She stiffened a little inside, as she did any time a colleague mentioned Abercorn to her in less-than-respectful terms, since their scorn bore a tacit acknowledgement of her having been overlooked for his position. Unfortunately, Abercorn was seldom referred to in anything but less-than-respectful terms, so every mention of his name was like a little aftertaste of the disappointment and shame she had felt when she didn’t get the nod.

Abercorn was the head of the Organised Crime Unit Special Task Force, set up almost two years ago specifically to target gang-related criminal operations. He had been preferred to Catherine for the post despite her greater experience, higher conviction rate and then superior rank. All of the reasons she considered herself the better-qualified candidate therefore became the reasons her rejection felt all the more humiliating, and it served to remind her that her colleagues were aware of that humiliation whenever they disparaged Abercorn.

The Organised Crime Unit Special Task Force was often decried as having a name longer than its list of convictions. It was officially known as Locust, a quasi-acronym that ignored the final F and added an L at the front in order to accommodate a word invoking parasites and pestilence, presumably to describe its targets rather than itself. This being the Glesca polis, the cops weren’t long in coming up with their own alterations and definitions. It was frequently claimed that the missing F was to represent the complete absence of force the unit had proven to wield, while the redundant, makeweight L was variously suggested to stand for lame, lazy, lackadaisical, lamentable and languorous, among others. However, the most damning slight in circulation was in the ‘backronym’ that had been coined to suggest what Locust really stood for: Letting Off Criminals Under Secret Trades.

‘We want bodies for this,’ Raeside said. ‘Not bargaining chips.’

‘So who do you reckon? Frankie Callahan? Stevie Fullerton? The Cassidys? Maybe the McLennans?’

‘Take your pick. It’s been brewing, though. Anybody could see that.’

‘They’ve all taken some hits lately,’ Catherine agreed. ‘Trouble is, we put a few of them away and the others just think that means there’s more of the pie up for grabs. Could be a show of strength by somebody to demonstrate that they’re back off the canvas. Could equally be the strongest of them making a play while their rivals are vulnerable.’