It was obviously an event of cataclysmic proportions–on cue, Fishy walked towards me, carrying a briefcase and looking neither right nor left. Things must be bad if Glasgow Joe was letting cops in his pub. As Fishy called my name, I numbly stood to attention, allowing him to hug me and kiss me on both cheeks. He didn’t let go. I stepped back, and he began to apologise. ‘I’m so sorry, Brodie…I had to go to work…I’d already missed two shifts and Malcolm assured me you were on the mend. Jack Deans offered to help…. I should never have gone.’ His face was lined with fatigue as he spoke at the rate of gunfire to me. Closing his red weary eyes he exhaled slowly, and dropped his chin onto his chest. ‘Stop wittering on like an old woman, Plod. Still going to be fucking apologising when she’s dead, or will you be back doing your knitting by then?’ Joe was always hard on Fishy, and Fishy believed it was because the Glasgow hard man was in love with me. Maybe one day I’d tell Fishy the true story behind that particular angle, but not now.
