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word-for-word recitation. “Um, threats to the hostage.”
    MacKechnie looked at the squad cars and the menacing FAU van pulling out. “Let’s move this visible presence.”
    Bannerman sloped off to give orders to that effect.
    “If they said not to call us,” Morrow continued the thought, “they must have been confident that the family would comply. Maybe they’re right, maybe there is money here after all.”
    MacKechnie checked that Bannerman was out of earshot. “Morrow, we both know this is your case but I can’t give it to you.”
    “Sir, you said the next—”
    “We’ve had a lot of trouble here recently, minorities, gangs fighting, the Boyle boy. Don’t need any trouble with cultural misunderstandings.”
    Morrow ground her jaw and glared at the house. “I’m from here, sir, I know the people in this area—”
    “DS Bannerman can handle this,” he continued. “You’ll get the next one.”
    This case was a career maker and MacKechnie was here guiding Bannerman by the elbow. The decision was made, fair didn’t come into it, but her eye began to twitch again and she couldn’t even bring herself to look at MacKechnie.
    “Why not this one, sir?”
    He didn’t answer. When she looked back at him she followed his eyes to the Asian guys standing beyond the tape. They had the lost, limp look of victims. The oldest guy was big, and dressed in a plain sweatshirt and cotton trousers, bearded. The two younger ones were tall and thin; one wore a salwar kameez, a hoodie, and trainers. Traditional, religious.
    “Personal factors make us suitable for some cases,” he said, “and not for others. You’ll get the next one.”
    Typical MacKechnie. Never said anything outright. Delicate situation, he wanted to say, all Asians hate women and anyway you’re a nutcase.
    Morrow could tell by the size of the boys and the softness of their builds that they were second generation. They had short hair, buzz cut by a barber. One of them had top-of-the-range Nikes on, and they weren’t to impress his pious pals at mosque. Those guys didn’t care if she was female or male. She was ten years older than them, she might as well have been a man, and she knew the South Side. If anyone’s personal factors made them suitable it was her. But MacKechnie no longer trusted her, sensed that she was slowly tipping over the edge. It was unfair, but the service was all about unfair and she knew she should let it go.
    “Sir, that’s…” She was regretting it before the word even tumbled past her lips. “Racist.”
    They both stood quite still, looking at the house. Cold rain pattered on their heads. A trickle ran down Morrow’s cheek, dripping off her chin, soaking into her lapels, marking a ragged bullet hole over her heart. Behind them, squad cars reversed slowly out of the street. She felt a weight on her chest and realized that she was trying not to breathe.
    MacKechnie didn’t turn to speak and his voice was less than a murmur. “Never speak to me like that again.”
    He turned sharply and walked away from her, over to Bannerman.
    Fuck.

THREE
    They drove the entire distance in silence, as per the plan. Say nothing in front of the hostage. But it wasn’t a smug professional silence: Pat was too angry to speak, Eddy was determined to get one part of it right, and Malki was so wasted he was incapable of driving and speaking at the same time.
    Malki was well used to being the cause of bad atmospheres; he lived with his mother, and assumed the sour mood in the van was his fault, because of the thing with the wall, so he was extra careful and his driving exemplary. He took the slip road to the motorway, drove at legal speeds the whole way into town, came off at Cathedral for a circuit of the Sighthill back road to break the camera tracking, and then turned and headed back onto the motorway from a different angle. Flawless.
    All the way the old man stayed facedown on the rumbling floor of the van, lying in exactly the same