Winter.’
‘So how come you’re naked then?’
‘Are you complaining?’
‘I’ve never complained before, Sarge. Not going to start now.’
Rachel pushed Winter onto his back, leaning over him and grinning wickedly.
‘Good.’
He grabbed at her and rolled so that he was on top, pinning her arms. Just because she was a sergeant didn’t mean she was always in charge and he had to remind her of that. It was a mistake though. In her defensive position she lashed out.
‘You should have heard Baxter’s rant. He wanted us to do you for anything from breach of the peace to public indecency. The old bugger was virtually foaming at the mouth.’
She laughed.
‘He’s never liked you. Too pally with Addison for one thing and just too cocky for another.’
‘Thanks.’
She sniggered again.
‘Hey, I like you being cocky. It just doesn’t go down so well with everyone else. But Two Soups is an arse. He doesn’t like anybody. I’m not even sure he’s that good at his job. The man’s a dinosaur. You sometimes think he wished Watson and Crick hadn’t bothered discovering DNA.’
‘He’s a dick. Mind you, I can sort of see why he might not have been too pleased at me taking pics on my phone.’
‘Hm, just a bit. Everyone was stressed out of their boxes though. Cairns Caldwell. Jesus, it’s going to kick off big time. The papers and the telly are already going mental. That won’t be the end of it though. No chance.’
Cairns Caldwell ran most of the cocaine that came through Glasgow and had his fingers all over every gram that was sold south of the river. A former pupil of Kelvinside Academy and Glasgow Uni, he was born west-end middle class and worked his way up to south-side scumbag. His parents died in a car crash when Caldwell was seventeen, left him a bundle and a townhouse on Clarence Drive, and six years later he was shipping enough coke into Glasgow to turn the dear green place white. He worked his way up by the standard route – although he short-circuited it big time by having a lot of dosh to kick off with – undercutting the competition, freebies to draw in the mugs, arming himself with the best muscle that money could buy and stamping over all opposition. They also said he smoothed his path the middle-class way, greasing palms and making promises, shaking hands and giving nods in the right direction. The Kelvinside accent opened doors; his bully boys kicked them in. Either way, Caldwell was where he wanted to be.
Apart from coke, he ran hookers and security firms, private taxi hires and nightclubs. It was grey money – the dirty dosh funded the clean cash and it funded more dirty stuff. The snow laundered money till it was as clean as the driven slush fund.
Caldwell was untouchable of course; hard cash made sure of that. He supposedly earned deference from the lowlifes that worked for him by putting an axe through the head of a hard nut named Barney Reid who at one time fancied his chances of muscling him out of the way. That kind of thing tends to buy you respect.
It was reckoned he cleared four million a year. Spent his life putting two fingers up to the cops and coke up the noses of everyone he could.
Untouchable until someone put a bullet through his head. Twenty-nine years old and the brains educated at Glasgow’s finest were spilled over a pavement. Not so clever now.
‘What do you reckon is going to happen?’ Winter asked her.
‘Shit, I don’t know. You know the old Sean Connery film line about “they put one of yours in the hospital so you put one of theirs in the morgue”? Well, they’ve started off with the morgue so I hate to think where this is going to end up. One thing’s for sure, there’s no way his people are going to sit back and take it. Unless they did it but that seems unlikely.’
‘Why not? A man like that has as many dodgy friends as enemies, surely?’
‘For a start they never want to bite the hand that feeds them. And if they did then they would
‘So how come you’re naked then?’
‘Are you complaining?’
‘I’ve never complained before, Sarge. Not going to start now.’
Rachel pushed Winter onto his back, leaning over him and grinning wickedly.
‘Good.’
He grabbed at her and rolled so that he was on top, pinning her arms. Just because she was a sergeant didn’t mean she was always in charge and he had to remind her of that. It was a mistake though. In her defensive position she lashed out.
‘You should have heard Baxter’s rant. He wanted us to do you for anything from breach of the peace to public indecency. The old bugger was virtually foaming at the mouth.’
She laughed.
‘He’s never liked you. Too pally with Addison for one thing and just too cocky for another.’
‘Thanks.’
She sniggered again.
‘Hey, I like you being cocky. It just doesn’t go down so well with everyone else. But Two Soups is an arse. He doesn’t like anybody. I’m not even sure he’s that good at his job. The man’s a dinosaur. You sometimes think he wished Watson and Crick hadn’t bothered discovering DNA.’
‘He’s a dick. Mind you, I can sort of see why he might not have been too pleased at me taking pics on my phone.’
‘Hm, just a bit. Everyone was stressed out of their boxes though. Cairns Caldwell. Jesus, it’s going to kick off big time. The papers and the telly are already going mental. That won’t be the end of it though. No chance.’
Cairns Caldwell ran most of the cocaine that came through Glasgow and had his fingers all over every gram that was sold south of the river. A former pupil of Kelvinside Academy and Glasgow Uni, he was born west-end middle class and worked his way up to south-side scumbag. His parents died in a car crash when Caldwell was seventeen, left him a bundle and a townhouse on Clarence Drive, and six years later he was shipping enough coke into Glasgow to turn the dear green place white. He worked his way up by the standard route – although he short-circuited it big time by having a lot of dosh to kick off with – undercutting the competition, freebies to draw in the mugs, arming himself with the best muscle that money could buy and stamping over all opposition. They also said he smoothed his path the middle-class way, greasing palms and making promises, shaking hands and giving nods in the right direction. The Kelvinside accent opened doors; his bully boys kicked them in. Either way, Caldwell was where he wanted to be.
Apart from coke, he ran hookers and security firms, private taxi hires and nightclubs. It was grey money – the dirty dosh funded the clean cash and it funded more dirty stuff. The snow laundered money till it was as clean as the driven slush fund.
Caldwell was untouchable of course; hard cash made sure of that. He supposedly earned deference from the lowlifes that worked for him by putting an axe through the head of a hard nut named Barney Reid who at one time fancied his chances of muscling him out of the way. That kind of thing tends to buy you respect.
It was reckoned he cleared four million a year. Spent his life putting two fingers up to the cops and coke up the noses of everyone he could.
Untouchable until someone put a bullet through his head. Twenty-nine years old and the brains educated at Glasgow’s finest were spilled over a pavement. Not so clever now.
‘What do you reckon is going to happen?’ Winter asked her.
‘Shit, I don’t know. You know the old Sean Connery film line about “they put one of yours in the hospital so you put one of theirs in the morgue”? Well, they’ve started off with the morgue so I hate to think where this is going to end up. One thing’s for sure, there’s no way his people are going to sit back and take it. Unless they did it but that seems unlikely.’
‘Why not? A man like that has as many dodgy friends as enemies, surely?’
‘For a start they never want to bite the hand that feeds them. And if they did then they would
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