Craig Robertson - Snapshot

‘Gaz!’ he roared at a cop he recognized and was rewarded with a glance. ‘What the fuck’s happened?’ Winter asked him.

Gaz McKean looked round to make sure none of his bosses were watching and stepped a few feet away from his position just long enough to talk to Winter without the entire crowd hearing.

‘It’s Cairns Caldwell. Shot through the head. Looks like it was a sniper. No one saw a thing. Could have come from anywhere. The impact turned him round so they’re struggling to work out an angle. Look, I’ve got to get back.’

‘Christ’s sake. Can you have a word with your sergeant and get me past the line?’

‘Are you serious? We’re a wee bit busy, Tony, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Cairns Caldwell. Major gangster. Responsible for bringing in most of the heroin that came into Glasgow. Ex-public schoolboy now worth multi-millions. Well he was until some fucker put a bullet through his napper. The shit had officially hit the fan.

Winter had to get in and photograph this. Damn, why was his gear back in the boot of his car?

Then suddenly he saw Two Soups. Baxter had stood up, shaking his head and firing off an order. Winter managed to catch his eye and gestured that he wanted to get across the cordon. Baxter laughed, swiftly followed by a curt shake of the head. Damn him, thought Winter, he’s loving this. He tried to shout but his voice was taken away by the noise of the sirens and the crowd. There was no way that Two Soups was for listening anyway.

Winter pushed his way along the crowd till he was between two cops he knew, Rob Harkins and Sandy Murray. He put on his most confident face and strode between them.

‘Cheers, guys. Fucking crowds are mental. You’d think they’d never seen anyone shot in the head before.’

Murray didn’t even blink while Harkins only counted to five before he nodded Winter past him. Winter knew he was never getting past the inner ring, it was protecting the good stuff not just holding back the natives, but this was a start. He found the best gap he could in the cordon and slid onto his arse, then pulled his mobile out of his pocket to see what six megapixels could do from ten yards away.

Winter was aware that some of the cops were looking down at him in bemusement but was hopeful that enough of them would know him by sight that they wouldn’t ask why he was armed with a mobile phone rather than couple of grand’s worth of kit. He didn’t care anyway. He only had eyes for Caldwell.

The gangster’s eyes were wide open, forever shocked and horrified, his flop of fair hair soaking in an ocean of pillar-box red, his arms spread wide in an unheard plea for mercy. You’d think that someone who does what Cairns Caldwell did for a living might think there was a bullet out there with his name on it. Comes with the territory. The look on his face, though, gave the lie to that. Sheer surprise. Caldwell was so far up the ladder that he thought he was untouchable. But he’d been touched big time.

Winter bumped the focus on his iPhone up to the max and saw right away that he’d get nothing, scaling it back down a bit and hoping that technology in the lab or his own PC would sharpen it up. He saw a nice suit, easily?800 a throw, blood spray over a crisp blue open-necked shirt, a mouth wide open in a silent scream. Other legs and feet were walking by, alternatively blocking his view and framing Caldwell in a uniformed letterbox.

A big space opened up and he zeroed in as best he could on the hole in the drug lord’s head. A beautiful round hole, oozing dark life. Fuck, this was just what he wanted. Not even a single regret at thinking that. Not for a second. He knew what Caldwell was and he certainly wasn’t going to apologize for feeling like that. Bingo. House. Result. A quote from an interview that Metinides did suddenly fired into his mind. ‘I got to witness the hate and evil in men. ’

Winter fired off the iPhone as best he could, cursing the slow shutter and the age before it was fit to go again. Eyes, mouth, scream, blood, hands. Cops, forensics, scene setting. Eyes, eyes, eyes. Nothing existed except the inch by two-inch world that he could see through the phone. He caught cops and forensics, a patchwork of expressions set grim on their faces. Anger, fear, worry, intent, humour, maybe even satisfaction.

Instinctively, he swivelled on his bum and turned away from the cordon. Few of the rubberneckers were interested in him. They were all staring over his head, desperate to get another glimpse of the man with a bullet in his head.

Some were stunned, a few were laughing. Most were desperate to have something to tell when they got home or to the pub. They craned their necks and pointed, they gawked and drank in every drop of bloodlust that dripped from their lips.

He snapped a red-faced man, his eyes bulging at what was being played out before him, jostling shoulders with his neighbour in an effort to get that inch or two closer to the action. He caught him open-mouthed and impatient, desperate to see and to know. Agog, that was the word.

A couple of feet from him was a woman in tears, crying for a man she almost certainly didn’t know, maybe hadn’t even heard of. Her sensible jacket and cardigan said she lived in a different world from the man with the hole in his head. Would she have wept for Caldwell if she knew what he did for a living, knew how many lives he had ruined with the shit that he peddled? All Winter knew was that the tears that streamed down her face causing strands of fair hair to stick to her cheek were wasted on Caldwell. But for him they made a picture.

The woman must have become aware of Winter on the edge of her vision because her eyes fell onto him, causing him to turn uncomfortably back to the scene. All he could now see was the bulky, shaking body of Two Soups gesturing angrily towards him. The man was purple with rage and looked like he was about to have a fit. He was roaring at Winter but the photographer realized he could hear nothing. Not Baxter, not the sirens or the crowds, just the rush of blood that filled his ears and the pounding of his own heart. It was photographic gold. Dark gold that Metinides would have approved of.

Winter’s self-imposed deafness was the reason that he didn’t hear the scuff of oversized copper’s boots on the road or them asking him to get the fuck out of there. He knew nothing till his collar was grabbed and he was hauled off his feet.

Harkins and Murray were looking down at him, at once angrily and apologetically. He’d probably dropped them in it but they still didn’t feel comfortable throwing him about. Over their shoulders he saw Rachel Narey standing open-mouthed, looking at him in nothing short of disbelief. It broke a spell and the sound of the crime scene suddenly burst in on him, all discordant, angry and chaotic. He was breathing hard, elated yet embarrassed, like a teenager caught having a wank. This was not going to be good.

Evening, Tuesday 13 September

‘As far as I can see the only thing they can say you’re guilty of is over-enthusiasm. Two Soups is just getting his oversized knickers into a twist as usual. It’ll blow over in a couple of days. Although every cop on the shift will take the piss out of you for weeks. Sitting on your arse taking pictures of the crowd? I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘Is that your considered professional opinion, Detective Sergeant Narey?’

‘I am never anything other than professional, Mr Winter.’

‘So how come you’re naked then?’

‘Are you complaining?’

‘I’ve never complained before, Sarge. Not going to start now.’

Rachel pushed Winter onto his back, leaning over him and grinning wickedly.

‘Good.’

He grabbed at her and rolled so that he was on top, pinning her arms. Just because she was a sergeant didn’t mean she was always in charge and he had to remind her of that. It was a mistake though. In her defensive position she lashed out.