ken. We could aw do with a bit of that.’

‘But you’ve not heard of Clio?’

‘Who?’

‘The artist. The singer on the tour he’s promoting.’ The reason we’re trapped together in this rusting deathmobile. ‘She had a big hit a few years back. “Rise up … everybody rise up …”?’

‘Oh aye, rings a wee bell.’

‘Red hair. Lipstick.’

‘Bint, aye? Well, Danny’ll be getting stuck into it.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Aye. He’ll be right up in about that. Proper fanny-magnet, Danny boy.’