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he’d have been as well leaving it open. A two-tick fiddle with a thin rasp and a latch was lifted and I was in.
    The bookie wasn’t too hot on security, emptied the safe every night so nothing to steal. But I didn’t want to steal, I had another commandment to break.
    I knew Billy was in the Imperial and I knew he’d be at least an hour, much more likely two. It was Thursday night and that meant Billy would come back to the bookies alone after the pub. He always did. I reckoned he crashed out for a few hours before sobering up a bit and driving home to the wife with nicotine skin.
    I knew I had time to work.
    My brother was an electrician and I’d helped him out a few times when he took on big jobs and needed a hand. We’d rewired a few houses together and although my expertise was heavy lifting, fetching and carrying, I knew one end of a screwdriver from the other. He’d shown me a few dos and don’ts. I was about to put some of the don’ts into practice. I rewired, closed the back door behind me, taking care to leave it off the latch and got out. I hid in the shadows of the canal bank, waiting and thinking.
    The human body is a great conductor of electricity because it is so full of water. Throw in dissolved salts in the form of blood and other various bodily fluids and you have a ready-made superconductor. Electricity can go from top to toe in the blink of an eye or at the flick of a switch.
    The amount of damage done by electrocution depends on the size of the current and the length of the time it is in contact with the body. Ohm’s law says that the voltage of the source is equal to the current passing through the circuit – in this case the body – and the resistance to the flow of current it offers . . .
    Whatever way you look at it, a fat old man with a dodgy ticker makes for a lovely conductor. But only once.
    You don’t get taught that kind of stuff when you help your brother out on rewiring jobs but you can pick up a hell of a lot from Google. Said it before, the Internet is a great thing.
    Two hours and ten minutes I waited on that canal bank. Two hours and ten minutes until I saw a light go on in the bookies. It went on very briefly.
    I wasn’t there when they found him of course but I could picture the scene. The staff would turn up in the morning and be surprised the place was still locked up. One of the wee wummin would produce her spare key. The door would be opened and they’d see there was no one in the shop. They’d go through the back where the stairs led to the small flat above. At the foot of the stairs they would find Billy, dead as the deadest doornail, at the foot of the light switch he’d tried to put on.
    It would be obvious enough that he’d been electrocuted. Grey hair frazzled and on end, burns black on his hands, lips charred, eyes wide. Hardly a surprise either given the state of the place. One of the wee wummin would probably mutter that they’d warned him often enough that someone would get fried. Chances are it would have killed anyone but with the condition of Billy’s heart he’d not have stood a chance in hell.
    They’d call an ambulance although they knew it would do no good. They’d call the police too. They’d all look at Billy and at the dodgy wiring in the bookies and it would be obvious to every one of them what had happened.
    Obvious that is until they saw his right hand. Until they saw that he was missing a finger. A pinkie. Neatly chopped off. Severed.

 
CHAPTER 7
    I bought every Scottish daily newspaper but found mention of it in only three of them. It didn’t please me.
    The Herald . Saturday, 9 May 2009. Page 6. No byline.
Tragic accident
    A Glasgow bookmaker has been found dead in his office in Maryhill. William Hutchison (58) was discovered by staff yesterday morning when they opened the premises in Maryhill Road. It is believed that Mr Hutchison was electrocuted as a result of faulty wiring. A post mortem has been ordered by the Procurator