The Red King Stirs

‘You’re walking through a desert,’ said Mark Hateley, ‘and you come across a tortoise,’ and while he was saying it, he was zooming in on my eyes with a camera and studying my responses. I didn’t have the faintest idea what he was doing and why he was asking me these ridiculous questions but then nothing much had made sense for the past few weeks, from Jorg Albertz catching me lurking outside the boardroom at Parkhead, blowing smoke in my face and saying, ‘you’re not what I’m looking for’ which I haven’t had said to me since rough trade night at Kelvingrove Park.

‘You notice the tortoise is wearing a Rangers scarf so you flip it onto its back and leave it lying there, baking in the sun,’ continued Hateley.
‘Look, I haven’t a clue what you’re on about Hateley, what desert? What tortoise and why is it wearing a scarf in the desert?’
Hateley studied my eyes on his screen and wrote something in his note pad and as he did, Ray Wilkins entered the room and whispered something in his ear. Hateley thought about this and stared at me as Wilkins left.
‘Did Walter Smith hand you something when you left Silence?’
‘Now that you mention it, he did – why, what has this got to do with anything and what about the tortoise, eh? What about the tortoise?’
‘Forget the tortoise, what did Walter give you?’
‘It was a piece of paper but I’d forgotten all about it until you mentioned it there but I still have it in my corduroy trouser pocket.’
‘Let’s see it then,’ whispered Hateley, pushing his screen aside and leaning across the table towards me.
‘So we’re finished with the tortoise then?’

Things had been becoming stranger and stranger in Scotland of late so being interrogated by Mark Hateley at Murray Park after being bound, gagged, hooded and bundled into a van in full view of everyone in Ashton Lane on a busy Sunday night didn’t seem out of the ordinary. I’m just surprised no one noticed my kidnapping and thought to call the police although I was later told that Neil Lennon had been staggering around outside Jintys, groaning loudly with his arms stretched out in front of him – now I know this is because his head was recently stitched onto a Frankenstein’s monster of a body after a training ground accident but the trendy westenders of Ashton Lane didn’t notice anything different about his behaviour and just thought they were in for another drunken Lennon fight and were taking bets on how long it’d take before he pished himself. Ashton Lane was busy that night and fights were breaking out all over the place as Celtic fans came to terms with losing to Rangers in the only way they know how. The Chip was like a morgue, a big green and white morgue that sells Fursternberg on draught, and the usual chirruping of media types was replaced by a deep lowing sound, unique to when Celtic get too big for their boots, think they’re going to walk all over Rangers and then receive a good shagging on the park. So when Souness approached me and asked me to join him for succulent lamb downstairs I didn’t think twice and next thing you know I’m strapped to a chair at Murray Park being asked by Mark Hateley about tortoises. I really wish someone at some point would let me know what was going on around here.