– Ye shag guys like that . . . darling? a guy next to us is laughing. He is big. His hands are like shovels. His head is as chunky as Darth Vader’s mask. This man we know to be Setterington.

They can’t talk to us like that. – Listen! we tell them, – Police! We’re working undercover!

They laugh. They just laugh at me. We pull off the wig we have been wearing. We still hold on to our handbag. Carole’s handbag. My present. Last Christmas I gave you my heart. The car seems to be moving so slowly, and there is a sickness in our stomach, a sickness which makes us feel as if we have eaten too much candyfloss at the fairground and gone on the waltzers. Stacey liked the waltzers. Us and her, her tucked in the middle. The nuclear family, spinning, twisting, disorientated, but still huddled together.

Still . . .

– Sexier oan but, eh, one guy’s laughing. He’s laughing at us. We do not recognise him.

Spinning, twisting out of control. The wig. It cost two hundred pounds from Turvey’s on the Glasgow Road. Made specially to look like Carole’s hair, long and black. I told the guy it was for my wife. Her hair fell out after chemotherapy. How terrible, he said. She smokes too many cigarettes, I told him.

– Any keks you wear may be taken doon and used in evidence, another one smiles; Liddell, this one is called.

– I’m Detec . . .

I’m

We’re a family . . . we knew a fam . . .

– Detective Se . . . we start to tell them, but Setterington has punched us hard on the nose with his anvil fist and the tears are filling our eyes and there is a sharp noise of pain spreading across our face and hitting the centre of our brain and an irregular pattern of breathing fits, a heaving in our chest, half a sob, half a puke. The only thing we can react to is the pain. We can see or feel nothing else.

How did it make you feel

We’re different to what they think

Where’s the fuckin back up team? We are fuckin polis! Police.

They put a plastic carrier bag over our head. We are now unable to see where we’re going. We’re remembering how this all started: that when Carole first left with the bairn we used to set the table for two and then we started wearing her clathes and it was like she was still with us but no really . . . Carole . . . Carole, why did you dae it, with that fuckin nigger, those whores they meant nothing tae me . . . you’re fuckin big-moothed hoor ay a sister . . . fanny like the fuckin Mersey tunnel . . . and the bairn . . . oh God . . . God . . . God . . . we want to live . . . all we’re asking for is some law and order . . . it’s the job . . .

we want tae make it up . . .

we’re not like the scum they put in the prisons . . .

we want tae make it right . . .

. . . we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know at all. This is Edinburgh. It’s winter but it’s hot and sticky under this plastic bag and we can’t fuckin well breathe here.

We’ve lost the handbag.

And their voices.

– Need a bag ower that cunt’s heid before ah’d fuck it, Gorman’s voice.

– Get away! It’s a fuckin guy ya poofy cunt! another is telling him.

– Ah’m no gonnae fuck it wi ma cock, ah’m ah ya daft cunt, bit we’ll see what we can find tae stick up this queer erse, see how much the cunt can take.

– Barry.

We’re bundled out of the car and pushed up a set of stairs. Stairs. We can see the steps under our feet. Pushed. The coon. They make us move too quick and we go over in our heels, stumbling, but they’re stopping us from falling and they are shouting obscenities at us.

– Move yir queer erse ya fuckin buftie!

– C’moan ya fuckin daft twat!

This place is derelict, we can see the broken glass under our feet. It’s abandoned, no noise but our own. We reach the top of the stairs and they throw us into a room. Then there’s more voices. A girl’s voice. I recognise it.

– Ah kent ah had seen him fae somewhaire.

Estelle.

– Did eh huv a plastic bag ower ehs heid at the time?

– Wide cunt!

I feel a sharp pain in my testicles. I cover them with my hands. My fingers knead the material of the skirt.

– Nice one Ocky!

Ocky. I’ve been kicked by Ocky.

– The thing is boys . . . and girls, it’s Lexo’s voice, – we have tae go aw the wey wi this pig. Ye ken what that means.

– Ye cannae waste a pig man, the other guy, I think his name’s Liddell, is saying.

There’s a nervous laugh from Estelle. She thinks those cunts are joking. – Ah’m no wantin nowt tae dae wi this, she says.

– Dinnae be daft Lexo, Liddell’s saying. – Ye cannae waste a pig. End of. That’s it fucked eftir that.

Another voice cuts in, gasping, frightened. – It’s nae fuckin joke . . . c’moan boys . . . ye cannae kill the boy . . . no a polisman . . . My assailant Ocky.

– You shut yir fuckin grassin wee mooth, Ghostie says, and I can sense Ocky trembling from here. – We’ll see tae you later. We ken aw aboot you pal.

– Ah’m no a grass . . . Ocky pleads.

Poor Ocky. Always between a rock and a hard place.

– Lexo’s right, Ghostie says. – This cunt kens the score. We did the boy.

– We dae him n aw, Lexo’s mocking voice continues, – Deid cunts tell nae tales. We can torch this place wi the cunt in it. Or what’s left ay the cunt in it.

One of them whips off the bag. There is a sharp light in our face and we blink. We look at them. Yes, there’s the four of them, the same four, plus Estelle and Ocky. Liddell is holding an old anglepoise lamp in my face.

The handbag is on the shelf. Setterington is mincing around with it.

But we are starting to get in control now. They shouldn’t have taken off the bag. Our face is throbbing and sore, our eyes still water, but we’re thinking again. We see them. The lamp does not bother us. They look at our unflinching gaze.

We see them.

– Look at him, what a fuckin tube, Ghostie Gorman the evil-looking little albino twat spits. He then smiles, and produces a wrap of charlie and starts rubbing it on his gums. – High grade mate, high grade. Took it oot ay yir bag thaire. Nab it fae D.S. duty, aye?

I say nothing.

– Should’ve joined the polis masel! he laughs, and the others chorus him.

I’m looking at Ocky, then at Estelle. Her face is pinched and angry. She looks at me with a raw hate as if she’s blaming me for putting her in this position. Ghostie sees me staring at her. – Like the bird here, dae ye? Sexy eh? No as sexy as you bit, eh no mate?

He pulls Estelle to him and kisses her, pushing his tongue into her mouth. She’s awkward and stiff, resisting slightly then complying. He stops and turns to me. Estelle rubs her lips. – French kissin, Ghostie explains. – That’s me gittin intae practice for the World Cup. The nosh as well. Ah went tae this French restaurant last summer there. Ye like French grub?

– No bothered, I tell him.

– The posh one off the Royal Mile, he urges. – A real French job. Ah like the garlic, me. Garlic snails.

He puckers his lips and makes a slurping sound.

– You ever go tae that place mate, Le Petit Jardin? Ghostie pronounces the restaurant name with an affected French accent.

– Naw. I never went there, I tell him.

Me and Carole never went there. I never liked French food. I always preferred going out for a curry. The Raj doon at the Shore in Leith. Tommy Miah’s place. That was always my favourite. A windae table if we could get yin. The Anarklia in Dalry Road. Carole liked the vegetarian options there.

– It wis durin the Festival, Ghostie tells me, tarrying leisurely. This cunt’s worse than Toal. – Ah goes in, in a resturant in ma ain city. The waiter comes up and sais: Do you have reservations? Ah just looks aroond . . . he twists his head haughtily around the derelict room, – and ah goes: Aye, ah do. The decor, then he looks contemptuously at me like I was the waiter, – the service, and probably the food. But I’d still like a fuckin table.