Against the Clock by John Carson (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📕

Phone boxes were disappearing all over Edinburgh as mobile phones made them redundant, but they were widely used as toilets by drunks going home at night. Harry didn’t think somebody having a piss in a phone box was likely to have left a shrink-wrapped corpse standing up outside while he did the business.

‘Right. Get the door-to-door started,’ Harry said, looking up at the tower block across the road. ‘And make sure they go in there. They have a good vantage point up there. Then we’ll get back to the station and get the ball rolling. Sorry to spoil everybody’s Saturday.’

‘It’s not like I have a life outside the station,’ Lillian said, and Harry realised after a moment that she wasn’t being sarcastic.

Four

‘You want me to drive?’ DS Robbie Evans asked his boss, DCI Jimmy Dunbar.

‘Drive is hardly the fucking word I’d use to describe how you move a car from one place to another. Those big machines that take a wheelie bin up and down are called bin lorries. Look it up. They’re a lot bigger than that arse piece you call a car.’

‘I’ve had the brakes done on her.’

‘Now you’ve had the fucking brakes done. That didn’t help me when I nearly pissed myself after you had a blackout. That scaffie you nearly melted was glad he had black trousers on.’

‘I was reflecting.’ Evans unlocked the doors to their pool car and stood at the driver’s side, holding the car keys out in case Dunbar wanted to take over.

Dunbar made a face, shook his head and got in the passenger side. ‘Reflecting?’ he said when Evans climbed in. ‘What were you reflecting on? How your hair’s going thin on top?’

‘It’s not going thin. Is it?’ Evans looked into the rear-view mirror and ran a hand over his head.

‘It is. When I’m walking behind you outside in the sun, I have to wear sunglasses.’

Evans looked at Dunbar. ‘Just because you wear a toupee.’ He started the car and pulled out of the car park at the back of Helen Street station, where they were based.

‘Toupee? Cheeky bastard. I go to a nice wee lassie near us who cuts my hair. She always tells me what a fine head of hair it is too.’

‘And I suppose her guide dug brushes the floor after she’s done.’

‘You’re only jealous, ya baldy wee bastard. Just wait till all you’ve got is a ring of white hair running round the sides of your heid. You’ll be wishing you had hair like mine.’

‘Aye right. When I get to your age, my hair will be long gone, I’ll be having a piss at night without having to leave my bed and I’ll take a wee blue pill to go out on a Saturday night.’

‘Listen, son, me and Cathy are going out tonight and I will not be needing the aid of some chemicals. I was also out last night and had a fair kick o’ the ball. And here we are, Saturday morning, out on a job and my eyes are clear and shiny. Unlike yours. You look like you’ve been drinking hairspray again.’

‘What do you mean, again? And how can you drink hairspray?’

‘Spray it into a glass.’

‘You seem to know how it works. Besides, I was out with Vern, having a few sociable drinks.’

They had met Vern a few months back in the run-up to New Year when they were working a job up in the Highlands. She and her security co-workers had come down to Glasgow to work.

‘What about Muckle McInsh?’ McInsh was ex-Glasgow polis, Dunbar’s DI back in the day. Now he worked private security.

‘I didn’t see him or his radge dug.’

Dunbar whipped his head round to Evans. ‘Sparky’s a good dug. You’re the radge.’

‘I’m just saying. The last time I picked Vern up, Muckle was there and it took Sparky a second to make out who I was. I was sweating like a bastard. He doesn’t listen to Muckle at times. It’s like he’s got a loose wire in his heid, and he starts growling and gnashing his teeth before his eyes get the message.’

‘He’s a good boy. Almost as good as my Scooby.’

‘At least Scooby recognises me when I come round to yours.’

‘Maybe I should teach him to bite your baws,’ Dunbar said.

‘Never happen. He likes me too much.’

‘Aye, well, just you make sure you don’t go messin’ that poor lassie about, or else Muckle will pull your baws through the back of your heid.’

‘Aye, he is a big bastard right enough.’ Evans looked at Dunbar. ‘Big, I mean. Not a bastard.’

‘I know what you meant. I still have all my fucking marbles.’

Evans guided the car round a side road towards the abandoned leisure park.

‘Fuck me sideways,’ Dunbar said, ‘there’s Calvin Stewart’s car. I was hoping he’d have been and gone by now.’

Detective Superintendent Calvin Stewart was Dunbar’s boss and the man who had called him at home that morning, breaking the news that his peaceful weekend was about to be anything but.

The complex had fallen into disrepair years ago and looked like it from the outside. The only sign of life was the patrol cars and other emergency vehicles parked outside.

Evans parked behind a police van and then they caught sight of the DSup standing near an opening into the building.

‘Talk of the Devil,’ Dunbar said as Stewart clocked them.

‘Where the fuck have you two been?’ Stewart said by way of introduction as they walked over.

‘You told us to meet you at the station, sir, but when we got there, the desk sergeant passed on your message to meet you here,’ Dunbar said.

‘That was fucking yonks ago.’ Stewart looked at Evans. ‘You out on the fucking pish last night?’

‘I did have a few with Chief Inspector Dunbar, sir,’ Evans lied.

‘Oh, aye. Bumming around with each other after hours? You know what we used to call blokes like you two back in the day?’

Dunbar focused on his pension, his dog and his wife,