Irvine Welsh - Skagboys

— This is it, Renton says, — this is where they make it.

They shuffle under it, and just a few yards ahead a second railway overpass towers above them. Sandwiched between the two bridges, on the right, a three-storey, Victorian building of red sandstone bears the sign: BLANDFIELD WORKS.

This building is the first part of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, the offices where company sales reps are greeted and enquiries dealt with. The subsequent ones, past the next set of railway tracks, are less welcoming, surrounded by high perimeter fences and topped with razor wire. Renton immediately clocks the plethora of security spy cameras, pointing out at them into the street. He notes that Sick Boy is doing the same, his large protruding eyes, scanning and his fevered brain processing information. Employees mill around, coming and going to and from different shifts.

As they walk, Renton gives voice to his thoughts. — This has tae be where the likes ay Seeker n Swanney got their original skag supply, that fabby white stuff. Seeker obviously put the bite on some poor cunt workin here.

— Yes! It all has tae come fae here, Sick Boy twitches. — Let’s phone him again!

Renton disregards his prompt, his heated mind trying to piece things together. Seeker and Swanney would each have some poor sucker on the inside and they’d be getting the boys to take big risks by bringing the shit out. But no longer: their contacts are either in jail, have taken off, or worse. The company had cottoned on to the scam, and increased the security, making it impossible for employees to smuggle gear out of the complex. Now Swanney and Seeker are down the pecking order in a national pyramid that brings in the brown from Afghanistan and Pakistan, instead of being local top dogs selling pure product. Renton looks grimly through the fortified chain fence into the plant. — It’s aw in there. The best, purest shit we ever hud, or will ever get. Behind those gates, fences and waws.

— So what do we dae? Ask the cunts in thaire tae sort us oot? Sick Boy scorns.

Once again, Renton ignores him, continuing his brisk walk around the site, pressing Sick Boy to string along. The latter’s busy eyes follow his friend’s sight line, opening a window to the thoughts ticking over in his head.

This cunt can’t be fucking serious …

But Renton has never been more serious. The logical side of his brain has given way to the imperative of sickness. The strained muscles, the throbbing bones and the shredded nerves keep screaming: YES YES YES …

The opium factory. Those railway lines seeming to define the place, one set dividing the plant from the distillery, the other bisecting it. They walk past the employee car park, looking over the big fence to the most startling building in a site made up of many disparate examples of industrial architecture: a large silver box with a multitude of gleaming pipes and tubes spilling out from one side, some of them rising skywards. — That looks like chemical processing taking place in there, Renton says. — That’s goat tae be where they make the fuckin skag!

— Aye … but … we cannae fuckin brek in!

The next thing that catches Renton’s eye is a loading bay, with large plastic box containers piled on top of each other. — Storage. Wonder what the fuck’s in they boaxes?

They gape in awe at those receptacles, stacked up behind the barbed-wire fences and security cameras. Just the contents of one of them would last them for such a long, long time. — But ye cannae jist … Sick Boy begins in feeble protest.

As they prowl past the adjacent wasteland, which a billboard informs them is designated for a new supermarket, they try to think things through. — Where they make it, n where they store it, Sick Boy ruminates, realising that he’s converted. They are sick and there’s simply no option.

— First, there’s how to get in, Renton nods, — second, how tae get access tae the morphine.

— This plant probably manufactures aw sorts ay pharmaceuticals, no just skag. It could be like looking for a fucking three-figure IQ in Tynecastle, Sick Boy spits. — If only we had inside info!

— Well, we’re no gaun tae Swanney or Seeker tae get it, Renton says.

— No way.

Still slowly circumnavigating the edge of the plant, they move round to the busy, submerged Western Approach Road, watching the cars shoot into the city. It was once yet another old railway line, which led to the now defunct Caledonian Station at the West End of Princes Street. I’m a fucking trainspotter , Renton thinks, as he looks up and watches a goods train pass overhead. The two lines that go through the plant must be part of the old Edinburgh suburban system, now just used for freight rather than passengers. This part of the line, though, hadn’t been made into a public cycle path, nor did it house a new development of flats like most of the old Edinburgh rail network. And the embankments were fortified. Why did the circular south suburban line remain intact while the rest of the local Edinburgh urban railway had been ruthlessly ripped up under the infamous Beeching cuts of the sixties? It had to be the skag plant. They wanted people kept away from it.

— That’s the way, Renton says, — we get in through the railway line.

— Aye, it’s well barricaded roond here, but they cannae protect the whole fuckin line. We’ll find a way. Sick Boy’s chin juts out in defiance.

But Sick Boy’s confidence instantly releases Renton’s inner doubts. — This is too much. We bottled it gaun through customs in Essex wi a couple ay poxy wee packets, now we’re gaunny brek intae a fortified plant?

— Aye, we are. Sick Boy looks up into the clear blue sky, and back at the overhead railway lines. — Cause we have tae!

They see no plant entrance or egress from the Western Approach Road, as the sun-glinted cars rush by. Crossing over towards Murrayfield Stadium, which stands imposingly opposite the manufacturing complex, they scramble up a pathway that curls up by the railway embankment. From this elevated vantage the dominant building in the plant is a red-bricked, corrugated-roofed Victorian structure which backs onto the road, with a huge barbed-wire fence on top of a stone perimeter wall; the railway line access is prohibited by a similar barrier. A group of tin-hatted railway workers, standing outside a Portakabin, regard them with suspicion. — Fuck this, we’d better nash, says Sick Boy.

— Stay cool. Leave the talking tae me, Renton says as a man advances towards them.

— What are you wantin?

— Sorry, mate, is this private property?

— Aye, it’s the railway’s property, the man explains.

— Too bad, Renton says wistfully, looking over at the old part of the plant that backs onto the Western Approach Road. — I’m an artist. There’s some fascinating Victorian architecture there, great buildings.

— Aye, the man concedes, seeming to warm to him.

— Would’ve been great tae dae some sketches. Well, sorry to intrude.

— Nae bother. If ye want tae apply tae the railway’s PR at Waverley Station, they’ll mibbe sort ye oot wi a pass.

— Great! I’ll probably go and do just that. Thanks for your help.

Sick Boy is feeling way too poorly to enjoy Renton’s performance. A groan rises from his crushed bowels, his deadened flesh crying for heroin, his brain swollen as he gets a whiff of a rank-rotten stench coming from his own body and clothes. He picks some dried, crusted slime from the corner of his eyes.

He’s relieved beyond words when the small talk ends and they move back down the path, onto the road, crossing over to the wasteland, heading back round the perimeter of the plant. Renton stops again, just to look down at the railed space between the Victorian office buildings and the embankment and overhead bridge. That’s when he sees it; points it out to Sick Boy.