Complicity

CHAPTER 4: INJECTION

"7970."

"Uh… hi?"

"Andy, is that you?"

"Uh, yeah. Who is this?" The voice is slow, sleepy-sounding.

"What do you mean, "Who is this?" You rang me. It's Cameron. The man who left a message on your answering-machine all of ten minutes ago."

"Cameron…"

"Andy! For Christ's sake. It's me: Cameron, childhood buddy; your best fucking friend. Remember me? Wake up!" I can't believe Andy sounds so sleepy. Okay, it is midnight but Andy never used to hit the hay much before two at the earliest.

"… Oh, yeah, Cameron. I thought I recognised that number. How you doing?"

"I'm all right. Yourself?"

"Oh, you know; yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. I'm fine."

"You sound stoned."

"Well, you know."

"Look, if it's too late, I'll call some other time —»

"No, no, that's all right."

I'm sitting in the box room of the flat, TV on, sound off, the machine on and the Despot status-screen showing. It's a Friday night and I should be out enjoying myself but I'm waiting for Mr Archer to call and besides I'm frightened if I do anything too enjoyable I'll want a fag, so that's another reason for staying in and watching TV and playing games but just then I started to think about Ares and those five dead guys and the lad in the clink in Baghdad and suddenly I thought, Cameron, you are definitely dealing with something from the desk of Pearl Frotwithe here, and got scared and wanted to hear another human voice so I rang Andy because I owe him a call and I've hardly spoken to him since he was here for a weekend during the summer but got his answer-machine, there in the dark hotel only a couple of hundred kilometres away though he still sounds faint and distant. I think I can hear his voice echoing in the spaces of that quiet, cold place.

"So, been doing anything exciting?" I ask him.

"Nothing much. Bit of fishing. Been up on the hill. You know. You?"

"Oh, the usual. Fucking about. Covering the story. Hey — I've given up fags."

"Again?"

"No, finally."

"Right. You still fucking that married piece?"

"'Fraid so," I say (and am glad that he can't see the grimace I make when I say this). This is awkward because Andy knows Yvonne and William from our Stirling days; he used to be really friendly with William and, though they seem to have gone their separate ways since, I don't want Andy to know about me and Yvonne. I always worry he'll guess it's her.

"Yeah… What was her name again?"

"I don't think I ever told you," I tell him, laughing and sitting back in the chair.

"Frightened I'll tell somebody?" he says, sounding amused.

"Yeah. I live in perpetual fear our enormous circle of mutual friends will find out."

"Huh. But you should find yourself your own lady."

"Yeah," I say, imitating a stoned-out drawl. "Gotta find ma own chick, like, ma-an."

"Well, you never did take my advice."

"Keep trying. One day."

"You ever go the other way these days?"

"Eh?"

"You know, with guys."

"What? Good grief, no. I mean…" I look at the receiver in my hand. "No," I say.

"Hey, I just wondered."

"Why, do you?" I ask, and then regret the tone because it sounds like I'm at least disapproving if not actually homophobic.

"Na," Andy says. "Na, I don't… I kind of… you know, I lost interest in all that stuff." He chuckles, and I imagine again that I can hear the noise echoing in the dark hotel. "It's just, you know; old habits die hard."

"But they do die," I tell him. "Don't they?"

"I guess so. Usually."

"Shit," I say, leaning forwards and starting Despot running on the screen because I need to be doing something and normally at this point I'd be reaching for the cigarettes. "I was thinking about coming up there sometime soon and dropping in on you. You're not going weird on me, are you, Gould?"

"Cabin fever, man. Highland angst." He laughs again. "No, you come on up. Let me know, like, first, but yeah; be great to see you. Look forward to it. Been too long."

"Well, soon then." I use the mouse to check the game's geo-update. "You done anything with that fucking mansion?"

"Eh? Oh; the place."

"Yeah, the place."

"No, nothing. Nothing's changed."

"Get any of the leaks fixed?"

"No… Oh."

"What?"

"Tell a lie."

"You have fixed the leaks."

"No, I forgot; things have changed."

"What?"

"Well, a couple of the ceilings fell down."

"Ah-ha."

"Well, it's wet up here."

"Nobody hurt, though."

"Hurt? How could anybody be hurt? There's only me here."

"Of course. So there's plenty of room if I want to come and stay but I should bring a golf umbrella or a waterproof sleeping bag or a tent or something, right?"

"No, there are dry rooms here, too. Come on."

"Okay. I don't know when I'll be coming up, but, well, before the end of the year."

"Why not come up, like, next week or something?"

"Ah," I say, thinking. Hell, I could. It all depends what's happening with the various stories I'm involved with, but theoretically I could. I need time off; I need a change of scene. "Okay; why not? Just for a couple of days, probably, but yeah; pencil me in."

"Great. When you going to arrive?"

"Um, say Thursday or Friday. I'll confirm."

"Okay."

We talk a bit more, reliving old times, before I sign off.

I put the phone down and sit there with Despot running but I'm not really paying attention, I'm thinking about my old friend, the ice-child, our wunderkind, archetypal "eighties player and then victim. I was always jealous of him, always somehow yearning for what he had even when I knew I didn't really want it.

And Andy always seemed to be elsewhere, and more involved. Two years before I went to Stirling he'd started at St Andrew's on an Army-sponsored course and by the time the Falklands War began he was a lieutenant in the Angus Rifles. He yomped from San Carlos to Tumbledown, was wounded in a botched attack on an Argentinian position and awarded a DSO. He sent the decoration back when the officer who'd been in charge of the attack was kicked upstairs instead of being court-martialled. Andy left the Army the following year, joined a big London advertising company, did well there (he dreamt up IBM's "Insist On Perfection — We Do" campaign and Guinness's "Pint Taken?" slogan) and then suddenly left to start The Gadget Shop in Covent Garden. Neither Andy nor his partner — another ex-ad-agency man — had any retail experience whatsoever, but they had lots of ideas and a degree of luck, plus they used their contacts in the media (me, for one) to produce a huge free advertising campaign in the shape of articles about themselves and the business. The shop and its mail-order catalogue were an immediate success. In less than five years Andy and his partner opened another twenty branches, made a modest fortune, and then sold out for an immodest one to a big retail chain a couple of months before the stock-market crash of "87.

Andy took six months off, went on a world trip — travelling first class — toured America on a Harley, and cruised round the Caribbean in a yacht. He was on a trans-Saharan trip when his sister Clare died. After the funeral he mooched around the family estate at Strathspeld for a few months, then spent some time in London doing nothing much except seeing old friends and clubbing. After that he seemed to lose it, somehow. He became quiet, then reclusive, and bought a big, old decaying hotel in the western Highlands and retired to live there alone, practically broke apparently and still not really doing anything apart from drinking too much, getting wrecked most nights, going a bit hippy — I mean, like, man — fishing from his dinghy, walking in the hills, and just lying in bed sleeping while the hotel — in a quiet, dark village that was busy once, before they built a new road and the ferry service stopped — crumbles quietly around him.

"Cameron! Kirkton of Bourtie."

"What's that, Frank?"

"It's a wee village near Inverurie."

"Where?"

"Never mind. Guess what —?"

"Give in."

""Kickoff of Blurted"! Ha ha ha!"

"Stop, I can't breathe."

I've taken the weekend off and spent it detoxing myself, laying off the powder and drinking nothing more deleterious to the system than strong tea. This regime has had the added advantage of helping to keep my tobacco cravings in check. I've played Despot a lot, ramping my era-level into something resembling the beginnings of an industrial revolution before my nobles revolted, the barbarians from the south and west struck together, and there was a major earthquake which resulted in a plague. By the time I've finished dealing with that lot I'd dropped back to an era-level comparable to Rome after the schism with the Eastern Empire and there was even a danger that the southern barbarians weren't so barbaric after all; maybe they were more civilised than my lot. This could be shaping up to a strategic defeat. My Empire licked its wounds and I took great delight in ordering the ceremonial execution of several generals. Meanwhile my cough's getting worse and I think I'm coming down with a cold and Mr bloody Archer never did call but on the other hand the credit-card company wrote to me being nice for a change and hiked my limit so I've got a bit more money to play with.

"Think that nice Mr Major's going to get away with the Maastricht vote?" Frank asks, his big ruddy face appearing round the side of my screen like the moon from behind a hill.

"Easily," I tell him. "His backbenchers are a bunch of spineless brown-noses and, even if there was any danger, those asshole Lib-Dems'll save the Tories" skins as usual."

"Care to make a small wager?" Frank twinkles.

"On the result?"

"On the size of Uncle John's majority."

"Twenty says the margin's into double figures."

Frank thinks about this. He nods. "You're on."

I've been back on naval stuff again today, interviewing people at Rosyth dockyard, which may or may not be closed soon, putting another six thousand on the local dole queue. A lot depends on whether they get the contract to service the Trident subs or not.

I'm a few hundred words into the story when the phone goes.

"Hello. Cameron Colley."

"Cameron, oh Cameron, oh thank goodness you're there. I was sure I'd got the time difference wrong again; convinced. I really was. Cameron, it's ridiculous; I mean it really is. I'm just at my wits" end, I really am. I just can't talk to him. He's impossible. I don't know why I married him, I really don't. He's mad. I mean literally mad. I wouldn't mind so much but I think he's driving me mad, too. I wish you'd talk to him; I wish you'd say something, I really do. I mean I'm sure he won't listen to you either but, but, but… well, at least he might listen to you."

"Hello, Mum," I say wearily, and reach for my jacket pocket where the cigarette packet ought to be.

"Cameron, what am I to do? Just tell me that. Just tell me what on earth anybody's supposed to do with such an impossible man. I swear he's getting worse, he really is. I wish it was just my imagination but it isn't, I swear it isn't. He's getting worse, he really is. It's not me. It's him; I mean, my friends agree. He'll be the —»

"What's the problem, Mum?" I lift a pencil from the desk and start gnawing the end.

"My stupid husband! Haven't you been listening?"

"Yes, but what —?"

"He wants to buy a farm! A farm! At his age!"

"What, is it a sheep farm?" I ask, because she's phoning from New Zealand and I understand they aren't short of a sheep or two out there.

"No! It's for… angoras. Angora… goats or rabbits or whatever it is they get the stuff from. Cameron, he's just getting impossible. I know he's not actually your father but you seem to get on all right and I think he listens to you. Look, sweetheart, could you come out and try and talk some sense into him, because —?"

"Come out there? Mum, for goodness" sake, it's —»

"Cameron! He's driving me up the wall!"

"Look, Mum, just calm down…"

And so begins another of my mother's marathon phone calls in which she complains at length, depth and breadth about some potential new business venture of my stepfather's she is certain is about to ruin them both. My stepfather Bill is a rotundly fit, quietly amusing Wellingtonian who retired from the used-car business; he met my mother on a Caribbean cruise three years ago and she moved out to New Zealand a year later. They live perfectly well off pensions and investments but Bill does occasionally express a hankering for getting involved in a business again. These schemes never come to anything, and usually turn out not even to be serious commercial propositions in the first place; as a rule Bill just says something quite innocent like "Oh look, you can pick up a fast-food franchise in Auckland for fifty thousand," and my mother instantly assumes he plans to do just that and then lose the lot.

She gibbers on while I browse the wires on the terminal, idly scrolling Reuters and PA to check on what's happening. This is pretty much an instinctive journo-reaction, and fully compatible with the equally programmed dutiful-son «hmms» and «mmms» I'm feeding my mum at intervals during her monologue.

I get her off the phone eventually, reassuring her that Bill is not about to sink all their savings into some decrepit hill farm and that — as ever — the answer is to talk to him about it. I promise to come and visit next year, probably. It takes a few attempts to say goodbye — Mother is one of those people who'll wish you well, say goodbye, thank you for calling or for being there when she called, say goodbye again and then suddenly tear into some whole new conversational seam — but I get the final «Goodbye» in at last and connect handset with desk unit without actually cutting her off. I sit back.

"Take it that was the mater, was it?" Frank calls jovially from the far side of my screen.

Before I can reply, the phone rings again. I jump, grabbing the device and dreading it being her again, remembering something she forgot to say.

"Yes?" I squeak.

"Hello, civilisation calling," says a slightly plummy English voice.

"What?"

"Cameron, it's Neil. You wanted to talk."

"Oh, Neil, hi." Neil is an ex-colleague who went to London to work in Fleet Street when Fleet Street wasn't full of Japanese banks. His father served in the Intelligence Corps during the Korean War, where he met Sir Andrew (Our Ed and recovering coronary patient). Neil is the coolest fogy I know; smokes opium and believes utterly in the Royal Family, despises socialism and Thatcher almost equally and votes Liberal because the family always has since Liberals were called Whigs. Shoots stags and hooks salmon. Hurtles down the Cresta Run each year. Drives a Bentley S2. They could have invented the word «urbane» just for him. These days he freelances in Intelligence matters, occasionally for the broadsheets though mostly for corporate clients. "How are you?" I say, frowning towards my screen. Just then, however, Frank stands up and saunters off, Biro between his teeth.

"Well, and busy," Neil drawls. "What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me what you found out about those five guys who popped their clogs in such suspicious circumstances between "86 and "88. You know; the guys who all have connections with Sellascale or Winfield or Dun-Nukin" or whatever they're calling it these days."

There is a pause. "Oh," Neil says, and I can hear him lighting a cigarette. My mouth waters. You lucky bastard. "That old thing."

"Yeah," I say, putting my feet up on the desk. "That old thing that reads like a spy novel and nobody ever came up with a decent explanation for."

"No case to answer, boy wonder," he sighs. "An unfortunate sequence of coincidences."

"Sounds like a Long Involved Explanation. No?"

Neil laughs, recalling our acronymic private code from the year we worked together. "No; it's the Totally Reliable Utterly Trustworthy… damn, what was the last word?"

"Hint," I tell him, grinning. "We never did come up with a better alternative."

"Indeed. Well, that's what it is; a Fucking Actualite, Cameron, Tovarisch."

"You serious?" I say, trying not to laugh. "All these guys who just happened to be connected with BNFL or GCHQ or Military Intelligence and just happened to croak violently within twenty months of each other? I mean, really?"

"Cameron, I do realise your Menshevik soul cries out for there to be a perfectly irrational fascist conspiracy behind all this, but the boring truth is that there isn't. Or, if there is, it's far, far too well run for it to be the work of any intelligence service I've ever encountered. There's never been any reliable hint it was anybody on our side; Mossad — arguably the only people capable of carrying out such a consistently successful campaign without leaving the scene scattered with their agency-issue trench-coats sporting name, rank and serial number sewn into the collars — had no discernible motive, and we can be even more sure of our friends in Moscow given that, since the unfortunate demise of the Workers" State, ex-KGB bods have been positively falling over each other in the rush to beat the breast and confess their past sins, and not one of them has even mentioned those five deceased sons of Cumbria and environs."

"Six, if you count the doc who did the PMs on the three Cumbrian stiffs."

Neil sighs. "Even so."

I'm thinking. This could be a fairly important decision I'm making here. Do I tell Neil about Mr Archer and Daniel Smout? Or do I keep quiet about it? Christ, this story could just be the biggest fucking thing since Watergate; a plot — if I'm reading the hints right — involving the West, or just Her Majesty's Government, or at the very least a bunch of people who were in positions to pull it off, to arm our once-staunch-ally-against-the-fiendish-Mullahs — now number-one hate figure — Saddam Hussein with nukes, back when the Iran-Iraq war wasn't all going his way.

"You know," Neil sighs again, "I have the most terrible feeling I'm going to regret asking this question, but what leads you to make this enquiry, unless it's the simple explanation that news of these five sad deaths has only just arrived in Caledonia?"

"Well," I say, playing with the telephone cord.

"What?" Neil says, in that why-are-you-wasting-my-valuable-time? voice.

"I've had a call from somebody who claims to know about this who's saying that there's another couple of names involved."

"And who would they be?"

"I've only got one of the names so far." I take a deep breath. I'll do a Mr Archer; I'll give him it a bit at a time. "Smout," I tell Neil. "Daniel Smout. Our man in Baghdad."

Neil is silent for a few seconds. Then I hear him exhale. "Smout." A pause. "I see." Another pause. "So," he says, slowly and thoughtfully, "if Iraq was involved, it's not impossible Mossad would take an interest. Though of course one of our serial self-terminators was himself of the Semitic persuasion…"

"So was Vanunu."

"Indeed. Hmm. Interesting. You do realise, though, that your informant is probably a crank."

"Probably."

"Have they been reliable before?"

"No; new source, as far as I can tell. And all they've come up with is a sequence of names. So it could easily be a crank. Very easily. In fact, probably. I mean, wouldn't you say? Don't you think it probably is?" I'm gibbering. I suddenly feel rather stupid and a little nervous.

"You said there was a sixth name," Neil says calmly. "Any hints there?"

"Well, I've got what my guy says is a code-name for him."

"And that is?" Neil says patiently.

"Well, ah…"

"Cameron. I swear I shan't try to scoop you, if that's what you're worried about."

"Of course not," I say. "I know that. It's just that… it could be nothing."

"Very possibly, but —»

"Look, Neil, I'd like to talk to somebody."

"How do you mean?"

"Somebody in the business; you know."

""Somebody in the business"," Neil says evenly.

Christ, I wish I had a cigarette. "Yeah," I say. "Somebody in the business; somebody in the service. Somebody who'll look me in the eye and tell me MI6 or whoever had got nothing to do with all this; somebody I can give this to."

"Hmm."

I let him think for a bit. Eventually, Neil says, "Well, there are always people one can talk to, certainly. Look, I'll suggest this to some contacts I have. See what their reaction is. But I know that, if I do suggest it, before they decide what to do they'll want to know who it is they're dealing with; they'll want to know your name."

"I thought they might. That's okay; you can tell them."

"Right you are, then. I'll report back what the reaction is, fair enough?"

"Fair enough."

"Good. To tell the truth, I'll be fairly interested in seeing it myself. Assuming this isn't a crank we're dealing with."

"Okay," I say, looking over my screen and trying to peer over my bookcase, wondering who I can scrounge a fag off. "Well, that's good of you, Neil. I appreciate this."

"Not at all. Now, when are you next coming up to town, or do you Picts have to apply for a travel warrant or something?"

You arrive at Mr Oliver's home in Leyton at nine, as agreed when you saw him in his shop in Soho during the afternoon. He will have had time to get back from the shop, have his evening meal, watch one of his favourite soap operas and take a shower. The maisonette is part of a brick-built terrace over a row of shops, restaurants and offices. You press the entryphone button.

"Hello?"

"Mr Oliver? It's Mr Mellin here. Mr Mellin. From this afternoon?"

"Yeah. Right." The door buzzes.

Inside, behind the sturdy, heavily secured door, the stairwell is richly carpeted and the walls are decorated with expensive Regency-style wallpaper. Ornately framed Victorian landscape paintings look down from the stairwell walls. Mr Oliver appears at the top of the stairs.

He is a plump little man with sallow skin and very black hair you suspect is dyed. He wears a cashmere cardigan over his waistcoat and trousers. His shirt is raw silk. Cravat. Slippers. He smells strongly of Polo.

"Good evening," you say.

"Yeah, hello." The second word actually sounds more like «allow» but you know what he means. He stands back as you reach the top of the stairs, and puts out one pudgy hand while looking you up and down. You wish the light — from a miniature chandelier in the hall — was a little less bright. The moustache prickles under your nose. You shake hands. Mr Oliver's grip is damp, quite strong. His gaze drops to the fat briefcase you're holding. He waves one hand. "Come in."

The lounge is a little ostentatious; Mr Oliver favours thick white rugs, black leather furniture, chrome-and-glass tables, and a TV, video and hi-fi unit which takes up most of one wall.

"Sit down. Like a drink?" Mr Oliver says. It actually sounds like "Sidahn, loy-a dring? but again you understand.

You sit on the edge of a leather seat, hunched up and looking nervous, the briefcase on your knees. You're wearing a cheap suit and you still have your gloves on.

"Um, well, ah, yes, please," you say, trying to sound nervous and unsure of yourself. Of course you are nervous, but not in the way you're implying.

Mr Oliver goes to a chrome-and-smoked-glass drinks cabinet. "What would you like?"

"Um, do you have any orange juice?"

Mr Oliver looks at you. "Orange juice," he says, and bends to look in a small fridge set into the drinks cabinet.

He fixes himself a vodka and Coke and sits down on the couch to your left. You think he's looking at you slightly strangely and you worry that perhaps your disguise isn't fooling him. You cough nervously.

"So, Mr Mellin," he says. "What is it you've got for me?"

"Well," you say, looking round. You watched the place all through the afternoon and you're fairly sure there's nobody else in here, but you're not absolutely certain. "As I said, um, in the shop, it's something a bit… a bit special. Something I understand there is a demand for."

"What sort of special we talking here?"

"W-w-w-well, well it's of a, shall we say, um, a violent nature. Quite a violent nature, in fact. And involves, ah… and involves, ah, ch-ch-ch-children. I was told that you… you can, you can… that you deal in that sort of, um, item."

Mr Oliver purses his lips. "Well, you'd have to be a bit of an idiot to just tell people that, wouldn't you? I mean, you wouldn't want to confess to something like that to a stranger, know what I mean?"

"Oh," you say, sounding crestfallen. "You mean you don't —»

"Na, I'm not saying nothing, am I? I'm just saying you got to be careful, know what I mean?"

"Ah," you say, nodding. "Yes. Yes, of course. Of course one does have to be… careful. I see. I see what you mean."

"Why don't you show me what you've brought, eh? We'll take a little look and then we'll see, eh?"

"Yes; yes, right. Of course. Ah, right; what I've brought, um, well, it's just part of it, to show you, but I think it amply demonstrates —»

"Video, yeah?"

"Yes, that's correct. On video." You unclip the catches on the briefcase, take out a plain VHS60 cassette and put the briefcase on the floor to one side as you stand up, handing the video to him.

"Ta." He takes it and goes to the video machine. You remain standing.

The cassette won't load properly; you can hear the VCR mechanism whining. Mr Oliver bends to look more closely at the machine. You come up behind him.

"Um, is there a problem?" you ask.

"Yeah; doesn't seem to be —»

The cassette will not load because you glued the hinged tape-cover down. Mr Oliver does not get to complete his sentence; you cosh him across the back of the head. However, he had started to move his head as you swung at him, and you only land a glancing blow.

He falls to one side, one hand trying to find purchase on the wall of hi-fi components, shifting the CD player and amp back on their shelves. "What —?" he says. You smack the cosh hard into his face, breaking his nose, then stamp on his crotch as he falls back. He doubles up on the floor, lying on his side, snorting and gasping.

You're staring wildly round the room waiting for some burly minder to come charging in swinging a baseball bat, your other hand in the pocket of your suit where the Browning is, but nobody appears. You lean forward and cosh Mr Oliver across the back of the head. He goes limp.

You handcuff his arms behind his back and go to the briefcase to get the things you will need.

Once you have everything ready and the camcorder is set up you have to wait for him to wake up. You go down to the street door and lock and chain it, then pad round the maisonette making quite sure there is nobody else in.

Mr Oliver's bedroom is all wood, brass, furs and red velvet. A glass cabinet houses a militaria collection, specialising in the Waffen SS. A bookcase holds numerous books about Nazi Germany and Hitler. Mr Oliver's private videos are stored in a repro teak-and-walnut wardrobe. There is a large combination floor-safe under the Persian carpet.

You bring what looks like a representative selection of the videos down to the lounge where Mr Oliver is sitting, still unconscious and sagging slightly, handcuffed and tied in a chrome-and-leather chair you brought down from the second bedroom. You have gagged him with a sock and a silk scarf you brought from his bedroom. His right arm is firmly tied to the leather-padded arm of the chair. You have removed his cardigan and rolled his shirt sleeve up.

While you wait for Mr Oliver to regain consciousness you look at the videos you brought down from the bedroom.

Some feature the gang-buggerings of children; mostly male and mostly Asian or South American. Others show women being mounted by donkeys and other animals, in what looks like a prison. The men watching all have moustaches and wear military dress. These look like second- or third-generation recordings and the definition is not quite precise enough for you to be sure, but you think those might be Iraqi army uniforms. There are a couple of videos which may come from the same source and show people — men, women, children — being tortured with irons, hair-driers, curling tongs and so on. There is no actual snuff material here, but you wonder what the floor-safe you discovered contains.

Mr Oliver starts to moan behind his gag and you put on your gorilla mask. You wait for his eyes to open then start the little Sony camcorder running. You take the gas cylinder from the briefcase, turn the valve on and suck.

"Mr Oliver," you say, in a high, absurdly babyish voice. "Welcome back."

He stares wide-eyed at you, then at the video camera, sitting on its miniature tripod on the coffee table.

You take another suck on the helium. "You're going to star in your own video, isn't that funny?"

He shakes in the seat, roaring behind the gag. You go to the briefcase and bring out a wide-mouthed medicine bottle. Cling-film over the top of it is secured with elastic bands. You shake the bottle, then lift the syringe from the briefcase.

Mr Oliver screams when he sees these.

You suck on the helium again, then hold the dumpy medicine bottle up and show him the thick-looking off-white liquid inside. "Can you guess what this is?" you ask him in the voice of a manic baby.

The syringe is a big mother; not like those dinky little disposable plastic things medics and junkies use. This device is made from stainless steel and glass; it has two hook-shaped finger-grips on either side of the barrel and it holds a fifth of a litre. You hold the medicine bottle sealed with cling-film upside down and slip the slanted tip of the big syringe needle into the clotted-cream-coloured liquid inside the bottle. Mr Oliver is still screaming behind the gag.

You suck on the gas again and tell him what you're going to do to him. His muffled screams rise in pitch until they sound like he's been breathing helium too.

The next day I scrounge a Lambert & Butler off Rose in the Foreign News section, smoke it at my desk and get a real hit off it, then feel disgusted with myself and vow that's the last one I'm going to smoke. I really mean it this time and decide to reward myself by using my increased credit-card limit to buy myself something. The car needs a service, I could use a new suit and the carpet in the flat is getting threadbare, but as candidates for expenditure none of those has very high self-reward status; minimal feel-good factors there. My mouth goes a little dry as I sit staring at the whisky story — which I'm reworking very slowly — and think of what I could buy with the extra dosh. Dosh/Tosh. Hmm.

I pull open a drawer and dig out a computer magazine. Five hundred glossy full-colour pages plus a free software disk for less than two quid. It's the November issue but the prices might be out of date by now; usually with computers they go down but this time they might have gone up because, now we're out of the ERM and the pound's sinking against the dollar, the price of components bought abroad is sure to increase.

I leaf through, looking at the lap-top adverts.

Shit, I can afford one of these; I can afford a colour one at last, one that'll play Despot. Especially as I can write it off against tax; I'll use it for work, after all. And even more especially as I'm giving up smoking; that's twenty quid a week at least I'll save, even if I don't stop doing speed. The price of 386 lap-tops has fallen quickly recently, and colour screens are no longer luxuries in the portable market. Yo!

Before the more sensible bits of my brain can start coming up with convincing arguments for doing anything else with the money, I call up a manufacturer in Cumbernauld I've heard good things about and talk to one of the salespeople. I discuss what I want with him and we agree I might as well go for a 486. This means spending a little more money than I'd been thinking of, but it'll be worth it in the end. A decent-sized hard disk is a necessity too, and a spare battery, naturally. Plus I'll need cabling to transfer data between the PC at home and the lap-top. And of course for a little extra I can have a removable hard disk, which not only makes my data more secure but allows for easy up-grading of the disk unit if it ever proves too small. This is a quality machine after all and I won't need to change it for years. It's worth the little extra to future-proof it. They don't do part-exchange but the salesman can't imagine me having any problems selling a Toshiba, even an old one; they do have a good name, after all.

We settle on the exact specification. They have one in stock. I can pick it up today, tomorrow, whenever, or they can deliver within forty-eight hours for a tenner.

I decide I'll go and get it. I give them my credit-card number for the deposit and agree to show up at the factory within the next couple of hours. I'll have to buy the blighter on credit; the manufacturers have a deal with a financing company that sounds reasonable. (I'm close to the limit of my bank overdraft, even though it's nearly time for my salary to lift my bank account briefly into the black before it settles comfortably and familiarly back into the red for the rest of the month.) There are bills to pay but they can wait.

I'm so excited I finish the whisky story in half an hour.

"Right, Frank," I tell him, pulling on my jacket. "I'm off to Cumbernauld."

"Ah, you mean Cumbered."

"What?"

"Spell-check; «Cumbered». Ha ha."

"Oh yeah; ha ha."

"Will we be seeing you later?"

"Doubtful."

I circle the room, breathing quick and deep. She swivels, following me, facing me, her body glistening. I'm breathing hard too; chest heaving, hands out in front of me, feet squeaking on the tiles. I'm conscious of my cock swinging between my legs. She gives a half-grunt, half laugh, and jumps towards the bath. I catch her ankle as her leap turns into a feint and she darts the other way, hauling the door open. Her oiled skin slides through my fingers as I stagger and almost fall into the Jacuzzi, banging a knee on its tiled platform while she disappears through the doorway, slamming the door behind her. I quickly rub my knee where I banged it, then pull the door open and race through the dressing room to the dimly lit bedroom. No sign. I stand there, rubbing my knee, breathing through my mouth to make less noise so that I'll hear her. The bed is king-size, still rumpled, its mahogany foot- and headboards shining lustrously in the glow from the concealed lighting behind the bedside cabinets and shelving system. I pad over to the bedside, glance back to the dressing-room door, then squat slowly, feeling my prick slide caught between my calves with a delicious, anticipatory thrill. I pull up the covers fallen over the side of the bed and glance quickly underneath.

There's a hint of sudden noise behind me and I start to turn and rise (thinking, She was in the dressing-room wardrobe), but it's too late. She crashes into my back and side, knocking the wind out of me and bowling me over onto the bed, landing me on my face on the creased black satin sheets and trapping my dick painfully back between my thighs; before I can do much she's straddling me; slim, hard legs slipping oiled over my flanks while her taut little bum crunches down into the middle of my back, winding me further. She grabs my right arm, twists it until I shout — breathlessly — in pain and hauls it up my back towards my neck, pinning it there, about a centimetre below where it would hurt unbearably, and only a few more further down from where the humerus would break. Serves me right for playing this sort of game with a woman who ran a self-defence course for female students, still regularly thrashes me at squash with technique or power depending on what sort of mood she's in, and does serious weights. I slap the slick black sheets with my other hand.

"All right. You win."

She grunts, then pushes my arm that extra centimetre until I yelp in pain. "I said all right!" I shout. "I'll do anything!"

She lets go, rolls off me and lies there beside me, panting, laughing through each breath, her breasts rising and falling and jiggling all at once and her flat belly gently shaking. I lever myself up and throw myself on top of her but she's rolling away and I thump onto the sheets as she pulls one leg from beneath me and stands, arms on her hips at the side of the bed, looking down at me. Her feet are planted a metre apart and I stare at her black V of pubic hair, moaning softly.

"Patience," she says, taking a deeper breath and sliding a hand through her short, slicked hair. She turns and moves off across the creamy pile of the carpet, balanced on the balls of her feet like a dancer. She reaches, stretching, up to a hinged cupboard above a built-in wardrobe, and I moan dramatically again, watching the muscles in her calves and buttocks clench and the dimples in the small of her back hollow and lengthen and the shadow of her breasts move across the polished ash of the wardrobe doors to one side while her reflection extends, naked and achingly beautiful in the mirrors on the other side. She's on her toes, feeling inside the cupboard. The fleshy mound of her sex shows dark between her legs, a glimpsed, precious, succulent fruit. I collapse back on the bed, unable to bear it.

Ten minutes later I'm kneeling on the bed, stretched backwards with my legs apart and my wrists tied to my ankles with silk scarves and my cock so hard it's sore, sticking way out in front of me, totally rampant but bizarrely vulnerable too and I'm breathing hard and my muscles are aching and I feel so close to coming if there's a draught across my cock that'll probably be enough and she pulls the last, unnecessary scarf tight and then slides round past me, in front of me, so leanly voluptuous, fit and hard and moist and soft together I'm past moaning any more and just have to laugh, casting my gaze to the ceiling and feeling the engorged weight of my cock waggle as I laugh and then she slips off the bed, grabs the remote control and announces she's going to watch Eldorado and I'm bellowing and she's laughing as the Trinitron clicks on and she turns the sound up to drown me out and I'm left here in what is starting to become some pain while she sits lotus-like, giggling now and again and pretending to be involved in this crap soap opera and I have to try and work my way back up the bed, waddling painfully on my knees and ankles until I finally make the metre or so back to the pillows and the headboard so at least I can support my aching shoulders and take some weight off, well, just about every other muscle in my body, it feels like.

Trapped there watching this shit and after five minutes even my cock is giving up, just starting to droop but then she turns and gives it a quick nicking lick with her tongue and I beg her to suck me off but she just turns away and watches the TV on the other side of the room again, and I struggle and strain but she's tied me too tight and my knees are really sore now and I try to reason with her, and say, "Look, this really is starting to hurt," but she ignores me apart from checking on the state of my erection every few minutes and giving me quick, incredibly hot and frustrating half-licks, half-sucks every now and again, or a single saliva-moistened finger-and-thumb flick and I'm roaring in frustration and desire and pain in about equal and immense amounts and finally, finally, thank fuck the Anglo-Spanish crap ends and the tune tinkles and the credits roll and she clicks the box to MTV and it's still not over! The teasing, tantalising bitch gets off the bed and goes out the door and I'm so stunned I can't speak; I'm left there with my mouth hanging open and my cock sticking out and I'm so fucking angry I'm looking from side to side at the bedside units to see what I can roll over and smash to produce an edge I can cut the scarves on, and I'm just deciding on the crystal glass on her side that still holds some dark dregs of Rioja when she comes back again, carrying a glittering glass in one hand and a steaming mug in the other and smirking, and I know what she's going to do and I say, "No, please; just let me go; my legs, my arms, my knees; I may never walk again, please, please, please," but it doesn't do any good; she kneels in front of me and puts the glass to her lips and slips an ice cube into her mouth, looking at me and grinning and then lowering her mouth onto my cock.

Then it's the hot coffee from the mug but only briefly, it's not enough; then the ice again, then the coffee then the ice and I'm crying now, actually crying with pain and lust and the unbearable frustration of it, crying and begging; pleading with her to stop until finally she spits the last ice cube out and puts the glass and the mug down beside the wine glass and comes forward and straddles me, slipping me quickly, easily deep inside her and she feels hotter than the coffee, hot enough to scald, hot enough to burn and I give a small, shocked "Ah!" as she moves up and down on me and puts her fingers to my neck and the other hand down behind her to my balls and suddenly I'm coming, still crying and sobbing now as the spasms shake me and she goes suddenly very still, whispering "Baby, baby" to me as I jerk and pump and the motions make the pain in my legs and arms and joints worse and better at the same time.

The scarves have gone too tight to undo; she has to cut them with the gleaming weight of the hunting knife she keeps under her side of the mattress in case any rapist ever breaks in.

I lie cradled in her arms, panting, spent, exhausted, the agony in my muscles and bones and sockets gradually easing and the tears on my face drying and she says softly,

"How was that?" and I whisper,

"Fucking brilliant."

Next morning I arrive at the paper bright and early, toting my new machine, all happy after my sprint through to Cumbernauld via the building society and back and then my evening with Y (she was disappointingly unimpressed with the super-sexy new machine, but I guess not everybody's into computers and fuck it, given the choice of it or her on my lap I'd take her) after which I returned to Cheyne Street — Y likes me to leave before it gets too late, worried that her neighbours in the exec development will talk. I was so tired that even though I was just dying to get the new lap-top going and make sure Despot runs all right (portable at last! The screaming orgasmic joy of it!) I fell asleep on the couch instead and somehow transferred myself to the bed at some point and so had a good night's sleep for a change. I get up with the dawn or not long after anyway, make it into the office slightly early for once and Frank's there in reception when I come in and I'm about to show off the new machine when he looks worriedly at me, draws me to one side away from the receptionists" desk and the small-ads and back-issues counter until we're standing in a corner and says, "Cameron, Eddie wants to see you. He's got a couple of policemen in with him."

"What's this?" I ask, grinning. "Fettesgate again?" Fettesgate is a minor scandal involving the Lothian police force: a gay guy who felt he was being victimised broke into the cop HQ out at Fettes (with embarrassing ease) and found and copied lots of sensitive papers.

"No," Frank says. "Nothing to do with that, apparently. They're asking for you."

"Me?"

"Yes; you, quite specifically."

"Know their names?"

"No."

"Hmm." I know quite a few cops, some fairly high up, just like I know lawyers, advocates, doctors, politicians, civil servants and people in a variety of agencies. No big deal. "Can't imagine why." I shrug. "What's it about, any idea?"

Frank looks uncomfortable. He glances at the commissionaire behind his desk, nearby, and turns away from him. He leans his head close to mine and says quietly, "Well, Morag overheard something of what they were saying on the intercom…"

I put my hand over my mouth and do a stage-snigger. I thought Eddie's secretary eavesdropped on him. I didn't know until now she confided in Frank.

"Cameron," Frank says, dropping his voice still further. "Apparently they're investigating some murders."