‘Ah, but the thing is, it wasnae black either.’

‘What?’

‘Paddy Steel’s numpties are out looking for the A-Team, but my source spoke to another witness, who remembered a dark blue van going into the same lane at the Capletburn Drive end, around midday.’

‘Dark blue would look black near midnight under the street lights,’ Catherine observed. ‘Thanks, Bob.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ he acknowledged.

He resumed work on his bacon roll, his eyes straying to the phone briefly once more.

‘You’re looking at that thing like it’s going to lay an egg,’ Catherine said.

‘Or blow up in my face,’ he admitted.

‘How so?’

Cairns took a gulp of tea.

‘I’ve got this tout, an extremely well-placed tout, who’s been an invaluable asset but precisely the high-maintenance, pain-in-the-arse Pandora’s box you’d expect as the price. He’s as fly as he is ambitious, and let me tell you, this boy takes the piss out of playing both ends against the middle. It’s always a good rule of thumb that it’s okay being used as long as you know you’re being used, but in his case you can never be quite sure how you’re being used, and that makes me nervous. Anyway, he’s due to call. Overdue. It’s something big, I’m pretty sure. The more he fucks you about, the bigger it is.’

‘Any hints?’

‘Just that it’s something he’s expecting to go down today. It’ll be drugs; it’s always drugs. He wouldn’t give me any more, made out he didn’t have the details yet. The bugger knows fine, but he loves keeping you on tenterhooks. Gives him a stiffy to think you’re hanging on his every word. Coy bastard as well: likes to keep things ambiguous until the last possible moment, probably so he can keep changing his story as the situation—’

Cairns cut himself off at the sound of his phone finally ringing. It barely got through one chime before it was at his ear. He got up from the booth and wandered out of the café, away from the sounds of chatter and the hiss of the coffee machine.

‘What I wouldn’t give for that number,’ Catherine remarked, watching Cairns as he nattered in the doorway. ‘Not that his source would talk to anybody else, but I’d love to know who it is.’

‘Not as much as Dougie Abercorn,’ suggested Laura, prompting Catherine to smile.

Cairns ended his call and returned only a couple of minutes later, looking as animated as Catherine could ever remember seeing him.

‘Could have a situation,’ he said, breathing heavily through his nostrils. ‘Could be fucking with me, but could have a situation. In fact, he’s double fucking with me because he knows I know he could be fucking with me, and he also knows I cannae ignore the fact that we could have a situation.’