‘That’s why I said it was a myth, but that’s just the point. Tony McGill didn’t have a line on a supply, and he understood that those who did were a threat to his power base, which is why he fought tooth and nail to keep the dealers off his streets. He lost in the end, though, because the product controls the territory.’

‘So who would you look at for this? Gut instinct.’

Abercorn paused and glanced away, buying time just like Paddy Steel had bought time.

‘I honestly couldn’t say. I don’t see how this is strategic for anybody, and both my instinct and my experience tell me that an absence of strategy better fits the standard MO. These folk generally don’t plan very far ahead when it comes to bloodshed. You get wars of attrition that span decades and even generations, but never over anything so abstract as a commodity. It’s always personal. Always petty. So if you don’t have an old-fashioned motive for Frankie Callahan, I’d look elsewhere, because these days he’s too busy making money to be bothered with the hassle.’

He shrugged regretfully.

‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you something more concrete,’ he said, ‘but if you want to run anything by me, don’t hesitate. My door’s always open.’

‘Sure. And don’t apologise: you have given me something to chew on,’ Catherine replied, reaching for the sheet of A4, on which she firmly circled the name ‘Frankie Callahan’.

A Whole Child Ago

Jasmine was with her mum again, and it was warm and beautiful and safe. No, not with her again, because in the dream her mum had never gone away, and Jasmine wasn’t the Jasmine of now, but the many little girls she had been, long before she had been forced to think that she’d ever be without her mother.

She was with her in a dozen places – in the first home she remembered: a cosy wee flat in Comely Bank; in Granny’s living room; in that static caravan on holiday in Nairn; in the new house in Corstorphine – yet they were all one place. They changed from one to the other, but they were all the same: warm and beautiful and safe. And the reason they were all the same place, all warm and beautiful and safe, was purely because Mum was there.

Then she was gone, and Jasmine was lonely and lost and scared. She was standing rooted to the spot, surrounded by shapes and nothingness and walls and strangers. She just stood there crying, not knowing what to do: a scared little girl, not even school age, helpless and heartbroken and utterly terrified.