They had to move the stuff and fast. It should have been out of Levenford by now, long gone, but for the fact that the engineers had found a bend in the prop shaft of the Valkyrie and that set Lars back at least four days. Four days in the rising heat of the town was four too long as far as Jack was concerned. Big Angus Baxter was good and eventually he’d come sniffing around. No doubt at all about that now.

They just had to be clean and clear when he did.

"They'll find the tankers," he told Jed and Ed on the way out towards the east of town to pick Tam up. He wanted a lift with his tools for a weekend home job. He always kept his eye on the next contingency in case the big plan fell on its face. In his view, that was not an unlikely scenario.

"It's a miracle they've not been discovered before now, so we'll have to find somewhere else to stash the stuff."

"Easier said than done," Ed said. "The only place to put it is in another couple of tankers."

"We could pump it back and hope they don't notice," Jed offered and they all laughed, but they knew they were in trouble.

"We need to store it for a couple of days. Eventually Baxter will get round to checking out every twelve wheeler that comes in and out of the place. The decoys are good, but if anybody looks under those tarpaulins, then we're all down the tubes."

Jed turned the beat-up yellow Skoda in at the far side of the building site where a whole block of little brick houses were being thrown up on the wide flat wasteland of the old engineering factory that used to employ three thousand souls in its heyday. Most of the site workers were clocking off early for the weekend.

"Where is he? I told him to be ready to move."

A couple of dirt-encrusted cars passed by in convoy on the access road as the workers clocked off, sending up little whirlwinds of dust and grey cement powder.

"I know where he'll be," Jack said. "I caught him skiving with a couple of noodie books the last time I was here."

He pointed over to the enclosure where the big moulded-resin tanks were stacked like monstrous children's blocks.

They piled out of the car and went across the strip of ground. Most of the joiners and brickies were gone by now, leaving that distinct unfinished building site smell of tar and cut wood and diesel oil. Jack and Ed carefully climbed up on the giant staircase of the tanks and peered down.

"Bowie, you're fired," Ed bawled, and Tam came awake with a dreadful start.

"What the fu....?"

They burst out laughing and jumped down into the hollow where Tam had been napping.

"Rip van Bowie," Ed said. "You could sleep standing up."

"So would you if you worked as hard as me." Tam rubbed his eyes. One side of his face was bright red where it had faced the sun and that told them he'd been bunking off in the makeshift shelter for most of the afternoon.

"Lazy git. No wonder you can never get a plumber when you need one."

They clambered back up and over the pile and down to where Jed waited in his stock-car.

"Don't tell me," he said. "He was zedding it, right? Out for the count."

"You could hear the snores across town." Jed started the engine and the pair of them piled in the back. Jack had turned back and was facing in the opposite direction. Jed gave the horn a toot.

"Has he lost something?"

Jack slowly swivelled and came back to the car.

"Tam. What's the score with this place at the weekend? Is it busy?"

"No. Maybe a couple of roofers and glaziers on the other side, and some of the plasterers will get some double time on the houses that are nearly finished. Everybody else will be at the match."

Ed came out of the car and stood beside him.

"You've got that look in your eye again."

"I think I've just seen the answer to the problem." For the first time that day, Jack Lorne seemed to be happy about something.

"And we might just get away with it."

Old Tim Farmer came back two hours past midnight on the Saturday morning and almost gave Ed Kane a heart attack. That was after Donny showed up and after five of them had sneaked into the transport park and got the disguised tankers out through the big gates.

Donny was in a real mess.

The found him soaked to the bone and limping up the towpath, one side of his face swollen to twice its normal size and a shirt stained a deep rosy pink where the blood had washed into it. "What the hell happened to you?" Ed had asked, stopping him on the track. "You look like you walked in front of a bus?"

Donny tried to keep walking, tried to turn away so they wouldn't see the bruises. Jack put an arm round his shoulder and felt him shiver violently despite the mildness of the evening.

He groaned at the pressure.

"Come on, Don. What's the score?"

"Bastards," Donny grunted, chittering with the chill.

Jack and Ed got him into the van and took him straight to Sandy's house.

Foley had hit him, back of the knuckle stuff, hard on the mouth, and his lip had split like a ripe tomato. Cullen had him by the hair, pulling his head back so that his face was an easy target. Ferguson still held the welder's wand, clicking the trigger on and off.

"So you and your teardrops swiped a tank-load of whisky, but you don't know where it is, that's what you're telling me?"

Donny tried to nod against the tight burn of Cullen's grip.

Foley slapped him again, easy meaty thuds. Ferguson touched the wand to the table and made the bolt leap in a bluster of sparks.

"I'll put your fucking eye out with this."

"Stick his head in the vice," Foley said. "You see Goodfellas? Put his head in and turned the handle. His fucking eye popped out. It would give you the puke."

Ferguson turned to Foley, momentarily diverted. He stared at him a while.

"That was Casino," Cullen said.

"What the fuck is wrong with your mouth? You want to put a zip on it. Maybe a padlock, even. Christ, I can weld your trap shut just as quick."

They made no reply. This was Ferguson's show.

"You and that smart cunt Jake Lorne and a bunch of losers. You hooked into Aitkenbar and went walkabout with a tank of high tension and you don't fucking know where it is?"

"No. Honest to god," Donny was panting against the pain and the taste of blood at the back of his throat. "Jack said it was need to know stuff. Just in case we got caught. It was just him. Christ knows where it is now."

Ferguson sparked the gear. The sizzle reflected in his eyes.

"You want me to pop a ball for you? That what you want?"

Donny shook his head, despite the hurt it cost. "God's honest. He just drove it away."

"So where did you get the stuff you were trading down the quayside?"

"In the drain. I stuck a big plastic bottle down there. All the rest was going to go in the river, so I just took some. The others never knew. It was just a bit extra."

Ferguson turned to the heavies. "See you guys? You never think of a scam like that. All muscle and gristle you are. Right. Get him out of here and make sure he keeps that trap shut."

He leant over the old desk top and jammed the metal up close to Donny's face. The smell of burned metal was sour and heavy.

"I see you again, Ginger pubes, and you get this torch up your arse. I'll cure your constipation for good, know what I mean? I hear you've blabbed, the same goes."

Cullen hauled him backwards. Donny grunted. Ferguson held a hand up.

"Oh, now that I remember. Who's the Irishman?"

"What Irishman?"

Foley slapped him casually. "Mr Ferguson asks the questions. You do the answers."

Donny held his breath, scared to talk, scared not to.

"Who's the fucking Irishman who backed him up against me. The one with the shooter? What is he? IRA? UDA? Family or what?"

"I don't know any Irishman," Donny said truthfully. "He never told me."

"Keeps you well in the dark, does our Jake. More need-to-know stuff? I find out you're lying and you won't like what I'll do to you. Got the picture?"

They slammed him in the van again and Foley got in with him while Cullen drove out of the yard and along to the station on the west side of town before taking the curve of the road that went down towards the river and the little warren of streets and alleys off the main drag. It was late and it wasn't quite dark, though the sun was low and just behind the Cardross hills out to the west. Down by the river it was shadowed and silent.

Foley hauled him out and the pair of them dragged him, a hand clamped over his mouth, along the old cobbles to the shadow under the bridge where they had come across Tig Graham drinking the whisky.

Cullen pushed him back against the railing, shoving so hard he thought he heard his spine creak with the pressure. Foley dug fast knuckles right into his belly and all the air exploded out. The punch drove in against skin and flesh stretched taut and Donny felt something rip. He grunted, unable to cry out and Foley hit him again, hooking up between his legs, catching him right on the left testicle. The explosion of pain was so sudden, so great, that Donny's teeth clenched together in a violent spastic snap.

Cullen's fingers just happened to be in the way and the teeth crunched right to the bone.

He let out a howl that echoed all across the river and reverberated from the unseen bridge arches, and Donny felt the fingers drag out from his teeth. A new taste of blood hit his tongue.

"You bastard!" Cullen's other arm slammed against his shoulder. "Fucking bit me."

The blow was just enough. Donny was bent so far over the rail that the force against his shoulder just tipped the balance. For a moment another huge screech of pain twisted in his back just above the thin part at his pelvis and then his legs were in the air, feet lifting higher and he toppled towards the water.

"Get him," Cullen bawled. Foley snatched for the rising legs, got a hand to an ankle. Cullen's free hand, the one that wasn't now between his own teeth, being sucked tenderly, caught Donny by the calf, but not fast enough, not tightly enough. Donny was up and over sliding down the hand-smoothed railing bar. Something gripped him at the heel and he felt his weight stop and judder.

"Weighs a fucking ton," Foley growled. Another hand made a grab for Donny's knee and Donny kicked out at it, squirming, suddenly desperate to get away at all costs. His flailing heel caught Foley right on the eye and raised a grotesque soft bruise that instantly purpled. Foley grunted, swore, hauled at him.

His boot came off. It just popped off as Foley tried to drag him up and over the bar and Donny's own momentum carried him down, tumbling into the dark.

He hit the water with a numbing crack and five feet below that, drove into the silty bed with a soft, smothering squeeze and for a moment all movement stopped.

"Where'd he go?"

"Fucked if I know."

The fading sun didn't reach under the bridge. Ten feet below them, the water at flow tide was dark, almost black. The sounds of the splash faded away and the fast current carried the foam and ripples down with it.

"He'll drown," Cullen said.

"I could care less."

"Don't come the cunt, arsehole. He kicks it and we're in the shit."

"Not me. Never saw him, don't know him. Never met him."

"Well, for a start, you better get rid of that fucking boot."

Foley looked at it, shrugged, let it fall into the water.

"Will that do?"

"You better be right."

Down in the water all he could hear was the ripple of the current over the bricks and stones and bottles, thrown in by generations of drunks and small boys. Above him a thin crescent moon wavered in and out of existence, and as the motion turned him over, he saw the two dark shapes leaning out from the rail, until the fine silt of his impact rose in a cloud and obscured everything. The river rolled him down along the slick side of the quay wall. For a second his one boot snagged on a brand new supermarket trolley, but he was too numbed to panic. The boot came free and he drifted out from under the bridge moving faster as the flow quickened. His groin ached and his back hurt, but the chill was leaching the pain away and down here in the dark it was cold, but somehow hazy and comforting.

He surfaced forty yards down while Foley and Cullen still bent over the railing further up at the bridge. A couple of swans powered themselves out of reach, hissing in fright as he gasped for breath, glided away like ghosts, and he was past them, heading towards the Clyde as the numb cold of the river water began to drain the heat from him. A hundred yards down the river shallowed at the old ford, and if the tide had been any higher Donny would have been carried right on past the town, drawn on the flow beyond the old boatyard at the sandy point where the rest of them had talked about the danger that Inspector Angus Baxter posed.

As it was, the tide was just low enough now and he got his feet to the slippery rocks and half crawled, half stumbled across the current, towards the high wall at the far side, spluttering and gasping now with cold and exhaustion and the aftermath of fear. When he reached the other bank he stopped and held on to an old iron boat ring, trying to get his breath back. It took him twenty minutes to cross the water, and another ten to climb the slippery stairs that led up to the towpath, and had begun to stumble homewards when out from the trees two shadows suddenly loomed and for a moment he thought he'd been caught all over again.

They needed the van again and Willie McIver was glad enough to take another cash donation. If they were caught, he'd say it was stolen and apart from that deal, he wanted to know no more. It was none of his concern.

Neil hauled the pump around and waited for them behind the workmen's hut. When they arrived, they just looked like two big covered container wagons and their passing made the ground tremble. Jed went ahead, reversed expertly, and slowly backed the first vehicle across the hard-pack mud and dirt on the edge of the building site until he reached the stack of tanks.

"Will they take the weight?" he asked.

"Sure they will," Tam assured him. "They're epoxy resin and PVC. They can take two hundred pounds a square inch before they rupture. They have to be tough in case they ice up."

Tam had assured Jack that the big water sumps would not be used for weeks, when the diggers would come in and excavate the drainage pits for the second phase of the project. Neil backed the van and pump up on the far side, away from prying eyes and the old watchman who was half asleep on the other end of the site, and the bulk of the sumps hid the noise of the little engine.

The whisky began to flow, gallon by gallon, barrel by barrel, for more than an hour, each minute racking up the tension and the chances of being caught in the open, caught in the act, and after that, Jed got into the cab and reversed in again to repeat the process. They filled six of the sumps to the brim and Tam used a big steel chuck key to fit the coin-shaped lids back on. Jack slathered them first in epoxy glue that would bind them tight in an hour. After that, the only way in or out was to cut a hole in the sides.

Hide them in plain sight. You couldn't get any plainer than this. Half the labourers on the site would be passing by here or climbing over to dodge work for a half hour. It was a risk, maybe a big risk, but Jack thought that for a couple of days more, they could take it. Maybe it was all the other ends of the strings he was holding that tired his brain out, but he had run out of ideas. This was as good a place as any, and because Tam was on site all the time, they could keep an eye on it. The rest of them could come strolling through in denim jackets and workers' boots and pass for any one of the sub-contractors mates. Building sites were like that.

Ed and Jack dropped the others off and went round to old Tim Farmer's house to pick up the mail, close to ten thirty when the sun was just sliding down to the curve of Cardross Hill, turning the sky a deep red that held the promise of a fine bright morning.

"What's all this stuff," Ed asked as they sneaked up the garden path, screened by the tall bushes.

"Phase four," Jack told him.

"How many phases has this scam got?"

Jack laughed. "Getting to the end-game soon."

"Okay," Ed conceded. "You've got a buyer. But the last time we were here, we picked up a whole bunch of stuff. Different names too. You're up to something."

"Just diversions," Jack said, appreciating the compliment. He began to roll down the woolly hat until it was over his eyes. Ed was sharp, totally wasted shoving barrels in the distillery. So far Jack's judgement had been right. He could use Ed Kane. "We have to keep several jumps ahead of everybody, try to figure them out two, three steps down the line. That way, when things go wrong, you can't get taken completely by surprise."

"You can't think of everything," Ed said, tucking his own hat down. He was on his knees, feeling for the string through the letterbox. His fingers found it and he drew it out. "There's always something you haven't thought of."

He slotted the key in the door and they both sneaked inside, closing it behind them, walking softly through the back kitchen and down the darkened hallway.

Without any warning at all a light clicked on, leaving them totally exposed.

"What the hell...?"

Old Tim Farmer stood at the top of the stair in a dressing gown.

"What the fuck do you want?" His voice was high and shrill and his white legs stuck down like matchsticks.

"Oh shit," Ed said, with great feeling. "Bet you never thought of that!"

Up on the stair, Tim Farmer was raising the long barrel of a shotgun. Jack caught the motion and instinctively dragged Ed back, his heart leaping right into his throat.

"Is that you McLaren?" Farmer's voice was even higher. "That bitch of yours isn't here. She cleaned me right out."

Jack jerked Ed back and the pair of them hit the wall and just then he saw it wasn't a gun. Farmer was holding an old walking stick in one hand. The other one reached out and snatched a big vase from a stand beside the window and the old man slung it down at them. It caught Ed on the shoulder and smashed against the wall. Ed yelped.

"Get out of here and don't come back and if I see that gold-digging bloody wife of yours I'm going to call the police."

Jack almost laughed with relief. He pulled Ed away, crunching the fragments of pottery underfoot, and the pair of them scuttled for the kitchen and out into the air, leaving the old man still bawling from the stairhead.

"Dead right you are. I never thought of that."

"That old man, he ran away with some bird?" Ed was scrambling through the hedge behind Jack. "No wonder you never expected him back. He should have had a thrombo by now."

They got out the far side and down the small slope to where they had parked the van, got in quickly and sped away.

Jack stopped laughing. "I thought he had a shot gun. No kidding, I thought that was it for the pair of us."

Ed rubbed his shoulder. "Skinny old bugger. Nothing wrong with his aim, though."

"You'd think at least one bloody thing would go right without any problems," Jack said. "Just when you think you've hit bottom, some loonie throws you an anchor."

Ed had to agree. "No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and into the wind." "All we have to think of is how to get the mail out of there. Any ideas?"

"You're the ideas man, Jake. I just do the lifting. You'll think of something."

In the light of day, it was Ed who came up with the idea, but that was after the pair of them realised their troubles were only beginning. Just along the road they came across Donny Watson stumbling up from the towpath.

He was chilled to the bone, shivering like a child. Jack's uncle put a big quilt round him in the kitchen and fed him a mixture of hot chocolate and the cream liqueur he was selling to the women at the bowling club dances.

"Take your time with that," he said. " You'll get drunk and scalded at the same time."

Donny's face was pumped up swollen and he listed to the side, cradling some part under his ribs that was causing him pain. The mud and the blood on his shirt had merged into a flesh-coloured stain on his chest.

"Tell us what happened, son," Sandy encouraged. "Somebody had a good go at you."

"Ferguson," Donny managed to get out in a shuddery breath. "Him and Seggs Cullen and that nutter Foley. I'm sorry Jake."

"Don't worry Donzo. That lunatic. After all this time I thought he'd forgotten about it."

"Not Ferguson," Sandy said. "He's a stoat." Ed nodded agreement.

"No, not that, Jake." Donny's face crumpled and he coughed, sending a spasm though him. "I had to tell him. He had a welders lance. Jesus, he was going to stick it right in my eye."

Sandy put an arm round him. "You're okay now son. Take it easy."

"Tell him what?" Jack had gone very still, so still that Ed felt it.

"God, man. Jack, I'm really sorry. I thought it would be okay, just a couple of bottles. No harm in it. What you don't know can't hurt you."

What you don't know will always hurt you. Hadn't he told them all?

"No harm in what, Donny?"

"I had to tell him." Donny lifted his head and looked Jack right in the eye, held it for a moment and then flicked to Sandy.

"That's all right Donny. You can tell him what you tell me. So what did you tell Ferguson?"

"I had to tell him about the whisky, Jake. Christ, he was going to skewer me. They took me down to the scrappie's and he had this thermic lance. It would put a hole in you."

"I know what a lance does," Jack said. He put his fingers to his temples, closed his eyes. It was all coming unravelled. Sudden anger at Donny flared up inside him and he squeezed down on it, damping it away.

"Let the boy tell it," Sandy said softly.

"How did he know what to ask."

Donny turned back to him, looked up and then dropped his eyes.

"I punted some of the stuff. God, Jake, I'm really sorry. I never meant it to happen, but I got mad, you know? When you tore me up in front of the guys. I got a bit pissed and I took the buckshee stuff."

"What buckshee stuff?"

"I stuck a container in the pipe to catch some."

"Oh shit." Jack breathed out. Ed bit his lip. If Ferguson knew, then they really were in it, chin deep and on tiptoe.

"Honest Jake. I never thought."

"No." What else was there to say? Jack's words dried up as he saw the whole plan going down the stank.

"I thought it would be okay. It was going to waste, you know? God, I was just mad after that time on the boat. I got pissed and stupid and I fucked up." The three of them watched him, let him run on. "They got me down on the quay and slammed me in the van and next thing I'm in a shed at the scrap yard. He put this thing up to my eye and said he was going to burn it out."

"Bastard," Jack said through his teeth. "I knew he was going to be trouble."

"I'm sorry Jake. They kicked the shit out of me and then I was in the river. I don't know how I got away, but I crossed at the ford and then I met you guys. I think they bust my ribs again."

He coughed hard, holding his side down at his hip, and a little trickle of blood oozed out of this mouth and trickled down his chin.

The spasm passed and he shuddered again.

Jack's moment of anger peaked and then oozed away, like Donny's trickle of blood. There was no point in holding on to it. What was done was done.

"Okay man. You had to tell him."

He moved round the table and sat next to Donny, clamped a hand round his shoulder and drew him right close. Donny! Crazy schmuck!

They'd been friends longer than he could remember, since playschool days. Before that even, just babies, just kids, toddling together, all the way through school together. Friendship and history counted, Jack realised, friendship and history and the whole of their lifetimes. He'd ignored Donny's fast mouth and death-wish craziness, never analysing it. He knew now. He'd given Donny the easy tasks because he wasn't the brightest spark, not the sharpest. That was something he'd never consciously thought, never had to consider. He'd brought him in because he was a mate, and loyalty was the thing, and he should never have humiliated him down at the boat.

He clapped him around the shoulder.

"Don't worry about it old son. If he'd come at me, I'd have told the bastard." Donny was shuddering and Jack knew he was crying now, from pain and fright and shame.

He looked past him at Ed, at his uncle. "Can we keep him here tonight?"

"Better here that anywhere else."

"Okay mate. Come on. You get the good bed and I get the hard couch. Come on and get these wet clothes off."

"I never meant it," Donny whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

"I know that Donzo. You don't have to tell me that."

It was well past midnight, and the three of them sat in the kitchen. Sandy had poured them all a cold beer when Jack came back down.

"He's sleeping. Those two animals gave him a doing."

"It's about time we sorted them right out," Ed said.

"Yeah. Later. We'll have to think of something."

"That's the second time you said that tonight," Ed said, and Jack managed an arid laugh.

"That's me. The man with the plans. Except I'm running out." He closed his eyes, rubbed them with his thumbs.

"Ferguson's going to come after you," Sandy said. "Sure as night follows day."

"I know that. I'll just have to stay out of his way for a couple of days. That's all I need. And all you need to get the business sorted out."

"What business is that?" Ed asked.

"I'll tell you everything tomorrow, the point of this whole thing. You need to know now. We have to think about Ferguson, you and me. And Tam and Jed. Neil's no scrapper and Donny's had the guts pulled out. But Ferguson, he could screw up the whole thing, so it's a real game of chess now. I'll have to figure out his moves. Be diplomatic."

Sandy laughed. "I told you before. Being diplomatic means saying nice doggie and getting ready to hit with a half brick."

"I know. What did you think I meant?"

Ed came in. "You reckon you can outguess him?"

"We don't do that, he'll carve us up or put us in jail, and we lose everything."

"I thought I was going to lose it tonight," Ed said, and he laughed. Sandy looked from one to the other, eyebrows raised.

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow as well. Right now by head's full of mince and broken bottles. I need some sleep. Tomorrow, Ed, you and me, we're up the city, get a couple of things sported out, see a couple of people. Sandy, you better get yourself up and see DJ and the boat boys."

Sandy took off his tammy hat and ran his fingers through his dark tousled hair.

Ed whistled.

"Nice colour Mr B. It takes years off you."

Chapter 19 Full Proof Joe Donnelly 333 332