And yet, pausing at a cash machine to take out some money, he looked to right and left, assessing the level of threat. A beggar sat against the shop window next to the bank, head bowed. He looked cold and lonely. Allan had accused Mike once of being a loner – Mike couldn’t disagree; didn’t mean he was lonely. Tossing a pound coin into the beggar’s cup, he headed in the direction of home, some late-night music and his collection of paintings. He thought of the professor’s words – those poor imprisoned works of art – and then of Allan’s – grab what you can with both hands… A pub door swung on its hinges, expelling a drinker into the night. Mike dodged the stumbling man and kept on walking.
As one door closes, another one opens…
3
So far, it had been another bad day for Chib Calloway.
The problem with surveillance was, even if you knew you were being watched, you couldn’t always know who the watchers were. Chib owed a bit of money… all right, a lot of money. He owed other things, too, and had been keeping his head down, answering only one or two of his dozen mobile phones, the ones whose numbers only kith, kin and close associates knew. He’d had two meetings scheduled for lunchtime, but had cancelled both. He’d apologised by phone without bothering to explain why. If it got out that he was being tailed, his reputation would dip further. Instead, he’d drunk a couple of cups of coffee at Cento Tre on George Street. It was a pretty upmarket spot – a bank at one time. A lot of Edinburgh’s banks had been turned into bars and restaurants. With cash machines everywhere, banks weren’t needed. The machines had brought with them a variety of scams, of course: card numbers skimmed, the cards themselves cloned; devices attached to the machine that could transfer the necessary info to a microchip… There were some petrol stations you didn’t dare use. They sold your details on. Chib was careful that way. The gangs with the cash machine know-how all seemed to originate overseas – Albania, Croatia, Hungary. When Chib had looked into it as a possible business proposition, he’d been informed that it was something of a closed shop – which rankled, especially when the gangs then targeted Edinburgh.