‘That is your decision. Very well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury that concludes all the evidence in the case. Apparently we are not to hear from Mr Gallagher. Well, I suppose that is his decision. Or should I say, Mr Muirhead’s decision. Tomorrow we will hear speeches from the Crown and the defence and then I will charge you. Please do not begin the process of making up your minds just yet. You will have to give careful consideration to all that is yet to be said to you before you commence your deliberations.’

McAllister stared at the dashboard clock. 11.10. He had been parked for barely fifteen minutes. It seemed much longer. Time was passing very slowly. The evidence in Gallagher’s trial was at an end. Time was running out.

He looked around the largely deserted carpark. There was no pop concert blaring out its so-called music in the Exhibition Centre. Only a dozen cars were parked, scattered around the vast open space. A number were in a line beside one of the centre’s buildings. Probably security staff. A few isolated vehicles were dotted around, none of them parked under street lights. These cars tended to arrive, park for fifteen or twenty minutes and then leave. The daughters of darkness were plying their trade. Not one of them was the vehicle he was hoping to see.

One car did attract his attention. It was rocking backwards and forwards on its springs.

‘You’ll probably catch something, you silly bastard!’

11.15.

Movement across the car park. Two men, young men, furtive, on the alert, looking anxiously about them, heads constantly on the move. They approached a parked car. Conversation between one of them and the driver. A hand placed through the open window. A hand appears from inside.

‘Damn!’

McAllister was sitting watching a drugs deal going down and could do nothing about it. If he tried to intervene the buyers would run off and the seller would simply drive away. If he summoned other officers, he would probably scare off his expected visitor, and this was an appointment he had to keep. Nonetheless, it went against the grain to ignore a crime being committed under his very nose. He could not work out the make of the car, never mind the number plate.

The two purchasers hurried away into the darkness with the same degree of agitated alertness they had displayed on arrival.

11.27.