Endless Night: The Dark Knight Returns

The wind blew in the open window and the curtains billowed noisily. This is what woke me up and as I stood there in my corduroy dressing gown, eyes adjusting to the faint squeak of light peeping into the room, a gruff voice broke from the darkness in the corner, 'You need to get better locks on your windows.'
'Jesus Christ!' I started. 'If I'd been Hugh MacDonald I'd have shat myself there. Who the hell are you?'
The figure crouched among the shadows, his cape fluttering in the wind blowing through the open window, his pointed ears casting a spooky shadow on the wall beside my framed print of A Chorus Line.
'What on earth are you doing, all dressed up like that?' I asked.
'Desperate times demand desperate measures Spiers, this disguise keeps me out of Lawwell's gulag,' growled Stuart Cosgrove. 'Somewhere you'd be now if I hadn't intervened the other night. Now I want you to help me sort out this mess. Ever since Celtic lost to Rangers in the final seconds of the game, Lawwell has gone from barmy to downright barking - the thing that puzzles me is this, we're used to him locking up the Scottish sporting press but this time he's started rounding up political correspondents too. They've been disappearing one by one since the big game and in the same manner you lot are used to, the booting down of doors at midnight, the truncheons, hoods over the heads and black vans and those are the lucky ones because other political journalists have been found dead, turned to ice as if frozen to the spot where they stood. I tell you Spiers, I've never seen anything like it. So as your colleagues in sport post their copy from Lawwell's camps, bleating about biased refereeing in an effort to whip the Celtic fans into a frenzy and deflect from Mowbray's utter capitulation, others are dying and for what? What political scandal is teetering on the edge of discovery that would cause Lawwell and his gang to begin wiping people out? What outrage involving those denizens of the main stand at Parkhead because make no mistake, this is who is silencing the press, have we yet to discover? Something huge is about to break Spiers and I need your help in confronting it.'
'Why me? Why my help?' I asked him, fearing I was about to be dragged into yet another hair brained adventure, putting my life in danger and scaring the life right out of me.
'Why you?' Cosgrove rasped. 'Because you're only free because of me and because the world of politics and football are about to collide in a spectacular manner as I suspect...'
He paused and stood at the window, one foot on the floor and the other on the ledge, cape billowing with the curtains and for all the world, he looked like some giant bat man creature as he stared into my eyes.
'I suspect your friend Purcell is about to bring down the Spider.'
And with that he leaped out the window and disappeared.

Endless Shite: Chapter 4, A Walk Across the Rooftops

I stood on a rooftop in Glasgow city centre, holding on for dear life to a disused Georgian chimney pot as my cape blew around so much in the wind that it nearly had me off the roof and hurtling to certain death on the grimy streets below. It was no problem for Stuart Cosgrove though as he stood on the edge of the old building, legs dramatically apart as he gazed down on Glasgow as it went about its business, unaware that it was being watched by the Perth sentinel. Cosgrove had recruited me a few days earlier after rescuing me from Lawwell's stasi as they rounded up the Scottish sporting press. It didn't take much to get me on board, a promise of an exclusive story laying into Rangers and a rather fine costume which I had altered to accommodate more corduroy. So there I was dressed all in green with a red breast and corduroy cape and mask, helping Cosgrove tail Steven Purcell from the rooftops, always the rooftops.

'Follow Purcell and he'll lead us to Mr Freeze, the man who's been encasing political journalists in ice the past week or so,' said Cosgrove, binoculars held up to his eyes, scanning the back alleys and lanes. 'Someone out there has something big to hide, something these journalists might have stumbled upon and Purcell is the common denominator in all of it, I'm sure.'
I was just about to ask how he could be so sure when I heard a rattle from behind me and there was Chick Young pointing a gun at us. Only it seemed like Chick Young, on one side of his face at least - the other side being horribly scarred.
'Two Face!' exclaimed Cosgrove. 'How did you know we'd be here?'
'Chick Young smiled an obscene, twisted smile and motioned for Cosgrove to get down from the edge of the building. 'You should never trust anyone at BBC Scotland, Cosgrove. I thought you'd know that by now - they're all on our side and the moment you confided your plan to one of their number, it was only a matter of staking out the rooftops above Purcell as we had him dangling like bait down there in Virginia Street. This roof's mine but over there is the Joker...'
'Tam Cowan!' cried Cosgrove, wounded by the betrayal.
'And over on that rooftop is the Traynor and on that other one, the Piddler.'
'The Piddler - you mean Hugh McDonald's with you?'
'Yes, probably wetting himself with the cold but that doesn't matter, you came to my roof and I get the pleasure of tossing you off.'
This tweaked my attention, 'Tossing off?' I asked.
'Not like that Spiers, oh and by the way, terrible disguise. If you don't want anyone to know who you are, give the corduroy a miss. Not that it matters where you're going.'
'Don't worry Spiers,' said Cosgrove. 'From this position there are four defensive moves; two of them disable, one of them kills and the other knocks your bollocks into your mouth, which would you like Young, you two faced little shit?'
But before Chick Young could reply, Cosgrove moved with the speed of an east coast ninja and drove his boot right into Young's groin, there was a popping sound and he collapsed onto his knees, vomiting onto the roof. Cosgrove grabbed Young's gun, emptied the chamber and dropped it down a chimney. 'It's been a trap all along Spiers, come on, we have to be quick,' and he shot a grappling hook into the night, took a hold of me and before I knew it we were soaring through the sky.

The things I do to get a dig in at the Rangers...