Craig Robertson - Snapshot

He lined up a full-length shot of the body and focused. Two Soups was shut out and so was the rest of the world. It was just him and Sammy Ross.

He took in the look on the face below him for the first time. Resignation. Total defeat. Not shock though. Sammy Ross had seen this coming. Now he had this thousand-yard stare and it didn’t look as if he liked what he saw.

Winter did, though. For all its ugliness, it was a thing of beauty.

Rigor mortis had begun to kick in so he must have been dead for a few hours. The knees that had given way as he buckled and fell were already locked. One arm bent under him, clutching at the hole in his chest, the other twisted at his side where he had tried to break his fall. No chance of breaking a fall like that though – it descended straight into hell.

The burgundy bloodspill soaked his jeans and drenched his light-blue T-shirt but was already drying on both. His skin was alabaster pale, his lips kissed with blue.

It was a deep incision. Through the torn, bloodied scraps of cotton, Winter could see the ripped skin where the knife had been stuck. An initial entry wound then it rose sharply up the chest tearing skin as it went. The killer had stuck it in then twisted the knife before pushing it up deeper and deadlier, seeking out vital organs to destroy. Whoever did it had used a knife before. In Glasgow, that narrowed it down to maybe a quarter of the male population between twelve and twenty-five.

Winter focused on the wound. It was almost big enough to reach inside and grab those punctured organs, enough room to get in and search for the spirit that was no longer there. The skin was split and smiling up at him, the treasures behind already starting to fester without the beat of life to sustain them.

Focus. Shoot. Every detail, from every angle. So tempting to lift the T-shirt and see the full extent of the damage but that was strictly forbidden. Look but don’t touch. Record but don’t interfere. Observe but don’t violate. Chronicle but don’t contaminate.

Designer trainers, at least?120 the pair. Hideous, flash shoes in black and gold. The Burberry cap that had tumbled off his lank, unkempt hair and lay by the side of his sleeping head. The navy-blue Ben Sherman jacket sprayed with his own blood and the Tag Heuer that was smashed on his wrist but still ticked even though his heart had stopped. It all said money. It all said bad taste. It all said trash with cash.

His blue-purple lips said no. His eyes said please. A rabbit caught in the headlights of his own destiny. Bastard child of greed and poverty.

All that was laid out in the broken body before him, writ large in the wound in his middle and on his freeze-frame face. Sammy was a picture all right.

This was why Winter took photographs. To show it how it was, every wart, every insult, every injury, because every city is defined just as much by its ugly wounds as its architecture. He’d always imagined that if you cut Glasgow’s gutterbelly, you’d see it run blue and green with bitterness but with as much hope as there was bile. It was a great city where terrible things happened, things that should never be ignored but should be captured for ever.

His job had taken him to dark places that most civilians never go, seeing bloody puddles where life used to be, recording the moment before the mourners descended. All life was there, sitting cosy right next to death.

That was the bit that always got to him, just how close they sit next to each other. A split second, a nanosecond, an angstrom from one to the next. And he was there to ensure that that precise moment, where life turns to death and hope turns to shit, is always recorded right there on their face. Recorded for ever by a Nikon FM2 and a Canon EOS-1D.

A thing of beauty really.

‘If I remember right then Sammy boy is from Royston, east end somewhere for sure.’ The voice came from behind Winter and dragged him out of his dwam. It was Addison. ‘He’s thirty-two, thirty-three. Old to be still knocking it out on the street. Sure-fire sign he was going nowhere fast. Kind of bam that pushes out coke, heroin, jellies, ecstasy, dope, uppers, downers, steroids; whatever the junkies want, this cunt would stuff it down their throat, in their arm or up their nose. ’

Addison was angry and it was obvious in his voice. He’d seen way too much of this shit.

‘Just a foot soldier in Malky Quinn’s army,’ he went on. ‘Funny how Malky and his like never end up lying stabbed in the rain. It’s always the Sammy Ross’s that get it. One of Malky’s boys… brilliant. Means trouble for someone. Probably means trouble for everyone. Fuck’s sake, it’s not even eight o’clock and the day’s already turned to shit. I want a bacon roll.’

Winter had finished his photographs but hadn’t stopped looking. He was irritated at Addison for shaking him out of it but when he caught the look on Two Soups’s face he thought maybe it was just as well. The old sod looked fit to burst. Winter ignored his glare.

‘You ever stop thinking about your stomach, Addy,’ he said as he stood up. ‘No wonder you are such a fat bastard.’

The DI was six foot four and skinny as a rake, his height just making him look even thinner. He was just about to come back with a smart-arse remark of his own when his DS, a haunted-looking guy with dirty fair hair, name of Colin Monteith, wandered up towing a human skelf wearing trackies, a heavy white jacket and the obligatory baseball cap. Junkie ned. Monteith must have had the uniformed boys talking to the walking dead that were anywhere near the market at that time of the morning. Though if any of them had ever known anything, chances were they had already forgotten. Addison rolled his eyes as if to say, jeez, this better be good.

Monteith told the skelf to stay put and came up to where the pair were standing.

‘Might have a live one, Addy. This guy was dossing in the market but he actually knows what day it is, so I’d say he’s worth a wee word. Says he heard noises that sounded like it was our man meeting his maker.’

‘Knows what day it is?’ Winter butted in. ‘Does that qualify him for some award scheme? Junkie of the Month maybe.’

Monteith fired him a dark look.

‘I’ll have a word,’ said Addison with a sigh. ‘He might be as near to compos mentis as we are going to get from the zoomers round here. Bring him over.’

The inspector’s lanky frame towered over the undernourished user, leaving him in no doubt who was in charge. The skelf looked up at Addison uncomfortably, shifting from foot to foot.

‘So, you heard noises?’ It was as much a statement as a question. ‘Tell me about them.’

‘It’s like ah telt the other polis. Ah’d been sleeping. It was still dark o’clock. Know what I mean, man?’

Addison looked like he was resisting the temptation to tell him to get on with it but settled for a nod instead.

‘Aye well, it wis still pure dark an ah heard voices. Arguing, man. But no that loud. It went on for a bit then there wis this bit eh a mad scream that stopped quick an ah heard the guy hit the deck.’

‘What did you hear after that?’

‘Nothing, man.’

‘Nothing? Anyone walking away, anyone running? Anyone crying for help? A car starting, maybe a motorbike? Something hitting the ground after being thrown away?’

‘No. Well, aye. Someone walking away. I’d say he wisnae running, kinda slow like he was maybe dragging something. Naebody crying for help though. Would say he was well deid.’

‘And what did you do? Call the police like a good citizen?’

‘No way, man. Sorry but no way. I was jist laying low in case the guy came back. Nae point in me getting offed as well. I might have fell asleep again. No sure. Next thing I know the place is full of polis.’