Craig Robertson - Snapshot

The inspector stared hard at her, nodding but looking up and around him to prove his point. The square was surrounded on all sides and beyond by towering buildings that could have hidden a hundred snipers.

‘Which way did the driver run, sir? And do we have a description of him?’

The inspector – suddenly she remembered his name, Begley – began to answer but he was immediately interrupted by a huge roar behind him. He spun and they both saw a surge in the crowd near Queen Street station and the start of a punch-up as people barged into each other.

Narey looked around her and saw that a huge crowd had now gathered and the cops were struggling to hold them back. George Square was bang in the middle of the city centre and there were always hundreds of people walking along one of its sides or across it. Closing off the four streets that formed the square had immediately created a growing bottleneck and was continuing to draw a curious swarm. More people were joining the throng every minute and the human dam was threatening to burst at every access point.

The surge at the station seemed to be caused by another commotion a hundred yards down the same stretch of the street. A Sky news crew had somehow managed to talk and push their way through from North Frederick Street and had taken up a vantage point near the Millennium Hotel, not giving a toss for the people that had been standing there. Two officers had run over and were arguing with the reporter while the cameraman and sound guy were busy focusing on the white van.

Much later, it occurred to Narey that maybe it was all that the sniper was waiting for. Right then, though, when it happened, she had no time to think. Like everyone else round George Square, all she could do was duck.

The air exploded with a gunshot that had hit before anyone knew it had been fired. The first she was aware of was the result of the bullet thudding into and through the petrol cans. They burst into flames with a roar that immediately had police and public instinctively stepping back from the square. In seconds, the newly burning petrol had ensnared the cocaine bricks, setting them alight with a snarl.

Narey saw Begley’s jaw drop. To be fair, she could hardly blame him. In seconds there was a Class A funeral pyre. At first it was just the petrol that leapt high and violently in dark, furious flames. But as they subsided it was clear to see the bricks breaking and burning and a wispy, creamy smoke snaking across the square and into the city beyond, seeking bloodstreams to invade.

The reaction among the crowd was a loud, excited chatter but that was silenced when another bullet suddenly rang out, the sound hitting them a split-second after it drove straight through the fuel tank of the white van, exploding it and wiping out the potential forensic evidence inside. The transit roared into an orange fireball and blazed away in support of the cocaine.

Begley seemed transfixed, staring at the flames with his mouth open. Narey wasn’t though. She’d seen the impact on the canisters and how they’d moved towards them as they exploded.

‘The north of the square,’ she told him, part explanation, part order. ‘The shots are coming from beyond the City Chambers. Get your men over there, sir.’

Begley looked at her as if he wanted to reprimand her but settled for spinning on his heels and barking orders at the nearest uniforms.

Narey’s attention was caught by the blare of a car horn coming from North Frederick. She saw a car bulldozing its way through traffic and ploughing through the crowds. It was a wonder that they didn’t run someone over because everyone that they were pushing past was gawping at the scene on the square. The car doors opened and as people emerged, Narey realized with a snort and a shake of her head that it was Tony, Addison, Colin Monteith and Iain Williamson. She took in the looks of disbelief on their faces and saw Tony pull a camera out of the bag over his shoulder. Christ, this will be right up his street, she thought. It was undeniably an amazing sight and she found herself wishing she had his gift of seeing the beauty in it.

George Square like you’d never seen it before, snowing as if it were Christmas and bonfires as if it were Guy Fawkes Night. The air was thick with smokes and smells: one the familiar pungent tang of petrol and the other a sweet, rubbery whiff that reminded her of caramel.

The cops could hold the crowd back as best they could but they could do nothing about the air. It and the burning coke went where it pleased, like rumours disappearing into the night. Luckily for those in the city centre, or maybe unluckily for some, the burning cocaine didn’t give anywhere near the hit that it would have if it had been snorted or smoked. One of the forensics later told her that when you burn powdered cocaine you lose about half of the potency. It still burns and smokes, just very inefficiently. It was still enough to put a smile on a few faces for half an hour. Some of the locals were sniffing at the air like rabbits twitching for signs of a fox, taking as much of the free hit as possible.

She saw Tony walking between the crowds, photographing as many as he could. Inevitably some of the fuckwits thought he was getting evidence of them taking drugs and a few of them covered their faces while others looked like they were threatening to rearrange his. Any risk was worth it for Tony, though, she knew.

She saw him capture two teenagers grinning at each other like idiots while sticking their tongues out as if they were catching snowflakes. They’d probably never had any more than bottles of Buckfast or White Lightning, so graduating to cocaine was a big step for a Wednesday afternoon when they should have been in Double Maths.

A wee old wifie with blue-rinsed hair obviously thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen, giggling away to herself and pointing at the sideshow even though no one was paying her much attention. Maybe it was the nose candy in the wind, maybe it was the lunchtime sherry or maybe she was just a bit crazy to start with but the old girl was in fits. Tony captured her weather-beaten face as she screwed her eyes up and howled with laughter.

A pink-faced bank manager type in an overstuffed overcoat and a peppered beard looked horrified at the events around him and seemed desperate to avoid breathing in even a whiff of the coke. He had pulled out a white handkerchief and held it over his mouth as if he’d been bombarded with tear gas. He’d clearly never taken drugs in his life, as long as you didn’t count nicotine or industrial quantities of whisky, and wasn’t about to start now.

Other bampots were just welcoming the wind with open arms, quite literally, wafting it towards themselves with as much gusto as they could muster. Fuck the polis, fuck the CCTV cameras. Breathe it in, man, pure magic. They were even fighting for their share of the air, elbowing each other out of the way to snort a bigger nostril-full of next to nothing. These eejits didn’t need much encouragement to be off their heads and their stake in twenty-odd kilos of cocaine floating over George Square would certainly do the job.

Addison and Monteith were by Narey’s side now and for that moment there was little for them to do but watch and wonder what was going on, a state of affairs they were all well used to. None of them could take their eyes off the cocaine snowstorm; it was as if someone had turned the city upside down and shaken it hard.

‘Burn,’ Monteith was muttering angrily. ‘Go on, burn, you fucker. Burn. Better off with that stuff up in flames than up someone’s nose.’

Addison turned to look at the DS, seemingly amused at Monteith’s rage.

‘Moral righteousness, Colin? It’s not Sunday, is it?’

Monteith’s eyes darkened but never left the free show that was falling over the square. ‘I just don’t find it funny, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’m fed up having to clean up the mess this stuff makes.’