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son—’
    ‘Dennis,’ Alec Bell interrupted. ‘Otherwise known as a
    nasty little turd.’
    ‘With you so far,’ Fox said.
    ‘Joe and Dennis, along with some of their crew, have been
    enjoying a wee road trip of late. Inverness first, then Aberdeen
    and Dundee.’
    ‘And now they’re in Edinburgh?’
    ‘Been here a couple of days and don’t look like budging.’
    ‘And you’ve had them under surveillance throughout?’ Fox
    surmised.
    ‘We want to know what they’re doing.’
    ‘You don’t know?’
    ‘We’ve got an inkling.’
    ‘Do I get to hear it?’
    ‘They might be looking for a guy called Hamish Wright.
    He’s based in Inverness but has friends in Aberdeen,

    Dundee . . .’
    ‘And here.’
    ‘I say “friends”, but contacts might be a better description.
    Wright runs a haulage business, which means he has lorries
    crossing to the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, even
    Ireland and the Continent.’
    ‘Could be useful if there was something illegal that needed
    distributing.’ A head-and-shoulders shot of Wright had been
    handed to Fox. He studied the face. It was chubby and freckled
    and topped by curly red hair. ‘Looks like a Hamish,’ he
    commented.
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Would it be drugs he’s moving?’

    ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘For the Starks?’ Fox watched Compston nod. ‘So why
    haven’t you busted him?’
    ‘We were about to.’
    ‘And we reckoned we’d take down Stark and his son too,’
    Bell added. ‘But then Wright went AWOL.’
    ‘And Stark’s your best chance of finding him?’ Fox nodded
    his understanding. ‘But why’s Stark so interested?’
    ‘There’ll be reasons,’ Compston said.
    ‘To do with money?’
    ‘Money and goods, yes.’
    ‘So where are Stark and his men? Who are they talking to?’
    ‘Right now, they’re in a café in Leith. They’re staying at a
    bed and breakfast nearby.’
    ‘Bob Selway’s watching them?’
    ‘Until I relieve him in forty minutes,’ Peter Hughes broke in.
    ‘Reckon young Peter will blend in?’ Compston asked Fox.
    ‘We did wonder if these days he’d need one of those hipster
    beards, seeing how Leith is going up in the world.’
    ‘Like he’s old enough to grow a beard,’ Alec Bell snorted.
    Hughes made a single-digit gesture but looked as though
    he’d heard all the jokes before. Fox could sense the team
    softening a little. He wasn’t being accepted, but they were
    ceasing to see him as an immediate threat.
    ‘So that’s where we are and why we’re here,’ Compston said
    with a shrug. ‘And if you’ll let us get on with it, we’ll leave you
    to your Angry Birds.’
    But Fox had a question. ‘Stark and his men were in town last
    night? What did they get up to?’
    ‘Dinner and a few drinks.’
    ‘You had eyes on them all evening?’

    ‘Pretty much. Why?’
    Fox gave a twitch of the mouth. ‘You’ll have heard of
    Morris Gerald Cafferty, known as Big Ger?’
    ‘Let’s pretend I haven’t.’
    ‘Unbelievable,’ Fox echoed. ‘He was a major player on the
    east coast until recently. Similar age to your Joe Stark.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Someone decided to take a potshot at him yesterday
    evening around eight o’clock.’
    ‘Whereabouts?’
    ‘At his home. Shooter was outside, Cafferty was inside,
    meaning it might have been a warning of some kind.’
    Compston ran a hand across his jaw. ‘Interesting.’ He
    looked to Alec Bell, who offered a shrug.
    ‘Seven till nine they were in the Abbotsford,’ Bell recited.
    ‘Drink at the bar, meal in the upstairs restaurant.’
    ‘And where were we?’
    ‘Peter was at the bar throughout.’
    Hughes nodded his agreement. ‘Apart from a quick break for
    a slash. But Beth was posted outside.’
    ‘At the end of Rose Street, not more than twenty yards
    away,’ Beth Hastie confirmed.
    ‘Probably nothing to it then,’ Compston said, not quite
    managing to sound as if he meant it. Then, to Fox: ‘Would your
    man Cafferty have had dealings with the