Time, I fear, for a few revisions to my own work in progress…

Sergeant, er, Suber of, um, Livingston CID, woke on a grey winter morning with a familiar feeling of emptiness. Not the metaphorical vacuum that signifies deep existential angst, hinting at the sensitive artistic soul cruelly crushed beneath the detective’s unforgiving carapace.

No, he was just fuckin’ starving. And despite the early hour, he knew he would inevitably be drawn to the same place, the all-too familiar bucket of blood that dispensed the drug he needed above all others - drawn like a moth to the flame that was The Gregg’s shoap in the Precinct.

Three bacon rolls and a slab of millionaire’s shortbread later, Sergeant Suber felt half way human as he drove to the station, that gnawing need to gnaw assuaged for the time being, the tiger caged, the lion chained. "Hmm" Suber mused, " A lion, a Lion Bar." He spotted an RS McColl’s to his left and pulled in…

"You’re a good cop Suber " DCI Hamish McScottishname barked, "but you’re a loose cannon, a badly secured howitzer, a, er, another metaphor for emotional and professional instability derived from the world of artillery. The Force has no place for lone wolf mavericks like you. You don’t play by the rules and I’m sick and tired of carrying the can for you with the Heid Bummer and so on and so forth. So what have you got to say for yourself this time?"

Sergeant Suber, had become well used to these fraught sessions in the DCI’s office, but today was different, he knew he’d have to account for the way he’d recently manipulated the evidence to send Mr Big Bad Crooky Bloke down for a ten stretch.

He took a deep breath and prepared to state his case. "Well sir..." he began, but that was as far as he got. The crumbs from the bridie he’d been enjoying caught in his throat and he coughed explosively.

The DCI, pausing only to wipe shards of bridie crust from his eye, woofed: "Compulsive Eating Disorders and police work don’t mix Suber. Get straight or ship out!"

Late evening in Livingston.

"I’m just out for a walk," Suber lied to himself as he made his way along the Precinct. A walk that he knew would take him past the old familiar haunts that bore mute testimony to his own weakness. Mr Foo’s Chinese Takeaway, The Indian, the kebab shop. He knew them all like he knew the back of his chubby hand.

And he knew as well that it was only a matter of time, before the siren call of bubbling fat and brown sauce would drive him to begin the night’s degradations anew.

He’s had it all, the symptoms of what others called a disease.

The DTs: distended tummy.

The blackouts: a carry out from the kebab shop disguised in a black polythene bag.

And then of course there was The Shakes - strawberry, raspberry, banana. Let’s face it, he’d been to hell and back, via MacDonalds, a hundred times.

And then, in the way of things, fate dealt Suber a good hand for once as he noticed a glimmer of light coming from the church hall just beyond The Fisheteria. A partially open door beckoned him in, all he had to do was push it open wider…

They sat in a circle, on battered chairs that had seen better days, just like him. The leader of the group noticed him hovering in the doorway and waved him in, saying to the group "Well ladies, I see we have a potential new member with us tonight."

He sat down quickly, silent and shy.

Much later, after all the weighings and the handing out of diet cards, the applause and consolations, the leader took her attention away from the group and turned to Suber,

"Perhaps our new member has something he’d like to share with the group?."

Suber felt a hot flush of shame but cleared his throat and stood up, "My name is Suber," he faltered but then encouraged by the kindness and empathy he saw in the faces of people who had all been where he was now, he pressed on : "My name’s Suber and I’m a greedy bastard."

"That’s fine" the leader reassured him, "But what we really want to know is, what kind of name is Suber. I mean," she continued, turning her attention to the assembly, "have any of you ever heard of someone called Suber before?"

Each shake of the head was like a knife in Suber’s guts and then it hit him. None of this was real, he was a merely a character in a not especially well written attempt to perm yet another variation on the old detective-with-an-addiction trope. And Suber wasn’t a real name either, the realisation hit him. It was obviously an anagram, but of what? And then it came to him: his real name was Urbse! That was much better, he reckoned.

Sergeant Urbse stopped for chips on the way home. " Tomorrow", he vowed to himself, "I’ll start the diet tomorrow. Or the next day."