‘Anyway, someone inside heard what I was at and I got a call to present myself at the local community centre. There was a couple of them sitting. One of them wanted to shoot me on the spot. Hugh was there and he stood up for me, argued I could help them out. So, I was told I could either keep selling for myself and get kneecapped, or I could start selling for them and be protected. They took eighty per cent, I kept twenty. So that’s what I done.’

‘How did that leave you in Scotland?’

‘The cops started leaning on me. They must have realised who I was selling for, considering the areas where I’d managed to get a patch. They picked me up one night and offered me five hundred quid to be a tout. If I didn’t, they said they’d lock me up. They’d nothing on me, though. I had a few blocks, end of the night stuff, and I claimed it was for my own use. But Mullan reckoned I was no use if the cops were going to be lifting me and leaning on me every whip-round, so he set me up over here. Same arrangement, different country. Then Hugh arrived over a few months after anyway, so it was just like home!’

He’d just finished his story when Karen had come in. She stood in the doorway, surveying the bar, looking for them. She saw Tony, her glance avoiding his, settling in the middle distance as she came across to them.

‘All right, girl,’ Kelly said, his tone, his very stance, changing at her arrival.

‘How are you?’ Tony asked, aware that he was starting to blush.

She offered them a brittle smile and sat down on a chair at the head of the table.

‘What’s your poison?’ Kelly asked, before Tony had a chance.

‘Tonic water and lime,’ Karen said. ‘Please.’

‘Coming right up,’ Kelly said.

‘I was going to call you,’ Tony said, when Kelly was out of earshot.

‘We’ve a job to do,’ Karen said. ‘Let’s keep it at that.’

‘I wanted to say sorry,’ he added. ‘I was an arsehole that night. I’m sorry. I was in the wrong.’

‘You were,’ Karen said, allowing a brief glance in his direction.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘Are we OK?’

‘There is no “we”,’ Karen said. ‘An apology in a bar two weeks late doesn’t change how things went that evening.’

‘I know,’ Tony said. ‘I just hoped–’

‘You hoped I’d been pining for you for the past fortnight, waiting for you to call?’

‘I hoped you’d give me a chance to make it up to you.’

They had no further chance to discuss it, for Duggan arrived and, a moment later, Kelly returned with the drink. Duggan waited until Kelly sat, then began.

‘Karen has got us an address for our friend,’ he said. ‘We need to keep an eye on him for a while, work out his patterns, his hours, the whole thing. I’ve taken a drive by a few times, just to get used to the place and his hours. He leaves at 8.10 every morning but comes back at different times each day, with no real pattern. He does, though, go to church on a Sunday, same time each week, and he does his grocery shop on a Friday night, usually after 7pm.’